“Night, Gracie. Go easy on my man, no busting his balls, you hear?”
“Can’t guarantee that. Ball busting is one of my favourite pastimes.” He smiles, shakes his head and walks back to his truck.
I’m so getting Kod over here and hooking those two up. He’s exactly her type!
KOA
IWROTE A SONG.NOTjust a few words scribbled down, but an entire song. That’s what she does to me. It’s as if everything is new and fresh since Gracie arrived. She makes me want to breathe deeper, let myself feel and to live again.
It’s a bullshit, sloppy, love song, and yeah, it’s about her.
That’s a lie. It’s a totally honest, raw and emotional love song, and yeah, it’s all about her.
Once she’d left earlier with Lee, I was vibrating with energy and emotion. I paced, I drank, and I nearly pulled out every goddamn hair on my head and chin in frustration, especially after I texted her about my lie, and she didn’t respond. That was one of the longest half hours of my fucking life. Another lie, tonight has felt like one of the longest of my life.
I made myself a coffee while I waited, dug out my notebook and wrote down exactly how I felt, how Gracie Elliott makes me feel. I poured out everything that woman did to me, and I turned it into a song. Then I poured myself another drink, read and re-read her texts before pouring her a wine, switching on the lights on the back veranda, and taking both of our drinks, including the bottles, out with me and placing them next to the hot tub. I grabbed a couple of clean towels from the laundry and put them next to our drinks.
I didn’t bother with shorts, in fact, I didn’t bother with boxers, after leaving a note on Gracie’s bedroom door telling her to meet me in thespa,naked, I came back down here and climbed in. And now I wait.
THE DOOR TO THE VERANDAopens. I sip my drink and watch over the top of my glass as Gracie appears. She’s wearing her Queen of Fucking Everything robe, and my first thought is that I’ll need to ask her not to wear that when Malia is around. The kid is a combination of sponge and parrot. She both absorbs and repeats just about everything she hears.
I’m so used to it being just Kai and me most of the time that I’ve slipped up and cussed in front of her on more than one occasion. Her mother was not impressed when the preschool called her and said that Malia had called a little boy “a major fuckin’ pain in her ass.” Kai and me could hardly contain ourselves when Lucy stood on our front step ranting, but we’d managed to rein it back until she left. Then we’d both collapsed where we’d been standing and could barely breathe we were laughing so hard.
Fuck, I miss my kids.
And fuck, I’m seriously thinking about introducing them to Gracie.
I take another sip, or maybe a swig, of my drink and draw in a deep breath as I watch her approach, hoping that she’s naked beneath that damn robe.
She smiles. It’s not big. It’s small but soft, and it’s aimed right at me. My very naked dick likes it and stands slightly straighter by way of appreciation.
“Essex.” I tilt my head in her direction.
“All right, Cowboy. Ya miss me?”
“Sure did. You miss me?”
“Like I’d miss a hole in my arse.”
I spit my drink and throw my head back and laugh so loud that I scare a bird from one of the trees in the backyard. When I look back at Gracie, she’s setting down her speaker and her phone. She turns on the speaker and starts messing with her phone. I know the song the instant the first note hits my ears. It’s one of mine.
She’s smiling at me, bigger now than before, and it hits me right in the chest to think that she’s been searching for my music.
She tugs on the belt around her robe, and it falls undone. She has a bikini on underneath, and I have no control over my eyes as they slide from her face, over her body, and then back to her face as she shrugs out of it and lays it on the sun lounger next to the hot tub.
“How was dinner?” I ask, needing to do something other than just stare at her.
She turns sideways and pats her soft, flat belly.
“I’ll be giving birth to a calf in about eighteen months.”
An image of Gracie’s belly big and round, filled with my baby, our baby, hits me hard. The image steamrolls over every other thought in my head for a few seconds. I swallow.
“Nice bikini.”
Seriously? That’s all you’ve got Carmichael?
“Thanks. It’s a Rye. Last seasons but one of my favs. This is the Crackle, Rick Rack scalloped edge. Couldn’t get a hold of one if you offered up your firstborn during the summer. Luckily, I know a man who can and got sent a freebie as long as I mentioned it on the blog.”