by Taylor Hart
“Wow.” Immediately, she smelled something wonderful. “How did you?”
He winked at her. “Professional football player. I have connections, remember?” Letting out a nervous laugh, he held her bag and moved her down the hall into a large open space with tall windows. The architecture was modern. It looked like it was modeled after a warehouse. “It used to be a factory, but they refurbished it into apartments.” Jace shrugged casually and walked out into the living room.
Looking out the huge wall-to-ceiling windows, she was overwhelmed by the view of Denver and the Storm stadium.
“I chose this place because I can literally run over to the stadium, and the practice facility is right next to it. Lots of times, I just use the run over to warm up.”
She laughed, thinking it was still probably a mile to the stadium. “Yes, a warm-up.”
Quirking a smile, he gestured to a different hallway. “This way. You’ll like your room, I think.”
Following, she was pretty sure she would like anywhere Jace Harding took her. At Lamaze, when he’d passed out, she’d gotten to see him a bit out of sorts and vulnerable, and it had been nice. It wasn’t like she hadn’t realized his sacrifice to stay with her and help her, but at the class, she felt even more gratitude towards him.
What would she do when he wasn’t living with her anymore, when she had a new baby? Would they even stay in touch? They would, right?
“Here it is.” He waited for her to enter the room. To her surprise, it was very feminine with soft blue walls and white, see-through curtains. The bed had a pink and blue floral print cover, and all the furniture in the room looked comfortable. There was a separate room that held a couch, a television, and a rocking chair. Beyond that was a huge bathroom with an enormous bathtub and shower.
“Mom and Dad come and stay sometimes, especially after a game. Sometimes, Mom will come stay for a couple of days and cook for me or just be here.” He shrugged. “She’s been worried about me these past couple of months.”
Addison paused at the bed and touched the soft fabric of the bedspread. “It’s so soft and beautiful.”
Jace put her bag on a footstool next to the bed and smiled at her. Their eyes held, and she felt butterflies in the lower part of her stomach. “What?” he asked, looking less intense than normal. He had worn jeans, a T-shirt, and tennis shoes to Lamaze. She couldn’t help thinking about how it had felt to have his strong arms around her, to lie back against his solid frame.
Yeah, she was attracted to him. Way attracted to him. Which was stupid because he was Jace Harding. Her friend!
Putting a hand out to her, he waited. “Let’s go see what the chef cooked up.”
“You want me to take your hand?”
The side of his lip tugged up. “Hey, I did have my hands on your sensitive belly button tonight.” He said it like he’d won some game.
Giving in, she took his hand and followed him out of the room, back into the living room, and into the modern kitchen with hanging steel lights and sterling silver appliances.
The table was elegantly set, and the Italian food looked delicious. She suddenly realized she was starving. He pulled the chair out for her, and she sat.
The kitchen, just like the living room, featured floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the city. The sun had gone down, and the lights were just turning on.
He sat, crossed himself, and bowed his head. “Do you want to pray?”
She did, finding herself thanking God for so many things including the food, the chance to have Jace help her, and the baby. She asked the Lord to bless Jace and his job contract, praying things would work out like they should for him. When she ended the prayer, she was surprised to find tears on her face. It felt like her emotions were so up and down at the moment.
At the end of her prayer, his eyes were wet too. “Thank you. Why are you crying?”
She shrugged, embarrassed. “I don’t know.”
He nodded, gesturing to the food. “Now eat, woman. Blood sugar.”
Smiling, she dug into the delicious meal of fish, brown noodles, and vegetables. She could tell the meal was good for people with blood sugar issues, but it was still delicious. Judging by how quickly he ate, Jace was obviously hungry too.
They both ate quietly for a bit, and then she asked, “What team do you think you’ll be traded to if they don’t give you more money for your contract?”
Staring out at the city, Jace shrugged. The edge of his jaw looked pronounced. She noticed he kind of gritted his teeth as if he was thinking hard. “Don’t know. I guess one of the California teams maybe. The California Wave needs a good running back. I thought California might not be a bad place to go.” He turned to her. “The beach. The sun. Might be a nice change from the winters.”
Her heart hammered inside her chest. “Yeah,” she said noncommittally.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, there was something. You don’t like California?”
“No, it’s fine. I mean, I went to Disneyland when I was young. That’s pretty much all I know about it.”
“Hmm.”
“Does it matter if I like it?” she asked, frustrated. She knew her face was turning red, and she knew her voice revealed her angst about having him leave.
Spreading his hands, he said, “I guess not.”
It didn’t make sense to her why he would be acting this way. What did he mean, did she like it?
They lapsed into silence for a few more minutes, eating their meal. It was strange because it felt like they were in a fight, but she knew they weren’t. They didn’t have any cause to be.
A couple more minutes into the meal, she heard her phone buzz, which was unusual because she didn’t get that many calls. Jace got up and rushed to her purse, dug out her phone, and handed it to her. After talking for a few minutes on the phone to the director at the Refugee Center, she got off with new tears falling down her cheeks.
“What’s wrong?” Jace looked visibly upset, like he would pound whoever had made her cry.
“You,” she said, sniffing.
