by Max Monroe
Until now.
Being without him was hard.
And being with him was starting to feel a lot like home.
She hit me like a wave, all citrus bursts and sweet shampoo, and my arms closed around her tightly. Her body felt familiar and warm and like it was made to be pressed close to mine.
“Kitty Cat,” I murmured softly into one giant swirling curl in her hair.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” she whispered back, the vibration from her heartfelt words making my swallow even thicker than normal.
If I was being honest, I couldn’t believe I was here either. The team plane had landed in Newark nearly four hours ago after a resounding win in Pittsburgh, and every minute since had been spent finding a way to get here. To be fair, Jilly did most of the actual plan-making, but a quick drive to Teterboro—a smaller airport in New Jersey—a chartered private plane later, and here I was. It wasn’t planned, and it wasn’t calculated; it was all feeling-driven action, and I was powerless against it.
“I missed you,” I admitted into the top of her head, bending over to let her toes make contact with the ground again.
“I missed you too.” She stared at me for a minute, searching my eyes so intently I had a hard time letting myself blink. She broke the contact to look down at her feet and rambled self-consciously. “I wanted to come to your game, really. But I couldn’t figure out how to get someone else to cover my schedule and—”
“Cat,” I interrupted, putting my hands to her jaw and applying gentle pressure.
Her chin came up so that her warm brown eyes could meet mine.
“What?” she whispered.
“Be quiet.”
She nodded, her gaze flicking down to my lips for barely a moment—that was all I gave her before crushing them to her own.
Her mouth was pliant and inviting and tasted like every fantasy I’d ever had. My throat rattled with a groan, and my hands skimmed down her sides to meet her hips. She was all flesh and sweater, and my fingertips dug in, eager to brand themselves into her being and stay there.
She tasted like water, if I were a man dying of thirst.
Though, if I weren’t particularly parched, she tasted like something a lot less bland.
Her lips worked under mine, stretching and molding to make my access to her tongue as easy as possible. Secretly, I didn’t need the advantage. With the amount of longing that had been burning in my lungs for the last few days, I would have plundered.
Eyes were on us as I pulled away—I could feel them.
When you were in the public eye for as long as I’d been, you didn’t need to see to believe. The stares were weighty, and all that energy focused on you made the back of your neck pulse.
My gaze stayed with Cat, despite the feeling, as I took both of her hands in mine and rubbed at her knuckles.
I’d done my best to stay incognito with the hat, but better disguises had failed. I had hope, though, that the attention had more to do with the public display than anyone really knowing who I was.
“Can I take you somewhere?” I asked, not knowing I was going to say it before the words were out of my mouth.
Just like the decision that had brought me here, the drive to take her home—to introduce her to my family—wasn’t one of careful planning.
It just felt right.
She nodded her yes without even asking where I meant.
I smiled. “You don’t even know where I want to go.”
The soft curls of what I knew was carefully straightened and smoothed hair swayed with the motion of her head. “It doesn’t matter.” She giggled a little. “I’ll go anywhere, as long as you’re going with me.”
Awareness of us ticked up, and people started to take out their phones behind Cat’s back. I grabbed her hand and started to walk. “Come on, then. We’ve got a little ride.”
As I pushed my parents’ front door open with a gentle hand and put a finger to my lips, it was clear Cat was starting to regret her impulsive agreement to go anywhere with me.
But I was sneaking her into my parents’ house in the middle of the night, without said parents knowing we were coming. I didn’t really know a lot of people who wouldn’t balk at that.
Her eyes glowed with annoyance while I pushed the door closed and took her hand to guide her to the stairs.
She mouthed something into the darkness. I could see her mouth moving—and I even had a pretty idea of what she was saying as she pointed to a picture of me on the wall—but I acted as though the dark of night was too much. “Sorry, kitten. I can’t hear you.”
She shook her head and squeezed my hand—pretty fucking hard for such a little thing—and I had to turn away to hide my smile.
When we finally made it to my room, shut the door, and turned on the light, her body was a snake, ready to strike.
“Tell me this isn’t your parents’ house,” she whispered, and my silence was more than enough answer. She looked at more pictures of me on the wall and tossed a glare in my direction. “Oh. My. God. I can’t believe we came to your parents’ house in the middle of the freaking night! Are they even awake? Do they know we’re here?”
“Well…tomorrow, when they wake up, I’ll definitely tell them we’re here.”
I didn’t think it was possible, but her glare grew stronger.
“You said you’d go anywhere,” I reminded her, knowing full well I was taking my life in my hands a little bit.
“Yeah, well,” she whisper-yelled. “I thought we’d at least be going somewhere where the people knew we were coming!”
“Where’s your sense of adventure, kitten?”
Her eyes were sharp, and her mind was better. “Back at the airport.”
I burst out laughing, and she dove on me, her tiny hand doing its best to muzzle my mouth. “There’s seriously something wrong with you.”
I smiled under her hand and mumbled my response. “Youb glub pee.”
“What?” she asked, her eyes wide and a little bit frightened as she pulled her hand slowly off of my mouth.
