Page 35 of Goal Line (Boston Rebels #4)
Chapter Twenty-Six
LUKE
A fter years of being a night owl, I’m shocked by how Eva can fall asleep instantly like she does now.
But the process of growing another human is exhausting, and napping seems like it’s practically a necessity.
According to the pregnancy app, that’s more common in the first trimester rather than the second, but given that she didn’t know she was pregnant for so long and then couldn’t give her body a chance to rest, it makes sense that she’s playing catch-up.
Her practice schedule will start up again once Christopher arrives in a few days, but I’m hoping she can use this time to relax a little.
I get that she doesn’t want to slow down too much for fear that it will impact her performance later, but there has to be a balance or she’s going to risk both her health and the baby’s.
Yet I’m not sure how much I can push on that issue—it’s neither my baby nor my career. I don’t want to limit her choices; I only want to help her make good ones.
I glance at her sleeping on my couch, and then pick my phone up to reread the text message Charlie sent the two of us after we left.
Coach
I’m sorry about how dinner ended tonight. Please know that we all want what’s best for the two of you. While your news tonight came as quite a shock, I just want to say that I trust the two of you to know what’s best.
On the car ride home, Eva hadn’t been ready to respond so I respected that choice. But now it’s been hours since Charlie sent that message, and I feel bad not acknowledging that he reached out.
I’m still pissed as hell about how that all went down, but if it weren’t for Helene, the dinner would have actually been okay.
Not stellar, but my parents and Charlie came around to our news pretty easily, and if it hadn’t been for Helene’s comment about the cupcakes, we might have left there tonight feeling okay about things.
None of that is Charlie’s fault, though.
Luke
Thanks, Coach. I appreciate your support as Eva and I adjust to being married and prepare to be parents. I’m sorry we kept you in the dark for as long as we did.
I wait a few minutes to see if he’ll respond, even though I assume he’s already in bed asleep, but the reply doesn’t come .
Then I glance over at the cupcakes cooling on my counter, and back at Eva sleeping on my couch.
Even the noise from me mixing the batter and the timer going off when they were done baking didn’t wake Eva up.
Then again, she slept right through the stops at three different bakeries and a grocery store on the way back from her parents place, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.
She woke up momentarily as I carried her from the car and into the elevator, but fell right back asleep in my arms before we even got up to my floor.
I considered putting her straight into bed and letting her sleep through the night.
But I’m afraid that if she doesn’t get up for a bit, her body will wake her up in the middle of the night thinking it’s already morning.
“Hey, baby, wake up,” I say when I kneel next to the couch, where she’s fast asleep, covered in a light blanket.
She’s curled on her side with both hands wedged between the pillow and her cheek, and she scrunches up her nose when I trail my thumb across her brow.
“Evie, can you get up for a little bit?”
Startling, her eyes jolt open before they focus on me. “What time is it?” She blinks a few times like she’s trying to convince her eyelids they can stay open.
Goddamn, she’s adorable. It’s not a word I’d normally use to describe her—she’s determined, strikingly beautiful, and strong. But when she’s sleeping, she’s soft, sweet, and utterly adorable.
“It’s after ten at night.”
Her gaze focuses behind me as she looks around the space like she’s completely disoriented. “How did we get up here? ”
“I carried you,” I say, realizing that she has no memory of waking up in my arms.
“Man, pregnancy is wild. I never nap, and now I feel like I could use one every day.”
“You should listen to your body. Napping is linked to healthier birth weight in babies, and given how you probably haven’t gained much weight...”
It’s not that she hasn’t actually gained weight, it’s just that it’s mostly all in her tits and her ass, which unfortunately only adds to her physical appeal. And now she’s finally developing a baby bump, the sight of which has me practically feral.
I don’t know what it is about her being pregnant, but just the thought of watching her body grow and change has me aching with longing.
I can’t wait to walk this road to parenthood with her, can’t wait to watch her body change, and can't wait to meet our Baby Squash.
And I want to know if this baby is a boy or girl almost as much as I want its mom to want me like I want her.
I never thought we’d end up here together like this—I gave up that hope a long time ago—but now that I have her, now that I’ve seen the way her body responds to mine, now that I’ve watched her start to take down some of the walls she’s built up around herself—I’m more certain than ever that there’s the possibility of a real future between us.
