THE TELEVISION GLOWS on the wall in front of us, hanging on a stone fireplace. Below it is a mantle with pictures from the Miller family at various stages of their lives. Pictures of Finn and Layla on boats as babies, them on the sand as toddlers, even at past Water Festivals. It’s a restful ambiance that I could appreciate if I could stop looking at her.
Layla sits on a sofa a few feet away, a book in her lap.
After our early lunch in town and walk through the streets, we stopped at the lake on our way back to the cabin and sat on the sand. We didn’t talk much, but sort of each processed what had already been said.
Just sitting next to her, being in her air space, makes me feel . . . well, it makes me feel like I want to stay here. I find myself waiting to hear her laugh or for her to say something I can play off and start a conversation. It’s weird. I’m not the converse-with-women type of guy unless it means their tongue is against my cock while I tell them how hard to suck it.
Not with her though. That confuses me.
“Did you see that?” she giggles.
Shaking out of my daze, I look up. “I didn’t. What happened?”
She sighs. “You’ve been somewhere else mentally a lot tonight.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I have a lot on my mind.”
She nods, like she’s reminded that the weight of the world is on her shoulders. Picking up her book, her grin is gone.
“Hey,” I say, waiting until she looks at me again. When she finally does, I realize I have no follow-up. “Um, what are you reading?” I stammer.
“A book about pregnancy.” She holds the paperback up and shows me the cover. It’s a patchwork of pastel colors with rattles and bottles and these pins with little pink bows on top. “This is my first rodeo, you know.”
“What are you learning?”
“To not watch labor and delivery images and not to read the stories,” she laughs. “If they showed you this before you had sex, it would effective birth control.”
“Guess we’re a little too late for that, huh?”
“I guess so.” Something washes across her face as she sets the book beside her. “I haven’t said this yet, but thank you for coming up here. I didn’t expect you to and—”
“Stop.”
She squirms in her seat as I grab the remote and flip the television off.
“Don’t thank me for doing the right thing,” I say.
“I just want you to know I appreciate it.”
“I appreciate you not punching me in my good eye,” I chuckle. “As unexpected as it is, we’re having a baby. That means we are going to be on the same team for a while. And if you want to sit in the stands with me to cheer him on when he takes over the ol’ eleven jersey for the Legends, it’ll be a few years longer.”
“It’s a girl,” she says off-handedly, turning her nose a little into the air.
“It’s a boy,” I tell her.
“How would you know? You don’t know anything about this.”
“Maybe not, but I can predict the future.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yup. He’s going to have blond hair like me and golden eyes like you. He’ll have your wit and my athletic ability.”
“Hey, now,” she says, wagging a finger my way. “My brother is Finn Miller. I have some damn good athletic genes too.”
“Meh.”
She throws a pillow at me. I catch it mid-air and toss it back at her. Because she had turned away, it hits the side of her face.
Her laughter fills the air, the worry lines on her face from today all but gone. That is, until she moves her neck to the side and flinches.
“What’s the matter?” I ask.
“Oh, nothing. I hurt my neck a few weeks ago and it’s hurt ever since.”
“What did you do to it?”
“I don’t know.”
I catch the blush of her cheeks and her hesitation to look me straight in the eye. “Layla . . .”
“Stop, Branch.”
“What happened?” I say in a sing-song voice. “Sounds like a good story.”
Her lips quiver as she finds her resolve. When she faces me, the little vixen I’ve seen before is back. “Well,” she says, “I was with this guy, right? And he had me up on all fours on this patio chair at our lake house and—”
“Better stop there.”
“But I was just getting to the good part.”
“Oh, Sunshine. I remember the good part.”
We exchange a knowing smile before she moves her head and winces again.
“Turn around,” I tell her, moving off the chair and onto the sofa beside her.
“Why?”
“Just turn around,” I chuckle. “Don’t you trust me?”
“Um . . .”
Shaking my head, I lay a hand on her shoulder and gently encourage her to turn away from me. Finally, she gives in, shifting until she’s sitting facing the wall.
