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“Your choice. Then you can come home with me for Christmas.”
My mouth dropped open. “Are you insane? The playoffs are over Christmas.”
He skimmed his hands up and down my arms. “Not actual Christmas. I’m going home in mid-December for a couple of days after finals. I want you to come with me. So does my mom.”
Another weird turn in a conversation I was barely following. “Why is your mom involved?”
“I was talking to her about you, and when I told her you had no family to spend Christmas with, she insisted I bring you with me.”
My brows rose. “It wasn’t even your idea?”
“I would’ve gotten there eventually. She wants to get to know you better.”
“I thought you didn’t tell anyone about us.”
“She figured it out before I did. Remember the first game when she ran into you?”
I did. The pretty older woman with the cute bob had plowed into me in the tunnel right before the game. She’d introduced herself as Gina, Parker’s mom and biggest fan, then promptly invited me to dinner. It was surreal because I’d been trying to calm my nerves about playing my first game at the D1 level, unsuccessfully. She’d patted my arm and told me I was going to be great.
Boom. Nerves gone. I blamed her mom superpowers because anyone who’d raised Parker clearly knew what she was doing.
“Yes…” I drew the word out because I wasn’t sure I wanted to know any more.
“She planned the whole thing. Mom has a scary intuition when it comes to me and Jaina. She took one look at my face and decided you were the one.”
I heard the undertone in his words—he didn’t believe her any more than I did. Would his mom have seen that on his face if it hadn’t already been there? I’d met his eyes in the tunnel, and all I’d seen was heat.
Parker tugged me a little closer. “I want you there, Lorelai. We have three whole days off, and I don’t want to go a single one without you. The drive isn’t that long, and have I mentioned the weight room we have set up in the basement? You could get your fix in without even leaving the house.”
Temptation arrowed right through me. Parker knew my weaknesses and had no problem exploiting them.
“What about people seeing us together?”
“It’s totally normal for me to drive to Colorado with my teammates. I brought Noah home last year, and Mac the year before.”
Frustration sharpened my voice. “Except they won’t see a teammate if I go with you.”
“Then we make it as low-key as possible. My parents live in a small town on a couple of acres. We don’t have to leave the house if you don’t want to. It’s not like the paparazzi follow us around.”
He was right. After the first media push about a female receiver, we’d only gotten slightly more coverage than the other winning teams. I felt myself weakening and tried to be logical. Did Iwantto go?
Yes. No question. I liked his family, what little I’d gotten to know of them at the beginning of the semester. I wanted to see where he’d grown up—what had molded him into the man he was now.
I wanted to spend time relaxing with Parker in a place he loved.
“Okay, if we can make it work, I’ll go with you. But I’m not calling you Big Daddy. You have to earn that one.”
He trailed a hand up my arm, and I shivered. “That’s fair, but you’re going to regret throwing out that challenge.”
“Prove it,” I doubled down.
With a dark promise in his eyes, he backed me against the wall. “Your smart mouth is going to get you in trouble one day.”
“You love my smart mouth, especially when it’s on your—”
Parker silenced me with a kiss, and I made a throaty noise encouraging him. His hands flexed on my hips, and I thought for a second he would haul me into the bedroom despite Friendsgiving starting soon.
His hands slipped around me to grab my ass, and I lifted a leg to curl around his hips. Unfortunately, a noise behind him penetrated my Parker-induced haze.
