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“She’s here. I found her…and they’re both okay. Yeah.” He smiled sardonically and ran his tongue along the front of his bottom teeth inside his lip. “I love you, too.”
I love you too? Who the fuck is he talking to?
He quickly hung up the call and shoved the phone into his back pocket.
“Wes!” Lexi shouted and sprinted toward him before I could stop her.
“Wait—” I started to say, but it was too late. He picked her up and held her close to his chest. The last of his lingering worry receded.
His hazel eyes met mine. “What the hel—heck happened? You screamed, and then you were just gone.” At the memory, his face went straight to ravaged again.
Jesus. I obviously wasn’t handling this well at all.
I should apologize.
“Who was on the phone?”
Whoops.
He shook his head and looked to the sky before looking back at me. “Your brother.”
“Remy?”
He nodded. “I haven’t met the rest of them, have I?”
It still didn’t make any sense. “You love him?”
Understanding lifted the corners of his mouth as he rolled his eyes. “His sentiment was a far sight less flowery.”
Shit. “Sorry.”
He shrugged. “I was worried about you two.”
Lexi leaned back and looked him in the eyes. “Head lice are scientifically known as Pediculus humanus capitis, and an infestation with head lice is medically known as pediculosis capitis. They are obligate parasites. They cannot survive without a human host.”
He studied her closely before moving on to the clear, plastic shopping bag in my hand.
“She has lice?” he asked, having Sherlock Holmes-ed the situation quite skillfully.
“So…about the whole lice thing…” I jerked my chin toward Lex’s head where it rested on his shoulder. “You probably have it now too.”
He remained completely neutral for a second before he burst into laughter.
His mouth turned into a knowing smirk. “The screams? They were because of lice?”
I nodded, a little bit ashamed.
But, in my defense, we are talking about lice here.
LICE.
They are up there with bed bugs.
“I can’t believe Dr. Winslow can’t handle lice.”
“They creep me out, okay?” I protested.
He held me captive in his stare, everything in his eyes screaming the most flattering things I’d ever been told. He didn’t mind that the lice were on him, and more than that, he didn’t mind that I did. I wasn’t going to have to handle everything alone—not this time. He winked and then looked back at Lexi. “What do you say we get you inside and take care of the pediculosis capitis?”
She grinned and nodded.
Fifteen minutes later, Wes, Lexi and I crammed into the tiny space of my bathroom, Wes was in full kill-the-lice-fuckers mode. He had read all of the instructions on the treatment and was busy applying it to my daughter’s head.
“You’re next,” he told me, and I melted even deeper into the wall.
Lexi sat comfortably on the closed toilet seat, her little legs swinging back and forth as she stared down at Wes’s phone and tapped random math problems into the calculator app, and all I had to do was stand back and watch.
I was in complete awe of him.
His tall, muscular frame standing in my small, en suite bathroom looked equal parts right and wrong, and he made my little girl look so tiny. But God, the look in his eyes melted my heart, the hazel irises soft and warm and filled with nothing but care and tenderness. It was truly apparent he cared about Lexi just as he cared about me.
It was awesome, but holy God, did it scare me.
Lexi adored Wes. Looked at him like he could do nearly anything. And I didn’t want her to have another father figure in her life, only for him to leave her behind.
The mere idea of that broke my heart. She had already been through so much with her own father. Nick rarely made a point to keep contact, let alone make her feel special. Sure, he lived in a completely different city, but he could at least pick up the phone. My daughter didn’t say all that much, but she had everything to say. Nick never listened.
Lexi did not deserve to go through something like that again.
“Almost done, sweetie,” Wes said as he squirted a little more of the treatment into his hand and kneaded it into her hair and scalp.
“How many minutes?” she questioned predictably. Those little pieces of her—the quirks I could always count on—felt like home.
“Three more minutes until I’m done,” he answered patiently, eyes focused on the task at hand. “And then we wait for twenty minutes until we can wash it out.”
She looked at the time on his phone. “3:04pm and 3:24pm.”