I didn’t stumble, I didn’t stutter, and I didn’t hold back. “I said you love me.” I grabbed her cheeks and brought her face to mine, touching our lips together in the sweetest kiss I’d ever been a part of. “And I love you too.”
“Quinn,” she whispered, unshed tears shimmering in her eyes.
“Quiet, baby,” I ordered with a shake of my head. “I know how you can agree with me, without having to talk.”
I left Cat sleeping in bed as I crept quietly out of my room and made my way down the stairs to the kitchen. It was just before six in the morning, but I knew my parents would be awake, just settling in at the table for breakfast.
The newspaper cracked as my dad shook it in front of himself, and my mom picked at a half of a grapefruit with a spoon.
I paused at the entry and cleared my throat, hoping to ease the intensity with which I startled them.
My mom turned with a gasp, and my dad pulled the paper down sharply, rising to his feet.
“Hey, Mom,” I greeted. “Dad.”
“Quinn!” my mom said, her voice as excited as I’d ever heard it. It went up at the end, almost like a question, and the sheer power of it brought her to her feet.
My dad’s face, however, turned down into a scowl. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you in New Jersey, at practice?”
Always the strong, stubborn father who never wanted his sons to fail at anything, sometimes my dad had a hard time remembering I was a full-grown adult.
I kept my voice even, stretching it out straight like a pipe running across the room. “It’s the day after game day, Dad. We don’t have practice until tomorrow.”
His eyebrows didn’t look any less like a cartoon. “I’ll repeat. What the hell are you doing here?”
“Beau,” my mom chastised quickly. “It’s good to see him.”
I ignored my mom, knowing she wasn’t the one I really needed to win over in this situation. Sh
e might be cold at times, but she was almost never harsh.
My father could be both, and he could be vicious in his method.
And the point of this visit wasn’t to argue. I needed him calm and relaxed before I introduced him to Cat.
“I…” I paused, swallowing thickly before admitting, “brought someone to meet you.”
“One of your teammates?” my dad asked hopefully. My mom, however, had a firmer grip on the situation.
“Beau, he’s brought a woman home.”
My dad looked behind me, dramatically meeting my eyes when he came up empty. “I don’t see one.”
I stepped farther into the room before speaking then, leaning into the island with a hand and meeting them both in the eyes. “She’s upstairs sleeping.”
The sound of a soft swallow from behind me brought my head around.
Cat, dressed demurely in her pajamas, thankfully, stood in the entry to the kitchen, my phone extended in her hand. She looked to me and then glanced nervously to my parents. “I’m so sorry to interrupt.” She focused on me before whispering, “Your phone wouldn’t stop ringing.”
I took it from her hands and scrolled through the notifications.
Nathan and Jilly, a dance of calls between them, their siren song on repeat.
I put my phone facedown on the counter and ignored it. Both of them could wait. There was absolutely no way I was going to abandon Cat to fend for herself with my parents now. I’d been hoping to have more time to prep them—to implore that they be on their best behavior with the woman I was in love with.
But this would have to do.
“Mom, Dad…this is Catharine Wild. My girlfriend.”
We’d arrived at the Bailey home late last night, his parents not even knowing we were there, and now, after being introduced to them this morning—all of forty minutes ago—I had never felt more uncomfortable.
When Quinn had brought me here after we’d left the airport, I’d had a moment of sheer panic. I mean, meeting the parents was a big deal, and of course, I wanted to give a good impression.
This was the man I love—yes, love—and I wanted his parents to like me.
Any sane human being would want that.
Once we’d gotten some sleep, and I’d freshened up in the bathroom, I’d felt excited to meet his mom and dad. Happy, even. It was a huge step in our relationship.
But then, I’d met them.
And that’s where things had taken a nose dive.
If I’d calculated their welcoming attitude on a warmth scale, it would have been a frigid five degrees. Any second, I felt like I’d start seeing my breath leave my lips and icicles forming on their windows.
His mother and father appeared more interested in the television, the kitchen, hell, anything besides even looking in my direction.
The worst part of all, I had no idea where any of it was coming from.
Initially, when Quinn had first introduced me after I’d interrupted their conversation in the kitchen because his phone wouldn’t stop ringing, I thought maybe we’d caught them on a bad or busy morning. And I hadn’t judged or gotten discouraged, at first.
People had the right to have bad days sometimes. Lord knows, I’d had my share of shit days. And sometimes, even when you had the best intentions to make a good first impression, the stressors of a bad day could hinder your ability to be positive and happy.
Not to mention, it was first thing in the morning. They’d just woken up. We’d caught them off guard. Usually, it took me a full cup of coffee before I could fully engage in human interaction.
I’d understood all of those possibilities and mentally convinced myself that was probably what the initial uncomfortable meet-and-greet had been caused by.
I’d figured that once we spent a little time with them, chatted over coffee or lemonade or sweet tea or whatever it was Southerners liked to drink, everyone would loosen up, and the ice would be broken.
But the ice hadn’t broken. It’d only grown thicker, colder, and more rigid with each small-talk exchange.
And now that I was fully dressed, we sat side by side at the formal dining table, with Mrs. Bailey directly across from us. Her posture rigid, her eyes looking everywhere but directly at us, and her husband, well, he was nowhere to be found.
