I’m ripped away from my concerns by Joss, yelling across the din of half a dozen conversations. “Okay, okay! Tilly’s here now, so I can give the whole story about what happened today!”
It’s a huge, dramatic story. She’s been having issues with vandalism at her place, and they finally caught the vandal today. It was only after the vandal had set a whole bunch of kill traps on her lawn overnight, though, which meant they had to have a possum funeral.
An actual funeral for an actual possum. I can see that it was at Joss’s insistence and Gabe would have been fine tossing the remains in the trash or the woods, but he’s a good guy. Yeah, he’s made some mistakes with Joss, but he’s also crazy about her. And she’s crazy about him. She deserves the happiness he’ll bring her.
The story gives me time to settle into the tub and get comfortable, not just in the water but in the group. There’s a lot to be intimidated about here, but I’ve been around a lot of wealthy, famous people working on movie sets. The men are all large, boisterous, alpha-type guys. I’m betting they get into a lot of shenanigans, although it’s relaxed tonight. When Foster offers to find me a man, I’m not hating the idea. And just hanging in the hot tub, being friendly and engaging in the ways that make people warm up is enough for me to get invited to three parties, a standing lunch date with the ladies, and two outings, one with Kai Bodley and the other with Donnie Thompson, both of whom swear it’s not a date, just acool thing I should see, but I’m not dumb.
I just pretend I am, and they seem to go for it.
“You’re going to be friends with Keira, right?” Evan says as he hops back into the tub the moment Keira stumbles off to use the restroom. He’s been glued to her all night, standing behind her instead of swimming or chilling at the firepit, so I figure he’d be nervous letting her wander off, wasted, with a bunch of single dudes everywhere, but no. As soon as she gets onto the solid boards of the deck, he fully engages with me.
There must be so much trust here. What these guys do, at the level they do it, is so dangerous. I can see how protective they are with their girls, but they also trust their teammates to take care of them. It’s kind of amazing.
“Yeah, I like her,” I tell him. His giant grin and intense gaze are infectious, and I laugh.
“You don’t have to say that because she’s my wife,” he says way too seriously. “Be honest with me. You’re going to be her friend?”
I nod, a little confused. “Yeah. I’m not lying. Does she not make friends well? Everyone seems to love her.”
“Yes, she’s amazing. Everyone loves her. It’s just . . . I want another baby, and she’s being cagey about it, and I promised I wouldn’t trick her this time, sooooo . . .”
Right. That’s right. Joss did mention Gabe isn’t the only guy here who’s done shady shit to get a girl pregnant. Thankfully, I don’t have to worry about that. Already preggers here. If anything, I was the shady one, but when my gynecologic oncologist recommended saving the ovary that didn’t have any tumors, it was for hormonal reasons. They even had me put a bunch of eggs on ice in case I wanted kids later.
So this wasn’t my fault, not really. Not sure where this lands on my luck spectrum.
“So . . . you want her to hang out with everybody who’s about to have a baby so hopefully, she’ll decide she needs another one, too?”
“You are so smart,” he says earnestly.
And he doesn’t need another baby soon, I’m thinking. He’s gotta be like 23. This isn’t something that needs to be rushed unless he’s planning on a dozen kids.
Unless heisplanning on a dozen kids.
“Mouth margaritas, bitches!”
I spin in my seat at the new voice coming from the house, fairly sure it’s not someone I’ve met yet. Standing there in the light coming from both the house behind him and the floodlight overhead is Blaise Sinclair.
Holy cow.
I knew he was handsome. Everyone knows he’s handsome. I lost sleep over that damn ad he did last summer, although in my defense, it happened to come out right when the pregnancy hormones had kicked in and I thought I was going to explode if I wasn’t getting off every second of the day.
But in person, even in the unflattering lighting, fully dressed, sporting a hoodie, he looks like sin. His warm, dark skin is radiant. His hair, temporarily out of the twists he’s known for, is free and wild, that backlighting from the sliding glass door making it look like a shimmering black cloud. He’s impossibly tall and lean, and that smile of his? It would give Evan’s a run for its money.
Except there’s a tightness to it. Tohim. He’s here to party, hoisting a bottle of tequila and some margarita mixer in the air, but I get this vibe that something is wrong. He’s not here to party.
He’s here to drown.
I told myself I wasn’t going to like Blaise, and considering the first thing he does is tilt his head back to dump the bottles into his mouth, making a mess everywhere and leaving his gray hoodie streaked in electric green, I don’t. But he catches my heart.
He swallows, recoils, and tips his head back again. I’m fairly sure I hear a collective sigh of relief over the hot tub’s jets when Merrick uses his crazy long arms to snag the bottle from Blaise.
And then thrusts it at me.
“Well, I don’t want this.”
“Just take it, Tilly,” Merrick says in such a commanding tone that I understand the slightest bit better why Cora keeps falling into this asshole’s trap.
“You can’t give tequila to pregnant girls!” Evan whines.
