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Chapter 4
Nick
“Stop riding my ass!” I throw a shirt at Mathis’s face. “I told you, it wasn’t the time.”
“I don’t get it. Why not? Couldn’t you just say, ‘Hey, Grace, what happened?’” He tosses the shirt back, and I fold it to pack in my suitcase.
“You really need some friends… Or I do, one or the other. I can’t believe your ass is here drilling me about this. Don’t you have babies and children to heal?”
“Ha ha ha… I’m on call, so I’m free to badger you until I get a straight answer. Why didn’t you ask her?”
“Because it wasn’t right. I can’t explain it.” I raise my eyes to see him watching me with contempt. Out of the three of us, he’s the most level-headed. He dissects situations until he’s made sense of them. I’m more of the hothead, and Shaw is the lawyer—type A to the finest degree. My parents are saints. I realized that as soon as I made the Pros. Thank God for Bizzy to level out the testosterone in my family, or my mom may have gone crazy.
“Can you try? Walk me through it.”
There’s no way I’m going to tell Mathis how I arrived early enough to watch Grace open the gallery and walk mindlessly around rearranging things, or how I snuck out and ran to the coffee shop hoping they knew what Grace liked to drink.
Lucky for me, it was a very quiet morning and no one recognized me. The coffee shop owner was a bit stand-offish when I walked in. As soon as I mentioned having an appointment with Grace, she thawed, and I knew then Grace was still the same. Once you met her, you couldn’t help but like her.
“I can’t describe it. It was too much and not enough at the same time.” I walk across my bedroom and slump into a chair. “To say she was gorgeous isn’t right. It’s not good enough, but it’s more. She was the same girl and yet so different. I knew immediately that something bad happened. No words were shared, but when she practically leaped into my arms, I felt it. She was trembling, so I watched my words carefully and tried to keep the mood light. When I brought her tea inside, she actually shed a tear. It threw me for a loop.”
“She cried over tea?” He cocks an eyebrow and bites the side of his bottom lip. “That seems weird.”
“I thought so, too, until we started talking. But I couldn’t push. She needs to tell me what happened in her own time.”
“So, I hate to sound like Bizzy or Mom, but was it there? The attraction you’ve held on to for two years, is it still there?”
I half-groan, half-laugh, nodding my head. “Fuck yeah, it was. But this time it was stronger. This woman is amazing. She’s humble and shy, but she’s not fooling me. In the few seconds I wasn’t staring at her, I saw some of her work. She’s talented, but it’s more than that. She’s dedicated.
“I’m going to regret telling you this, and I swear it’s going to bite me in the ass, but only one time in my life have I ever felt this connection to anyone. Let me give you a hint; that woman is now our sister.”
He rolls off my bed and leaves the room, coming back with two bottles of water. I take the water he offers with a quiet thanks.
“I get it, and I respect it, so good luck.” He pats me on the back. “But I have a condition… If this thing gets serious, promise me there’s not a baby mama in the wings to stir shit up.”
I hold in my laughter until it bursts out of me. Together, we tap the tip of our waters in cheers. “I can promise you, without a shadow of a doubt, there is no baby in my future.”
Only we can joke about this since Shaw’s situation knocked everyone for a loop. He found a way to fuck things up royally, but luckily, it worked out with Bizzy.
“So what’s the next step?”
“I’m gonna call her tonight, take it easy for a few days, but when I get back into town Monday, it’s on.”
“Do you have an actual plan?”
“Besides instilling myself in her space every chance I get? Not yet, but it’ll come.”
“That sounds like an awful plan. Have you ever actually dated anyone? Women like to be wooed, swept off their feet, treated like royalty… all that shit. Getting in her space seems a little creepy.”
“What the hell do you know about dating? Wooing? Sweeping off feet? Are all those women you work with rubbing off on you?”
Heat creeps up his cheeks, and he tries to hide it by flicking me off. “No, I’m saying maybe—”
“Stop right there. I’ll save you any more embarrassment. Grace already thinks I’m charming. She said so herself. I’ll turn up the Bennett charm and see what happens. It can’t be that hard. Look at Shaw.”
“Shaw took Bizzy to a beach resort and put her in a thousand dollar a night suite. Their love story is the talk of the fucking nurse’s lounge on a daily basis, so I’ve heard more than I ever wanted to.”
“That’s kind of my point. Shaw spent four hours away from her and never let her out of his sight the entire trip. I’d say he got in her space. Seems like a good plan.”