And I want that more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
She scoffs. “You’re cute.” The sarcastic phrase is followed by an eye roll.
“Oh, come on,” I say. “What have you gained? Like, ten pounds, max? ”
“Yeah, well,” she says, sitting up and stretching her arms over her head before reaching down and straightening out her dress. “I have a skating partner who needs to be able to lift me above his head while spinning around the ice, so even ten extra pounds is a problem.”
“Evie, I could lift you above my head with one hand and jump up and down on the ice while spinning around, all without breaking a sweat. So if Christopher is going to have a problem with ten extra pounds, maybe he needs to lift some fucking weights.”
She barks out a quick laugh. “It’s less about how much I weigh and more about weight distribution.
Where I’m carrying that weight affects how and where he holds me, and the extra weight affects how fast we travel across the ice.
Every millisecond of our choreographed performances is based on nothing changing.
Our height, our weight, our speed...all of it factors into our routine.
It’s basic physics, College Boy.” She unfolds her legs and stands up before sniffing the air and turning toward the kitchen. “Did you...bake?”
“Yeah. I stopped at a few bakeries on the way home, and no one had lemon cupcakes.”
She tilts her head, looking up at me over her shoulder. “So...you made me lemon cupcakes?”
I nod and follow her over to the island where the cupcakes are sitting out on a cooling rack. Google said that was the fastest way to cool them down before frosting them. Her stomach rumbles loudly, and she rubs her hand over her belly. “I think Baby Squash wants some of those.”
“Should we frost them first?” I ask .
She gives me a look that lets me know how silly that question was. “Without frosting, they’re just muffins.”
“Well, even as muffins, these are delicious.”
“You already had some without me?” Her mock outrage is cute.
Then she puts her hands on the counter behind her and jumps up to sit on it, right next to the cupcakes.
With her sundress bunched around her thighs, bare feet dangling in front of my kitchen cabinets, and long hair hanging over her shoulders as she glances down at the unfrosted cupcakes, she doesn’t look at all how I described her earlier.
She’s not the sweet, sleeping version of herself, or the determined, hardcore athlete the world loves to watch perform.
No, this relaxed, contented version of her is mine.
She raises her eyebrows as she glances up at me, an expectant look on her face. Shit, what did she just ask me?
“Fine,” she says, swiping a cupcake off the cooling rack. “I’m going to have one, too.”
“Wait, I have frosting right here,” I say, taking the lid off the plastic container bearing a clear sign of my earlier taste test. She laughs quietly when she sees the depression in the yellow frosting from where I dipped my finger in earlier.
Pulling one side of the paper liner back from the cupcake, she takes a huge bite and chews before saying, “It could use frosting.”
I dip my finger in the tub, scooping out a hefty amount of the sugary yellow substance. “It is your favorite part.”
I hold my finger out, expecting her to use her teeth to bite the frosting off the pad of my finger. Instead, and without breaking eye contact, she leans forward and sucks my finger between her lips, swirls her tongue over it as she sucks off the frosting, and then sits back.
I’m literally stupefied watching her, so it doesn’t occur to me to pull my hand back. and it falls to her chest, leaving a thin, shiny yellow streak down her breastbone before I pull it away.
My voice is hoarse when I say, “You’ve...got a bit of frosting there.” And without even letting myself think about what I’m doing, I dip my finger back into the tub sitting on the counter next to her and use my finger to trace the streak that’s already there, covering her in more frosting.
She gulps at the same time I lick my lips, and the sound boosts the tension between us as we stare at each other, only a few inches apart.
If I hadn’t smeared more on her just now, we could have laughed about the frosting accident, wiped it off her chest, and then frosted the rest of the cupcakes. Or maybe things shifted the minute she pulled my finger into her mouth and sucked the frosting off while staring me straight in the eye?
Either way, my dick is hard, and the ball is firmly in her court. She can keep saying we’re just friends who got married if she wants, but neither of us can deny what’s growing between us.
“That’s more than a bit ,” she says, glancing down at her chest. Then she looks back up at me and licks her lips. “How should we clean that off?”