Second Opinion (15 page)

We met covertly. We spent weekends together at her place or mine. We stayed in most nights so we could just be together.

And through it all, our bond only strengthened. She became not just the girl I was banging, but the girl who I looked forward to seeing. She became a close friend.

She became the one I wanted to tell about my past. 

It was about a month after the wedding when Reed and Quinn invited a bunch of friends from the wedding party to have a Friday night dinner, complete with beer and poker.

“Do you want to go together?” I asked Avery as soon as the text had come through with the invitation. We were at her place. It was Friday morning, and we were being lazy (and naked) in bed after staying up much too late the night before. She’d shown me this little trick she had learned to do with her tongue, and let’s just say while it was a late night, it was also quite a pleasurable night.

And morning.

I had to get ready to go to work, but it was difficult to motivate myself to get the hell out of bed when I had such a beautiful woman next to me.

While she’d confessed the horrors of her past to me fairly quickly, I still hadn’t formed the nerve to tell her about my own.

It wasn’t because I didn’t want her to know. I wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed of what happened. Our histories were vastly different. It was the painful reminder of what I had lost that was scaring me. It was the fact I finally found myself moving on from the shit Rachelle had put me through, and I didn’t want to taint what I was forming with Avery by telling her what had happened with Rachelle. I didn’t want to bring it up. I wanted it to stay in the past, right where it belonged.

“It’ll be too obvious,” Avery said, breaking into my thoughts. “Let’s let them have their night. We can make our announcement later.”

“I won’t be able to stay away from you.” After a month of being together whenever we wanted short of when I had to be at work, I wasn’t sure how I was going to keep my hands off of her.

I wasn’t used to feeling like this. I was used to a few nights with a woman before moving along to whoever came next.

“I won’t, either,” she said, snuggling further into me.

“Then let’s not. Let’s just tell them.”

She hesitated, and it wasn’t necessarily the hesitation that scared me. It was the reason why she was hesitating. She was still scared. Confessing our relationship to other people outside of our little bubble made it real. It meant labeling what we had. It meant sharing the fact that we were together, and I was ready to share it.

“I’m not ready.”

I sighed, and she turned and looked up at me.

“I’m sorry, Grant,” she said, leaning up over me and smoothing her fingers across my eyebrow.

“I get it. I just want to tell everyone. I don’t want to hide.”

“I want to, too. But Quinn is one of my best friends. You’re her brother. Let’s just allow the focus to be on her and Reed tonight. We’ll get our moment when the time is right, and I just don’t think that time is now.”

“Okay. But you have to promise me something.”

She gazed down at me.

“Two things, actually,” I amended.

She raised an eyebrow.

“One, you have to do that little tongue thing again.”

She laughed.

“And two, we will tell them. Eventually.”

“Deal. When we’re both ready.”

“Deal.”

We sealed it with a kiss, and then we continued sealing it until I had to get ready for work.

CHAPTER 11

Reed opened the door. He was tan and smiling, a good indication he’d had a great trip.

“How was the cruise?” I asked, slapping him on the back in a manly hug. He had been closing out an old neighborhood, so I hadn’t seen him at work since before the wedding. It was a rare month when we didn’t work together.

“Awesome. Plenty of sunshine, plenty of boat rocking.”

“Dude, that’s my sister.” I gave him a look of disgust while trying to glance around him to see if Avery was there yet. I hadn’t seen her car.

Great, now I sounded like a goddamn stalker.

He shrugged and grinned. “She’s my wife now. Trumps siblings. Why do you look different?”

“What do you mean?”

Reed studied me for a moment, and then Quinn walked up and hugged me. “Grumpy G! So glad you made it.”

“What are you making me for dinner?”

“I think we’ve got some leftover Olive Garden from before the wedding. All yours.”

“Cute, Curley Q.”

“We just ordered some pizza. Keeping it simple,” Reed jumped in.

“You look different,” Quinn said, studying me.

“Doesn’t he?” Reed asked, slipping his arm around his wife’s waist.

Wife
. God. It sounded so weird. My sister was somebody’s
wife
now. And not just anybody. My best friend’s
wife
.

“Haircut?” Reed guessed.

I gave the two of them a weird look. I didn’t look different. I didn’t cut my hair, I didn’t change my routine. I glanced down at my t-shirt and jeans. My style hadn’t changed.

What the fuck were they talking about?

“No, his hair’s the same,” Quinn said.

Now they were just talking about me like I wasn’t even there as they both studied me.

The bell rang behind us, thankfully taking Quinn’s attention away from me. She opened the door, and there stood the stunning Avery, looking gorgeous as usual in a simple shirt and jeans. She paired it with these killer heels I would definitely be fucking her in later.

