Page 21

21

Ziggy

It’s still hot as hell outside, but the dread I’m feeling as I walk up the steps to Holt’s house is far more oppressive than the weather.

Miranda ran interference and dominated the conversation with Mom at lunch, then convinced her to leave Jessica with me so I wouldn’t have to pick her up after work, and that Jessica and I had to be barricaded in my office all afternoon so the dog wouldn’t scare the men. I spent half the time texting Francesca, filling her in on what I’ve fucked up at home now.

She tells me the only answer is for me to come back to work on the ship now that I’m not sick anymore.

Which I can’t do, and she knows it.

And now my work week is over.

I’m exhausted .

Jessica is taking her sweet time getting from the car to the front door in the heat.

And the house I left happily this morning is now a place of doom.

I have to move out.

I have to find a new place to live and move out quickly.

And I don’t want to. I like this house. Jessica likes this house. Having Holt as a housemate is nice, and not just because I can’t help getting a little turned on every time I see him.

I like not being alone. I like having someone to talk to first thing in the morning. I like the way he smirks at me when I wake up on the couch and realize I’ve fallen asleep watching a TV show. I like the way he tells me something completely ridiculous happened in the show while I was sleeping, and I have that moment of believing him before I realize he’s teasing me.

I like that he says good night through my door when he passes by on his crutches to get to his room.

Fine.

Fine .

I like him.

I shouldn’t. He’s probably just being a nice guy to the pregnant lady who was only supposed to be in his house while he was gone.

His neighbors say he’s nice.

Miranda says he’s nice.

Brydie at the catering company said he was nice, even if she didn’t know what sport he plays.

He’s just a nice guy doing a nice thing and when he asked me to the movies, it was because he was being a nice guy who wanted to introduce me to someone who might be my friend, but in actuality is probably one of Abby Nora’s friends because the universe is a dick sometimes.

He’s taking me in the same way he took Jessica in.

That’s it.

I finally shove through the door with my hair sticking to the back of my neck and sweat lining my bra. Jessica snorts, snuffles, and then sneezes toward the couch, where, sure enough, Holt is swinging himself up from a sprawled-out position to sitting like he’s been waiting for us.

His hair is a mess. It’s not hard to imagine him running his fingers through it all day. His lips are turned down in the barest pout. And his eyes— god , his eyes. They’re sad and worried and alert as he scans me from top to bottom like he’s making sure I’m in one piece.

My heart skips a beat and my nipples tighten and the rest of me lets out a silent howl of whhhhyyyyyy?

Why does he have to be a rugby player?

Why can’t he just be a guy who works security? Just a normal, muscular, scruffy-faced security guy with a chiseled jaw?

Dammit .

Realizing he’s off-limits has made it clear just how bad I have it.

I unclip Jessica to distract myself. “Who wants a treat?”

She spins in three circles and barks happily.

“Have to go in the backyard.”

She grins.

I have no idea how a dog that stout loves the heat so much, but she does.

And that’s when I look up and spot the sign hanging over the entrance to the kitchen.

It’s homemade—three poster boards taped together, with SORRY I DIDN’T TELL YOU I PLAY RUGBY written in large black, purple, and blue letters.

There’s also a messy ball in one corner—round, not oblong like the balls the guys were holding in their team pictures—and a square with hash marks in another corner.

“Fletcher helped Goldie and me make it. He did the sloppy letters. And the mascots.” Holt shoves up from the couch and onto his crutches. “We didn’t have time to get a professional one made, and even if we had, that might’ve gotten back to the office and prompted questions.”

He made a sign.

This is—hilarious and sweet and very forward-thinking of him.

Why didn’t you tell me Brydie was confused and you play rugby? was definitely going to be my first question.

This is like coming home from a long trip and being greeted by your family at the airport with signs that say things like “Sorry I broke your blender while you were gone” and “Your boyfriend ran away to the Caribbean but you can do better.”

Neither of which has happened to me but did happen to friends and crewmates on various ships that I worked on over the years.

I think I won this game.

Not that it’s a contest, but he made me a sign .

With a big SORRY on it and everything, even though he’s definitely not the only one who needs to be sorry here.

Yep.

I’m deceased. Completely dead with how much harder I’m crushing on him right now.

“I really didn’t think it mattered,” he adds. “If the sign was professional or…this. And that’s a waffle. In the corner. Fletcher wants the team mascot to be waffles.”

Jessica slides him a look and makes a noise like she wants to throw up.

I eyeball her. “Be nice.” He’s rambly. And it’s freaking adorable.

Jessica stares back at me like she is being nice, he is never adorable, and she would like her treat now.

No manners from this dog today.

That’s probably my mother’s fault.

“Sit,” I tell Holt. “I’ll put Jessica out.”

We haven’t texted all day since my message to him that we have to talk.

It’s been so much more fun to sit in the panic and anxiety mixed with the howling outrage that a guy I like is completely and totally off-limits.

