“I don’t know,” Drayton pulled some orange juice out of another bag while his mother tapped her foot impatiently behind him. “Probably pounding it out in his room.”
“Drayton Jacob Lahey!” she shouted, giving him another swipe, which he managed to avoid as he moved toward the cabinet then pulled two glasses from the top shelf. “Don’t be foul!”
“You asked,” he muttered, pouring a drink into each. Drayton was probably on the money, though. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was exactly what Josh and Gabby were doing.
“Come on, babe.” Drayton picked up the glasses and signaled for me to follow him as he rounded the kitchen island and headed for the entrance. “Let’s go and stop those nymphos from making babies.”
“Drayton!” Ellie hollered but we were already halfway up the staircase.
I was aware that we weren’t going in search of our friends. We were going to his bedroom where the bed was made and the fire was going. I loved his room; it was a dream. He set our drinks on a bedside table and spun around, pulling me into him. His hands went south and as he grabbed my bum, his gaze became wide and his mouth popped open. “Damn, Cheer. You’re soaked. That was quick.”
I reached around behind me and felt the back of my skirt, which was indeed wet and cold. “It’s from crouching in the snow.” I gave him a shove in the chest. He laughed.
“Take it off,” he casually ordered as he sauntered over to his dresser. “I think I have a pair of sweats in here that I wore when I was, like, seven. They might fit you.”
I unzipped my skirt, thankful that my tights weren’t wet.
“Dammit,” he mumbled, pushing clothes from left to right. “No pants. This hoodie might be long enough, though.”
I stripped off my shirt as he turned around with one of his football hoodies in hand. When his sights landed on me standing beside his bed in tights and a bra, his gaze lingered on my chest and then it moved, slowly, up and down as he drew his bottom lip between his teeth.
“Damn, if we were eating alone tonight, I’d be having your burrito for dinner.”
“You are too damn smooth.”
He grinned and tilted his head to the side as he walked forward. He handed the maroon hoodie over with a sigh of disappointment. “You’re lucky that I care about your comfort.”
“Thanks.” I pulled the hoodie over my head. It smelled like him—masculine but fruity. There was a very real chance that he wouldn’t be getting this back anytime soon. “It’s huge.”
“Why, thank you.” He winked. “So I’ve been told.”
“You can’t be stopped.”
“Nope. It looks good.”
The number on the back was his 18, and Lahey was written across the shoulders in big, bold letters.
“I’m keeping this by the way,” I told him as I sat on the edge of his bed.
He knelt in front of me. “Is that so? Going to sleep in it every night?”
“Maybe.”
His hands slid up my legs, tantalizing and slow, as he went higher.
“Would it be weird if I got a little jealous over that hoodie,” he mumbled with a low voice, getting up and trapping me between his arms. He leaned over me so that I had to fall back onto the mattress.
“No, not weird.” I barely managed to finish my sentence before his mouth met mine and his tongue pried my lips apart. He reached back and his hand gripped behind my knee as he pulled my leg up so that it was wrapped around his waist. He lowered his hips onto mine and I gasped at his hardness. His kiss became rougher and one hand slipped under the hoodie, grazing my skin.
“Oh sheesh, you two,” Josh’s voice chortled from the door. We broke our kiss but Drayton kept his position, hovering between my legs as he glanced to the side where Gabby and Josh stood. “Get a room.”
“We’re in a room,” Drayton bit back. “Get out.”
“Mom wants your help with dinner,” Josh said.
“You go and help her.”
“I am,” Josh replied. “She wants us both downstairs. She was very specific.”
“That’s probably because I told her you and Gabby were making babies in your room.”
Drayton huffed with a pout but got up and helped me to my feet. As disappointing as it was to be interrupted, I tried to calm down and stop the throbbing between my legs. It wasn’t as if we could have gone further in a full house anyway. The four of us headed downstairs. Drayton kept his arm around my shoulder. It felt safe being tucked beside him.
“You know,” I said as I peered up at him, “you made this sound like a casual thing. Why didn’t you tell me it was a birthday dinner? I would have come more prepared.”