Her eyes met mine, and I literally felt the heat pass between us.

As I stared at the woman I had developed some very intense feelings for over the course of the last few weeks, I realized the only thing that had changed was Avery’s presence in my life.

I tore my eyes away from her as my sister gave her a hug.

I turned to walk down the hallway into the kitchen. Reed’s friends from Wisconsin had gone home, but Veronica and Jesse were already seated at the table, and Reese was with one of her friends who didn’t work at the same school as the rest of the women. Avery and I rounded out the group.

I took a seat next to Jesse.

“What’s up, man?” Jesse said when I sat beside him.

I shrugged. “You told anybody else yet?” I asked quietly. Everyone’s attention was focused on Veronica as she told some story about her three-year-old daughter, so I knew our quiet conversation would go undetected.

He subtly shook his head and took a long drag of his beer. He glanced at Veronica. “Tonight, maybe. How are things with you two?” he asked quietly, motioning with his beer in a greeting when Avery walked into the room.

I followed her with my eyes much longer than I should have without responding. She walked over to the refrigerator with Quinn and Reed. The three of them pulled out some appetizers and a few bottles of beer, deep in conversation.

“Dude, you’re in deep.”

I tore my eyes from Avery. I couldn’t touch her. I couldn’t kiss her. I couldn’t allow anyone else to know what was going on. This night was going to be torture.

“Deeper than I should be after only a month.”

“Still a secret?”

“She wants it to be.”

“You don’t?”

“She said it’s their night. Our time will come.”

Quinn delivered a beer to me, cutting our conversation short. Jesse changed the subject to college football, a much safer topic.

Avery took a seat next to Reese and joined in on listening to Veronica’s story. I shot a look across the table at her. I was trying to be furtive, but I knew I was massively failing. I couldn’t help it. I wanted my eyes to meet her gorgeous brown ones. I wanted to see that look of lust cross her features. I knew it was there, and I knew it was on my own face. I couldn’t hide it, and when her face lit up with a smile at the climax of Veronica’s story, I realized how right Jesse was. I was in deep, and there wasn’t anything I could do to change it.

The pizza came, and then we moved into a game room with a round table set up for eight. I’d gone to use the restroom, and when I came out, the only open seat was between Avery and Reed. I gladly took it, and I saw Jesse’s cheesy grin at me from across the table.

I shook my head, looking down at the ground. I was totally unable to hide my grin as I sat.

Reed shuffled the cards like a pro and we all bought in for our chips. We were playing Texas Hold ’Em, and I figured it would be a night of playing nice with the girls. Maybe it was sexist, but I didn’t think girls knew how to play poker.

An hour later, my stack of chips was nearly wiped out and had handily merged over to Avery’s stack.

Every single motherfucking thing I learned about this woman had me liking her more. I hated it at the same time I loved it. I didn’t want to fall for her. I liked my life the way it was. I wasn’t ready to settle down or to commit myself to one woman. I wasn’t willing to set myself up for the inevitable painful end of another relationship.

Yet every single thing was pointing me straight toward Avery. In order to let go of my past, I had to talk about it. I was ready to move forward with Avery.

It was time to have that talk.

She got up to grab another beer, and a chorus of “I’ll have another” followed.

“I’ll help,” I volunteered, needing a moment alone with Avery.

I met her in the kitchen. That’s the nice way of saying I stalked toward her until I had her back pressed up against my sister’s refrigerator.

I lowered my lips to her ear and pressed my hips toward hers.

“I have a raging hard-on. What are you going to do about it?” My voice was a low growl.

She looked up at me, a mask of innocence crossing her features when I knew she was anything but. “I’m going to let you meet me at my apartment and we are going to fuck until the sun comes up.”

“I accept that challenge, and I raise you one blow job.”

“I’ll give you a blow job if you win back half of your chips in the next hour. But if I manage to wipe out the rest of your money, you’re at my mercy.”

I cupped her cheek in my hand, loving the feel of her soft skin against my fingertips. “Sounds like a win-win,” I whispered.

I brushed my lips against hers, and then I heard someone clearing a throat behind me. I jumped back.

I felt immediately guilty. Avery didn’t want word to get out about us, and here I was seducing her just around the corner from everyone she wasn’t ready to tell.

“Good thing it’s only me,” Jesse said.

I laughed awkwardly, and Avery blushed.

“Don’t worry, Avery. I’ve had my suspicions since the wedding.” Jesse winked at her, and she opened the refrigerator to gather all of the beers that had been ordered.

“How?” she asked, handing four to me. I set them on the counter and opened them.

“V sensed it.”

“She asked me about it during our dance,” I clarified. “I didn’t admit to anything.”

