Page 31 of Kicking it for Convenience

“You know we weren’t surprised when you brought Levi home.” My dad cut a look at her and she cleared her throat. “Well, we were surprised you’d gotten married so soon, but we weren’t surprised you brought home a man.”

“How did you know?” I asked softly.

“You didn’t date much in school, but that doesn’t mean much of anything, I know. That said, Shawna was your first serious girlfriend and you two never quite seemed happy together. It wasn’t that there was something wrong with her. It was just that you never seemed quite… yourself. Like you were holding back. And we didn’t want to get involved, so we kept quiet, but… I don’t know how to explain it, except to say, sometimes parents know things about their kids before the kids even figure it out themselves. And we love you so much, all we want is for you to be happy. You seemed happier with Levi the weekend that you visited than you ever did with Shawna for the whole time you were together.”

“Dad?” I asked, my throat thick with emotion.

He nodded. “She’s right. Everything she says is true.”

I fought the sick feeling building in my gut and took a deep, shaky breath, my eyes stinging. “Okay.”

“Does Levi know you’re in love with him?” Mom’s words were gentle but they cut me deep, the same way Hugo’s had.

I shook my head. “Not yet.”

“Well,” she said. “If he has any sense at all, he’ll tell you how much he loves you, too.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

Dad shook his head. “Then he isn’t being honest with himself.”

I closed my eyes and let their words sink in. How I hoped they were right. After a moment, I opened my eyes again. “Thanks, guys. I love you.”

“We love you too,” they said simultaneously.

When we hung up, I steeled myself. I was going to have to put my heart on the line and tell Levi everything. And I was going to have to do it soon, before I imploded.

Chapter Seventeen

Levi

The workday had been rough, with one disaster after another requiring all my attention, despite the fact that my mind was anywhere other than on my work. The weather was getting nasty, a late-season hurricane coming in and expected to make serious landfall that evening, and I wanted to get home to Soren before things got bad, discuss what he wanted to do about the Radiance, and hunker down to ride out the storm. After what felt like a week, we finished the job we were on that day—an insurance claim for a house that had flooded due to a faulty shutoff valve in a washing machine—and I was able to head home.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Soren, about the previous night, the night we’d spent together on that tiny, uncomfortable couch. I couldn’t stop thinking about how there was nowhere else I’d rather be. My mind played the events of the night on a continuous loop, and memories of Soren’s hands on my bare skin, his hair between my fingers, my cock buried inside him all raced around in my brain, along with the memory of his desperate words. I want you to fuck me.

I shivered, completely consumed by thoughts of Soren and how much things had gotten out of hand. I needed to put a stop to it, or come clean about my feelings. It wasn’t just sex, either. I was falling for him.

It was a risk, being honest with him about how I felt. Soren could easily turn me away, tell me our sexual encounters had just been that, nothing more. I shook off the fear and turned into the driveway, my face brightening when I saw Soren’s car already there. I hurried out of the truck and into the house to find Soren sitting at the kitchen table, sorting mail. It was so simple and mundane my heart ached once again. I want this. I want this with you. I had to tell him.

When I came through the door, he looked up and smiled at me, a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Hey,” he murmured.

“Hey. You okay?”

Soren looked back down at the mail and hummed. “Yep.”

He was acting weird but I didn’t want to call him on it and make things worse. Had it been something I’d said or done the night before? Was he feeling weird about having sex with me? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

I made my way to the bedroom and changed out of my work clothes into something more casual—and something cleaner. If I was going to tell my husband I had feelings for him, I certainly wasn’t going to do it smelling like grease and paint. I smirked and shook my head. It sounded so ridiculous when I put it like that. I needed to stop thinking of him as my husband and start remembering we were business partners, first and foremost.

When I was changed and relatively clean, I made my way into the living room. Soren had moved to the couch and was watching the news intently.

“Did you know there’s a big storm coming?”

I ran my fingers through my long hair and nodded. “It’s going to get bad. They’re saying this could be as bad as Gaston.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Gaston?”

“Gaston was a hurricane that hit this area years ago. It flooded the whole downtown. The flood walls were closed, but it just trapped the water in the city. Some buildings had water six feet deep or more at the worst of it.”

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