Stirring the boiling pot of quinoa noodles, I flashed him a grin over my shoulder. “Good game, big guy.” He’d gotten three sacks, which wasn’t a bad day at all.
“Thanks.” He stopped in place. “What the hell are you wearing?”
With the spoon still in the pot, I shrugged. “Clothes.”
“You know what I mean.”
“A jersey?” I offered with a one-shoulder shrug.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him moving around. I felt him inspecting me. His voice was low and careful as he said, “You’re wearing Zac’s jersey.”
“Yep.”
“You… went to the game wearing Zac’s jersey?” Still sober, still tiptoeing.
“Uh-huh.” I glanced at him finally standing directly behind me, his back to the kitchen island. His arms crossed over that wide expanse of a chest. “I don’t want anyone forgetting he’s a quarterback,” I explained before turning back around.
He moved then. He didn’t say anything for so long, I thought maybe he’d walked out of the kitchen, but I found him sitting at the breakfast nook table with his elbows on his thighs. I realized his cheek was twitching, but he didn’t necessarily look mad. He just looked… contemplative all over again.
“Are you okay?”
Only his eyes swept across the room before they landed on me and he tipped his chin down. “Fine.”
“All right.” The timer for the noodles went off, and I turned to the stove. Straining the noodles and placing them in a big bowl, I dumped the pecan seasoning and the vegetables I’d prepared earlier over them, giving them a stir. Setting the pot and the cutting board into the sink with one hand, I carried the bowl over to where Aiden was sitting and set it front of him. “I figured you’d be hungry. Just wash the dishes or put them in the washer, okay?”
That dark gaze tipped up to meet mine, surprise written all over those serious features.
I didn’t know where the hell it came from, but I winked at him. “Thank you for the tickets, by the way. They were great.”
“Thank you for the food,” he said as he stood up, literally a foot and a half away from me.
The last time we’d been so close together had been when we were in Vegas and I gave him that peck on his mouth in the chapel, but I’d been so distracted at that point with everything going on, I hadn’t been able to appreciate just how freaking huge he was up close. Because big, he was. Tall and broad at the shoulders and chest, that trim waist only made everything else about him more imposing. He was radiating this insane amount of heat and the slight scent of coconut oil he put on his face every time he showered.
Good lord he was attractive.
I swallowed the saliva in my mouth and smiled up at him as if his presence wasn’t a big deal. Like this lack of distance between us was an everyday occurrence. “Okay, well, enjoy your food. I’m going upstairs to watch some TV.”
He thanked me again as he went to the cupboards for a glass.
What the hell had been up with that? I wondered once I was in my room, sitting on the edge of the bed.
What in the living hell had been up with me?
Chapter Eighteen
I was in my room when the doorbell started going off like crazy. In all the time I’d spent at my new house, no one ever came over. Heck, even when I didn’t live there, no one ever dropped by unexpectedly. The community’s gate kept solicitors out, and his neighbor’s weren’t exactly outgoing. If someone wanted a cup of sugar, they took themselves to the grocery store and bought it. I wasn’t really sure who to expect, but when I checked the peephole, I was completely caught off guard.
Completely, totally, 200 percent caught off-guard. Damn it.
It was Trevor. The guys’ manager. The king of all asswipes.
“Who is it?” Zac yelled from somewhere upstairs, more than likely his bedroom. He had just gotten home about an hour ago, and we were planning on going for a run soon.
“It’s Trevor!” I whisper-hissed, totally aware that he could hear me. The front door was sturdy but it wasn’t soundproof.
There was a sound. A curse. Then Zac: “I’m not here!”
Double damn it. “Fine! You owe me!”
“Sure!” the traitor bellowed before his door slammed closed.
Grinding my teeth, I said a prayer under my breath and undid the lock.
“Hi… Trevor.” I kind of sniffed with a frown, not even bothering to make myself smile and act as if I was happy to see him. The fact was: I wasn’t. The wonderful fact was: I didn’t have to pretend to be.
The emperor of jackasses didn’t even waste the effort it would have taken to pretend to be civil. His expression went from exasperated, to blank, to shocked, and finally into a scowl in the blink of an eye, and the scowl kept pulling down at his lips each second that passed. “Where’s Zac?” he practically spat.
What would happen if I closed the door on his face?
I knew Trevor had found out that we’d gotten married, and I was aware they’d ‘talked about it,’ whatever that meant. But I had no idea what had been said. No idea what Trevor knew or didn’t know. And I suddenly wanted to cuss at myself for opening the door before finding out what I was supposed to say.
But if anyone could smell weakness in the air, it was this asshole. I couldn’t falter. I couldn’t bend. So I blinked at him, cool and distant. “Oh, hey. I’m doing great and you?”
The lines bracketing his mouth deepened, making his dark hairline pull forward. I wasn’t imagining it when his eyelid twitched. “Don’t get me started on you. Where’s Zac?”
“Please, don’t scare me.” That time, I couldn’t help but smirk at him, getting too much pleasure from the disdainful expression on his face. “Zac isn’t here.”
Trevor stared at me with those condescending eyes of his, that twitchy eyelid getting worse. “I know he’s here.”
“He’s not.”
“You were just yelling at him!” His shoulders hunched and everything. “I heard you.”
I leveled an even glare at him and his three-piece suit in this weather. “First off, don’t yell in my face. Secondly, you’re imagining things because I’m home alone.”
He didn’t need to say it. I could tell word for word what he was thinking and that went along the lines of “I hate you.”
I didn’t like him either. I couldn’t say I blamed him. I’d be thinking the same thing too because I know he’d heard me.
“You’re really going to tell me he isn’t here?” he asked, cocking his head a half inch and looking at me through narrowed eyes.
I nodded, busting out my best acting skills to smile brightly at him even though I was aware there was nothing to brag about.
He simply stared at me.
And I smiled even wider. “I really need to get back to work. You should give him a call. I don’t know when he’ll be back.”
That must have been enough to snap him out of whatever trance he was in because he shook his head. “That’s why I’m here. He isn’t answering my calls. He isn’t answering anyone’s calls or any fucking e-mails. He’s turned into Aiden—”