“Nothing had happened at that point,” she conceded.

“The two of you are making it pretty obvious with the constant flirting,” Jesse teased.

Avery looked slightly panicked. “Do you think Quinn knows?”

He shook his head. “She’s preoccupied with hosting. She hasn’t even figured out about V yet.” A look I can only describe as “oh shit” crossed his face. He froze.

“Figured out what about V?” Avery asked.

Jesse looked at me with wide eyes.

“Oh my God, Jesse Drake! Tell me!”

“Oops.”

“Is she pregnant?”

He nodded slowly, and she shrieked as she leapt across the room to hug him.

“We’re not telling people yet.” He was grinning even as he said it.

“Congratulations! I suspected, but I didn’t want to ask!”

I couldn’t help the little sliver of jealousy that she was hugging him. My brain told me it was a hug between friends, a celebration of his news. But the caveman inside of me only saw my woman in the arms of another man.

“You suspected?” he asked as Avery let him go. She walked over to me and gave my arm a light squeeze.

“Well my first hint was that she isn’t drinking. If you want to keep it a secret, you’re going to need a better excuse than heartburn.”

Jesse shrugged. “I don’t want to keep it a secret. She does.”

“Same boat,” I said, motioning between Avery and myself.

Jesse chuckled. “Damn women and their secrets.”

“When the men just want to shout it to the world,” I finished his thought.

Avery rolled her eyes and planted a quick kiss on my lips. “Soon,” she said, and then she took two beers and headed back to the poker party.

“I think she’s scared of how Quinn will react,” I said.

Jesse filled a cup with ice water. “She’ll deal. What is this thing between you two?”

“Good question.”

“Seems to me that for two people who tend to avoid commitment, you’re kind of committed.”

“I think that’s an accurate assessment.”

“You probably don’t care about my two cents, but I think the two of you could work.”

“Thanks, man.” I didn’t know what else to say. I was just the brother of his wife’s best friend. But I couldn’t exactly talk to Reed about her, and Jesse had some concept of what I was getting into. He knew Avery better than he knew me.

We headed back to the poker table. Avery managed to wipe me out in two more hands, and I couldn’t help but smile at the wicked grin that graced her beautiful face when she raked in all of my chips. I knew what her grin was all about, and I was very much looking forward to being at her mercy until the sun came up. Just the thought of it had me shifting in my seat.

Reed cashed in Avery’s chips, and Reese and her friend Jill left shortly after. It was just Veronica and Jesse, Quinn and Reed, and Avery and me. We were situated around Reed and Quinn’s family room, sprawled on couches with one last bottle of beer each—except for Veronica.

“Fun night,” Avery said, and everyone grunted tiredly in reply.

“So what’s next? Babies?” Reed joked. I saw Jesse and Veronica’s eyes meet, and she smiled.

“Actually…” Veronica trailed off.

Quinn sat up. “What?” she shouted, her voice grating on my ears like it had when we were just kids.

“We’re having a baby.”

The girls squealed even though Avery already knew, and they leapt off of the couch to their friend. Jesse grinned at me, and Reed and I both stood to shake his hand and give Veronica a hug.

“When are you due?” Quinn asked. Avery walked past me to return to her seat, her ass brushing against my leg. My cock twitched in response.

“A little under six months,” Veronica said, and we all sat back down.

“So exciting! When do you find out the gender?”

I tuned out the details because Avery’s eye caught mine. I couldn’t help it. I stared shamelessly, wondering how I was the guy who was lucky enough to be invited to spend the night in her bed. I just wanted to make her happy, to make her moan in that way she did, to hold her against me.

I wanted to talk about our news, too. I didn’t want to hide it from my best friend. I wanted to kiss Avery and sit next to her and toss my arm around her shoulders. I wanted to feel her burrow into my side next to me on the couch. I wanted to hold her hand. It was stupid to keep it a secret.

But I had to take her wishes into consideration. And if she preferred to hold back until she was ready, then I had to accept that.

It wasn’t long before Avery decided to call it a night. Reed asked if she was okay to drive, which she was. I didn’t want to arouse suspicion, so I waited until she had pulled away before getting into my own car and calling it a night as well.

I turned out of the subdivision and headed right for Avery’s place.

When I knocked on her door ten long minutes later, she answered it my favorite way: naked.

“You managed to get out of those clothes fast,” I muttered as she yanked me into her place and slammed the door behind me.

“I’m a quick worker.” She shoved me against the door and I let her. My mouth crashed down to hers as my dick took on a mind of its own. I don’t think I’d ever been so hard in my life. To sit in the same room as this woman for the entire night and look at her and want her—need her—but not be able to touch her? It was the worst kind of goddamn torture I could imagine.