“Yup. And I think I’ve met your sister, actually. Michelle, right?”
“Yeah. She married a military guy so she’s out in Texas right now.”
“It was a friend-of-a-mutual-friend thing, so I didn’t know her well, but I remembered the last name.”
She watched Gavin extricate himself from a group of guys and head toward her. He nodded to Rick as he slid his arm around her waist. “What are you guys talking about?”
“Rick was just telling me he’s met my sister Michelle before. It’s a small world, I guess.”
A few minutes later, it was Rick’s turn to shoot pool and they were left alone in the back corner of the alcove. They watched people in companionable silence for a little while, until Gavin leaned close so she could hear him over the crowd noise.
“You know, I haven’t really heard you talk about your sister much.”
Cait shrugged, not really wanting to talk about her now, either. “I’m frustrated that she can’t be here to help, and she’s frustrated she can’t help from there, and our phone conversations don’t go well.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I would hate to have friction with Jill, so I can’t imagine how difficult that is on top of everything you have to deal with.”
“I do video chats with my nephew, and Michelle and I text sometimes. It’s one more thing about losing Duke that makes everything hard, but we’ll be okay.” She took a sip of her beer and then leaned back in her chair. “And I didn’t come here to talk about my family.”
“Amen to that,” he said, tipping his mug toward her before taking a drink. She felt a flash of annoyance at his tone, but then he winked at her. “I came here to see how many beers it takes to get you to go in the store room with me and show me what you’re wearing under that shirt.”
“I would actually throw up before I drank enough beer to have sex with you in the store room of a bar.”
“Even this bar? They’re practically family. And it’s really clean back there. You’d be surprised.”
She laughed at his earnest tone. “Even this bar, no matter how clean it is.”
He leaned close to kiss his way up her neck to her earlobe. “You’ve had a good time, right?”
“Yes, I have.”
“Can we go home and have a better time now?”
She shivered, though she wasn’t sure if it was his breath against her ear or the fact he’d saidhomeinstead ofmy place, but the answer was definitely yes. “Let’s go.”
There was some whistling and hooting as they waved to the crowd as a whole and headed for the door, but Cait didn’t mind. There would have been polite goodbyes if they hadn’t liked her, not laughter as Gavin lifted his middle finger in the air in a final farewell bird.
“I like them,” she said when they were out on the sidewalk.
The smile he gave her warmed her, despite the cold night air. “They liked you, too. Believe it or not, they were mostly on their best behavior, so the more you’re there, the more comfortable they’ll get saying stuff they probably shouldn’t.”
“I’ll probably just say questionably appropriate things back to them.”
He laughed and two women on the sidewalk ahead of them turned to look. Cait tugged him closer as they walked, and the women resumed their pace. This guy was all hers, she thought, and she was a lucky woman.
And, judging by the heat in Gavin’s eyes when he looked at her, she was about to get a whole lot luckier.
Chapter Fifteen
Cait decided cuddling on the couch with Gavin, watching action movies from the 1990s, was her new favorite thing. Other than naked cuddling in Gavin’s bed, of course. Even a sweaty Bruce Willis couldn’t top that.
Naked cuddling had already happened, though, so now they were half-naked cuddling in front of the TV. She had on a T-shirt and he had slipped on sleep pants, and they had a fleece throw over them.
It was pretty damn perfect.
The entire last month, since Valentine’s Day, had been pretty damn perfect, actually. When they weren’t working and her family didn’t need her, she was with Gavin. Whether they went out or stayed in, she never got tired of his company. She’d even learned how to play pool at Kincaid’s fairly well, although she suspected the other guys were going easy on her for Gavin’s sake.
She’d had dinner with his parents twice, and they seemed to like her a lot. The second time, Jill and her family had also been there and they’d continued bonding over teasing Gavin. Carter had played ball again with the guys, though he said it wouldn’t be a regular thing because he didn’t like getting up that early. And Gavin had eaten dinner at her mom’s house a couple of times.
