“What?” She leaned away. “I just did. Were you not listening to me? Seriously?”
“I heard you.” I grinned. “Do it again.”
She cupped my face. “I love you.”
The words had barely escaped before I sealed my mouth over hers, sweeping inside for some of that sugar.
Nellie clung to my shoulders, kissing me until we were both breathless. Then I swept her up off the ground, spinning her in my arms.
“Fuck, but I love you, woman.”
Nellie wrapped her legs around my waist, her fingers threading through the hair at my temples.
A bank of lights on the school’s second floor shut off. They were closing up, and it wouldn’t be long before the entire building was dark.
“We’d better get out of here,” Nellie said. “We could fly home tomorrow.”
“Can’t yet.”
“Why? Did you have plans with your mom?”
“No. Now we have to spend the weekend fucking in a hotel.” We’d do Charlotte and all the other hookups again, but this time, we’d do them better.
She rolled her eyes. “Cal Stark, you are such a romantic.”
I brushed my mouth to hers. “If you want romance, I’ll show you romance.”
“Nah.” She smiled against my lips. “Tell me more about this hotel room.”
EPILOGUE
NELLIE
Three years later . . .
“Cal’s, um, a little extreme.” Mom tried to hide her eye roll, but she failed. “He realizes this is T-ball, right?”
“He just gets excited for the kids.” And this was an improvement over the last three weekends, not something I’d admit to my parents. When it came to my husband, they were overly critical, so I’d learned to be careful about what I shared.
Mom and Dad, each seated in a camp chair beside mine, shared a look.
“Let’s go. Let’s go.” Cal clapped his hands as the kids on our team raced out of the dugout with their gloves in hand. “Be ready, boys. Three up. Three down.”
“Oh, my.” Dad pinched the bridge of his nose.
I blew out a soothing breath, hoping some calming vibes would carry across the baseball diamond to my husband who paced along the baseline.
I’d carefully mentioned to Cal last week that too much pressure on these kids might dull the fun. It had instantly sobered the seriousness, and he’d backed off substantially today.
But even a quiet Cal was intense when it came to sports.
He might be taking his role as coach a bit seriously, but he was living for Tuesday night T-ball practices and Saturday afternoon games. So I’d kept my commentary on his intensity to myself.
Besides, the parents on the team didn’t seem to mind that Cal showed up with black under-eye paint before each game and insisted the kindergarteners do laps around the bases before a set of pushups.
While Pierce was technically the head coach of Elias’s baseball team, Cal had been such a strong influence as the assistant that most of the kids went straight to him for instruction.
Pierce didn’t care because he met Cal’s intensity beat for beat. The other dads were just as dedicated. A line of them stood behind the dugout as the unofficial cheer squad with water bottles at the ready for the inning change.
Meanwhile, I watched the games next to Kerrigan, each of us enduring the muttered comments from the mothers who weren’t as competitive as their male counterparts.
“It’s just a game,” Dad said. “They’re so little. Oof.”
“He’s doing it for Elias,” I reminded him. “And he’s a good coach. It’s good practice for when Tripp is old enough for a team.”
Dad hummed.
Mom bit her lip.
Gah! These two were driving me crazy. I’d been defending Cal for years, and this attitude of theirs was getting old.
“Mommy, where is my choc-it milk?” Tripp hopped up from his seat on the grass, enunciating each word as he planted his fists on his hips.
Tripp had the clearest diction of any two-year-old I’d ever met. With his articulation and his size—he’d surpassed every growth chart since birth thanks to Cal’s giant genes—most people didn’t believe me when I told them he was only two.
“You’ve had enough chocolate milk.” I bent down and picked up the water bottle I’d stashed in my oversized purse. “You can have water.”
Tripp’s hazel eyes widened. “No water. I want my choc-it milk.”
“Sorry, baby. All I have is water.”
His face crumpled before he flung himself onto his knees and started to wail.
Now he looked two.
“Tripp Stark, we are not having a tantrum today about your milk.” I bent to pick him up, but before I could haul him to his feet, Mom was out of her chair and fussing over her grandson.
They might be uncomfortable around Cal, but our son was adored.
“Oh, my little Tripp.” She picked him up with a grunt. “Boy, you’re getting big. How about we go to the swings and the slide?”
He clung to his Nana, wrapping his arms around her neck. As she set off for the playground, he glanced over her shoulder and shot me a glare.
That glare he’d learned from his father. I laughed and blew him a kiss. “Have fun!”
“He’s got her wrapped around his pinky finger, doesn’t he?” Dad chuckled, taking the chair that Mom had vacated. It was the same green chair Cal had bought years ago to sit outside that Winnebago he’d rented for a summer while his house was being built.
Our house.
After we’d come home from the Benton fundraiser, Cal had moved into my home. He’d complained for months that the house was too small for a man his size, that the hallways were too narrow and the stairs too shallow.
Months and months of muttered comments that I’d addressed with eye rolls. You’d think the man would have been thrilled to finally move into the house on the ranch. But the night before the moving crew had been scheduled to arrive, he’d hemmed and hawed about leaving that tiny brick house. Moving is a pain, Nell. We could just stay.
That time, I’d rolled my eyes so hard I’d given myself a migraine.
It wasn’t like we’d done any actual moving. Cal had hauled exactly two boxes from the car to the house because when I’d picked up one to carry it myself, he’d had a conniption since I’d been pregnant with Tripp.
I’d thrown out my birth control pills on our Vegas wedding-slash-honeymoon week. It hadn’t taken long for his all-star swimmers to score a touchdown.
“How are you feeling?” Dad asked, putting his hand over mine.
“Good.” I reclined in my camp chair, pressing my free hand to my belly.
At five months pregnant, I was already showing. Cal was sure we were having another giant baby boy like Tripp, but I was holding out hope for a girl. Since we were waiting to be surprised, we’d find out who was right this September.
“I’m glad you guys are here,” I told Dad. Even if their relationship with Cal was awkward, I’d missed my parents.
“Me too.” He smiled and the two of us turned our attention to the baseball diamond where a little boy from the opposing team carried a bat toward the tee at home plate.
Mom and Dad had flown in for the week, and at some point during their stay, I was hoping to have a serious conversation about their future plans. They’d both tossed around the idea of retiring, and even if they only spent the summers in Montana, it would give my children the opportunity to have a close relationship with their grandparents.