My heart beats in my throat, a steady strum as I lean in and breathe in a scent that’s pure Layla—a sweet smell of pineapples and the warmth of vanilla. I think I could get high on it if I breathed it in for long. It’s a risk I’d be willing to take.
Bundling her hair in one hand, I try to figure out what to do with it. She reaches back, a brown elastic in her hand.
“Let me pull it up,” she says.
Instead, I remove the tie from her fingers. She stills as I work the bunched strands up higher on her head and then twist the elastic around it a few times until it stays.
I’ve done a lot things with women. A lot of things so crazy I wouldn’t admit to them, a lot of things done both publicly and privately. But this simple exchange feels the most intimate out of all of them and I’m not even touching her.
She sits patiently, waiting for me to do whatever it is I’m going to do. Her profile is perfect with her long, thick lashes, button nose, and soft, smooth lines.
For the first time in a few days, she’s just Layla. She’s the same woman I met a while back and enjoyed the hell out of in so many ways. She’s the smart and gorgeous and easygoing girl that doesn’t give a shit I’m a wide-out on the Legends or on the cover of three magazines this month. She’s . . . her.
My hands lay softly on her shoulders. Under my palms, they sink instead of tensing as I feared, her head falling to the side. My thumbs press against the back of her neck, her skin warm and supple against my own.
“Where does it hurt?” I say gently, working her dainty shoulders in my hands.
“Mostly in the back and on this side.” She motions to her left, her fingertips brushing mine. Instead of pulling them away, she leaves them touching for a long moment.
I work on the spot she indicated, spending time on areas that she signals feels good. As I watch her reaction to me and feel my pulse find a steady rhythm, my anxiety starts to wane, a hint of a smile tickling my lips.
“I went to that birthday party just to see you,” I say, pressing my thumbs against an area just below her neck.
“You did?”
“Yeah. I wanted to call you before that, but didn’t really know how to work around your brother, and Poppy kept saying you were really busy.”
She bends her neck farther, giving me more access. “Well, I didn’t really want to see you. It seemed pointless. And then I was scared to see you.”
Her admission, although understandable, twists something deep inside my chest. Imagining her so vulnerable and alone because of some reaction I might have, and did have, makes me want to kick myself.
“I wanted to spend more time with you,” I admit, ignoring everything else. “I just wanted to toss a football around with you or eat some candy and tell stories.”
She blows out a breath, grimacing a little as I rub out a knot. “I think we could’ve had fun together if so many things were different.”
With a final press, I drop my hands. “If I would’ve called, you would’ve answered?”
Her chin dips just a touch. “Even though I knew it was a terrible idea for every practical reason, I would’ve. I don’t think I could’ve refused.”
“What do you think it would’ve been like?”
“Everything it can’t be now.”
“Why?”
I know the answer, I just want her to remind me. Maybe I even need her to remind me because being with her makes all those reasons get blurry.
“Now it can’t be the easy, fun, sexy time it would’ve been before. Our relationship now is built on a baby, not orgasms.”
“I’d say it was built on the orgasms, but maybe built up by the baby.”
“However you want to look at it,” she says, cracking a smile. “We’re at a point that most people reach when they’re in love and we aren’t. That dooms us, I think. When things get hard or confusing or we’re totally sleep-deprived, we don’t have that connection to keep us working together and liking each other. Our foundation is as shaky as the orgasms that brought us together.”
“Great, yet terrible, analogy.”
She sighs. “Our only hope is to try to build a friendship over these next few months and figure out a good system to co-parent. That’s the responsible thing, right?”
“Definitely.”
Maybe.
THE SILVERWARE JINGLES in the drawer as I rummage for a fork. With only the stove light on, it’s a little dim to be milling about. I could totally turn the chandelier on, but I like the ambiance of the low light in the middle of the night when I’m foraging for a snack.
Settling on a utensil, I open the container from the bakery. The kitchen fills with the smell of sweet cinnamon and as I dig into it, a sound filters in from the staircase. In a minute’s time, Branch pads into the room, his hair sticking up, yawning.
“What time is it?” he asks.
“Two a.m.,” I say, sticking a forkful of coffeecake into my mouth. “Why?”
“Just wondering.”
