Getting Lucky (The Portland Pioneers Book 2) (24 page)

“Good, good,” Jack said, leaning forward and rubbing his palms together. “And she’s Tabitha’s sister. That’s. . .interesting.”

“That’s one word for it,” Noah said with a sigh.

“I have to ask,” Jack said, and Noah could tell just how eager he was so he’d clearly been considering this for a while, “did the sister thing put a crimp on your game at all?”

“My game isn’t that good. But if I actually called it
my game
that would make it even worse,” Noah observed, leaning back in his chair.

“So it
was
hard for you, then,” Jack crowed, like he’d just won the lottery. “I knew it! Even the great Noah Fox occasionally runs into a situation he can’t handle.”

“Oh, I handled the situation.” Noah smirked, remembering how he and Maggie had made out against nearly every surface in both the Café’s kitchen and then the kitchen in her tiny house. Kitchens were definitely a thing for her.

“So you’re together then?” Jack asked. Important questions asked, he returned his attention to the menu. No doubt he’d been given the assignment by Izzy, and he was pretty damn proud of himself that he’d gotten all the dirt she’d requested.

“I guess,” Noah said. “We haven’t really discussed it. But I’m staying at her house.”

Jack’s eyes went wide. “Fuck, you work fast. I’m impressed.”

Noah wondered if it was misleading not to mention that he was currently ensconced in the guest room, with no real timeline of moving to Maggie’s bed.
Naw,
he decided,
those details will just hurt Jack’s brain.

“Seriously, though, I’m glad you’re happy.” Jack was such a good friend—a good
man,
really—that Noah knew he meant it.

“Doing better every day,” Noah said, and was kind of alarmingly surprised to find that was actually true.

“How was your appointment with Dr. Singh?” Jack asked so casually, after the waiter had come and taken their orders.

“You’d be the worst spy ever, by the way,” Noah said, chuckling. “Literally the worst.”

“I never claimed to be subtle.”

“Well, you’re not,” Noah retorted grumpily as he ate his salad.

Jack tapped his bottle pointedly on the table. “So?”

Noah chewed and swallowed. “Same as usual. No change. I’ve been getting headaches a little less, I guess. But no change in the protocol results.”

Jack’s face fell, and Noah felt the way he looked. “You’ve got a few months ‘til Spring Training starts,” Jack said, trying for an optimistic tone. “You’ll get there.”

Noah wondered if he should mention that he probably wasn’t going to get there. If Jack knew it and was just trying to be nice. Or if he hadn’t managed to face the truth yet. Knowing Jack, it was probably buried and one day, he’d realize the inevitable and melt down.

Noah understood that. He kind of melted down himself at the thought of not being on the team next year. Of not hanging out with Jack in the hotel room. Of not playing every day, day in and day out, the routine so reassuring. Without the certainty of it, Noah saw all his days stretching out before him, empty and pointless.

But, he decided, that was a discussion for another day. Another dinner, maybe. When February was on them and neither of them could deny the reality anymore. For now, he’d just swallow the truth down like the salad on his plate.

Noah turned to Jack and gave him the biggest smile he could. “So tell me more about your Thanksgiving? Did you actually cook?”

Jack took the hint and Noah found himself almost completely distracted by Jack’s over-the-top personality as he told the story of the holiday with hand gestures and jokes and funny asides.

Almost.

Looping strands of Christmas lights over one arm, Maggie scooted the worn wooden stool over another inch and eyed its rickety legs, wondering just how stable they could possibly be. Stable enough to hold her? She really hoped so. She’d thought about calling Noah or Cal, but they were working on Noah’s house. Again.

It wasn’t that Maggie was necessarily jealous, because she really wasn’t. Construction was a messy, unpleasant process that she rather liked avoiding. Plus she really was glad that Cal had finally put away his stupid competitive streak and was helping Noah with his house—or maybe it was the other way around, these days? Maggie really wasn’t sure. All she knew was that the two were suddenly practically attached at the hip, working all day and often through the evening, and Noah wasn’t just doing mindless manual labor either. Every time Maggie had shown up at the house with snacks or drinks or sometimes just her own pathetic curiosity, they’d be deep in consultation with another sub-contractor or sometimes just by themselves, hunched over sketches and drawings, as they planned the next steps in the remodel. Maggie thought maybe it was that Noah had discovered that Cal had gone to school to be an architect and suddenly he wanted to do a lot more to the house itself. Expand it, Noah had mentioned over dinner the other night, and combine some rooms, maybe even open up some of the narrow hallways.

Maggie found it hard to ignore that the genesis of the grandiose plans had seemingly coincided with Noah’s trip to San Francisco. He’d told Maggie he was going, of course, and offhandedly mentioned his doctor, as well as meeting his friend Jack for dinner. What Maggie really wanted to ask was what had happened with his neurologist that set him off on this particular path. She wondered if it was just plain avoidance, but since he’d been so busy that they’d barely had time in the last few days to exchange words before they fell into their separate beds, it was hard to say.

All Maggie knew was that from the moment he came back from San Francisco and she’d offhandedly mentioned Cal was an architect, they’d been practically inseparable. Trying not to glare at the stool, Maggie pushed at it with her toe again and finally decided,
what the hell
.

The first step squawked when she put her weight on it, making her heart jitter in her chest, but it seemed sturdy enough as she climbed up to the third step and began winding her light strands around the trellis that Cal had built for the ceiling of the Café when she’d first opened.

