Play Maker(58)

I tried to keep my expression neutral. “I’m sure there are some very nice houses available,” I said, thinking of how far he would have to come to visit us on the east side. My heart sank a little. Most people who lived in Los Angeles proper considered traveling to neighborhoods like Venice and Santa Monica as inconvenient as traveling to the moon. And vice versa. No doubt the thrill James took in driving his convertible down PCH would fade after a few afternoons stuck in traffic. No doubt his visits would become less and less frequent. Not that I could tell him that. Because I didn’t blame him for wanting to live in those beautiful neighborhoods. Hell, if I had his kind of money that’s exactly where I would be looking too.

“I bet you’ll find something really lovely,” I told him, trying to be positive. He didn’t promise you anything, I reminded myself. This is still new. It’s still fresh. Who knows what his plans are.

“I was hoping you’d come with to look at a few of them,” James said, completely surprising me. He glanced over at Mikey, who was now on his phone reading some of the Doctor Who subreddits. “Mikey too.”

“Why?” I asked, more bluntly then I had intended.

James grinned at me. “Because I want to find a place that both of you like, of course,” he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I could only stare at him.

“Don’t look so surprised.” He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me against him, dropping a kiss on my forehead. “I’m crazy about you.”

And just like that, I fell, completely, utterly, head over heels in love with James Martin.





34





James





Everything was perfect. My press conference announcing my retirement and partnership with For Foster Kids was scheduled for next week and I had just put a down payment on a Mikey-approved house in Venice.

I had to convince Nicole to move in with me, something I had been hinting at since I started looking at houses. Either she hadn’t picked up on it or she was being purposefully innocent. It was a big step, there was no doubt about it, but I was getting used to waking up next to her in the morning. And I didn’t want to lose that because she lived on the other side of the 405.

“It’s just more convenient,” I told Ethan as we were grabbing lunch at a local diner.

He nodded, focused on his burger. I hadn’t asked how things were going with him and Maya, but he had seemed less focused on work lately. And the few times I had seen Maya when she visited Nicole and Mikey, she seemed pretty happy, so I took that to be a good sign.

“Besides, her apartment is way too small for her and Mikey and her mom,” I added, dipping a chip in ketchup. I would never get over Americans’ weird names for things. Football was soccer, a chip was a French fry – even though it was not from France – and apparently they used the term ‘bang’ to describe a hairstyle. That was definitely not the case in London.

Ethan’s eyebrows went up. “You want her brother and her mom to move in with you as well?”

I paused, having not really thought about the reality of all that. It had just been an assumption on my part that Nicole wouldn’t go anywhere without her family. And the house was certainly big enough, with four bedrooms plus a two bedroom cottage out back that was bigger than their apartment. Not to mention an enormous covered garage that the realtor said was primed to be turned into an office or workspace.

“Yeah,” I finally said.

Ethan let out a whistle. “You must really love this bird.”

Love. Bloody hell.

I choked on my chip and Ethan had to pound his fist between my shoulder blades. After I stopped coughing, he took one look at my face and laughed.

“You sorry bastard.” He took a bite of his burger. “You’re in love with her and you didn’t even know it.”

“Don’t be a smug arsehole.” I pointed a finger at him, annoyed that he had seen it before I had. I wasn’t usually this thick. Sure, I knew I liked her. I knew that I liked her a whole damn bunch. But love? That was something completely new. And it blindsided me. In a good way.

“You’re the one who was talking about moving her entire family into your house before telling her that you loved her,” he reminded me.

Right.

“What should I do?” I was suddenly overwhelmed with the knowledge of what I felt. What I had been feeling for weeks. Practically since I set eyes on her. Shite. I had fallen and I had fallen hard. But it felt right.

“You tell her you love her, you moron.” Ethan stole some chips from my plate. “Maybe even with a ring. A big one. Women love big gestures.”

“Marriage?” My heart gave a jolt in my chest. It was way too soon for that, right? Yet, it didn’t sound so terrible. Coming home every night to Nicole? Waking up next to her every morning? Yeah, I could definitely get used to that.

Ethan rolled his eyes. “You are hopeless.”

I was about to sock him in the shoulder when a familiar face appeared on the TV screen above the diner counter. My face. Next to a blurry shot of two people engaged in some extremely R-rated kissing. The guy was wearing a jersey with my number on the back and had his brown hair cut in the same way that I did, though I knew that mine wasn’t thinning as much. Not that you could really tell from the grainy quality of the photo. The paparazzi must have been pretty far away. The TMZ channel logo was in the corner of the screen.