CHAPTER 22

Cricket

 

We laid in bed, and I rubbed my fingers up and down his muscular chest, so grateful he was here. When I pulled up and saw his truck, I almost chickened out and drove away, but I was hoping the reason he was waiting for me was because he wanted the fighting and tension to be over just as much as me.

And I was right.

I finally had him back, and I wasn’t ever going to let him go. I was never going to leave him… not ever, not until I was dead.

He wrapped his arms around me and kissed the top of my head. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.”

“Anytime something happened, I wanted to tell you. When I had a question about the smallest thing, I knew you’d know the answer. There were so many times I almost gave in and went to you.”

“I wished you would have. And I wished I’d have come back sooner.”

He rolled, so he was on his side and propped his head up. “So, I’m sorry about your birth mother. I can’t even imagine how hard that was for you, and I wish like hell I could have been there for you.”

“It was something I needed to do on my own. My dad came with me to make sure I was safe, but I didn’t even want him there. I think I needed to prove something to myself, even if honestly, I don’t know what it was.”

“I can appreciate that now. But at the time, there’s no way I’d have been able to see past my own grief and anger to understand it back then.”

“I know. And I can’t tell you what it means to hear you say that.”

His breathing slowed as understanding took root. “What’s your birth father like?”

“He’s… really nice.”

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“It’s fine. It was just a little rough at first with him being an addict, but he’s better now. I didn’t develop this close relationship with him or anything. I haven’t talked to him since I got back, and I don’t know when I will again. Probably around the holidays or something. I just… I know you said Molly told you everything, but having you hear it from her was never my intention. I was going to tell you myself but—”

He put his finger over my lips. “Shh. It’s okay.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, Pixie. Really.”

“I never stopped loving you. And I barely even liked my ex. I honestly think I married him out of spite or to try to tell myself that I had moved on, but I never did.”

He brushed my hair off my face and tucked it back behind my ear. “I never did, either.”

“Good.”

“So, since you never moved on from me, are you gonna move in with me?”

My teeth snapped together. “Huh?” I mumbled.

“I don’t want you in this apartment. You’ve been too far away for far too long. There’s no way we’re going to be officially together again, and you not be in my bed every night. It’s not happening. We have a lot of time to make up for.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little fast?”

“Absolutely not.”

I grinned. “Not for us, for your girls.”

He rolled to his back and muttered a curse while he threw his arm over his eyes. “Piper ain’t gonna like it. Shit.”

“What do you mean?”

“Aubrey told her about you when you spent the night. Piper came to see me the next day to express her concerns about a woman being around her kid she didn’t know.”

“What did you tell her?”

He situated his arm behind his head and smirked. “Well, at the time, I was pissed at you because that morning, you blew me off when I came into the diner.”

“You showed up like an hour after my ex texted me.”

He sighed. “Christ, baby. Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Because I knew how you’d react. You’d want to fix everything and protect me, and you wouldn’t have cared about anything but that, and I didn’t want to put you in that position.” I told him what he already knew.

“I’m supposed to be the one you come to when you’re scared.”

“In my defense, I didn’t go to Lincoln. He was literally there when I got the text and must have noticed my panic or something.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about him, and I’ll never admit that you may have been right.”

“Whatever.”

“I’m going to talk to Piper tomorrow and tell her you’re moving in with me.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to, but don’t you think you should tell Dixie Mae and Aubrey, too. Let them get used to the idea before I invade their space.”

His head rolled back and forth. “Absolutely not. They like you, and they want me to be happy. You make me happy. They’ll be fine.”

“I want to be with you, but I really think you need to think about it before we do something we can’t take back. When do you get Aubrey back?”

“Next week.”

“Talk to Piper tomorrow. I’ll come over and hang out with you and Dixie Mae and leave before she wakes up. Once you talk to Aubrey, I’ll do the same, and after a little while, I’ll start being there in the mornings. How does that sound?”

His jaw worked as he thought. “I’m a grown-ass man. If I want my woman to stay over, I don’t need to hide her from my kids.”

“But it’s what’s best for them.”

“For you, you mean?”

I felt my forehead wrinkle. “What?”

“You’re using them as an excuse to keep me at a distance.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m not. You’re the one who’s still coming up with ways for us not to be together.”

This was classic Maverick. He had such a short fuse that he rarely thought before he said something out of anger. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I don’t know if I believe that.” It was as if he meant to keep that thought in his head, and when it rolled out of his mouth, he actually gasped. “I didn’t mean it.”

“No.” I shook my head. “You did. And I understand. You’ll just have to stick around long enough for me to earn your trust again. I’m not leaving you, ever.”

“I trust you, Cricket, especially because I know why you left now. I don’t know why I said that.”

Shrugging, I stated the truth. “Because you’re not wrong. And we haven’t talked about it at all, but your mom leaving right before me, and you not knowing why I left messed with your head. I get it. I was wrong, you weren’t perfect, but we love each other enough to move on from it, don’t we?”

“Yeah, Pixie. We sure do.” He reached for me and tugged me to him. I laughed as he pulled my leg over his so I was straddling him. “Just promise me one thing.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t leave me. No matter what, trust that I’ll do right by you, and I’ll trust that you’ll stay.”

I bent down and kissed him. “Deal.”

“Deal,” he whispered.

We kissed for a while, hot and heavy like we used to, and I loved every minute of it. God, I just missed everything about him, but I was going to try really hard to focus on the future and not dwell on the past. I rubbed my nose along his and asked, “Should we get started on a baby right away?” It was supposed to be an innocent question, but his face completely blanched, and I sat up. “What?”

