Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars #6)(98)

Dean stroked her shoulder. “You guys know how irrational pregnant women can get.”

Way too many heads started nodding.

“Did you take that test like I told you, baby doll?” Dean slipped his arm around her again. “Do you know yet if you’re carryin’ my love child?”

Apparently that was too much for Annabelle, because she started to laugh. “I need a beer.” She grabbed Tremaine’s bottle and drained what was left.

“You shouldn’t drink if you’re pregnant,” Eddie Skinner said with a frown.

Leandro swatted him in the head.

Heath realized he was having the best time he’d had in weeks.

Which reminded him of Delaney.

Annabelle had been too preoccupied to spot her through the crowd, and Delaney hadn’t moved from her place inside the front door. She stood with her back to the wall and that ever-pleasant smile frozen on her face, but her eyes were glazed and just a little wild. Delaney Lightfield, horsewoman, champion trapshooter, golfer, and expert skier, had just glimpsed her future, and she didn’t like what she saw.

“Don’t anybody let me eat more than one egg roll.” Annabelle set her empty bottle on a stack of magazines. “I can hardly zip my jeans now.” She rolled her eyes at Eddie, who was frowning at her. “And I’m not pregnant.”

Robillard still wanted to make trouble. “Only because I haven’t been trying hard enough. We’ll take care of that tonight, baby doll.”

Annabelle rolled her eyes and looked around for a place to sit, but every chair was occupied, so she ended up in Sean’s lap. She sat there primly, but comfortably. “And I can only have one slice of pizza.”

Heath needed to do something about Delaney, and he made his way over to her. “Sorry about this.”

“I should mix,” Delaney said determinedly.

“Not if you don’t want to.”

“It’s just…It’s a little overwhelming. The house is so small. And there are so many of them.”

“Let’s go outside.”

“Yes, that’s probably the best idea.”

Heath drew her onto the front porch. For a few moments, they didn’t speak. Delaney gazed at the house across the street, wrapping her arms around herself. He rested his shoulder against a post, the ring box heavy against his hip. “I can’t leave her,” he said.

“Oh, no, no. I wouldn’t expect you to.”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I guess you needed to see my life for what it is. This is a pretty good sample.”

“Yes. It was silly of me. I didn’t…” She gave a tight, self-deprecating laugh. “I like the skybox better.”

He understood, and he smiled. “The skybox does keep reality at a distance.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I imagined it differently.”

“I know you did.”

Somebody turned the music up again. She slipped her thumbs under the collar of her jacket and gazed around. “It’s only a matter of time before the neighbors call the police.”

The cops tended to look the other way when the city’s top athletes misbehaved, but he doubted that would reassure her.

Her fingers crept to her pearls. “I don’t understand how Annabelle can be so comfortable with all that chaos.”

He settled on the simplest explanation. “She has brothers.”

“So do I.”

“Annabelle is one of those people who gets bored easily. I guess you could say she creates her own excitement.” Just like him.

She shook her head. “But it’s so…disruptive.”

Which was exactly why Annabelle got herself into this sort of thing.

“My life’s pretty disruptive,” he said.

“Yes. Yes, I see that now.”

A few moments of silence ticked by. “Would you like me to call you a cab?” he asked quietly.

She hesitated, then nodded. “That might be for the best.”

While they waited, they apologized to each other, both of them saying pretty much the same thing, that they’d thought it would work out, but it was better they’d found out now that it wouldn’t. The ten minutes it took for the cab to arrive lasted forever. Heath gave the driver a fifty and helped Delaney in. She smiled up at him, more thoughtful than sad. She was a terrific person, and he experienced a fleeting moment of regret that he wasn’t the kind of man who could be satisfied with beauty, brains, intelligence, and athletic ability. No, it took the Tinker Bell factor to suck him in. As the cab drove away, he felt himself relax for the first time since the night they’d met.

The food had arrived while they’d waited outside, but when he reentered the house, nobody was eating. Instead, they were all jammed into the living room, the music turned down, their attention focused on an upturned NASCAR cap sitting in the general vicinity of Annabelle’s feet. As he moved closer, he saw an assortment of diamond studs shining in the bottom.

Annabelle spotted him and grinned. “I’m supposed to close my eyes, pick a stud, and sleep with whoever it belongs to. A stud for a stud. How fun is that?”

Dean raised his head from across the room. “Just so you know, Heathcliff, both of mine are still in my ears.”

“That’s because you cheap, bitch.” Dewitt Gilbert, Dean’s favorite wide receiver, slapped him on the back.