“Me?” He put his hand to his chest.
“You bought furniture for that family I was helping today. Didn’t you?”
Looking caught, he exhaled and took another bite.
More tears flowed. “I don’t understand you.”
Looking up at her, he smiled. “Hey, I promised you a million in donations. I thought I’d just get started.”
“Yeah.” She rolled her eyes, hating the fact that everything Jace did made him more attractive to her. She shook her head, thinking that in two weeks she’d be having a baby, and he would be leaving. At the beginning, it hadn’t mattered, but now it felt harder to handle. She took a couple of more bites and a sip of water.
Jace let out a long breath. “You’re a good influence on me, Livingston.”
Surprised at this admission, but liking it, she didn’t know whether to take it in a patronizing way or in a “thank you for being in my life” kind of way.
“Hey,” he said. “I was thinking we could use my hot tub. It’s in my room. Well, in another room inside my room. You could soak your feet for a couple of minutes and talk to me.”
Thinking about sticking her feet in a hot tub sounded heavenly, and seeing Jace’s abs might be a bit heavenly as well. No, no, no. She had to get those kinds of ideas out of her mind.
“So what do you say? Hot tub?”
She stared into his hazel eyes, feeling more than a little lost as the candlelight touched the flecks of gold and melted her heart.
Chapter 17
Jace sat in the hot tub, staring out over the city. The ability to see out from almost every room in his apartment was one of the main reasons he bought the place.
Granted, it’d also been a nice place to get away from Castle Rock and, from all the memories of Stacy. When he was having a hard day, it comforted him to look out and wonder about all the people in the city and what they were d
oing. For him, living in a city made him feel less alone.
“Hey.”
He turned and watched Addison walk slowly, cautiously into his room. He motioned her into the hot tub room. He’d purposely had it sequestered off because he didn’t like the moisture seeping into everything. She wore shorts and a T-shirt, but she’d pulled her hair up, and it made her round cheeks more pronounced. When he met her sky blue eyes, she smiled at him. There was a mole right above the right side of her lip. She was beautiful. Marilyn Monroe kind of beautiful, girl next door but movie-ish at the same time.
Walking in, she took a deep breath. “It’s uncovered?”
“I had the room designed this way. I wanted to be able to be outside and inside the hot tub at the same time.”
Looking around, she walked over to the hot tub. “It’s awesome.” She looked out over the city.
It pleased him that she liked it. This had been the main point of their jaunt into his apartment tonight, to help get her mind off of everything. Standing, he reached out to help her into the hot tub. “I was thinking you could sit there.” He pointed to a bench-like ledge. “It’s not deep and you can just dip your feet in and enjoy the night sky.” He probably didn’t have to walk her into the part of the hot tub where she could sit, but he didn’t want to take a chance she would slip.
After getting settled, he stayed next to her and couldn’t help but study her.
Playfully, she splashed him. “Why are you staring at me like that?” She gestured to the city. “When there’s a view like this?”
He didn’t take his eyes off of her. “Because you’re beautiful, Addison.”
Shaking her head, she turned to the city. “Jace, you don’t have to lie to make a pregnant woman feel good.”
Ignoring her last comment, he picked up one of her feet, took it between both of his hands, and began rubbing.
“Mmm.” Clearly, she couldn’t resist this.
He kneaded her soles and worked his way to the top and then her ankles. She complained about them being too big, but he didn’t think they were. He inspected them.
“What now?” she asked, sounding frustrated.
“Hey, you have cute ankles, okay?” When she tried to pull her foot back, he tightened his grip. “I know you’re pregnant, and I know they’re swollen, but you still have nice legs.”
Once again, their eyes connected. He wished he could explain to her how beautiful he thought she was. “Whatever.” She turned to the view.
For a few moments, he just focused on her feet. Then he decided to ask questions he’d never been brave enough to ask, but to which he badly wanted to know the answers. “Where did you meet Tim?”
She didn’t look at him. “On campus at CSU. Creative writing class.”
Figured. Jace hated being jealous of their history. “What did you like about him?” Had he been putting together a list of reasons she might have liked Tim? Especially today when he went through his things? Totally, and it was driving him crazy.
She sighed. “I don’t really want to do this.”
“Fine.”
“Unless you want to answer the same questions about Stacy.”
Jace’s mind whirled with possible questions she would ask and how he would answer. “Okay.”
“How did you meet?”
He sighed. “It was my first year at the Storm, coming out of CSU. We had just won a game, and she was at a party.”
“Oh,” was all she said.
“Honestly, I liked that she was a model. I liked how much she liked me. Looking back, I felt like I lost myself. I lost everything I’d believed in. I even lost my mother’s respect.”
Addison let out a light laugh. “Yeah, your mom did not like her.”
Jace felt himself relax a bit, talking about his mom. “She doesn’t have a hard time telling people what she thinks. She didn’t get along with Stacy at all. All the things my mom values—God, family, goodness, cooking—weren’t exactly Stacy.”
They sat there for a while, enjoying the hot tub.
“So, what was good about Tim?”
“What?”
“You’re helping people from other countries getting resettled into our country. You devote a lot of time and energy helping them. Did Tim do that too?”