He threw his hands over his face and groaned, but not the kind of groan I liked to hear when we were in bed together. “I can’t have more kids.”

I ripped his arms away so he’d be forced to look me in the eyes. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not. I had a vasectomy.”

“Oh my God.” I panicked, the bliss and peace shattered by the sound of my heart crumbling. “You can’t have kids. We can’t have a family.”

“I have two kids already, Cricket. I didn’t want more.”

This was… I wasn’t sure what this was, but I knew it was big, and I knew that it had the potential to change everything. I suddenly felt nauseous, and I threw the covers off and started to climb off the bed, but he hauled me back and covered me with his body. “Let me go.”

“After I found out about Aubrey, I had the procedure done. I didn’t think you were ever coming back.”

“I want kids,” I confessed in a broken whisper. I loved him, but I also wanted a baby… a baby with him. I never thought it wouldn’t be a possibility.

His eyes moved over my face. “My girls love you.” He kissed my forehead. “I love you.” And when a tear rolled down my temple, he wiped that away. “We’ll figure it out.”

“We’re talking about the rest of our lives, Maverick.”

He pressed his lips together. “I know, but I’m not willing to give you up, so if that means I have to have more kids, then I’ll have the procedure reversed, and I’ll get you pregnant.”

“That’s not going to happen.” I pushed at his chest. “Get off me.”

“No. What’s not going to happen?”

“You being forced to have another kid with me like you’re dealing with cattle. Move.”

His eyebrows scrunched together. “I didn’t say that.”

“Uh, yeah, buddy. You did.”

“Buddy?”

“This isn’t funny.”

He pressed his body into mine. “No. You’re absolutely right. It’s not funny at all.”

“I made my ex-husband wear condoms, and I was on the pill. That’s how much I didn’t want to get pregnant by him. I don’t know if it was self-preservation or maybe the naïve part of me that always hoped you’d be the father of my children, but either way, it doesn’t matter because you don’t want the same things I do, and frankly, it hurts.” I pulled in a ragged breath. “It hurts because I was the one who left, and it’s my fault. I just need a minute to deal.”

He sighed and sat up, straddling my thighs. “Maybe I didn’t word that correctly, but I like kids. I love my girls. I didn’t want more kids, but I wouldn’t mind one or two with you. In fact, the idea of it is more appealing the longer I think about it.”

“I don’t want the idea to appeal to you, Mav. I want you to want it as much as me, but you don’t… you can’t. And if you did go have it reversed, that means you’ll resent me down the road.”

His body shook with laughter. “Baby, I have lots of things I can resent you for down the road, having another kid would be the least of my worries.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I always wanted you to be the mother of my children. When you were teaching the girls how to cook, that’s what I was thinking when I was watching you. How much I wish you’d have been there the whole time, and those girls were ours that I’d been by your side while you pushed out, that we raised together. But they’re my world, and the truth is that they’re perfect exactly how they are. And I know if we had a baby, she’d be just as perfect. And she’d be beautiful because she’d look just like you.” He pulled me back down and held my ass in his hands, and then moved me up and down his hard cock. “So to answer your question, I think we should get started right away.”

“But…” I gasped when he slid inside me.

“It’s not one-hundred-percent effective. We might as well put it to the test.”

And we did. Three more times that night. And each and every time, we passed with flying colors. I loved falling asleep with his arms around me, and it was a close tie to how much I loved waking up the same way.

I wished we could have spent all day together, but unfortunately, life called. Maverick left to go be a dad and then work, and I had things to take care of myself. We had plans for me to come to his place after Dixie Mae was asleep that night, just because he was going to talk to her about me being around more, and he wanted to make sure she was comfortable with it.

He was a fantastic father, and I saw how much he struggled to balance being a good dad and then doing things right with me. He also said he was going to talk to Piper sometime that day as well, so he had a lot on his plate.

And I wanted to help him any way I could.

So even though it might have been considered stalking, I waited until I knew she’d be at work to go talk to Piper myself. I walked into the bank and spotted her immediately. She was in a cubicle talking to someone else, but before I lost the nerve, I went right to her. Their conversation stopped, and the other employee smiled at me, thinking I was a customer. “Hi there. Can I help you?”

“I’m actually here to see Piper.”

“Oh, okay.” She wiggled her fingers at Piper. “I’ll see you at lunch.”

When she was gone, I sat in the blue padded chair. “Hi. I won’t be long.”

“How did you know where I worked?”

“Aubrey told me.”

“What do you want? I have a feeling you’re not here for loan approval.”

I shook my head. “No. And I’m well aware that this is completely out of line, and it may end up biting me in the ass, but I just wanted to talk to you. I’m going to be moving in with Maverick, and I know you had reservations about me before, and I guess I hoped you’d get to know me a little so it reassured you that your daughter was in good hands with me.”

“You’re right.”

“About what?”

“This is completely out of line. I don’t know you, and I don’t want to. Anything that has to do with my daughter will be dealt with between Maverick and me. You have no say in that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

She shook her mouse to wake up her computer and tried to ignore me, but I was tired of people doing that. “I know this is a weird situation, but I just wanted to try to ease your mind, but you’re deadset on holding a grudge and being bitter to allow that, so I guess you can continue being that way, and I’ll just have to stand on the sidelines while you put my man through more shit that he’ll have to trudge through.” I stood but knew I had her attention. “He’s used to it, though, and he’s the strongest guy I know, so in the end, it’ll all work out. It just sucks that your daughter is going to have to watch you intentionally hurt her dad. I can’t imagine that’ll go over well when she figures it out… and you know she will. Kids are smart like that.”