The Bromance Book Club (Bromance Book Club, #1)(74)

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At ten o’clock that morning, Thea was cleaning up the kitchen when she got a text from Liv, who hadn’t come home last night.

She was staying at Alexis’s house for a few days and wouldn’t be able to watch the girls tonight.

Even just a few days ago, Thea would have immediately called her and tried to smooth things over. Not today. Not this time. Liv was behaving like a spoiled child.

Gavin hugged her from behind, a cup of coffee in one hand. “Liv?” he asked.

“She’s not going to watch the girls tonight.”

“She’ll get over it. We’ll figure something out for tonight.”

Thea turned in his arms, rose on tiptoe, and kissed him. Gavin made a noise low in his throat, set down his coffee, and hauled her tightly in his arms.

“We’ll figure out something for tonight,” he rasped. “If I have to spend twenty grand to fly my parents here, we will stay in that hotel.”

She lifted her mouth to kiss him again, but he held back with a wicked grin. “You know that thing I did with my hand this morning?”

“Yes,” she breathed.

“Next time I’m going to use my mouth.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO




They didn’t have to spend twenty grand to fly his parents down.

Del and Nessa offered to let the twins stay at their house with Jo-Jo and a babysitter and then spend the night there. They’d apparently decided not to stay in the hotel because Nessa was still battling morning sickness.

“How long do we have to stay?” Thea asked as they pulled into the parking ramp of the ballpark, where the party was held. She tugged her pashmina around her shoulders.

“If you want to head straight to the hotel, I’m sure I can be persuaded,” Gavin said.

They’d been doing that all day. By unspoken agreement, the hotel had been the catch-all for what was actually going to happen there. As if saying the words out loud would jinx it all, like the superstition that you couldn’t say the words “no-hitter” when it became clear that a pitcher was headed for one.

Tonight, they would have sex again.

The question was: Would Thea be able to orgasm? And what would happen if she didn’t?

“I suppose we should make an appearance,” Thea joked.

Translation: I’m so nervous that I won’t even jump on the chance to avoid another run-in with my best friend, Rachel.

“We should probably stay through the awards,” Gavin said. Translation: I’m nervous too.

“So leave after that?” Translation: So, I have two hours to get over my nerves?

Gavin killed the engine and looked at her in the dark. “Deal,” he said. Translation: I have two hours to get over my nerves.

Gavin gripped her hand as they exited the elevator on the top floor of the administrative wing of the ballpark, where every year the facility and banquet staffs transformed the soaring, spacious lobby into a Christmas ballroom. Gavin led her through a maze of tall cocktail tables to where Del and Nessa waited for them. Most of the players they passed waved or fist-bumped Gavin as they walked by, but their wives and girlfriends couldn’t have been more obvious in their dismissal of Thea. Their eyes shifted away from hers, their smiles brittle. Which wasn’t all that unusual, but tonight it seemed more pronounced.

She found out why as soon as she and Nessa sat down while the men went to grab drinks.

“Rachel and Jake had a massive fight,” Nessa said, looking like a runway model in her floor-length, beaded gold gown. “I don’t know if it’s true or not, but he apparently told her tonight he wants to stay in a hotel for a while.”

Thea felt a surprising flash of empathy for Rachel. “Are they here tonight?”

“Yeah, but it’s pretty clear something is going on.”

“She blames me, doesn’t she?” Thea said, finally catching up. “My bad mojo at Thanksgiving?”

Nessa winced. “I did hear something like that.”

Great.

When the men returned with drinks, Nessa and Thea dropped the conversation. Del held his beer up in Gavin’s direction. “To beautiful wives.”

“I will definitely drink to that.” Gavin leaned forward and clinked his bottle against Del’s before taking a drink.

Then he bent close to Thea’s ear. “To the most beautiful wife in the room,” he whispered, lightly tapping his bottle against her glass. He kissed her before letting her drink.

“I’m feeling a little ignored over here,” Del joked. “What about you, Ness?”

Thea looked up. Nessa’s smile was sentimental, Del’s naughty. Gavin swiped his lips across her temple. This was going to be a long night.

Other tables began to fill up with couples over the next half hour, but theirs remained conspicuously empty. Even Yan and his wife, Soledad, chose to sit on the other side of the room, which stung. How could people be so superstitious? Did they really think she had anything to do with Jake and Rachel possibly breaking up? Thea drank her champagne quickly and let Gavin get her another.

A few minutes before dinner, two of the coaches and their wives finally took mercy on them and asked if the seats were taken. Apparently, the superstition didn’t extend to the coaching staff.