Alcohol You Later (14)

“Please don’t do this,” I beg, ripping my hands through my hair. “Don’t act like any of this is okay, because it’s not.”

“What would you have me do instead?” she asks, stilling my hands with her own. “Rage? Scream?” She snorts. “Cry?”

“If that’s what you feel you need to do.”

She shakes her head, rolling her glistening eyes. “Don’t you think that’s a little extreme of a reaction for a friend to have when her bestie learns he’s just become a daddy?”

Lyle chokes…loudly.

“Can you all just get the fuck outta here?” I roar.

They scatter like roaches, leaving only the two of us to stew in the aftermath of a careless—and what I fear will be a very costly—mistake.

“Don’t you want to hug them?” She stares after our friends’ retreating forms. “To hold them?”

The babies. “No.” I pull her to the floor where I’m still on my knees, repositioning myself and cradling her in my lap. “But I want to hug you.” I press my lips to her forehead. “To hold you,” I whisper.

She rests her head on my chest, soaking in my affection for a few quiet beats.

“How are you really feeling, Nicholas?”

“Like I need to touch you,” I rasp, roving my hands over her chest, burying my lips in the hair just behind her ear. “To taste you.” I suck her lobe into my mouth, reveling in the tiny hissing noise that slips through her parted lips.

I’m desperate to feel connected to her like never before. To show her without words that she’s still everything that matters in my world.

“You have got to be feeling more than just horny.” The little giggle that escapes when I trail my tongue along her collarbone is music to my starving ears.

“Do I?” I ask, running a finger over the cleavage that’s strategically spilling out of her top. “You show up looking like this and expect anything less?”

Her head lolls back, granting me access to the column of her throat. She’s always so responsive to my touch. “I thought I’d be walking into entirely different circumstances.”

Ouch. “I’m sorry,” I say, feasting on her neck. “I just…I couldn’t tell you…”

“Why, Nicholas?” She grips my face in both hands and locks her eyes with mine. “Why couldn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t think you’d come.”

Her eyes widen. “Oh, you stupid, stupid boy,” she whispers, before brushing her salty lips over mine. Her tongue darts out, tracing the seam of my mouth. “I’d have come.” She kisses me softly…reverently.

I deserve none of her sweetness, but I take it all like the fiend that I am.

“I’ll always show up for you, Nicholas. Don’t ever doubt that.”

The cavity of my chest fills with dread because what I have to ask of her just might be what sends her packing—for good. “You might not feel that way in a minute.”

Her body stiffens. “It gets worse?”

I consider taking her to bed before dropping the bomb I’m still holding fast to—the true reason I asked her here. I want to drown myself in this woman—to experience that heaven one last time in case she decides this is all too much and leaves for good. But even I’m not that much of a cad. I promised to always be open and honest with her, and that would be shady as fuck. “Remember that proposition?”

She scrapes her lower lip through her teeth. “Yeah…”

Time to rip the Band-Aid off. “How would you feel about nannying for me?”

Her jaw drops. “You asked me here to be your nanny?”

A flash of what looks a lot like indignation crosses her face before she clamps her mouth shut, schools her features, and levels me with a blank stare.

“Well,” I say, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “I was tasked with finding someone I trust.”

She nods.

“It was a short list,” I admit, hanging my head. “I trust you, Ray… You’re the only one, apart from the people in this suite.”

“The babies…they’re why you’re getting your own bus?”

All of the pieces are coming together, and she looks crushed. I never even considered she’d think I just wanted to bring her along for the ride. She had enough time to build this trip up in her head—to think she was gonna be attending shows and partying with the band, and here I am asking her to change diapers and rock my kids to sleep.

“That…and moral support.” I rub my hand over her back in slow circles. “One of the guys on our label, Justin Baldwin, agreed to rent us his bus for the remainder of the tour if they turned out to be mine. He’s got a few little ones, so it has these custom zip-up baby bed bunks and other safety shit Korie says is important.”

She nods, silently plucking at a loose string in the rug we’re sitting on.

It could just be my guilty conscience, but I swear she looks more disappointed in the job offer than the twins’ existence. “I’m prepared to pay whatever it takes.”

“I’m not interested in your money, Nicholas.” The bitterness in her tone takes me back. I didn’t mean to insult her. “But I do have a few stipulations.”