A Winter's Date (41 page)

“Yeah?” she sounds genuinely surprised.

“Come on, let’s eat and let them wake up alone. I’m not sure I want to be in the middle of a Dillen hangover this morning.”

“Good idea,” she nods and shimmies off the counter before I can help the stubborn woman down. She sits so close to me during breakfast and I’m wondering what’s made her so needy for my attention. We normally sit next to each other but she’s damn near in my lap now. She seems okay, but something’s definitely off. We’ve been talking in hushed voices throughout breakfast about where we’re going to live. I don’t know what’s gotten into her, but I’m going to find out.

She’s chewing quietly and I watch her with determination. She’s lost in a thought, and I’m about to make her spill it when I hear someone on the couch groan. Heather’s eyes flicker to the couch before she looks over at me and stands up. I grab her orange juice and stand with her, and we both quietly make our way upstairs. As soon as we make it into her room, she laughs quietly.

“Awww, I want them to be together, Noah.”

“He might be what she needs, you’re right.”

I set her orange juice on my nightstand—mine because my things are in it. I lie down and stretch out on my back, watching her move about the room. Her mind is preoccupied, and she’s cleaning like a mad woman. We haven’t been together long, but I know she cleans the shit out of things when her mind is racing.

I decide to open one of my textbooks and start reading while she keeps herself busy with the duster.

HEATHER

I’m trying to keep myself busy while he studies, and the best way I know how to is to clean. Plus, it gives my mind time to race and panic and do all the things it shouldn’t be doing. I’ve successfully cleaned every surface in my room, and I have now moved on to the bathroom when I realize all of my cleaning supplies are downstairs. I decide to tiptoe downstairs to get what I need and sneak past the living room. I hear hushed noises and whispers, and somehow I just know those two are doing things on my couch they probably shouldn’t be.

I’m going to kill Dillen.

I finally sneak into the downstairs linen closet, grab what I need, and make my way back toward the stairs. I am almost in the clear when suddenly Joel’s tall commanding frame rises up from the couch . . . completely shirtless.

I nearly lose my footing when I get a glimpse at what he hides from the world. I watch transfixed as he stretches his arm up into the air, before bringing his hand down to massage the back of his neck. The black ink marring his sturdy frame remains unmoving on his skin as his muscles work and stretch underneath it.

He moves his hand from his neck to his front, which I can’t see, but I have no doubt that it is impeccably sculpted. Joel takes a step forward to the window and Dill growls under her breath from the couch.

I know I shouldn’t be watching, but his tattoo has me in a trance. I’m trying to figure out where it starts or stops. I let my eyes roam from the tip of the tattoo that kisses his neck down to his shoulder blade. It seems to move down onto his left arm, forming a half of a sleeve, but it doesn’t stop there. The tattoo spills onto his broad back, coloring his light olive-toned skin with dark lines of all different widths and sizes roaming his back. I have no idea what I’m looking at. The design is chaotic as it moves down his back to his trim waist and farther below.

I feel ashamed for admiring him, but I can’t help it. What I once thought about Joel has now dissipated into nothing, and I’m left with a stranger. A ghost. A complete enigma.

Who is this man that stands in the place of my friend?

His body moves swiftly as he lowers himself back down over Dill and the last thing I see is the tip of that black ink that licks at the base of his neck. Dill’s high pitch shriek and giggle break me from my trance, and I hurriedly make my way upstairs into the safety of my room.

NOAH

I must have gotten lost in my textbooks because the next time I look up the sun has set, and the room is filled with a soft glow from one of the lamps in her room. I’ve set my textbook aside, and I’ve been working online, prepping for my exam in a few weeks.

I look behind me, and my little ballerina is lying on her stomach on her bed. She’s on her laptop, and I frown when I see a little scowl marring her face.

I shut my laptop, get up from the chair, and lie down next to her on the bed to kiss her cheek. “Hey, sweetheart.”

“Hi,” she doesn’t look away from the screen and I grip her chin between my fingers to make her look at me.

“Hey. What’s that scowl for?”

She shrugs and tries to turn away from me again.

“Heather.”

I search her face, focusing my attention on those jade green eyes that belong to me. She sighs and drops onto her side dramatically. “Do you like this house?” She points next to her and I almost can’t believe my ears.

I look up at it and smile. I didn’t realize how excited she was about this, and honestly, I’m not concerned about what the house looks like—I just want her happy. “I’m easy, baby. I want this to be your dream.”

Her growl is cute as fuck and I prop my head up on my elbow to watch her. “Hmm, I think I like this little fit-throwing thing you’ve got going.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t find anything I’m in love with.”

“But you’ve found me, haven’t you?”

“That’s not what I mean,” she says, pouting.

I can’t help but laugh; she sounds so damn stressed. “Baby, it’s a wonder you haven’t had a heart attack. You don’t handle stress too well, do you?”

“Noah,” she whines, “I just want this to be perfect.”

I have to have my hands on her. I let my fingers creep under her pajama top and caress her soft, flat stomach. “Heather, calm down, please?” I ask softly in order to calm her. “This isn’t a big deal . . . what house we get. What matters is who’s in it. You and I.”

She lets out the breath she was holding and moves to curl into my larger frame. “Okay, but I have a question: would you like to live on Long Island Sound?”

I’m actually surprised that she’s put so much thought into this. “Sweetheart, I don’t care.”

“So you wouldn’t mind living on the water?” she tries again.

