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“I like this. I’ve never been on a date.”
He coughs again. Behind him the skyline of Chicago shows in the afternoon sun out his hotel window.
“Baby.” He drops his chopsticks and presses his fingers to his brow. “This is going to sound bad, but I don’t give a fuck. I would have kept you shrink wrapped and on a shelf waiting for me if I could have, but somehow, the universe did it for me and I’m a fuck for thinking it, but I’m like King Kong over here, you’re my Fay Ray in my hand and I’m roaring at the top of this skyscraper that you’re mine, I’ll be your first at every-fucking-thing, thank you very much.”
“You do have a misogynist streak. But, we accept a lot when it’s family.” The balls of my cheeks heat as he leans in, licking those award-winning lips.
“I’m going to be a control freak with you, get used to it.”
“I like the video date. Takes the pressure off an introvert like me. I approve,” I say with a grin. “What have you got?”
“A boner the size of the space shuttle.”
I snort with a nod, loving how he looks at me with this sort of desperate need. “I mean, what are you eating?”
“Not what I want to be eating, that’s for sure…” He glances down at his food. He asked what I wanted and I was craving Chinese so he got take out delivered here and there so we could eat the same kind of food. Separate but together. “Crab Rangoon.”
James texted me as soon as his flight landed, then called me from the bus with all the guys around him laughing and cutting up as he fought off their questions and managed to make me feel safe and important even with him gone.
He had to get onto team stuff but set up the Zoom date and I love it. I’m not sure I’d be ready to be out with the one and only James “The Savage” White in public, not to mention finding something other than a hoodie or a jersey that would hide my…condition, so this suits me well.
I want to tell him I haven’t stopped thinking about him for even a second. To say I’m distracted is such a wild understatement, it’s a good thing I’m unemployed because right now, I’m pretty sure I’m unemployable.
“So did you get the other packages?” he asks, taking a bite of his food, settling back in a wide manspread on the purple upholstered chair next to the windows, his chest bare and making my mouth water more than the food.
I nod. “Yes. I haven’t opened it. You texted not to open it until you told me to.”
He was right about being a little controlling. It’s probably a red flag, but right now, when it comes to my new stepbrother, I’m colorblind.
“Good girl. I want to watch you when you see what’s inside.”
“I’m horrible at receiving gifts. I don’t need anything.” That last part is a lie, of course. Most of my life fits into four bags and a cat carrier.
Taylor yawns from his place in an empty box on the floor, then takes to licking his back paw as I swallow another bite of food.
“It’s not about what you need. It’s about what I want to get for you. Some gifts are more for me than you. Even when I send them to you.”
“Intriguing…” I take a mouthful of egg foo young, chewing as I puzzle that out. “Lingerie?”
A large part of me hopes not. Because if it is, I’m going to have to watch the camera angles for sure. I could just pass for chubby, but look at him? That niggling doubt casts a gray haze over the moment.
Why would a guy like him want me in the first place? Baby belly or not?
On the other hand, he’s got some draw to me and knowing that feels so…empowering.
“Do you want lingerie?”
“I’m just guessing. I have zero experience in this arena, remember.”
“If you want lingerie, I’ll get you lingerie, baby.” He takes another bite of food, wiggling his legs as his abs clench and the muscles in his chest under his tattoos shift, hypnotizing me. The red in his eye has faded a bit and the bruise is turning more yellow and green than black and blue but I have to say, that whole bad-boy look does things to my Downton Abbey I could not have anticipated.
I shake my head, my heart racing, sweat breaking over my brow. “No, hold off on the lingerie. Let me ease into this.”
I need time. I need time to craft the opening to the conversation about the fact I’m pregnant with another man’s child. And what man, I’m not even sure.
That doesn’t feel like a Zoom conversation over Chinese food. My chest clenches and a ball of worry knots in my belly knowing there’s a huge chance he will ball it as far away from me as possible when I tell him, although I’m praying he won’t.
