The Bromance Book Club (Bromance Book Club, #1)(64)

Gavin pointed at Mack.

Who had gone strangely still. He stared at Liv with wide eyes. Like, wide eyes. “Hi,” he said stupidly. “I’m, I’m Braden.”

Liv shot him a glare that could have ignited a brush fire, and then she stomped toward the kitchen. In her wake, she left an unnatural, disbelieving silence, like the kind after a streaker runs naked across the outfield.

A woman had just walked away from Braden-Fucking-Mack.

“Never thought I’d see that,” Malcolm said in his calm baritone.

“I feel like we just witnessed Jesus appear in a piece of toast,” Del said.

Liv opened the fridge. “Oh my God! Did you guys eat my left-over pizza too?”

She stomped toward the basement.

“Liv, you might want to wait—”

The slam of the door cut off Gavin’s warning, but no more than ten seconds later, Liv let out a yell. Her footsteps pounded on the steps as she raced back upstairs.

The door flew open. She barreled out, gagging, and bellowed, “I. Hate. Men!”

Gavin pointed to the front door. “Time to go, boys.”





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN




Gavin didn’t exhale for twenty minutes, not until the guys had scattered, the women retired to their respective rooms, and he finally had time to retrieve the hidden books. He put them in two shopping bags and shoved them in the guest room closet. Then he sank to the mattress to dig the heels of his hands into his eyes.

That was a close one.

The sounds of Thea’s nighttime routine drew him to her door. The splash of water in the sink as she washed her face. The quiet scratch of toothbrush against teeth. The slide of a drawer as she pulled out her pajamas.

Open a vein, Del had said as he walked out the door, a sleeping Jo-Jo on his shoulder.

Gavin knocked.

“Come in,” Thea answered a moment later.

She stood at her dresser, pulling out pajamas. His heart thudded with want and nerves.

“How, um, how was today?” he asked, lingering in the doorway.

“You mean at Vanderbilt or at the café?”

“Both.”

She gave a shrug. “Fine.”

There it was. She was pulling back again. Take an emotional risk. “I was thinking of turning on the fireplace outside. D-do you want to come out with me?”

Thea glanced at the bed and then back at him. “Um . . .”

“We could read out there.”

“O-okay,” she finally said.

Gavin went out first to turn the fire on. Then he set out a blanket on the patio couch, opened two beers, and waited for his wife. She came out a few minutes later in his sweatshirt, a pair of leggings, and fuzzy socks. She’d piled her hair on her head. In her hands, she held their book.

“Hey,” he said, struck dumb at the sight of her.

She stopped a few feet away from him. “Hey.”

“The fire isn’t hot yet, but I brought out a blanket.”

“OK.” Her eyes darted to the couch, lingered there a moment, and then returned to his eyes. The expression in her gaze sent a shockwave straight to his impatient parts.

She looked at him with longing. Blatant and unmistakable. Her chest rose and fell with labored breath. Her gaze dropped to stare at his mouth. His body went hot and hard. Painfully hard.

He cleared his throat and he could barely get a word out. “You’re killing me, Thea.”

She blinked. “What?”

“You either have to stop looking at me like that or kiss me, but you have to be the one to d-do it, because I d-don’t want to ruin this.”

Her eyes widened, but then she faked a laugh and shook her head. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Gavin hid his disappointment and waited for Thea to sit first. Then he lowered to the couch next to her. Automatically, as if they’d done it a hundred times before, he turned so his back was against the arm of the couch so she could lean back against his chest. Thea pulled the blanket over their legs. Gavin wrapped his arm around her torso and tucked her against him. “This okay?”

She made an mm-hmm noise and rested the back of her head against his shoulder. They stared silently at the fire for a moment, adjusting to whatever this was, whatever had started last night.

“I hear you thinking,” he said.

She answered with silence. Gavin held back his sigh. It wouldn’t do any good to get annoyed with her. He tried a different tactic. “We should’ve done this more often before,” he said quietly.

“There never seemed to be time.”

Open a vein. “There was, though. I could have made the time.”

Her breath caught.

“I put baseball first. I know that now. I missed everything. The girls’ first steps. Their first words. The trip to the emergency room when they were sick. I justified it all because my career was important, but I would give it all up right now if it meant saving us.”

Thea slowly sat up and turned to look at him, probably to gauge whether he was being honest or not.

She gave no indication either way, but he wasn’t prepared for what she said next. “Remember when you asked me how my mom was taking it that my dad is getting remarried?”

“Yeah.”

“The truth is, I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her since before Easter.”