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Ziggy

It feels good to breathe again.

Breathe. Laugh. Kiss. Snuggle. Make love. Kiss more. Laugh more. Snuggle more.

That’s how I spend the rest of my Naked Tuesday.

We’re dressed again as night falls, watching my favorite show over ice cream, when someone knocks hard and fast on the door.

Holt’s still moving slow on his foot, but he beats me to check it out.

Then gives me a what’s this about? look as he pulls the door open and lets Miranda in.

Her cheeks are flushed. Her hazel eyes are wide. And she’s gasping for air like she ran the six miles here from her apartment.

I rise.

Jessica jumps to her paws and barks in alarm .

“What?” My brain goes to the dark place.

Dad had a heart attack.

The fight we had this morning wasn’t the first step in making up, it was the end.

We killed him.

“Dad’s giving me the team,” she squeaks.

I drop back onto the couch like the world shoved me. “ What ?”

“Dad’s giving me the team. He says he can’t sell it because it operates at a loss, but he’s setting up a trust and giving me the team.”

I look at Holt.

He’s gaping at my sister with the door as wide open still as his mouth is now.

Miranda squats and pets Jessica. “Did you hear that, Jessica? I own a rugby team . Or I will. When the paperwork goes through. How nuts is this? It’s completely nuts, isn’t it? Completely nuts .”

“So Holt can have his job back?” I ask.

She straightens and flings herself at him, hugging him hard. “ Please come back and play for the Pounders. You’re my favorite. Don’t tell Fletcher. Or do. I’d love to see how he tries to win the title himself.”

She spins away from Holt, who finally shuts the front door, to dance across the living room and plop down next to me, then hug me too. “Ziggy, I am freaking out ,” she whisper-shrieks. “I don’t know anything about owning a rugby team.”

I hug her back. “Do you want this?”

“ Yes . I mean, I didn’t know I wanted it, but—but I do. I so don’t deserve this. I haven’t earned it. I don’t know enough about rugby. I don’t know enough about business . And that’s what it is. It’s a business. Oh my god. I’m going to destroy it. I’m going to completely and totally wreck the club. What am I doing? I can’t own a rugby team . I barely know how to change a lightbulb and there are like seventy million of them at the stadium. Oh my god .”

“Breathe.” I know. I know. Not helpful.

But she clearly needs the reminder.

“Dad said he’s fucked up too much and the guys need new leadership, and he thinks it’s me,” she says. “He says I’m ready, but am I? I’m not. I am absolutely not.”

“Breathe,” Holt echoes.

“What is breathe ?” Miranda says. “I don’t know that word.”

He sits on the couch on her other side.

Jessica prances at all of our feet.

“Happen to know a guy who knows more than he should about how to run a rugby team,” Holt says.

Miranda wrinkles her nose. “But then I have to talk to him and his ego.”

Holt looks at her, then he cracks up.

I do too.

But not for long.

Miranda’s still freaking out. “What if they don’t respect me? Who would respect me? I haven’t earned this.”

“You will,” Holt says.

I love his quiet authority. His belief in the people around him. His support.

How did a man this perfect land in my world?

No idea, but I do know I’ll do everything in my power to deserve him every day.

Just like I know Miranda is up to the challenge of proving she has what it takes to run the Pounders.

“And you’re not alone,” I add. “You have a whole team who already adore you. The office staff too. ”

“They think I’m that cute kid.”

“They know you work hard and that you’re smart and that you care about them.”

“Half the key to leadership,” Holt says. “People will do almost anything for people who care about them.”

Truer words…

I smile at him over her head. I’ll do anything for you .

He smiles back. Counting on it. Very soon .

And there go my nipples, getting hard while I’m supposed to be helping my sister process this unexpected news.

“What if—” she starts, but I cut her off.

“What if we realize the world has given you an advantage, and now you get to choose what to do with what you’ve been given? What if we find a way to make this the best possible thing that’s ever happened for the Pounders, from the staff to the players to the fans?”

She gapes at me. “Oh my god, pressure .”

“That’s the job,” Holt says.

“He said I can sell it if I want, but I don’t want.” She blows out a heavy breath. “I can do this. I can do this . Can’t I?”

“You can,” Holt says. “But can you maybe not carry on the tradition of Naked Tuesdays?”

She looks at him, then turns to me, and then she bursts out laughing.

“It wasn’t funny,” I say.

“It was a little funny,” Holt says.

“You forgot it was Tuesday?” Miranda gasps.

I sigh. “Been a little preoccupied with thinking we were never going to be a real family again.”

“Dad feels awful,” she tells us. “He’s not ready to admit it out loud yet, but he does. I could tell because Deedee did most of the talking. I’d expect some very nice baby presents coming your way soon.”

“I’ve got the baby covered,” Holt says.

“You and the whole team. They’re totally throwing Ziggy a surprise baby shower next month. I already got my invitation.”

“Most loved baby ever.” He smiles.

Miranda smiles.

And I burst into tears.

Naturally.

It’s what I do these days.

But these are the good tears, and they come with me being wrapped in tight hugs from my sister and the man I love, the man who wants me, who wants my baby, who’s claimed us both as his own.

Miranda stays long enough to pick Holt’s entire brain about what she should look for in support staff who can teach her what she needs to know, who he knows in the league, what he’s learned from his time overseas, and how she can ask for Fletcher’s help without him being insufferable.

She leaves far less worked up than she arrived, but I have a text message waiting for me that has me in happy tears all over again.

“Mom says she and Dad want to have us over for lunch on Saturday to fully apologize for how they treated you,” I tell Holt through sniffles.

He smiles softly at me as he pulls my hand to his mouth and kisses it. “They love you.”

“They’re going to love you too.”

“Very likely. I’m irresistible.”

He is, even if he says it like he’s joking .

“Your ice cream melted. Want more?” he asks.

I shake my head. “I want you .”

“Huh. I happen to want you too.”

He hefts me into his arms and carries me upstairs and shows me once more just how much he loves me.

But it’s not just the kissing. The touching. The sex.

It’s the way he holds me. The way he cradles my belly.

The way he whispers, “I’m ready to renovate Caden’s room. We can move into it and turn this room into a nursery and the other room into a play room. If you want to stay here.”

“Holt—”

“We can find a different house if you’d rather. We don’t—I love the idea of new life in this house, but we don’t have to stay here.”

“I love this house.”

His gaze flickers over my body, lit by a lone lamp on his nightstand, and when his eyes reach mine again, he studies me closely. “You do?”

“It’s you .”

“I didn’t pick anything. Caden picked everything.”

“You don’t think he picked it for you? Because everything I know about you—I think he did.”

He blinks at me.

His eyes go shiny, and then I’m on my back, trapped beneath this massive man with a big heart and a bigger family than he realizes. “Fuck me,” he mutters. “You’re right. He did.”

“He loved you as much as you loved him.”

He buries his head in my neck while his breath shudders through him. “Thank you.”

I kiss his hair .

Stroke his back.

Bask in the feel of him while Tater Tot does flips that bubble in my belly.

“It’s home,” I whisper.

“It’s home,” he agrees. “Fuck, Ziggy…I’m so glad I broke my foot.”

A surprised laugh catches in my throat.

I’m not glad he got hurt.

But I will forever be grateful that he’s mine.