He leaned forward and looked me over. “You look like a main course to me,” he grinned. “For real. That hoodie looks good on you. We should skip dinner.”
“Ow!” he exclaimed as I nudged him in the side. “I didn’t want to scare you. You’re so anticommitment. I thought you’d freak out.”
“Fair enough. Don’t stress about that though, tell me next time.”
He wore a surprised but pleased smile as we walked into the kitchen and found Ellie in an apron, ingredients spread across the countertop. “Where have the four of you been? I need help. And you need to keep the bedroom doors open.”
We offered our assistance to avoid the scolding.
“Gabby, put this on the table for me, please.” Ellie handed a stack of condiments across the kitchen island to Gabby, who proceeded to place them in the middle of the large marble dining table.
She put Drayton and Josh to work cutting up vegetables. Honestly, I think there were more crude cucumber jokes going on than anything else. As for me, I was at the stove top, flipping the soft, homemade tortillas after Ellie had rolled them out.
She was in the middle of explaining her business after I’d asked her about how it all came to be. “It was the plan from the get-go.” She cut off a handful of dough and threw some flour over it. “I wanted to get into skin care from the time that I was young. My mom and dad weren’t that supportive, but that’s a whole other story, we’re only just on speaking terms again. Anyway. After I got pregnant, I moved in with Leroy’s parents— sweetest people ever—and they actually left me a small-business starter fund in their will.”
“Sounds like they really believed in you,” I said, watching her wipe some flour off her cheek with the back of her hand.
“They were wonderful people,” she said as she nodded, her expression distant. “The name of the brand, L.E. Skincare, was a play on my name—it sounds like Ellie. It’s mine and Leroy’s initials and it’s Leroy’s mother’s initials. Eleanor Lahey. I managed to work all of the importance in there.”
I flipped the tortilla in the pan and smiled. “That’s so nice. And clever. I’ll have to get some of the products. Are they online?”
“Don’t be silly,” she responded in that southern accent of hers. “I’ll give you a cleansing set. We can figure out your skin type after dinner.”
“Really?”
“Of course. The products are affordable anyway. When I was growing up, we struggled financially, a lot. I wanted a decent skin-care set to be accessible to people who didn’t make a lot of money.”
“She also donates a ton of her products to refuge centers and shelters, right, Mom?” Drayton towered over her and kissed her cheek. “She’s big into charities too.”
Ellie blushed and gave her son a pat on the shoulder. It was sweet to watch. Their family had experienced so much pain, losing a sister and daughter. I knew how loss felt, so it was heartwarming to see what a tight unit they were. How much love, care, and respect existed here. It was a stark difference to the Drayton that I’d met all those months ago.
“Hello,” a masculine voice greeted us, and I turned around to find Leroy strolling into the kitchen. “There are a lot of teenagers in here.”
“It’s Drayton’s birthday dinner, Leroy.” Ellie grinned while she power grated through a block of cheese. “You know Dallas
and Gabby of course.”
He slipped out of his designer suit jacket to reveal a fitted shirt that accentuated his large shoulders and massive arms. Good bodies must have run in the family. “Where’s the rest of the team?”
“Oh please,” Ellie scoffed. “I wasn’t going to host the entire football team. It’d cost us a small fortune in food.”
“Probably for the best after what happened the last time Drayton’s team members were here.” Leroy gave his son an amused but disapproving stare as he headed for the fridge and retrieved a beer. Drayton shrugged.
Josh and Gabby were sitting on a small two-seater sofa beside the floor-to-ceiling glass patio doors at the end of the kitchen, and I was about to join them when we heard a cluster of footsteps, the door closing, and a sing song of hellos from the front passage before Cass and two children appeared.
“Hey, Cass,” Ellie rounded the kitchen island and took the bottle of wine that Cass held out. She pecked Cass’s cheek and greeted the two young children. I recognized Coen but I hadn’t met the little girl. She was a spitting image of her mother, with tight ringlets and bright-blue eyes. Two of her front teeth were missing as well. She must have been around seven, and it was obvious that she was going to be a heartbreaker when she was older.
