“Eli,” she rasps, her gaze shifting to meet mine.
“Don’t say no. Just go and get your shit and come back down.”
“What about Ryan?” she asks.
“What about him?”
Sliding my thumb up and down the side of her hand, I flex my fingers around her wrist before I release her. “Whatever he needs at my place, he’s got it.”
“A playpen maybe to sleep in or something.”
She knows that I only have one bed because I gave her the whole tour of the house earlier tonight, before our fight, disagreement, or whatever the fuck it was. I don’t even know. Sitting here with her, I feel so fucking confused. I don’t know what to say or what to think. All I know is that I can’t let her go back to that hotel room and stay there.
I need them with me. Like I need my next fucking breath.
“For one night,” she says.
“I’ll get you a playpen, whatever the fuck that is.”
She smiles. “We can go to Target or something like that. They have inexpensive ones.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do. Whatever he needs, baby,” I murmur. “You want me to come with you and get everything?” I ask.
She looks from me to the hotel, then back to me. Then I watch as she looks over her shoulder, her eyes sliding toward the back seat to a sleeping Ryan before she shifts them back to meet my own.
“I’ll go and get our stuff for a few nights. I agree we need to work this out and work out the future.”
The only future that I’m willing to work out is the one where she is in my bed every night and Ryan is sleeping in the room across the hall from me. That’s what I want, and I have until the end of this week to make it happen, go to practice, and get ready to leave for our next playoff game, which is away.
But I’m determined to make this happen, for Wrenly to realize that all of this happened for a reason, and she’s meant to be mine. I just have to make her see it, too. And I know that she will.
Eventually.
I’m not sure how long I wait in the car for her to come back down, but while I do that, I start searching for that playpen thing she was talking about. I see that it is used as a bed, but fuck, it looks uncomfortable as shit.
When she comes back, I jump out of the truck and load up the bags. Once she’s in the truck, I head to the store to get the most uncomfortable-fucking-looking bed on earth for my son. Making a vow to myself that I’ll buy my boy a real bed soon.
It doesn’t take us long to get the playpen. Then we’re heading back to the house. We don’t speak much. There is a different vibe in the air, and I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s charged.
Pulling into the driveway, I don’t turn the truck off immediately. I turn to Wrenly and reach for her hand, holding it for a moment, looking down and watching the way her small hand fits in mine before I shift my gaze to meet hers.
“I don’t know what tomorrow brings, but while you’re here, I want to give this a shot.”
“A shot?” she asks.
She knows exactly what the fuck I’m saying. She just wants to hear me say it. The thing is, I have no fucking problem saying it. “You and me. One night wasn’t enough, Wrenly. I think that we have a real opportunity to make this work. We may not know if we’re comfortable on a day-to-day basis, but I know that we are where it counts.”
She wrinkles her nose, and I swear to fuck, it makes my cock twitch. Yeah, we’re definitely going to be making a full fucking effort to make this shit work. And I’m going to be working her—thoroughly.
TWELVE
WRENLY
Sucking in a breath,I stand in the master bedroom, wondering what the hell I’m going to do. Ryan has been bathed and is asleep in the guest bedroom inside of his playpen.
His brand-new playpen.
The most expensive one on the shelf. Even though I argued with Eli about the price, he insisted as he grumbled about what bullshit it was and that the whole thing looked uncomfortable. I never thought about that little mat being uncomfortable before. Maybe it is. I don’t know.
