“You’d really do that?” she asks.
Why is she surprised? She’s seen my bookshelves. They’re like twenty percent hockey related, ten percent biographies, a few sci-fi books, then the rest are romance.
“I’d do anything for you, sunshine. You should know that by now.” Leaning down, I take her mouth in a kiss that’s anything but chaste. My tongue sweeps across hers, earning a moan that has me hard as a fucking rock. I’m tempted to strip her nakedright here in our closet, but she got dressed all cute and did her makeup, so as much as I’d love to ruin it in the best way, I force myself to pull away.
Our physical chemistry has never been an issue. But Mira is right—we don’t spend enough time with each other out and about—and I don’t want our relationship to suffer for it.
“Let me change out of these sweats and we can go, okay?”
Breathing hard, Mira looks up at me with flushed cheeks and blown pupils, nodding. “Okay. But Griffin?”
“Yeah, babe?”
“Maybe wear your normal stuff instead of the polos and khakis you’ve been wearing lately?”
I bark out a laugh. “You don’t like the polos?” Here I thought I was dressing like the kind of guy Mira was looking for. Someone serious and staid.
“They’re fine, if that’s what you really want to wear, but they don’t feel likeyou,you know?” She rests her palm on my chest and blinks up at me with those pretty green eyes. “I just want you to be you. So, if that’s polos and khakis, cool. But if not, wear what you’re comfortable in, okay?”
Damn. My chest warms. It’s stupid, because it’s such a small thing, but I guess I needed the reassurance that my girl doesn’t want me to be someone I’m not. Grinning like an idiot, I nod. “Got it. Give me a minute and I’ll be ready to go.”
An hour later,I’m walking down the sidewalk in jeans and a hoodie, a baseball cap pulled low to hide my face from as many curious fans as possible, my wife’s hand in mine. It’s probably a risk to be openly affectionate in public like this, but Mira hasn’t tried to pull away, and I’m at the point where I don’t care ifMadds beats the shit out of me if someone publishes a photo of me and his sister. I just need to hold her hand, kiss her, claim her.
Mira sips her coffee, laughing at a stupid story about the trouble her brother and I got into our first couple of years on the Rogues. It feels good. Right. Like this is what I want to do for the next fifty years and beyond. We don’t have to do anything exciting or earth-shattering. As long as I’ve got my wife at my side, we could spend the rest of our days in the Twin Cities, walking hand in hand, eating at the same three restaurants, sitting in the same coffee shop, and I’d be happy as a goddamn clam.
“I didn’t know my brother was such a troublemaker,” Mira says between giggles.
“He wasn’t, not really. I just dragged him along with me.”
“You’re a bad influence.” She looks up at me, eyes shining and smile bright.
I chuckle. “Yeah, probably.”
“But he needs that, sometimes. He’s always been so serious and responsible. I think he felt like he had to be after our dad left.”
Glancing down at the beautiful woman who lights up my life, I’m struck by a deep sense of anger and disbelief that her deadbeat dad could have walked away from her and never looked back. Madds and I don’t talk about it much, but there were a few times in college when he got drunk and told me the whole story. It was one of the things that motivated him to be the best. If he was the best, he’d be able to make sure his mom and sister were always taken care of.
“You’re probably right. Even in college, it was hard to get him to let go. I dragged him to parties and events as often as I could, but he was adamant that he couldn’t do anything that would jeopardize his scholarship.”
Mira nods. “It was also so he could lecture me.”
I bark out a laugh at that. “What?”
She grins, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “Yeah. One weekend during my junior year of high school, I got drunk enough at a party that my best friend had to call my mom to come pick me up. She was not happy. Especially since it was at one of the football player’s houses, and he had a bit of a reputation. Plus, I kinda puked in her car.”
“Oh shit,” I say, laughing. “Your mom is sweet as hell, but I know she can be scary.” You can’t be a single mom and not develop some fire.
“Yeah. She didn’t yell at me that night, but the next day, she let me have it, made me clean out the car, grounded me for a month, and told Maddox what I’d done.” She says it all with this wistful tone that speaks to how close the three of them are. “Maddy lectured me for an hour and told me that if he could keep from going out and getting drunk in college, surrounded by parties every weekend and teammates who were always going out to bars, that I had no excuse. Then he lectured me for another hour about never taking a drink from anyone, never setting a cup down, and about how it was normal at my age to be curious about sex and how to be safe about it.”
I can picture that awkward conversation in perfect clarity, and I’m laughing my ass off as we get closer to the bookstore. “Oh man, he didn’t.”
She nods. “He did. It was mortifying. And maybe it makes no sense, but I was almost more scared to disappoint Maddy than I was to disappoint my mom. We’ve always been so close, and he’s always been my protector.”
Her words don’t diminish the tightness that’s wrapped itself around my chest like a boa constrictor ever since that night at the bar, but it puts things in perspective for me. For as long as Mira can remember, she’s looked up to her big brother. He’sbeen her friend and protector, and even though they’re not far apart in age, in lots of ways, he was the father figure she never had. I’ve always known this to a degree, but I guess I didn’t realize how deep it runs for her. But with that perspective comes the unwelcome worry I’ve been fighting off since the morning we woke up in bed together in Vegas.
Does she think Maddox will be disappointed in her for marrying me?
“It’s also one of the reasons I decided to go to school in Chicago,” she continues. “Because I love my brother to pieces, but do you know how much it sucks to be a teenager living in the shadow of your perfect brother? Not only was he this hockey phenomenon, but he was serious and studious and never did anything irresponsible.” She rolls her eyes, even though there’s no real annoyance behind it.
