Page 34 of Good Guy Gabe

“If she needs a dick, I dig pregnant chicks,” Blaise chimes in from the hot tub.

I snag an empty beer can and crush it with my fist before launching it over my shoulder at Blaise, pinging him right in the forehead. He might be the one known for his precision, but I’m the one who has to be precise when throwing the football to him from between my legs. “Don’t be gross.”

“Dude, I’m being respectful. Pregnant women are awesome, and if they have needs not getting satisfied, I will happily satisfy them. What’s gross about that?”

I sink into my chair — and slide my hand to Joss’s thigh — with a huff. She only chuckles and says, “Trust me, Tilly wants none of that. She needs new mom friends, not man whores.”

“I wear that badge proudly,” Blaise says before, even more horrifyingly, he says to Cora, “It’s not just pregnant chicks I’m into, in case you were concerned.”

“You’re never going to want to bring your friends over again, are you?” I whisper.

Joss pats my chest. “Cora’s a big girl. She’ll take what she wants, trust me.”

I take the moment to steal a kiss from Joss. Her lips are soft and yielding, and although I don’t want to do anything that’s going to embarrass her — like sticking my tongue in her mouth — I take the time to savor the contact. The rest of the group circled around the fire pit can put in the effort to ignore what we’re doing if we can keep it from getting too inappropriate. That’s fair.

Drew grabs a fire poker to stir up the embers while Kai throws some small logs into the pit, distracting everyone. I draw the kiss out with soft pecks and a tug on her bottom lip, loving the way she melts into me as her small, delicate hand wraps around the back of my neck to support her and keep her close. Her breath is heavy on my cheek.

I take her thigh in one of my hands and dig into it. A shiver races through her, and our lips part long enough for her to say, “Gabe,” faintly. The tone is questioning but breathless, and hereyes glance over to the others sitting nearby. She wants me, but not publicly.

We’re not excusing ourselves now. We’re celebrating a victory, and she’s gotten Drew and Mel to come over. Her friend’s in the hot tub, and maybe she can hold her own, but I still feel like we shouldn’t run off.

I lift Joss’s thigh up, pushing it to her torso, which has her foot settling on my knee.

“How are your kids doing?” I casually ask Drew and Mel. No funny business visible here — because the blanket is now tented on Joss’s knee. “I haven’t seen them all season.”

“Well, David has hit that ‘too cool to hang out with his parents’ phase,” Mel says with a laugh, “and has boldly declared he wants nothing to do with football. He then demanded we put him in hockey.”

“Hockey’s great,” I tell her. “Probably cooler than football.”

Drew groans. “Please don’t tell him that. Then he’ll think it’s as uncool as football and will try to get into archery or something.”

“Archery’s cool, too.” I don’t know, I’ve spent my entire life playing football, and I don’t regret it, but there was so long that I was in school too or working full time that football took up every other second of my life. And it still demands more than a regular job would, I’m still at the training facility six days a week and spending an hour of my day off in the weight room here, but I have actual downtime now. I don’t know what to do with it other than watching TV or playing video games, the same shit I do when we’re traveling and there’s not much else I can do.

Hobbies are cool. Archery is cool. Quilting is cool. They’re skills I don’t think I could ever do, not the least because myhands are so big that I don’t think I could handle anything that delicate.

“Come back to me when you’ve got a kid that decides the only good target for his nerf darts is your butt,” Drew chuckles.

“They sting more than you’d think,” Mel tacks on.

They say that like they don’t think we have an entire barrel of them inside. We have a cleaning lady that comes in weekly, and I swear half her job is collecting them. With the exception of Blaise, we’re all tidy enough, nothing is terrible for her, but those darts get everywhere.

“Just tell him quilting is infinitely uncool,” Joss laughs, “And I can force hexies on him until he realizes how uncool uncool things can really be.”

“What’s a hexie?” Mel asks, ignoring the jab Joss made at herself. It turns out Mel has a thing for sewing. The rest of us sit back and enjoy the cool evening, the warm fire, and the feminine chatter that’s all but a foreign language but still soothing to the ear.

It also gives me the opportunity to focus on working my hand between Joss’s thighs. Her eyes widen when I reach her panties and skim my thumb over the damp cotton. She shoots me a concerned look when I push the fabric away, but she doesn’t stop me. Even when she sees the glimmer of mischief in my eye, she just takes a deep breath.

And then squeaks when I push my middle finger into her warm, inviting pussy. She’s twisted some to face Mel, and at that, she grabs hold of my shirt and mangles it in her hand. She covers her squeak with a cough like there’s something in her throat, so I hand her my drink.

As she sips at it, I slide my finger in deeper and then drag it out, going slowly and carefully, savoring her slick warmth. I want her hot and limp and dopey, sex-drunk, melted fully into me. I’m going to make her come, that’s a definite, but I’m going to take my time, let her have this conversation. I’m scared of losing her to someone else, someone better, but I need her fully integrated into the group. Sure, she has her own friends, and she’ll keep them — ideally, I can find a way to bring at least Cora into the group, as well — but I need my world to be Joss’s so she can’t leave.

“You should bring Tilly to the next game,” I blurt out over the conversation she’s having with Mel, which has shifted to fall soup recipes. “Introduce her to Wren.”

I slide my ring finger in as I say that, and her toes are already curling at those two fingers.

“Umm, yeah,” she murmurs, her eyelids drooping. I’m careful tonotcurl my fingers inside her. I don’t want to trigger anything. I can’t have her a complete mess too soon. I scissor my fingers nice and slow, wishing I could lick my hand clean as her silk begins to pool in my palm. “That would . . . that would be good.”

Yeah, it would. If Tilly and Wren hit it off, that’ll be a new mom circle. They’ll have playdates. Since Tilly’s single, I’m wondering if Wren has some guy friends to hook her up with. Or, like, all the guys on the team who are single, but I’m definitely not going to hook her up with Blaise. I need a guy for her who’s going to be around for the long haul. If Tilly gets something going with one of my teammates and then they break up, that could be really bad.

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