Cass said hello to Leroy before she gave Gabby and Josh a quick wave. I took the last tortilla out of the frying pan and added it to the plate in the warming oven, proud of myself for completing such an important task. It wouldn’t be dinner without the tortillas. Drayton laced our fingers together and we strolled over to the other side of the island where he embraced his aunt in a one-armed hug, still keeping his grip on my hand.
“Hello, you two.” Her smile was warm. She slipped an envelope into his hand. “How are you both? Good to see you again, Dallas.”
Drayton dropped the envelope onto the countertop without opening it.
“When did you meet Dallas?” Ellie asked with furrowed brows as she dropped a package of ground beef into a frying pan.
The three of us exchanged wide-eyed, cautionary glances. Drayton’s parents were aware of our away-game antics, but we hadn’t gone into specifics about what we had actually got up to. Drayton was usually so quick with his wit that I’d expected him to cover for us, but he was at a loss for words.
“At the away game,” Cass finally answered with a convincing smile. “In Fort Collins. I went and watched the game. That’s where I met her.”
“You went and watched a varsity football game?” Leroy questioned her with an arched brow and a doubtful tone. “Since when do you watch varsity football?”
“Since it was my nephew playing, and I was being supportive.”
Cass smiled a that-was-close grin and changed the subject. “How are things between you,”—her eyes flickered toward our joined hands—“two who are ‘just friends.’”
“Things have changed a little since then,” Drayton declared with pride. I glanced up to find him regarding me with an affectionate gaze and, as always, my response to his adoring looks was an erratic heartbeat and an eruption of flutters in the pit of my stomach.
Our moment was adorably interrupted by a little Coen, who was bouncing up and down with outstretched arms and twinkling fingers. “Dray-Dray!”
“Hey, little dude.” Drayton scooped the toddler up and perched him comfortably on his forearm. Coen wrapped his arm around Drayton’s neck and grinned with significantly greater energy than he’d had the last time I’d met him. The young girl, who’d been quietly chatting to Leroy, skipped toward us with a small grin.
“Draaaaay,” she sang.
“Yes, Lucy?” Drayton gave her his undivided attention while he continued to bounce the little boy on his arm. I’d never seen him more domestic. Or more gorgeous, for that matter.
“Coen wants to know who that girl is.”
She pointed a finger at me with a shy, toothless grin. It was adorable, and I believed I used to use the same tactic to get answers to questions that I didn’t want to ask.
“Oh, that’s Dallas,” Drayton smiled, putting Coen down again. “My baby momma.”
Tension seized the entire room. Silence was all that followed his statement. It was so quiet that I could hear the groan of the fridge and the beating of my own heart. Ellie stopped grating. Leroy’s shoulders became rigid. They both stared at me with bewilderment and a touch of outrage. Lucy looked more confused than anything.
“What’s a baby momma?”
“You better be kidding,” Leroy snapped, his thunderous glare moving between the two of us.
“Excuse me. Teen father”—Drayton pointed at his own chest—“I’m the evidence. Don’t be a hypocrite.”
“Touché,” Cass laughed.
Gabby and Josh stared at the floor, attempting to smother their laughter. Ellie gave her son a warning stare. “Dray—”
“I’m kidding.” He rolled his eyes and waved his hand flippantly. “I wrap it before I tap it. You’re on the pill anyway, right, babe?”
Ellie forced a laugh while her husband muttered obscenities and Cass sniggered, pouring herself a glass of wine. I slapped Drayton in the chest with a backhand.
Drayton chuckled. I slapped his arm again for good measure. “Rough. I like it.”
He kissed my neck and although it made my toes curl, I leaned forward and attempted to move out of his hold. There was only one person who could possibly annoy and turn me on at the same time.
“Stop,” I whispered. “Not while there’s so many people around.”
“I don’t care who sees.” He turned me around and cupped the nape of my neck, locking our lips in a tasteful, gentle kiss. It had such a whirlwind effect.
