2. Bobby #2
Martin nodded in agreement, the same concerned look on his face. They babied him a bit, but he didn’t mind. He had the best brothers you could ask for, and soon he’d have another brother – that was if he could find out what he’d done to upset Gabriel and fix it.
Sunday morning he woke up with Alex in his arms. There was no place he’d rather be.
He pulled her closer. His cock was rock hard, as it usually was in the morning, but even more so when the heat of her body was pressed against him.
He couldn’t stop himself from grinding against her.
It was barely light outside, so hopefully she’d be up for some morning fun.
“What are you doing, Bobby?”
“Morning,” he said, kissing her neck. “It’s still early, so I thought we could cuddle.”
“Then why is your dick poking into me?” Her tone was snippy, but Alex wasn’t really a morning person.
“Because I love you,” he said with a laugh.
“Ugh, there’s more to life than sex, you know,” she said, pushing him off and getting out of bed.
“Is everything okay, baby?”
She walked out into the bathroom and slammed the door, not responding.
Bobby was at a loss as to what he’d done.
He replayed the last couple of days, but there’d been no cross words.
Alex had needed to go into work yesterday, and he was with his brothers, so they’d barely seen each other, which was how the last week had been.
After being together all the time over Christmas, as soon as everyone was back at work, it felt like they were just passing each other occasionally.
If it wasn’t for their sharing a bed, he could have gone days without seeing her.
She worked in financial services, and Bobby knew she did long hours, but it had been excessive the last few months, probably since Halloween.
When Bobby thought about it, that was when they’d last had sex – well, not that night as he’d been ill.
His best friend, Dillon, had thrown a party, but Bobby had eaten something dodgy the day before and was throwing his guts up.
He’d insisted that Alex still go to the party, though.
She worked at the same company as Dillon, so she would know other people there.
That gave him an idea. Dillon wasn’t in the same department as Alex, but he might know what was causing her so much work stress and whether there was a way he could help.
He didn’t want her to make herself ill before the wedding.
Bobby had offered to take on more responsibilities, but she insisted on organising it all herself.
She involved him in big decisions, like venue, colour schemes, and so on, and had incorporated all his requests, but effectively he just had to turn up on the day.
She’d chosen her own ring, which had cost him a small fortune, but if it made her happy, he didn’t care. You could always earn more money.
Not wanting to bother her whilst she was in the bathroom, he got up and pulled on his joggers and a T-shirt.
It was freezing, so he put the heating on via the app on his phone.
It was just after seven o’clock, so he knew Alex would want to go to the gym.
They used to go together, but recently she’d started to use the gym in her building at work.
She got a big discount, so it made sense, given they were saving to buy a bigger place and weddings weren’t cheap.
Both of their parents were helping, but they both came from working-class backgrounds, so there wasn’t an abundance of money for things like this.
He missed going to the gym together, though, as their love of exercise was something they had in common, but he understood her reasons.
Bobby would have covered her gym membership if she’d mentioned it, but he only found out after she’d made the change.
He padded into the kitchen to make her the pre-workout smoothie she loved, and then he’d find something to do for the next few hours.
He wasn’t going to the gym today, as he had a HIIT class on Monday morning.
Bobby might be fit, but he wasn’t putting himself at a disadvantage.
A lot of his rugby team went to that class, and they were really competitive.
There was no way he was letting them beat him.
Alex came out dressed for the gym, but she also had her work bag with her. He passed her the smoothie. She smiled at him, which made him happy. She had such a beautiful smile, and he’d do anything to put that look on her face all the time.
“Do you want to do something when you get back, before we go to your mum and dad’s for lunch?”
“I need to go into the office, so I’ll just meet you there.”
“Er . . . okay. I might get there a bit early as I wanted to talk to your brother.”
“Gabriel’s not going.”
“What?”
“He just texted me. Said he wasn’t feeling well. See you in a few hours,” she said, leaving without another word or a goodbye kiss.
When had she last given him a goodbye kiss he hadn’t initiated?
He couldn’t remember. Bobby didn’t like her having to work all weekend, but knew she was career driven, like he was.
It was something else they had in common.
The difference was her CEO was an arsehole, whereas Bobby had Daniel, who had zero expectations of people working outside their contracted hours.
The man didn’t practice what he preached, though.
Well, he hadn’t until he’d met his partner, Josh, a year ago.
Now it was rare to see Daniel in the office late into the evening, and never on the weekend.
Although Bobby was concerned Alex was going to burn out with all the hours she was doing, he couldn’t stop thinking about Gabriel not being at Sunday lunch today.
He couldn’t leave things to chance anymore, hoping they’d run into each other.
Bobby would find a way to accidentally run into Gabriel on purpose and find out why the man was avoiding him.