“Yeah, he helped me get over my cheating ex,” she huffs, “and then his super sperm got me pregnant.” I laugh louder, as I sit on the stool. “Anyway, tell me about this guy.” I pour the milk in my coffee and tell her everything. I don’t think I’ve ever been this open before. Even about meeting him in Phoenix and the dance class.
“So he plays hockey,” she finally asks me, “and when does he play Matty?” I look over and then see him walking into the kitchen, wearing boxers and rubbing the sleep away from his eyes. “I have to go and make sure I am in LA when they play each other.”
“Okay,” I say, watching him, “call me later.” I quickly hang up when I feel him wrap his arms around me, kissing my neck. “Good morning. Did I wake you?”
“Yes.” He buries his face in my neck. “I reached over and you weren’t there.”
“Sorry, Jefferson woke me up and then,” I start to say as he walks toward the fridge, “my sister called.” I take a sip. “Ever since I left Trent, we have Sunday coffee dates.” I’m waiting for him to say something as he grabs a small bottle of orange juice and shakes it. “Is that okay?”
“Why are you asking me this?” He leans against the counter. “She’s your sister, you talk to her when you want to talk to her.”
I shake my head, forgetting for a moment who I was talking to. He’s not Trent and his support of me reconnecting with my family shouldn’t surprise me. “I also spend most of Sunday catching up with everyone in the family.”
“Okay,” he says, as if he’s missing something. “Are you asking me to go out so you can have private time with them?”
“No,” I gasp. “I just?—”
“Lexi, you talk to your family when you want to talk to your family, for however long you want to talk to them. I can be in the room, or you can go in another room if that makes you more comfortable. You can talk to them whenever they call you. I just will have to draw the line if you’re blowing me. I don’t want you using your mouth for anything else.” Here, in the middle of his kitchen, I laugh like I don’t think I’ve laughed before, and with the laughter is a lightness in my chest I don’t think I’m used to just yet.
thirty
Kirby
I look at her wearing my shirt, sitting on one of the stools in my kitchen, and the only thing going through my mind is keeping her here. “I promise to never answer the phone if your cock is in my mouth.”
“Then we are on the same page.” I open my orange juice, taking another sip. “So how is your sister?”
“I told her about you,” she replies, leaning onto her elbows on the counter in front of her. “Like everything.” She raises her eyebrows. “She asked when you play Matty next.”
“Two weeks,” I answer her and her eyes go big. “He’s coming to LA.”
“Shit, I think she is too.”
“Are you okay with that?” I put the bottle of juice on the counter beside me.
“Well, I get to visit with my nieces and nephews, so yeah.”
“There is casino night; it’s a team fundraiser that we do for the children’s hospital next weekend,” I tell her. “Do you want to come as my date?”
“Would that be weird?” she asks me and I shrug.
“It doesn’t have to be weird. It’s just the two of us, dressing up.” I smirk. “We’ve done that before.”
“What would we tell people?” she asks me and I just shrug.
“Whatever you want us to tell people,” I answer, knowing I want to tell everyone she’s mine. I want to yell it from the rooftops, but I know I can’t push it. I know she is the one who is going to have to take that giant leap. “We can be there as friends,” I say the word, feeling like it’s bile in my mouth, “or we can say we’re a couple.”
She’s about to answer me when her phone rings and she looks down at it. “It’s my dad.”
“Okay, well, as much as I want to be here for that conversation, I don’t think I can stand here half naked while you talk to him.”
She laughs and answers the phone, putting it on speakerphone instead of to her ear. “Hey, Dad.” She looks at me. “What’s up?”
“Nothing much,” he replies and I swear I can feel the love through the phone. “Your sister just called me.”
“Oh, she did?” Lexi pretends like it’s no big deal, but she mouths, What the fuck? “I just got off the phone with her. We had our weekly sister coffee date.”
“She told me,” he says.
