AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You should take Monday off,” William said.
“As much as I’d like to, I don’t think that’s a good idea. There are too many things on my desk that need to be handled, but I was planning on maybe leaving early if that’s alright with you.”
“Of course! If it were up to me, I’d say leave after lunch, but you know what needs to be done and whenever you’re comfortable, call it a day. Do what you think is best.”
“Thanks.”
“Was there a special occasion he’s coming in for?”
“No. He’s got some time off and wanted to come and see me. He was going to stay longer but ended up getting some appointments with ad reps up in New York, so he’ll be heading up there on Tuesday.”
“Did he mention what kind of ads?” Lily asked. “Does he go to New York a lot? If not, I can recommend some places to him.”
“Oh! You’re going to meet him?” her grandfather asked.
“Um…”
“I invited Lily to join us tomorrow night. Jax and I were going to grab a late dinner,” Noah explained as he smiled at her, and even though she smiled back, it felt forced.
Ugh…why am I being weird?
But she already knew the answer to that. Things were getting a little too real and as much as she loved her family, she loved her privacy just as much. Living away from home and being on her own for so long meant she only had to show what she wanted them to see. Getting involved with Noah meant all eyes would be on them, and it made her just a little twitchy.
Okay, alottwitchy and she wished she had thought of this before.
Not that it would have changed anything. She’d wanted Noah Wylder for a long time now, and her curiosity was going to get the best of her eventually.
She just wished it hadn’t happened quite so publicly.
Too late to think of that now…
So, for the rest of the meal, they talked about Jax, football, food, and movies. Noah stayed through the afternoon while they had a miniIndiana Jonesmarathon and then ordered Chinese food for dinner. And when they left, he simply drove around to the guesthouse and parked there. They soaked in the hot tub, ate some ice cream, and went to bed and made love. Lily told herself not to think about all the crazy stuff that had been swirling around in her mind earlier and, mostly, it worked.
But as she drifted off to sleep with Noah’s naked body wrapped around her, she wondered if she was doing either of them any favors by keeping her thoughts to herself.
* * *
The next night, Noah sat back and laughed as his brother talked about a locker room interview that got a little X-rated. They were eating pizza, drinking wine, and Lily had picked up some decadent triple fudge brownies for dessert from her mother’s bakery.
“I didn’t see what the big deal was,” Jax was saying. “Now if something like that had happened in the cheerleader’s locker room,thatwould have been newsworthy! We all know athletes have no shame when walking around in the locker room. The camera crew should’ve paid more attention!”
“Working on Broadway, you can’t be modest,” Lily told him. “Sometimes we were only a few feet offstage and had to change costumes! It just goes with the territory.”
“Yeah, but at least there weren’t live interviews going on while you were changing,” Jax reminded her. Pausing, he took a sip of his wine. “So, where are you dancing now?”
She sighed softly and told him about what she had been training for in Miami. “Unfortunately, I suffered an injury and had to take some time off.”
“What kind of injury?”
“A hip labral tear.”
“Damn, sorry,” Jax murmured. “Did you have the surgery?”
Shaking her head, she replied, “I’ve gone to four different doctors and they all recommend it, but…I’m a little reluctant. I want a guarantee that I’ll be able to dance the way I did before and no one can give me that. And if I can’t go back to the way I was before the injury, why put myself through the trauma of surgery?”
“Because the tear is only going to get worse,” Jax told her. “You might not have a lot of pain now, but that can cause osteoarthritis in the joint later.” He took another sip of his wine. “If you do the surgery now, you’re looking at how long of a recovery?”
“The recovery time sucks,” she said wearily. “It’s going to be around four to six months.”