“Food’s ready.”
The kitchen became a flurry of frenzied bodies, scraping chairs, and loud inhaling as people took in the aroma of the delicious meal that was laid out on the table. My mind wandered to Nathan, and I felt a little guilty that he’d probably fix himself toast or noodles because I hadn’t let him know about my plans. He’d no doubt texted me, but my phone was in my coat upstairs, and I wasn’t going to check it now. I was almost certain that Drayton would follow me, and then we’d never get to eat. Well, not burritos anyway.
During the first half-hour of the meal, there wasn’t a lot of chitchat as everyone was too busy devouring the delicious food that Drayton’s mother had made, which, to make no exaggeration about it, was mouthwatering.
But as the rush to eat settled, the conversation picked up. Gabby, Josh, Drayton, and I were on one side of the table. Cass, Ellie, Leroy, and the kids were on the other. Gabby talked with Ellie for a while. She spent more time here than I did, so it wasn’t surprising that she was close to Drayton’s mom.
Cass chatted to us when she could, but she did spend quite some time taming her toddler, who didn’t want to be at the table. And then Leroy decided to pick up the conversation. He leaned an elbow on the tabletop and clutched a cold beer.
“Good New Year’s, Dallas?”
“It was good, thanks. Quiet, but nice. I spent it with my brother for the most part.”
“Parents?”
“Dad.” Drayton paused with his burrito midway to his mouth in front of him. “Come on. I tol—”
“It’s okay,” I interrupted and smiled with assurance that it didn’t bother me to talk about. Of course, his loss was different, so his reaction would be too. “My brother looks after us. My parents died when we were kids.”
Leroy nodded and there was a subtle flinch of empathy on his face before he continued. “So you don’t plan on going to college?”
“No, I do. I’ve been saving up for college for a while now. I want to major in dance. I’ve got a part-time job at Rocky Ryan’s in town, and my brother is going to help too. Plus, I’ve applied for financial aid, and I think I have a good shot at getting it …”
“What colleges have you applied to?”
“My top pick is CalArts.” I nodded and noticed Drayton, sitting with his elbows on t
he table and his hands clasped in front of his chin beside me. His shoulders were tense and his thumb grazed back and forth across his bottom lip. “I just had an audition for their dance program.”
“CalArts as in California?” Leroy asked, watching me as he drank his beer. It was startling to see how alike he and Drayton were.
“No, Dad,” Drayton interrupted when I began to nod in confirmation. “CalArts as in Caledonia.”
The rest of the table were eating and immersed in their own conversations, but I caught Ellie checking out of her chitchat with Cass once in a while, watching the three of us with particular interest, more so when her son piped up with something sarcastic and irritating.
“You didn’t want to apply for SMU? They have a commendable dance program.”
“Can we not do this right now?” Drayton snapped.
Leroy watched me, waiting for an answer. I looked at Gabby and she was focused on anything but the subtle drama that was unfolding. I wished that she could save me right now.
“I did apply at SMU, but I didn’t get an audition. If CalArts doesn’t accept me then … I’ll probably try again next year. I don’t really want to go anywhere else.”
Leroy shrugged after a moment of deliberation. “Longdistance relationships work. It’s not the end of the world if you and Drayton end up in different states.”
“Dad,” Drayton warned.
Ellie leaned in closer beside her husband, her soft features contorted with concern. She placed a hand on his forearm and murmured for him to drop it for now.
But he didn’t. “Drayton is attending Baylor. Close to SMU. That school has seen generations of Laheys graduate. I just get the feeling that something is holding him back from writing his letter of intent.”
Drayton’s palms slammed down on the tabletop and his chair pushed back, scraping the stone floor. He stood up and offered me his hand while his glare remained fixed on his father. “Couldn’t leave it alone for one fucking night. It’s my damn birthday for fuck sakes.”
Ellie watched him, inching out of her seat while her gaze glimmered with concern. “Dray—”
“Come on, Dallas.”
The QB Bad Boy and Me Page 25