A weird look passed over her face, and she turned away. “No. He didn’t. I … We fought about how I gave my time to those causes because Tim wanted to ‘focus on the business,’” she said, making air quotes. “Focus on making money. Focus on getting a better house, even though I bought the house with my mom’s insurance money after she passed.” She sighed. “I still live off of some of it. He wanted to invest the rest of it in his business, but I wouldn’t let him, and I’m glad I didn’t.”
Jace noticed how her voice caught in her throat, and his heart ached. He hadn’t realized this.
“I told you Tim didn’t want kids, but what I didn’t tell you was that we fought the night of the car crash. I was mad because he’d told me all day that he would put up the swing out in the yard. I had it in my mind that if I had a swing, I could hold the baby in it. He’d finally given in and put up the swing. We were on our way to Home Depot to get what we needed to fix things around the house and we were fighting. He told me he thought I got pregnant as a manipulation to distract him from the business.” She barked out a bitter laugh. “I was crying when we were hit.” She shrugged then turned back to him. “Now you know my secret. The one that makes me have nightmares. I killed my husband.”
“What?”
“I did.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Did you hear what I said? It was my fault. He was distracted by me.”
Jace frowned, feeling as stern as his father. “That is not true. You have to know that. He could have been distracted by something in the road. By the song on the radio. By anything.”
She didn’t respond right away, and he saw tears in her eyes. “I hate it because I love this baby so much, and I just wish she had a father, but I don’t know what it would have been like even if Tim would have lived. Sometimes, I think maybe it’s better.” She let out a sob. “Then I feel horrible for feeling that way.”
Jace waited. Adrenaline pumped through him like he’d just run a fifty-yard route.
She wiped beneath her eyes and sighed. “I’m sorry.”
He wanted to pull her into him and hold her, but he didn’t know if she would let him, so he moved next to her and took her hand instead.
She looked at their hands. “Jace, I really appreciate all you have been doing for me. All you are doing for me. But you’re not going to be able to fix this. You’re not going to be able to drive the ball to the end zone and win the game. This is my stuff. Stuff I’m working on, and I will work through it. Okay?”
Jace still wanted to do something, but he knew he couldn’t. “This isn’t me trying to fix things,” he said quietly. He thought about Stacy, all the times he’d ignored the signs of what was happening because he didn’t want it all to fall apart. “Honestly, I don’t know how to fix things.”
She squeezed his hand and then reached up and gently touched the five-o’clock shadow on his face. Holding still, he felt his breath catch in his throat. He wanted to kiss her so badly.
“You’re a good man, Jace. A great man, and just because you got messed over and you didn’t see it only means something good is coming to you.”
Jace wasn’t sure if it was the certainty in her eyes or the way her hand calmed the doubts buried deep inside of him, but he put his hand over hers and knew that he didn’t want to move to California. He didn’t want her to have this baby and then be alone. He wanted to be in her life. To have her baby be his baby. “Addison …”
She stood. “I need to get out.”
The words stuck in his throat.
She waved a hand into the air and turned to the door. “You stay.”
He didn’t want to take any chances with her and her condition. “No, I’ll walk you to your room. T
hen you can shower, and I’ll come tuck you in.”
“Will you watch a funny comedy with me?” she asked. They had started doing that instead of the crime stuff.
He wanted to tell her what he really wanted to do was kiss her, but he let it go. Did she even want that? This? Him? He pushed his desires aside. “You read my mind.” He smiled at her as he helped her out of the hot tub then walked soaking wet with her to the guest room.
She pulled away from him. “I’m fine. Go shower. Then you can check on me.”
He rushed back to his room and closed up the hot tub then shut up the room. Flying into the shower, he rushed through and hurriedly put on sweats and a T-shirt.
After he was done, he knocked at her door. She called out for him to enter. He went in and saw her on the bed, propped up with the pillow behind her. Her phone was out, and she was watching a show. Not asking, he jumped over her onto the bed and made himself comfortable next to her.
She laughed. “Well, make yourself at home. But I guess it is your home.”
He nudged her playfully, grabbed the remote off the bedside table, and turned on the television on the wall opposite her bed. “Hush, Livingston. I get to decide the funny show tonight. Turn off your phone.”
Complying, she turned to him. “Hmm.”
“Quiet.” He pointed at her. “It won’t be a crime one.” He located the best show ever and then used the same remote to dim the lights.
“Fancy.”
He winked at her. “The best.”
“I would be disappointed if it was anything else. I mean, you are Jace Harding—famous football player.” There was something in her voice that caught his attention and made him turn to look at her. “It’s crazy, isn’t it? That we’re friends?”
Wanting to tell her his feelings, but not knowing if she was trying to tell him something, he nodded and turned back to the television. “Uh, yeah.” With that, he started the show.
“The Three Stooges?” She groaned, but relaxed against him.
At one point he went to the kitchen and got them glasses of water and made popcorn. As they settled back in, he didn’t want to admit how good it felt to just be here with her, sitting in bed and watching the Stooges. He smelled her coconut shampoo and imagined what it would be like to have her be his wife. He took her hand. Not seeming to notice, she continued to watch.
