29
December
G-Daddy:
I’m on my way to the airport now to come get my girls! Text me when you land.
Me:
We just landed! Excited to see you soon.
It’s New Year’s Eve, and I’m standing outside the airport in Colorado with a sleeping Cades on my shoulder. She was such a trooper on the flight to Denver. I timed it so it would be around her bedtime, but I had no idea if she would do okay as this was her first flight.
My mom suggested giving her a bottle at takeoff to help her ears adjust, and she fell asleep shortly after we were in the air.
I’ve got our luggage in her stroller, opting to hold her instead of strapping her in the stroller, and I’ve just walked to the curb when a red Jeep Wrangler pulls up in front of us.
Butterflies erupt in my stomach, and nostalgia hits at the sight of his Jeep.
Griff hops out, rounding the hood, and my god, does he look good. His brown hair peeks out beneath his black beanie. I love it when his hair gets a little longer during the season like this. He’s wearing a blacksweatshirt with a pair of . . .are you kidding me? He’s wearing gray joggers that cling to his thick thighs, making the back of my neck sweat. He tops the look off with white sneakers.
Once he approaches us, Griff places a chaste peck on my cheek, then kisses Cadence’s temple. God, I wish we could be those people who have a deep, passionate kiss at the airport.
“How did our girl do on her first flight?” Griff takes the luggage and stroller over to the trunk of his Jeep.
I follow behind him with Cadence. “She did great. She practically slept the whole flight, which made it easy on me.”
He swings the back of the Jeep closed and then grabs our sleepy girl out of my arms. He squeezes her tight and whispers, “Good job, sweet girl. Thanks for going easy on your mama.”
My stomach dips, and my chest constricts, just like it does every time he calls me that.
Griff smirks, knowing what he’s doing to me. Placing his hand on the small of my back, he ushers me to the passenger door, opening it for me to get inside.
“I’ll get her buckled, and then we can go to my place to get her settled for the night.”
It doesn’t go unnoticed that he got another car seat for Cadence and already installed it, so it’s rear-facing.
I get buckled just as he opens the driver’s door and gets situated. He turns to look over at me, my stomach swoops when I see his dimples pop. The same dimples he passed on to Cadence.
“I love that she has two of my favorite traits of yours: your brown eyes and your dimples, though she only has one on her left cheek.”
Griff’s answering wink makes me swoon.
“I don’t know. The other day, when the two of you were FaceTiming me, I thought I saw a smaller dimple on her right cheek, thoughdefinitely not as pronounced. It was after you made her go into a giggle fit with her stuffed elephant.”
I smile at the memory he’s referring to. These past few months have been filled with daily FaceTime calls and countless text exchanges between the two of us. I’ve tried to keep it strictly platonic, centering solely around Cadence, but that doesn’t stop Griff from asking me about my day and trying to get to know me better each time we talk.
“So, where are you taking us? I’ve actually never been to Colorado. The one tournament Carson had here, I had a volleyball tournament the same weekend in Florida.”
“For tonight, we’ll just head to my place and put Cadence to bed. After seeing your setup for her and doing her bedtime routine with you a few times, I tried to replicate as much of that as I could. I live right in downtown Denver in a two-bedroom apartment near the arena.”
“I can’t wait to see it,” I tell him, and I really am excited to see what his place looks like.
We pull into an underground parking garage and park before Griff gets out, puts the luggage in Cadence’s stroller, and then picks her up out of her car seat. She’s miraculously still asleep somehow. I push the stroller, following Griff into an elevator, where he pushes the button for the twentieth floor.
I suck in a breath, instantly hit with a calming sense of warmth.
Griff notices and says, “I didn’t get a chance to look at the place in person before I signed the lease. The first time I realized I was on the floor that was Katie’s favorite number, it felt like a sign that everything would be okay.”
