IMPACT: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (12 page)

Chapter 21

Olivia

Maybe I was the most transparently obvious person in the world. Or maybe Candace just knew me really well. Probably it was some combination of both.

She walked-not-waddled in that Monday morning and at first she seemed like she was going to follow the same pattern we'd fallen into since our fight in the ladies room. We weren't
not
talking to each other, but it was just very, very surface stuff. The weather, the baby, questions about work shit. Small talk with a friend like Candace was a really odd thing to endure.

This morning, though, her blandly polite smile slid right off her face when she saw me, and her big eyes widened. "Oh, my god, what?"

I couldn't keep the stupid grin off my face.

"Tell me what happened," Candace demanded, plopping her purse down and then dropping dramatically into her chair.

And just like that, we were besties again.

I licked my lips, still smiling like a damned fool. "If I tell you that you were right, will you promise not to be insufferable?"

"Absolutely not."

"Well, fine then. I'm a grown-up..."

"You are?"

"Shut it. I can eat my humble pie."

"And it's perfect baking weather too. Do you prefer apple or pumpkin?"

I stopped, smiled again and then leaned back in my chair, suddenly shy. Fuck, I was never shy. This whole boyfriend/girlfriend dynamic was fucking with my head.

Candace glared at me. "Are you going to make me start guessing?"

I took a deep breath and looked at her, keeping my gaze as steady as I could as I said, "Brad."

The offices of
Cupid’s Arrow
were pretty well soundproofed. Carpet to mask footsteps, acoustic tile to drown out the hum of servers - but I swear the sound that Candace made defied all acoustical engineering and pretty much echoed through the whole place.

"Shhh!" scolded the nerd-herd that worked the next row over.

Candace clapped her hand over her mouth, but she was still squealing. "For real?" she finally managed to say. "Like, you're actually together?"

I still felt shy, dammit. What was this? "For real," I managed to say. Then I straightened up and resolved to stop acting like a high school virgin. "Yeah. Olivia Bryant is someone's girlfriend now," I declared, louder than I probably needed to be. "It's weird and wrong, but it happened."

"Brad is your
boyfriend
?"

"Would you like to tell me that you told me so?"

Her eyes shone. "No. Yes. Aw, Liv, I'm so happy for you guys," she came over to my desk and threw her arms around me. "And yes," she whispered. "I did tell you so."

"I'll listen to you next time."

"Well, that's a complete lie, but thank you for the sentiment." She pulled back and pressed her hand to her belly. "Baby Carter is so excited too."

I grinned. "Thanks, kid."

She plopped herself back in her chair. "So, tell me what happened?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"Does it involve public sex?"

"How'd you guess?"

"I've known you a while." Then she caught sight of my wrist and narrowed her eyes. "Do I want to know what those bruises are from?"

I ran my finger over the marks, feeling oddly possessive of them. "When I decided to finally be tied down, I figured I should be as literal as possible."

Candace wrinkled her nose. "Okay, I'm not going to think too hard about what you just said."

I licked my lips and felt some of the shyness fall away.  Grossing Candace out with candid descriptions of my sex life was much more familiar territory. "I'll just tell you this, then. Ropes can be used for leverage. Think about it."

"Oh dear god." She rolled her eyes.

"That's what she said. Or rather,
I
said."

"I didn't know you were into that? Or," she paused and looked deeply disturbed, "that Brad was."

"I'm sorry to have alarmed you. And in your delicate condition and all."

"Pfft," she waved her hand. "How do you think I got in this condition in the first place?"

"That's my girl." I hadn't realized just how wrong everything had been when we weren't speaking. Having Brad... and having Candace to talk with about Brad... hot damn. Happiness swelled up in my chest, and I felt like I could burst into song and start swanning about like a Disney princess. Birds would come perch on my arms to sing to me... though the fact that I lived in Chicago meant those birds would most likely be mangy pigeons.

Candace swiveled her desk chair to her computer. "I'm really happy for you guys. So happy that I'm going to ignore what you just told me and pretend you two did something normal to seal the deal, like, I don't know, he brought you flowers and you went out to dinner."

My smile had to look smug, but I couldn't help myself. "We're going to do that when he gets back," I clapped my hands together, "like a fucking
couple
would. I have a
boyfriend
, Candy! And it's...
Brad
!"

My best friend made a little squeaky noise of glee.

"And I really, really fucking like him," I sighed, and leaned back. "Isn't it just...weird?"

Candace smiled softly. "No, Liv. It isn't weird at all."

Chapter 22

Brad

When the bill came, Olivia mindlessly reached out for it, then looked shocked when I smacked her hand away.

"I'm paying," I informed her.

"Why? Because you're my
boyfriend
?"

"Damn straight."

"Whatever. If I take this new job with Kyle, I'll be making more money than you and then
I'm
paying for you." Her eyes gleamed. "You can repay me in sexual favors."

"Wait," I set down the pen. "Back up. What do you mean,
if
you take the job? I thought it was a done deal. Have you still not made up your mind?" This kind of wishy-washy dithering was completely out of character for Olivia.

She shifted in her chair. "I mean... I think so. I'm almost positive I'm going to take it. It's just..." she tossed her hair over her shoulder. "Something doesn't feel right. I'm not really...excited. I'm scared. It seems so risky to join a start-up."

"Well, sure it's risky," I reflected. "It's something new. You can be scared of trying something new. If it's not a little scary, then it's not a risk."

She scowled at me. "Why do I get the feeling that you're surreptitiously lecturing me?"

I spread my hands. "That word is way too big for me, Liv. Dumb it down for your jock, here."

"Shut it, Scott. You know what I mean."