Someday I need to learn to immediately deal with my problems head-on. That’s apparently not today though.

He watches me warily. “Because you don’t want witnesses, or because you don’t want to scare the dog?”

“I’m not mad.”

Jessica barks.

“I’m not,” I tell her. “I’d like a glass of wine and I’m irritated that I can’t have one, but I’m not mad.”

She rolls her eyes like she’s disappointed in me.

As if I’m missing my chance to take out all of my feelings on a man.

“You need therapy,” I tell her.

She grins.

I hustle her through the kitchen and onto the porch, then toss three doggy treats into the yard for her. After I make sure she has enough water in her outside bowl, I prop the door open so that she can come in if she gets too hot, and I head back inside.

And yes, I’m taking entirely too long.

I don’t want to have this conversation. I want to go back to this morning, to when he asked me on a date and I felt like someone who had a beautiful new life ahead of me instead of someone who’s actually been living in a situation that could fuck everything up for a lot of people.

Holt’s waiting for me in the living room, still standing, when I get back.

“Would you please sit down?”

“I’m gonna move in with Fletcher and Goldie for a while.”

“That’s ridiculous. This is your house. I’ll leave.”

“You can’t leave. You know what’s worse than having Keating’s daughter?—”

“Stepdaughter, technically.”

He’s not amused. “What’s worse than having you living in my house? It looking like I kicked you out. That’s worse. You stay. The dog likes you. The house likes you. You stay. As long as you want.”

Funny thing—I wasn’t mad before.

Surprised.

Mildly horrified as I realized how my dad would take this.

Worried about how fast I could—or couldn’t—fix it.

Angry that I freaking like him and I can’t do anything about it.

But now?

Now I’m mad.

I’m mad because the man should want to live in his own house and he’s just rolling over and giving it to me because he’s afraid of what my dad will do to him .

“Why aren’t you asking me why I never told you I’m related to Roland Keating?”

“Past the point where it matters.” He winces.

“You’re thinking about Naked Tuesdays, aren’t you?”

“I’m seeing a hypnotist next week to get that knowledge permanently removed from my brain.”

“Good. You shouldn’t know that about the owner of your team.”

“Are you threatening me or baiting me?”

“Baiting. Is it working?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because half the guys on the team don’t want to talk about where they came from, and you already told me you weren’t happy about taking a pity job from family, and I know how people treat Miranda at the office, and sometimes at big events too, just because of who your dad is, and I get why you wouldn’t want that.”

Yep.

I’m madder now.

Furious, actually.

Here’s a nice, attractive, thoughtful guy who spent the time working on a reason to give me the benefit of the doubt in a way that my own former best friend probably wouldn’t have, and because he’s a rugby player on the team that my stepfather owns, we can’t be friends.

Much less anything more.

It’s not fucking fair.

It’s not fucking fair, and I hate that I can’t have him as a friend.

“Shit, don’t cry.” He finally sits on the couch, but it’s more to grab the box of tissues sitting on an end table and hold them out to me than it is because he wanted to sit.

Or so I assume since he’s refused to sit until now.

I take the offered tissues and drop into the easy chair next to the couch while I fail to swallow the lump in my throat and blink back the hot moisture in my eyes.

“There’s nothing wrong with crying. This is hard. Crying is normal. Crying is natural. Don’t tell me not to cry.”

“I don’t mean you can’t cry. I just mean I don’t want to be the reason you cry.”

It’s in my sinuses now too. The crying has hit my sinuses. “ I don’t want special treatment .”

“I should’ve moved in with friends anyway. Their place doesn’t have stairs. Unless the elevator breaks, and then I’d be stuck, but it’s a good building. The elevator shouldn’t break. Unless there’s a fire, and then it’s just my time to go.”

“Stop talking.”

“I can’t stop talking unless you stop crying.”

“I can’t stop crying while you’re talking!”

He drops his head in his hands.

I blow my nose again while I sniffle.

This is probably partially pregnancy hormones, but that’s not all it is.

“I liked you,” I whisper.

Not what I need to say to make this situation better.

But it’s the truth.

I’m crying because I’m mourning what I can’t have.

Friends. Home. A crush on a nice guy who might or might not want me back—I’m well aware that I’m a lot right now and I shouldn’t read into a nice guy asking me to go to the movies with him and some friends that he thinks I’ll like.

But I can’t even have a date .

“I was excited about going to the movies.”

Yep. I say that too.

Those fathomless brown eyes lift to study me, more serious than I’ve seen him since the night we met when he thought I was an intruder looking for a good place to devour a chicken in my car.

“Me too,” he says. “And that’s why I need to leave.”

My battered heart whimpers in frustration. He likes me too . “That’s so stupid . I didn’t move in here because you play rugby. You didn’t ask me to house-sit because of who my dad is.” I pause. “Did you?”

“I like my job.”

