Page 129 of Who's Playing You
As it turns out, I kind of liked football.
It didn’t hurt that my boyfriend was the hottest thing in professional football, and by hottest I was totally referring to his talent.
Totally.
I’d been able to come to just about every home game since Nicholas’ first home game, and they’d won almost all of them. Atticus had given me a permanent visitor’s pass to the stadium and insisted I attend as many games as possible - referring to me as a lucky charm. He made sure that I always had a seat in the VIP suite with him and Trina.
Atticus even tried to give me a VIP parking spot, but when Nicholas assured him that he had a driver bring me to every game, he relented on the whole parking spot thing.
Trina and I had actually become quite good friends since our first introduction in September. She’d pre-bought every piece I had in my studio. I was still in shock over that, as well as the prices she insisted on paying me. She then asked if she could commission me to do three pieces, which I happily accepted.
Then Nicholas let it slip that I dabbled in photography, after Praveen and Mindy opened their big fat mouths to him about that. When he informed Trina of this, let’s just say she literally begged me to show her my photographs the next time she visited me at the studio.
But my time in the VIP suite this fall wasn’t all just art and football. Natasha and Nathan made sure of that.
In the past two-plus-months, I’d grown really close with them. They really were the parents that I always wished I’d had. They too attended every one of Nicholas’ home games, and we usually grabbed dinner with them afterwards when time allowed. Natasha and I also talked just about every day.
Nicholas had suggested we wait until baby bean’s three month checkup, which was coming up soon, before we told people. Except for Nic and Nik of course. Apparently the three of them couldn’t hold secrets from one another, and that’s why Nicholas already told them.
Truthfully though, I was dying to tell Natasha. I was also scared she wouldn’t approve. Nicholas assured me that his parents would be over the moon and that he’d probably have to buy them a house in New Hope so that they wouldn’t just move in with us. As he kept telling me, there would literally be nothing that would stop his mom because she was going to lose her mind with excitement.
Even though he hadn’t steered me wrong yet, I still worried.
“Hey babe! I’m home,” I yelled from the front door as I took my shoes and coat off.
When I walked into the kitchen, I found Nicholas leaning against the big island. He was looking like a damn fine snack in his designer jeans and black band T-shirt with his backwards baseball cap. I licked my lips and found I was already feeling hot and bothered.
I wanted to blame the baby hormones, but honestly? I just blamed Nicholas. He must seriously be God’s favorite human because the man was just that fine.
As I was admiring his ass, he glanced over his shoulder and saw that I was simply standing there, ogling him.
“Oh hey, honey, how was your day?” He said in the most distracted way - you know the kind, where he’s asking but not really asking at all. And to make matters worse, when he asked, he was glaring at his cell phone that he had in his hands.
“Hi. It was good,” I hedged. “And yours?”
“Sorry?” he asked because he hadn’t heard a word I said.
“I asked how your day was.”
“Oh… yeah… ju-just hang on, alright?”
Yeah, no. This wasn’t happening. He was all out of sorts, his whole body language was screaming frustration and he was so distracted that he was literally paying me no mind. Not that I was some needy bitch, but come on! We’re talking about a man who was quite literally obsessed with me - or so he kept assuring me.
So to come home and find him like this, I needed to get to the bottom of all of this.
I slowly made my way across the kitchen and wrapped my arms around him from behind. I leaned my cheek against his back and I felt him relax and sigh. “You okay?”
He straightened and raised his head to the ceiling before letting out a deep breath. “Fuck. No, not really,” he admitted.
“What can I do?”
“Not leave me,” he mumbled, and I wasn’t sure if he meant for me to hear that or not.
“Why would I leave you?”
“This whole situation is so fucked up,” he said as he turned in my arms and led me to sit on one of the barstools. “How do you feel? Do you want me to get you water?” He asked before looking at my ankles to check if they had any swelling.
“Nicholas, relax. I’m fine. Baby bean is fine. You’re the one who’s not, so tell me what’s going on.”
