Logan had been the first to leave, followed by Ollie, but he made one last dig before heading home to the missus.
“Good luck tomorrow. Don’t call me to help move shit,” he laughed. “Call that motherfucker.” He nodded toward his older brother. “He was the one who arrived last the last time we had to move Pay’s stuff.”
Archer sighed. “How long you gonna hold that over my head, Ol?”
Ollie paused and made a huge, dramatic show of his thinking. “I mean, at least on our deathbeds, and then maybe once we find ourselves in the afterlife.”
With that, he left, leaving me and Archer to finish cleaning up.
“You know he probably sped unpacked all her shit before literally just for this purpose, right?” I laughed, knowing my best friend too well.
“Yup,” Archer replied as he stacked his chair on top of the table.
I adjust the tray of coffees in my hand so that I can ring the doorbell. Even though this house is like my second home, I didn’t want to just barge in today. As I hear the tone coming from inside, I wince and worry that maybe that wasn’t the right idea and could have woken up or disturbed Gabby.
What sounds like a herd of elephants coming toward the door has me quickly taking a step to the side, just in case I somehow transformed into Jumanji and am about to be greeted by a stampede. The door flies open and reveals a flustered-looking Payton. A pale shade of pink paints her cheeks, as if she had been running around, and half her hair is falling out of the messy bun thing on top of her head. Her shirt has a wet spot that runs from the shoulder down to her breast.And now I’m staring at her boobs.
I continue to drop my gaze to look down at my watch and check the time. Huh, so much for if you’re not early, you’re late.
“Is everything okay? Did you change your mind?” Fuck, I was so excited that I hadn’t even thought that maybe she would think more about this and then change her mind.
“No, no,” she pants. “It’s nothing like that at all. It’s just that Gabby was up all night, and, well, today is just not going at all planned.” She sighs and leans against the doorframe, her eyesdropping to the tray of coffees, and a glimmer of hope shines in her eyes.
“Is by any chance one of those for me? Because if so, I would love you forever.”Is that all I need to do to capture her heart?
“It is, in fact. I got one for you and one for your mom.”
“Oh boy, you trying to be today’s favorite son, huh?” she teases, and a smile finally takes over her beautiful face. Pay extends her hand to welcome me inside, and I offer her the cup for her as I pass by.
“Thank you,” she says, while closing the door behind me.
The moan that slips from her mouth at her first sip has my spine straightening just as hard as my dick is right now.Fuck.
Instead of going for awkward, I go for humor. “Good, huh?”
“Yes,” she sighs with a dopey look in her eyes, and it only makes me smile more. “I can’t believe you remembered my coffee order.”
“Oh, come on, it’s not that hard to forget.” It’s not like she didn’t badger me and Ollie to drive her to the coffee shop all the time to get one, and then one Christmas, Ollie had bought her a fancy coffee machine to make lattes at home to avoid having to play taxi for her.
“Yeah, I guess.” She pulls the corner of her lip between her teeth, as if she’s getting lost in thought somewhere.Where did she go just then?
“Payton? You okay over there?”
“You sure you want to do this? With me being a hot mess and Gabby being up for all hours. I’m sure it will only get worse as she goes through her sleep regressions and teething and—” Payton’s rambles, but enough of that.
I step up and press my finger to her mouth, shushing her. “Absolutely. It will all be fine. I’m never really home, anyway.” The urge to kiss her is strong, so I step back, putting much-needed space between us. I don’t know why I added the last part.While it might be true, I was never home because it always more so felt like just a house—four walls and a roof. There was never anyone to come home to or laughter filling the house unless I had friends over. But something tells me that things are about to change.
“Oh,” she says, almost as if my stating that fact was disappointing.
A part of me tells me I should explain more about what I mean by that, but the other part tells me that this is already a deep conversation for the first thing in the morning. I allow the latter to win and change the subject.
“So, should we get started? Do we need to pack up Gabby’s things first so that we can set her up for like a nap or something when we get there?”
“No, Mom is going to bring Gabby over a little later so that I can focus on getting everything set up without having a baby stuck to my chest.”
She says that like it could be a bad thing. Where do I sign up to be stuck to her chest?
“That’s really nice of her. Hopefully, between the two of us, we can knock it all out quickly.”