Prior to our sitting down at the table, Mr. Bailey had muttered something about a carburetor and oil check and disappeared to the garage. That was fifteen minutes ago.
Quinn cleared his throat. I took a sip of sweet tea—apparently, a Southerner’s drink of choice, even in the morning hours. And Mrs. Bailey tapped her fingers across the white lace tablecloth of her dining table while her eyes unceremoniously moved around the room, the house, basically, anywhere but the in direction where I sat.
A heavy silence settled over us, thicker than the tension that had already accumulated in the air, and I felt like a morgue held more conversation than this dining room. I swallowed hard against the unease that was working its way up from my belly.
“Mom,” Quinn announced in the otherwise deadly silent room, “Do you remember how much you loved the old Allied airline flight attendant uniforms?”
“Yes.” She nodded, one curt, very short nod, at that.
“Cat is a flight attendant at a newer airline, and you’ll never believe this, their uniforms are uncannily similar to those old Allied ones.”
Internally, I grimaced. I knew what he was trying to do here, but apparently, his parents wanted nothing to do with it, or me. I mean, his mother couldn’t even look at me, and his father had hightailed it for the garage not long after I’d arrived.
“That’s nice, dear,” she responded, and her cheeks strained as she forced a brittle smile to her face.
“How long have you been with RoyalAir, kitten?” Quinn asked, and his blue eyes met mine.
“Uh…a little over seven months now.”
“Mom, you’d love RoyalAir’s uniforms,” he stated, in another attempt to draw any sort of interest from his mom. “Personally, I’d never fully taken the time to appreciate flight attendant uniforms until I was sitting on a flight that ended up in Atlanta.” Quinn flashed a smirk in my direction while his hand discreetly gripped my knee under the table.
But his mother, well, she didn’t offer anything but a clear of her throat and a glance in the direction of the garage. “Beau!” she called toward the closed door. “Do you need any help in there?”
Holy hell, now she was trying to find a way to get the hell out of dodge—aka far, far away from me—too. This woman was not the kind of woman who helped in the garage. From the pearls around her neck to the perfect winter white color of her sweater, Mrs. Bailey was a woman.
“Hey, Dixie!” Mr. Bailey called back. “Mind coming in here for a second?”
“Sure thing, honey!” she responded and hopped out of her chair like her life depended on getting to the garage as quickly as humanly possible.
I bet if I’d timed her, she would’ve broken records for quickest woman in the house.
Air sawed at my lungs, the war between upset that she couldn’t stand to be in the same room with me and relief that she’d finally gone tugging the blade back and forth. I tried to find the strength to ask Quinn what in the hell was going on in a nice, neutral way. I needed to understand what was happening, but I didn’t want to insult him. Family was always a touchy subject, and questions could seem like an attack.
But I had things on my mind.
Was there anything I could do differently?
Did they feel ambushed by our showing up in the middle of the night and just appearing at their kitchen table during breakfast?
Did I smell like a garbage can, and I didn’t even realize it?
Anything to help get some peace of mind.
Before I could verbalize my thoughts, his mother’s voice filled my ears. “Hey, Quinn,” she called. “Come into the garage for a minute! Your daddy needs some help!”
He furrowed his brow, and his gaze met mine. �
�Uh…I’ll be right back,” he said, and I nodded.
“Okay.” I silently thanked God he hadn’t tried to drag me in there with him. I feared the instant I stepped into that garage, his parents might try to hop in their car and peel out of the driveway.
I watched Quinn walk out of the dining room, through the kitchen, and into the garage, shutting the door behind him as he went.
I decided to use that time to take a bathroom break and try to find the strength to get through the rest of this visit.
As I walked through the kitchen and took a left past the garage, I could hear the muffled sounds of Quinn’s voice, and with each step toward the bathroom, his voice grew louder, clearer.
By the time I walked inside the first-floor bathroom and closed the door behind me, I could literally hear everything they were saying inside the garage.
“What’s going on with you, Quinn?” his mother asked, concern etching her voice. “Are you feeling okay?”
He sighed. “Of course I’m feeling okay.”
“Then why did you bring her to our house?” his father chimed in, and I watched my own face react to that question in the mirror, brow furrowed, lips slightly parted.
Her? What did he even mean by that?
“What are you talking about, Dad?” Quinn questioned, and irritation creased his voice. “What do you even mean with that question?”
“You know what your father means,” his mother responded. “Obviously, this isn’t the type of girl you’d settle down with, so why would you even bother bringing her to our home to meet us? That’s not very nice to give her hope like that, Quinn.”
My eyes grew wide, and my cheeks stretched down as my bottom lip dropped farther open. Any second now, I might have to catch my jaw with my hand before it hit the bathroom sink.
“Mom, she is the exact type of girl I’d settle down with. She’s my girlfriend. That’s the whole reason I brought her here. I was excited for you to meet her. I wanted you to meet her because she’s really fucking important to me.”
Tears pricked my eyes. This entire situation was beyond uncomfortable. What should have been a nice, simple meeting of the parents had turned into this ugly, cold clusterfuck of confusion.