“No, Heather, I wouldn’t mind.” My fingers drift upward and graze the swell of her breast.

She nuzzles me and bites my chest. “Okay. Are you mine again, or are you going to study?”

I look back over my shoulder at the clock. “No, baby, I need to study some more.”

She sighs and clings onto me. “No, you don’t. It’s all you’ve done all day.”

I sigh and breathe in my girl’s scent and hold her to me. Fuck, I wish I could lie here all night. “I’m sorry, Heather, no. I have to keep reading, or I won’t pass this fucking bar.”

“Okay.” She pouts, but doesn’t move.

I kiss the top of her head and tighten my arms around her. “Why don’t you do some of those ankle stretches and look for our new home, and by then I’ll be done?”

“Fine,” she grumbles and fuck I’m about to laugh my ass off. I push her delicate little body away from mine, for fear I won’t be able to sway her if she tries to keep me here.

She shows me her dissatisfaction by huffing and then proceeds to sit up and pull her laptop onto her lap in an attempt to block herself from me.

I can’t help but laugh at her feeble attempt as I turn around and head back to the desk. I reach for the back of the chair as I pick up my glasses and put them back on.

“I want to have your baby.”

I swear I almost thought I heard her say . . . but she did. I pull off my glasses and run a hand down my face to make sure I haven’t fallen asleep while studying. I turn around to her when I realize that just happened. “My what?”

She looks so damn adorable sitting there with a worried look on her face. She moves the laptop off of her lap and sits there with her legs crossed over each other. Her voice is almost a whisper, and I have to close my eyes and strain to hear her next words—the ones I thought I heard the first time.

“I want to have your baby.”

I set my glasses down and walk over to her, forgetting about the exam for the moment. I sit down on the edge of her pillow-top bed and take her hand. “Yeah? We have a knack for doing things backwards.”

I realize then that this probably has a lot to do with the miscarriage that she’s been bravely dealing with.

I’m not sure how to proceed from here. The next words that are said could either crush her or . . . fuck, I don’t know anything anymore. She’s still staring up at me with those green eyes and she hasn’t made another peep.

“Okay . . . uh, so this is a real thing that you want? This isn’t just a ploy to keep me from studying?”

She nods, and I’m unsure what she’s saying yes to. “I want one . . . with you.”

I drop her hand and rub my face with both of mine. I’m tired . . . yeah, that’s it. This isn’t really happening right now. I’ve been studying too fucking much. I’m under too much pressure. I chant to myself while I rub the back of my tense neck.

I think I might be going insane, but she shifts and moves onto my lap. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. I know that it will take away my dance career, but Alexis seems to have done that already. I’m just ready to move onto the next big thing in my life, and I think that it is us. Well, I know it’s us, but I want what we have to grow and what better way than with a growing belly? If Alexis hadn’t intervened, we would have a little baby soon anyway. And I would be willing to share my bacon with you to make it happen.”

I–holy fucking shit.

Her words are on replay in my head.

Growing belly . . . baby soon anyway . . . growing belly . . . bacon.

Finally it hits me . . . she has taken some sort of drug. “Heather, did you take your pain meds today?”

“No, it hasn’t been hurting as much since I’ve been doing the stretches Henry has asked me to do,” she says while she points her toes and turns her ankle in a clockwise rotation, followed by another in the opposite direction.

I finally exhale the breath I was apparently holding and tilt my head back to look at the ceiling. A million fucking thoughts are racing through my head. Holy God in heaven, what has gotten into her? I mean, she’s right. She would be about halfway through with the pregnancy if that accident hadn’t taken it.

“You’ve been thinking about this? This isn’t just a whim? Cause, fuck, Heather, this is a really big deal.”

She moves her hands up my chest and around my neck and looks me straight in the eye. “I know it’s unconventional, but we do everything out of order. I want this Noah, and there is no one else I would ever want it with but you. I know it’s a big deal, which is why I’ve only just brought it up now. I want to sit on our front porch with a pregnant belly and yell at you to bring me some more sweet tea. I want to take walks in a peaceful neighborhood while pushing a stroller. I want you, and I want this. I want something that is a little you and a little me. Neither one of us have much family, and I want for us to start our own.”

I search her eyes for any flicker of indecision. She stares me down with an intensity that knocks the air out of my chest. I know now that this woman will take what she wants, when she wants it. I have to break eye contact, or I’ll lose my train of thought. My arm moves around her slim waist and I drop my forehead to her shoulder. Normally the proximity of her cleavage would sidetrack me and do me in but this—this is on a whole other level. She’s silent, and thank fuck, because I need quiet right now. Okay, so we haven’t moved in together yet, but that’s being remedied soon. We’re not married . . . hell, not even engaged.

That’s because you fucked that up big time, Ryan.

My lungs burn from the breath I’m holding, so I release it. We haven’t discussed her foot and if she’ll even dance again.

The bar.

Oh fuck, what if I don’t pass it?

What if it takes me multiple tries?

What if I never pass?

I can feel my chest start to pound as I sit here in a full-on panic attack. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to block it all out. This isn’t happening. Fuck me, I’ve never had a dad. I won’t know how to be one. What do I do? Will she be crushed if I say not right now? How did we go from looking at houses to wanting a baby? How did she make that leap? My eyes open, and I’m willing myself to look up and face this beautiful woman. Face her and tell her I cannot give her what she wants right now.