The Strength of the Pack (Suncoast Society #30)(39)

Their first overnight with Nate sleeping there at Eva’s house.

It had been Eva’s suggestion, wanting Laurel to get used to Nate being there more.

Nate knew it was only a matter of time before Eva would be ready to finally open up to him.

The next day, when he walked into work after skipping his morning run because of being at Eva’s, Cherise grinned at him.

“What?”

She handed him his coffee mug. “Don’t what me, bro. Well?”

“Well what?”

She followed him down the hall to his office. “Big night last night. V-Day. How’d it go?”

“We took Laurel out for fondue, snuggled, and went to bed.”

She frowned. “Wow. That’s…boring.”

“We will get our ‘crazy’ overnight this weekend. Jesse and Leo got a hotel room last night. Only fair, since we had an alone overnight at New Year’s. So when is your big day?”

She leaned against the doorway. “I’m thinking early next November. Maybe even Halloween.” A thoughtful look crossed her face. “You’re going to give me away, right?”

He smiled. “Of course. How big a shindig are we talking?”

“Oh, not. Kel and Derrick said they won’t take my money to rent the club, either. That whenever I want to do it, as long as it’s not during regular hours, the club is ours, free.” She grinned. “So no, I won’t be hitting you up as the family of the bride to pay for it.”

“That wasn’t my concern and you know it.”

“I know, but I like teasing you.” She stared at her ring. “How do I know it’s right and that I’m not rushing it?”

“You’ve been living with him over a year now. You should have a hint.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. Do you love him?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you see yourself spending the rest of your life with him? Seriously?”

Her expression took on a faraway look. In it, hints of the child he raised, the sad girl, the angry, suffering teenager, the more confident young woman who finally took control of her life.

She met his gaze. “I can’t imagine myself not spending the rest of my life with him,” she softly said.

He set his coffee mug on his desk and walked over to her, his hands on her arms. “Then I think you’d be dumb not to marry him.”

“What about you? Can you see yourself spending the rest of your life with Eva?”

“If she’ll have me, yes.”

“She’d be dumb not to marry you.”

“I’ll settle for her reaching a point of emotional healing where she’ll ask to wear my collar. If she’ll do that, then that’s all I care about. The ring, at that point, is simply a bonus.”

“And if she doesn’t? How long do you wait?”

He thought about it. “That’s up to her, because I’m not going anywhere. If she wants me out of her life, she’ll have to tell me that, too. I won’t play games with her. I trust her, and I hope she trusts me.”

She tipped her head back against the doorframe. “I got pissed off at one of my vanilla friends a couple of weeks ago. She started that kind of teasing where you know it’s not really teasing. She was like, ‘Wow, how do I train my guys to be like Wade. You have him sooo well-trained.’ I wanted to smack her. For starters, yes, she said ‘guys,’ plural. Then I thought dammit, why is Wade being the way he is with me something to make fun of?”

“It’s not. She’s jealous.”

“I mean, okay, yeah, I can’t talk to some of my friends about things the way I can to our Suncoast Society friends. I can’t go out with them and say, ‘Hey, hot damn, you should see the new strap-on I just got, Wade f*cking loves it and so do I.’”

He snorted. “Why not? That would be an interesting conversation, I should think.”

She scowled at him. “Because some of those women are the girlfriends and partners and wives of people Wade either works with or knows, dumbass.”

He grinned. “You silly git, I was joking and you bloody well know it. Don’t be a pillock.”

She waggled a finger at him. “Don’t deflect by going Brit, buddy.”

“Bollocks. Why not?”

She rolled her eyes and pushed away from the doorframe, ducking under his arms. “Thanks for the heart-to-heart, bro.”

“Cheerio!” he called after her as she walked down the hall toward her desk.

She flipped him off before rounding the corner.





Chapter Fifteen


Nate had gone home for the evening and Eva sat on the couch, watching TV. Jesse and Leo went to bed shortly after dinner. Jesse would have to be up before dawn in the morning for work.

Eva had channel surfed and ended up on a news magazine show doing a story about global warming. When that segment ended, they started their next one on women who were surrogates.

It was almost May, and she still couldn’t bring herself, despite Nate’s patient nurturing, to tell him the whole, ugly story.

Her counselor insisted it was normal to hit a recovery stasis like this. She was comfortable, there were no outward forces propelling her in one direction or another, and were there any arbitrary timetables she had to meet?