“That’s right, Lexi girl. And then, you’ll be all done,” he said with a proud smile on his face.
But God, the way he was with her, so intuitive to her little, unique mind. It made it really hard for me to know what was right for her, for me, for both of us.
“And then, it’s mommy’s turn to get treated.”
My nose scrunched up in annoyance. “But I don’t want to have lice,” I whined.
Wes’s smile was both condescending and comforting. “But you do. And the last thing I need is for you to give lice to an entire professional football team.”
I groaned, and he just laughed, visibly amused by my discomfort.
“Plus, we can’t,” he added, and then his lips made a little high-pitched, sexy whistle, “if you don’t let me get the disgusting parasites out of your hair.” He winked at me. “Which, I gotta say, is an even higher priority than the team.”
I rolled my eyes but still couldn’t stop myself from laughing.
“I can’t whistle until the lice is out of my hair?” Lexi asked.
“Yep,” he answered with a giant, roguish grin. “We can’t whistle until the lice is gone.”
I pointed at Wes, still giggling quietly. “There is something seriously wrong with you, you know that?”
His smile never faltered. Sweet, sexy bastard.
What was he trying to do to me?
The only thing worse than winter in New York is really fucking winter in Wisconsin.
It’s the kind of cold that gels your insides and eats away at the will you have to do basically anything—other than drink.
Which is essentially what people do in Wisconsin. I’m pretty sure that’s why my dad moved there, relocating from the Pacific Northwest after I flew the nest. That and his love for summers on Lake Michigan. And even I had to admit I understood that one.
There was something about it that felt like magic.
But it wasn’t summer, and I wasn’t here to visit with my dad—though he always made the effort to see me when the team was here. The Mavericks and I were here to secure our spot in the play-offs and maintain our undefeated streak. We hadn’t had a season this good since I’d taken ownership—actually, well before then—and I knew it had a lot to do with the recruiting we’d done. Sean Phillips was a maniac, a complete dual threat, and Quinn Bailey had the kind of poise you rarely saw in anyone. And now that Mitchell was back on the field after a long but necessary recuperation, we were starting to feel unstoppable.
Meanwhile, things with Winnie felt stuck in cement no matter how hard I tried to go. What we now referred to as the Thanksgiving Lice had come and gone, along with a couple of weeks, and Christmas would be here in almost the same time. I felt good for a few days after the lice thing, having stepped in and handled the situation so that Winnie could have the freedom to freak out for once. I still fucking itched from time to time, but after years and years of practice, my ability to fake calm while a storm raged inside had actually come in handy. But what I hadn’t noted in that moment was that Winnie didn’t come to me for help, wouldn’t have had I not intervened, and if I hadn’t been on the phone with her the moment it happened, I might not ever have known.
Because I was just there; I wasn’t the guy she called in a pinch. I tried not to take it too personally, seeing as Winnie Winslow didn’t turn to anyone in a pinch, but I was genuinely trying to build something with her at this point. I pushed and she pulled, and the more time that passed, the more I started to wonder if she’d ever take anything about me seriously, other than my cock.
But here she came now, strutting down the hall with her irresistible confidence and a down comforter for a coat as I pulled away from a back-pounding hello hug with my father. I smiled at her getup, a defense from the cruel wind on the field, and her face softened at the unexpected affection from me. Though, at this point, I wasn’t sure there was ever a time I greeted her with anything less than the full strength of my most genuine smile.
She gave me a wink, finger flutter, and a circling finger—our symbol for “Later, I’ll be around”—intent on moving right past us, when I reached out and grabbed her elbow to pull her to a stop.
She stuttered in surprise as I pulled her to my side. Granted, she didn’t have any clue who the man standing with me was and might have been expecting me to keep my normal game-day distance, but I was tired of it. I wanted to be able to pull her into my arms no matter where we were.
My dad looked on with the knowing smile of a man who loved women and interacted with them on the regular—big and bright and a little inappropriate. He hadn’t been with anyone seriously since my mother passed, but he’d been with many someones, and at my age now, he no longer tried to shelter it.