I blow my nose again and stare at him. “What does that mean?”

“I absolutely wouldn’t have offered to let you stay at my house if I knew who you were. I would’ve talked Brydie into helping you instead so it wouldn’t have looked like I had anything to do with it at all.”

“But you were leaving the Pounders to play overseas. You weren’t going to be one of my dad’s players anymore. What did it matter?”

“Coming back was always the contingency plan.”

“We didn’t do anything wrong. So why can’t everything stay the same?”

“Because your dad would fire my ass or trade me, and the only thing worse than an injury killing my chances of ever playing in Europe again is the idea of not having the family I’ve made here to come back to.”

My heart squeezes as tightly as I want to hug him.

I came home to be with family when my world flipped upside down.

Apparently, so did he .

And now, months after his brother died, he’s injured. If Dad traded him, he’d be injured and alone without knowing who on his new team were the people he could trust and who would be the people who’d help him because they were obligated to and who’d stab him in the back at the first opportunity.

How stupid.

“I won’t let him fire you or trade you.”

“Ziggy—”

“I’m not living in your house because we’re trying to sneak around behind his back. You did me a favor. Now I’m doing you a favor. Home is the best place to heal. I’m already here. You need a good diet to get better too. Knowing your dog is taken care of. Feeling as normal as possible. We didn’t do anything wrong. We’re not doing anything wrong. And if he doesn’t like it, I’ll—I’ll— dammit .”

I don’t know what I’ll do.

Threaten to move to Napa and never let them see the baby is extreme.

But it is top on my list of ideas.

My bad ideas.

Doing that would make me exactly what Abby Nora accused me of being.

A completely selfish jerk who only cares about herself.

“How’s it going to look to my dad if his captain doesn’t recover well because I kicked him out of his own house?” I add.

“Shit.” Holt slouches back on the couch. “Your mom’s been here. She hired a yard crew. You said so.”

“It was only once. She’s not in this part of the city very often. ”

Say we can both stay. Say we can be friends. Say we can work this out .

“Does Miranda know?”

“She’s a vault. She won’t tell.”

He eyes me.

“She won’t,” I insist. “She’s had her own problems with friends and secrets. If it doesn’t hurt anyone, it stays locked up. She knew about Abby Nora the day I got home, but I didn’t tell my mom until—well, until you heard me telling my mom. I put it off for weeks, and Miranda didn’t breathe a word. Mom still doesn’t know she knew first.”

“Is there a price to her silence?”

“Yes. It’s called cherry hand pies and Italian wine.”

“Cherry hand pies?”

It’s always the stomach. It is always the stomach. I latch onto that, and I run. Because I want to stay. And I want him to stay. And I will play dirty for it. “With an airy, buttery crust that you can’t find anywhere else. And fresh cherries too.”

His pupils dilate.

“And when I add homemade ice cream, they cannot be beat.”

“You can make ice cream?”

“Yes.”

“How’s that work?”

“You’ve never had homemade ice cream?”

He shakes his head. His Adam’s apple bobs.

“Happiness is vital to healing.” My voice keeps dropping softer and softer, and he keeps leaning closer and closer. “I’ll run to the store in the morning. I needed to get more potatoes anyway. But I’m feeling better. I can make hand pies and ice cream too. I can probably even eat some with you. ”

“This is a bad idea.” His voice is husky.

It resonates through me, setting my skin on fire.

“We’re already screwed,” I whisper. “Let’s just make the most of it for as long as we can.”

The dark scruff on his face, the way he’s staring at me—he’s a pirate who’s decided I’m the treasure he wants.

And I like it.

Even knowing I shouldn’t, I like it.

“My dad isn’t completely unreasonable. Maybe he’ll understand this was all an accident.” I rub my lower belly. “Having a few of those these days. No regrets though.”

“Just roommates. Housemates . We are just housemates.” He’s gone completely hoarse.

He’s also not looking at me anymore, so I don’t think he sees me nod my agreement. “Housemates. Totally normal. Accidental housemates.”

He lifts his gaze to me. “I can’t take you to the movies tomorrow.”

That shouldn’t hurt as bad as it does. The way I would kill for a glass of wine right now to drown this day in… “But we can still be friends.”

“Hard not to be.”

“Agreed.” I rise before this gets worse or before he changes his mind. “I’ll go start on dinner. And a menu for next week.”

“Ziggy?”

“Hmm?”

“This team is the only family I have left.”

How is it possible that I’ve never hugged this man?

And now that I can’t, it’s all I want to do.

Well, not all .

But definitely my highest priority at the moment. “I won’t let him take that from you. Promise.”

He studies me like he’s looking for the cracks in my statement, then nods. “Thank you.”

Talk about the weight of the world.

The trade-off for getting to stay here, to pretend everything’s normal here, is that I’m now carrying the weight of his world.

Funny thing though—I don’t mind.

Not a bit.