Deke towered in the doorway, a beefy forearm braced against the jamb, blue eyes raking him with a scathing glare. Then Kimber’s husband sighed and looked over his shoulder, into their family room. “Kitten, your personal Bieber is at the door.”
“Jesse?” she asked, her familiar voice comforting.
Deke stepped back, and she appeared in the doorway a moment later. Well, her pregnant belly edged into view. The rest of her followed an instant later. He hadn’t talked to her in so long, he hadn’t even known she was pregnant again. Didn’t that make him feel even more like a shit?
Deke wrapped an arm around her—both a reminder and a warning. Jesse was relieved that seeing the man’s hands on her no longer made him twenty kinds of jealous.
“Oh my gosh!” Kimber’s hazel eyes widened as she pulled him in for a hug. “You really are here.”
Jesse held her for something slightly longer than a moment. When Deke growled, he pulled free.
Clearly, he was intruding on their happy domestic scene.
“I really am. Sorry to drop by without calling.”
“Not at all. Come in.” She opened the door wider and stepped back.
Deke glared but let Jesse enter. Now that he’d interrupted their evening, he’d talk fast, thank them, and be gone.
As he cleared the foyer, flashes of light told him the TV was on, but lack of sound told him someone had muted it. Children’s toys filled baskets and shelves around the room—balls, books, trucks, stuffed animals. Kimber had given birth to a son almost four years ago and was obviously about to be a mother again.
“Sit.” She waved him over to the couch. “Can I get you something? Water? Coffee?”
Reluctantly, he sank into an armchair, leaving the couch for the two of them. “No thanks. How are you?”
“Pregnant, as you can see.” She smoothed her hand over her distended belly with a serene smile. “It’s a girl this time. I’m due at the end of next month. Otherwise, I’m fine.”
“And you’re on bed rest until then so you don’t go into premature labor again. Feet up.” Deke hustled her back to the sofa, lifted her calves and placed her swollen ankles on a pillow strategically positioned on the coffee table. Then the man pinned Jesse with a stare, shaking his head. “I’m guessing this isn’t a social call since your buddy Ryan fucked up and bit it last night.”
Kimber gaped, swatting at her husband. “Deke!”
“Am I wrong?” Deke looked his way.
Jesse raked a hand through his wavy hair. He hated wearing it to his shoulders and filled with “product.” The stylist he paid a small fortune for insisted it looked both cool and hot. Same with the scruff on his face. More and more often, he just wanted it all gone. “Nope. But I wasn’t there.”
“Access Hollywood suggested something similar about an hour ago,” she said.
“Which I don’t watch,” Deke cut in. “You came here for a reason. What do you need?”
Grimacing, Jesse tugged at his ear. These damn earrings annoyed the shit out of him, but his stylist insisted they added to his badass image—something he increasingly resented.
Crap, he shouldn’t have come here. He’d wanted Kimber to save him once upon a time. She couldn’t then, and she couldn’t now. Worse, he risked bringing the press down on them, extra stress Kimber didn’t need if she was having a difficult pregnancy.
“Nothing.” He stood. “You’ve got your hands full. I assume your son is in bed. And I… I’ll figure it out.”
“You need a place to crash?” Deke barked.
Jesse opened his mouth to admit that was half the reason he’d come. Then he snapped it shut again. Deke’s buddy Jack had some isolated cabin in the Louisiana swamp, and it would come in handy about now. But Jesse hadn’t done anything for himself since fame had hit—not kept his schedule, answered his calls, or styled his hair. Hell, he’d barely wiped his own ass. He was a grown man who should be able to take care of the essentials. And as Candia had suggested, the time had come for him to change everything.
He was too damn unhappy to spend the rest of his life this way.
“No. I’ve got a place in mind,” he lied. “Before I headed that way, I wanted to spend time with someone who…” Knows I’m not the sort of man to corrupt and overdose a teenager.
But the last time he’d seen Kimber before she’d ended their engagement, she’d walked in to find him chugging a fifth of bourbon while balls deep in an intoxicated, barely legal girl he’d been sharing with Ryan. Deke must know that. “Someone who wouldn’t bullshit me. Someone with a solid word of advice.”
“Well…” Kimber’s brow wrinkled in thought. “I’ve always said that you have to decide what you want in life and to make it happen.”
Deke took her hand and squeezed it affectionately. “Kitten, I think he meant me.”