"Well, maybe I do. But maybe risk aversion is a pattern of yours, hmm? You faced your fear and became my
girlfriend
..." I sing-songed the word mockingly. She stuck her tongue out at me and lobbed a leftover dinner roll at my head. I caught it before it smacked me in the forehead, and continued, "so maybe you're getting ready to risk some more? 'Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.' That's what T.S. Eliot said, anyway."

She blinked. "Listen to you, quoting T.S. Eliot at me."

"I saw it on a poster in my dentist's office."

She laughed. "Oh thank god. You're too cute to be so philosophical."

"But I do have a beard," I pointed out. "So people take me seriously when I say shit like that."

"True. Your beard is probably smarter than you are. Stroke it for me and say something smart."

"E equals MC squared," I said, stroking my beard. I loved making her laugh.

The waiter came and took the bill, leaving us with nothing keeping us in the restaurant anymore. And as eager as I was to head back to her place and blow her mind, there was still something I needed to make sure of.

"You're going to do it, right Liv? You're going to take this new job?"

"You're a tenacious one, aren't you?"

"I'll check the dictionary and let you know."

She sighed and looked at some spot over my left shoulder, chewing on the inside of her mouth. I waited, watching the gears spin in her head. Watching her think like this, with all of the thoughts and emotions playing across her face, was such a marvel to me. I didn't think  would ever get sick of seeing her with the walls down. She had no idea how special it was that she let me see her so open and vulnerable.

And I knew better than to ruin it by calling attention to it.

"Okay," she started nodding, more and more vigorously with each word. "Okay, yeah, okay," her eyes widened and she gave me a shocked smile. "What's one more risk, right? If I can be someone's girlfriend, then fuck it, I can do anything!" She clapped her hands together, then pressed her fingertips to her lips. "Holy shit, I'm leaving
Cupid’s Arrow
. I'm leaving Candace!"

"And Candace is going to be super proud of you." I leaned forward and squeezed her hand, then lifted her fingers to my lips. "You and Candace will be fine. You guys love each other. You don't have to be in each other's faces every day for that to work."

She shot me an odd look and something heavy passed in the air between us. I squeezed her hand one more time, and then quietly stood up and offered her my arm.

She was silent all the way out into the car. I couldn't watch her face, but I could tell she was thinking very seriously about something.

"I think I'm, doing pretty okay," she finally blurted.

"Um, what?"

"With this!" She crossed her arms over her chest. "A little credit would be nice."

I was confused. "With... what exactly?"

She glared at me. "With being your girlfriend, Brad. It's not easy you know. Not being in your face every day - as you so elegantly put it - is kind of shitty. I'm not used to...waiting. I've never been sidelined before. I've always been the main fucking event."

I looked at her, stricken, and nearly plowed into the back of an Audi. "You think you're on the sidelines?" I demanded.

"Well...?" she spread her hands as if to encompass...this. This date. The bags I had in the trunk, already packed so that I could leave straight from her place tomorrow morning. We were going to be on the road for five days this time, the longest we'd been apart since we became official.

"Olivia," I sighed. "You're it. I'm not going to be out there fucking my way across the Eastern Seaboard this weekend. Who the hell would I find that could measure up to you?"

"No. I know." I could hear her teeth squeaking as she gritted them together. "I know I'm not actually sidelined. I trust you that this is it for you. It is for me too, Brad. What we have is totally full-time. It's just...."
She let out a short laugh. "What can I say? I'm fucking needy. I never considered myself in that way but..." she trailed off and looked out the window, falling silent.

I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing. The only thing I could do was park my car once we reached her place. And then slide my hand over her thigh. "I know you're needy," I murmured, leaning over to nibble that smooth place behind her earlobe. "How about I help you out with that?"

I swear to Christ, that smile was going to be the death of me.

******

It didn't take me long to have her upstairs and naked. It helped that I carried her most of the way. Before she had a chance to catch her breath, I had her squirming on my tongue.

But seeing her that way, spread out and panting, her fingers twisted in the sheets, a fine sheen of sweat making her glisten in the lamplight, I had to stop for a second and just marvel at her.

Of course, she stared up at me like I had committed high treason. "Get over here," she complained.

"You
want
me," I grinned, feeling fucking triumphant.

She glared at me, a little irritated, but I couldn't help loving the flush that spread over her chest. "Isn't that pretty obvious?" she snarked.

"Yeah, it is," I teased her. "You want me as much as I want you and I'll be damned if I'm not going to fucking savor that, Liv. Why did it take us so long to figure that out?"

She bit her lip. "I'm a coward okay?"

The admission hit me like a slap in the face. "You're not a coward."

"Sure I am," she said. "You scare me."

"I do?"

"Actually, I scare myself when I am with you."

I opened my mouth, then shut it. That same heavy feeling hung in the air.

There was something that needed to be said in this moment. But holy fuck, could it really be true?

"I'm totally
fucked
about you," I said instead.

She fell back on the pillow and I stared hungrily at the curve of her throat. "So eloquent," she sighed to the ceiling.

I grunted at her. "I'm a caveman, you said it yourself." She raised her eyebrows, confused. "Back...this summer," I clarified.

"Hey," she sat up, yanking the sheets up around her breasts. "I hope you know that I was wrong. You're not a caveman."

"I thought you liked me as a caveman."

"I like...
you,
Brad." She raised one sardonic eyebrow. "The beard is a little caveman-esque, sure. But mostly I was trying to make you laugh when I said shit like that."

It was as close to an apology that I was ever going to get. And that was fine. "You always make me laugh, Olivia. You make me so fucking happy, it's embarrassing."

"Shit, you asshole. You're going to make me cry."

"Aw, are your cheeks all wet?"

"Yes," she sniffed, laughing.

"What about your pussy?" I grinned, diving back under the sheets.