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CHAPTER 17
Jenna
I’m laughing so hard, my ribs hurt.
I don’t remember laughing like this in, well… forever.
I’m curled up next to Gage on the couch, sipping a bottle of water. We had wine with dinner, but I’m driving home so I don’t want to drink any more. Marianne and Daniel are on the love seat perpendicular to us, and we’ve been talking for well over an hour, having the best time.
“I shit you not,” Daniel exclaims, waving his hands for emphasis.
“You’ve got to be making that up,” I gasp, wiping tears from my eyes.
“I’m not,” he insists. “She literally thought she was a mermaid and that if water touched her, she’d morph into one.”
“Dude, you are so lucky you met my sister.” Gage chuckles.
We’ve been telling horrible date stories, and I thought Gage had a good one with a woman who started referring to herself in the third person halfway through dinner, but Daniel’s date freshman year in college with a woman who thought herself a real mermaid takes the cake.
“It just goes to prove,” Marianne says with a nudge into her husband’s side, “that Jenna and I are far better judges of character than you two buffoons.”
“I take offense to being called a buffoon,” Gage says. “I’m not the one who used to stuff her bra with so much toilet paper when she was twelve she looked like Dolly Parton.”
Marianne gapes before chucking a pillow at him. I lean right and the pillow bounces off Gage’s head. I laugh again. These two remind me of my relationship with Emory, which is always full of teasing, rivalry, and easy affection.
Glancing at her watch, Marianne turns to Daniel. “We really should get going.”
“You’re not staying here?” I ask as they stand from the love seat. Gage lives in a very nice house with plenty of room.
“They’re too good to stay with me,” Gage teases as he, too, stands and pulls me off the couch. “They’d prefer to stay in a luxury hotel downtown. Snobs.”
“Not true,” Marianne says, looking directly at me. “But the kids are with my parents, and this is sort of a date weekend, so we are treating ourselves to a romantic weekend at a nice hotel.”
“Means we can have loud sex without disturbing Gage,” Daniel adds with a wink.
Marianne doesn’t deny it.
“I should probably head out too,” I say, feeling like that’s what Gage would want me to do. Besides, I’ve got to be at the arena early as Callum finally pinned Coach Keller down, and we’re doing his documentary interview tomorrow before he starts his game prep.
Gage reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “You’re not going anywhere.”
He releases it just as quickly, and I almost think I didn’t hear him right. Marianne and Daniel don’t seem like they heard his proclamation, not that it meant anything. Maybe he just wants to talk.
Gage walks them to the door, and I follow. Marianne gives me a warm hug and whispers in my ear, “I’m so glad Gage found you.”
Daniel and Gage do a one-armed side handshake with a half back slap. “Drinks are on me tomorrow,” Daniel proclaims. “We’re going to be celebrating hard after you defeat the Brooklyn Wolves.”
“You know it,” Gage agrees. If they win tomorrow, even though there’re two more games in the regular season, the Titans will clinch a playoff spot.
Tomorrow is a pivotal game, and I don’t know how Gage feels, but I’m nervous about it.
Gage and Marianne hug and then they’re out the door. Gage shuts it, locks it, and pivots to me. “We need to talk.”
I frown at him, finding it weird he locked the door. Finding it more than odd we were just laughing, having a good time, and now he’s somber.
But rather than say a word, Gage moves into me. His hands come to my face, and he kisses me—soft at first but then taking it deeper. Far more than he’s given me the last two times we’ve kissed at the end of an evening. It’s thrilling, the prospect of more tonight, and I can’t control my tiny moan in response.
Gage lifts his mouth, and I’m disappointed and concerned that my reaction turned him off. But he drops his forehead to mine. “I would really, really like you to stay the night.”
“Oh,” I murmur in surprise, pulling back so I can look at him. “I just… I was starting to feel like…”
“That we were stalled?” he provides.
“I was a little worried that perhaps you were having second thoughts,” I admit. Because one thing I’ve learned with Gage is that no matter how uncomfortable it might be, I can be honest with him.
“I was afraid you might be thinking that,” he says, taking my hands in his. “But that is the furthest thing from my mind. I was trying to take it slow to show you that I’m serious about you. Maybe in hindsight, that was a mistake, but I thought you might need it to be slow.”