I’m stopped when he takes the fork and shovels more cake in my mouth. Laughing, I chew it up and swallow.
“That wasn’t very nice,” I point out.
“You talk too much.” He takes his own bite of the cake. “Damn. This is good.”
“Told you. You should’ve bought your own slice.” I take the fork out of his hand and scoop up another piece. “Why are you up?”
“I don’t know. It’s so quiet here. So dark. I love falling asleep to it like this, but if I wake up, I have a hard time going back to sleep. Is that weird?”
“Probably.”
“I saw this show once where this guy would sneak in houses and, while people were asleep, he’d—”
“Stop!” I giggle, shoving him backward.
We still, our eyes locking, as my hand touches his chest. I force a swallow, my entire body tingling from the contact.
He shakes his head as he gets two glasses out of the cabinet. “Want a glass of milk?”
“Sure.”
I watch as he pours us both a drink, his back muscles rippling even under the not-so-bright light. I imagine him waking up in the middle of the night to change a diaper or feed a baby and my heart swells, then falls because I won’t see that.
“What are you thinking?” he asks with a quirked brow, handing me a glass.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit. You have this weird look on your face.”
“I was watching you pour the milk and realized we’ll be making lots of milk runs coming up in the middle of the night. We’ll have to trade notes,” I say, choking back a lump, “so we make sure we stay on the same schedule and stuff.”
His lips twist together. “I might have to get a nanny. I’ve been thinking about it. I have to be at the complex at five in the morning. I’m gone all weekend every weekend through the season.”
“I can keep the baby. I mean, you could come see it when you can.”
“I don’t want to be that guy,” he sighs. “I don’t want to be the dad who sees his kid twice a week.”
I try to force a smile, but fail. “I’ve been thinking about moving up here.”
“Here? It’s three hours from Chicago.”
“Hey, you told me not to let Callum start calling the shots,” I point out.
“I’m not Callum.”
I can’t help but laugh. “I know. I’m just thinking about it, mostly to take my mind off Finn calling tonight. I told him you were here, and I don’t really know how well that went over.”
“He thinks I’m the worst choice you could’ve made.”
“Except I really didn’t choose you.”
“You didn’t, probably because you were smart enough not to. I hate that I’m the one in between you. You have this awesome dynamic and then I come in and fuck it up. I can’t just mess up your life, I have to do his too.” He shakes his head. “I’m on a roll.”
“We’ll get it figured out before the baby comes.”
“What if I’m a shitty Dad?”
“What if I don’t know how to be a mom? What if we disagree on everything and you do one thing at your house and I do another at mine and the kid is all screwed up?”
He laughs, almost reaching for me, but he stops himself short. “As long as we agree on what’s important, we’ll do fine.”
“So, like, religion and non-GMO’s?”
He makes a face. “I was thinking like the Legends, the Tennessee Arrows baseball team, and Beau McCrae’s music.”
“Oh, Beau McCrae,” I say, fanning my face.
“Second thought—no McCrae.”
“I’m going to have to disagree on the Arrows too,” I say, loving the easy smile on his face.
“Ha. No. There’s no compromise there.”
“I used to love them until Lincoln Landry retired. Now I pull for the Lions.”
“No way. My son will not be a Lions fan.”
“Your daughter will do what her mother says.”
“You’re right about that,” he says, leaning against the cabinet. “My child, regardless of sex, will do what their mother says.”
My heart tugs at the look of sincerity in his eye. His lips upturn, an easy, sleep smile that I find myself hoping to see one day with a baby in his arms.
Shaking my head, I refocus. “I don’t know what to do about Finn.”
He lingers against the cabinet, quirking a brow. “I have to head back to the city tomorrow. I have an interview and a few appointments I have to get out of the way before the pre-season starts. Will you be okay here?”
“I’m leaving too, I think.” I toss the fork in the sink. “I have to get back into the real world and start making some plans.”
“Like what?”
“A lot of things . . .”
Not bothering to explain, I brush past him and head to my room. I hear him behind me, but he doesn’t say anything.
Pausing at my door, I feel him behind me.
“Night, Branch.”
“Night, Sunshine.”