By the time she was on her third string of lights, Maggie didn’t even hesitate as she climbed the ladder, hooking one strand into another as she carefully wound the lights around each wooden beam. She’d learned her lesson the hard way her first Christmas when she’d plugged way too many strands in each other and she’d actually blown a fuse. Cal had not been very happy that day and had warned her she needed to be more careful. He also hadn’t been very happy when she’d stuck her tongue out at him and insisted that careful didn’t equal festive.

Still, she’d learned to temper festive with a little bit of caution.

She was almost halfway through the trellis, loving the way the lights flickered on the dark windows and turned the inside of her Café into a literal fairy land, when she heard the back door open. She could count the number of people who knew her entry code on one hand, including a certain someone she’d just given it to last week, when she’d also handed him a key ring with keys to her house and the Café on it. It hadn’t even felt weird, Maggie remembered, just
right
. Like, of course some guy she had just met, but was falling like crazy for, should have the keys to all the important places in her life.

She didn’t know if he’d told Calvin, but Maggie kind of suspected that if Noah had, she would have gotten a slightly perplexed text from her best friend. Something along the lines of, “are you fucking crazy?”

But Cal never mentioned it, and truthfully Maggie kind of loved that Noah had kept it a secret. Maggie hugged that knowledge close when she got down or annoyed or was just tired after a long, hard day.

Truthfully, though, Maggie thought before she could stop her brain from forming the idea, she just kind of loved Noah period.

Noah emerged from the kitchen into the dining room and for the first time since she’d started hanging the lights, she wobbled a little on the ladder. He just looked so damn beautiful, she couldn’t help thinking, in those worn jeans with the tiny rip in the knee, his plain white t-shirt emphasizing the tan of his skin. He’d thrown a navy blue hooded sweatshirt on, and she wanted to wrap her arms around him, nuzzle her face into the soft fabric and never let him go.

He saw her slight bobble and was there in practically an instant, a large hand bracketing her waist, steadying her, eyes gazing up at her with what she knew was a mix of concern and adoration. It was definitely a little reassuring. At least he was as gone as she was.

“Hey you,” he murmured, tucking her in exactly where she wanted to be—her head resting on his shoulder, her arms wrapping around his broad body.

“You’ve been busy,” he said, taking in the lights she’d already hung. “I didn’t realize you were so into the holidays.”

“It’s Christmas,” Maggie said, because that was pretty self-explanatory in her book. “Christmas is amazing.”

She looked up and saw him beaming down at her. “What?” she asked.

“Of course you love Christmas,” he said, the biggest smile on his face.

She smacked him lightly on the arm, but she knew just how fond her expression was as she gazed at him. “Everyone should love Christmas.”

He just shrugged and Maggie felt her senses tingling, as if there was definitely more to
that
but worried that if she asked, he wouldn’t tell her. Besides, she told herself, she was only allowed to interrogate him once a day, and she was saving today’s for questions for his San Francisco trip.

They stood like that for another minute, and Maggie realized they were just absorbing the feel of each other after a day apart. Her heart went absolutely gooey at that thought. Maybe he’d missed her as much as she’d missed him.

“You want some help?” he asked, glancing over at the stool she was currently perched on. “This ladder is. . .well, I’m shocked Cal knows you own this and it’s still in your possession.”

Maggie rolled her eyes. “Don’t you tell him either. He’s bad enough without your encouragement.”

He eyed it skeptically again. “I’m honestly not even sure this will hold me. I’ll run up to the house and grab a real ladder.”

It was pathetic and it was needy and Maggie really hoped he didn’t realize it, but she grabbed at his arm as he turned to go. “No, it’ll be fine. Just untangle them and I’ll continue hanging the strands myself. With your help getting them untangled, it’ll go so much faster.”

Smiling at her, he just shrugged. “Okay. If that’s what you want.”

She was just about to turn to finish off wrapping the strand in her hands around one of the trellis posts when he caught
her
arm this time and turned her to face him. “Wait,” he said. “I forgot to do something.”

He dipped his head and brushed his lips over hers, his arms tugging her closer, until she could feel every muscle, every tendon straining to be even nearer to her. His tongue swiped over hers, teeth nibbling on the corner of her lips, gently tugging on her bottom lip, until she finally got sick of his teasing and kissed him hard, her mouth moving deeply against his, her fingers reaching up to tangle in the strands of hair resting against his neck.

Maggie knew the moment the kiss became more than just a kiss. Noah had been passively kissing her back for a little while, then suddenly, as if he couldn’t contain the feelings swirling inside him, his arms gripped hers just a shade harder and he began to kiss her so passionately, so completely, until it felt like he was trying to pour everything he felt into her. As if he couldn’t bear her not comprehending his feelings one moment longer. Finally he pulled back, his cheeks flushed and his gaze intense on her face. And Maggie knew in that moment. The rest of the lights weren’t going to get hung tonight, and that was perfectly fine with her. Okay, so some of the regulars might put two and two together and realized what distracted her so much tonight, but Maggie found she just didn’t care.

She only wanted Noah.

“Let’s go,” she whispered into the crook of his neck, lips pressing into the smooth skin there, absorbing the way he tasted and smelled and never wanting to forget it. “Let’s get out of here.”

The surprise on his face was priceless. “Now?” he asked stupidly. “Like
right
now?”

Maggie knew her smile was crazy wide; it practically ached to smile so wide. It turned out that once you made the decision to throw caution to the wind and embrace love, it felt really,
really
amazing. “Yes.”

He stared at her for a second longer, as if he was trying to read how serious she was in the face, but Maggie knew all he could see on her face was pure, true happiness, and that if he knew her at all, he’d know that he was the one who’d put it there. “Okay,” he said, “but you’d better have driven.”