Page 102 of The Triple Play

She hesitated, swallowing, but gave me a small smile. “I think so. I’m just… I don’t know. I keep thinking I’ll look up and Elliot will be watching from outside. I know it’s stupid.”

“It’s not.” I moved to her, my hand curling gently around her hip, my fingers brushing the side of the barely-there bump. “It’s not stupid, Annie. He followed Colton. He knows where we live. That’s real.”

I watched her grip tighten around the handle so hard her knuckles started to go white, and I gently pried it from her hand.

“Let me, baby.”

Almost reluctantly, she let go, letting me take it from her. She backed away from the stove slowly, shifting to the counter just beside it, and hauled herself up onto it, her legs swinging against the cabinets. I flipped the bacon, then the eggs, keeping it all moving so she didn’t have to.

“If it wasn’t a serious concern, I would have forced myself to go to practice. You’re not crazy for being freaked out by it. I am, too,” I said softly. “But Cole and and Colton are fucking terrible at faking being sick and I throw the meanest punch, so here I am.”

I shot her a little smirk.

“But mostly… I wanted to stay. Ineededto stay. Haven’t had some time alone with you in days.”

She watched me closely, her gaze a little sullen. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “That’s mostly my fault.”

I quirked a brow at her.

“We were supposed to watch that movie the other night,” she reminded me, her brows furrowing as she tried to remember the name of it. “The one where Brad Pitt starts a badly managed gym in his basement.”

I snorted. “Fight Club.”

“Yeah, that one,” she said, her lower lip jutting out a little. “I fell asleep on you before we could even get past the opening.”

I set the spatula down and moved the pan off the stove, setting it aside so I could pay her attention. I didn’t care if it fucked up breakfast. “Annie. Baby. No,” I chuckled, leaning one hip on the counter beside the stove. “I’d rewatch the same three minutes of that movie a thousand times if it meant you’d keep falling asleep on my chest.”

Her lips quirked up at the edges.

I swallowed, watching the way her stupidly intoxicating eyes started to get a little more life in them. “I didn’t think I could do this, you know,” I said softly, my voice steady but low. “Not at first, at least. Sharing you. I know I can be possessive, I know I fall hard and fast and shit gets messy in my head. It always has. I thought I’d hate watching someone else kiss you. Touch you. I was convinced it’d make me lose my mind.”

She blinked at me. “Really? You hid it so well.”

I rolled my eyes. “Such a smartass. Can’t even let me finish my little speech.”

“Oh, it’s a speech?” Her grin spread wider, the worry of a few seconds ago slipping away into something playful. “Can I guess what you’ll say at the end of it?”

My cheeks heated. “Am I that obvious?” I asked, stepping closer, slotting myself between her knees on the counter. I grasped her gently with my hands on either side of her waist, pulling her forward just a hair, just enough to be a little closer.

Her hand came up to the side of my neck, cupping it softly. “Obvious? Maybe. But I like where it’s going,” she said, her thumb dragging back and forth across my skin. When she spoke again, her voice was softer, quieter, almost a whispered challenge. “Don’t mess it up now.”

I blinked at her, caught so completely off guard by her casualness, my face burning a little hotter. “You little shit,” I chuckled, shoving down the embarrassment creeping up my spine. I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her even further forward, enough that she was practically flush against me. “Here I was, about to tell you all about how every time I see you with them, see how happy you are, I don’t feel jealous. I was going to tell you that I feel grateful. That it feels like the universe took this impossible, unfair thing and made it work just for us, likeyoumade it work. But you justhaveto push my buttons.”

Her eyelids lowered just a tad, her face just barely far enough from mine to be able to focus her eyes on me. “See, now I’m glad you didn’t get to say that the way you normally would. With my hormones running wild, I would have ended up crying on you before you even got to?—”

“I’m in love with you,” I said quickly, cutting her off. No fireworks, no buildup like I’d intended, just the truth, bare and raw from sitting in my throat for weeks. Months. It felt like a weight had been ripped off my shoulders.

And I couldn’t help myself from giving her a taste of her own medicine and flusteringherinstead.

“I’m so stupidly in love with you, Annie. I think I was from the moment you played that song to us in LA. Maybe earlier. Maybe before I even touched you.”

Her lower lip quivered, her eyes trained on me, turning glassier rapidly by the second. “You absolute dick,” she whispered, a breathy little laugh undermining her. “You couldn’t even let me finish being annoying.”

I rolled my lips between my teeth, trying to hide the way my cheeks were pulling apart with a grin. “No,” I chuckled. “I couldn’t.”

She leaned forward, her lips pressing against mine, her heart beating hard enough that I could feel it against my chest. But she pulled back before I could even deepen it. “I was waiting for you to say it,” she breathed. “I didn’t feel right saying it back to any of you until you’d all said it. I didn’t want to leave anyone out.”

My brows furrowed. “What do you?—?”

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