“Shut the fuck up, Molly. Your voice is an ice pick to my brain.” I grin at that, and Julie turns her glare on me. If the daggers shooting out of her eyes were real, I would be extremely dead. Fuck, she’s sexy in the morning all hungover and claws out.
The four women sitting on Julie’s front stoop are an intimidating bunch. Or, they would be, if they didn’t all look a little worse for the wear. I swallow down a laugh at the sight of them; the experience of having four sisters tells me that laughing inthis moment would be a guaranteed way to have my dick permanently removed from my body.
Emma has what looks like yesterday’s makeup smeared under her eyes, her red hair in a haphazard bun leaning messily to one side. Hallie’s eyes are half closed, a coffee mug gripped in her hand. Molly’s head is covered in a hat with a purple pompom on it, her curly hair wild beneath it, and her eyes are shielded by enormous sunglasses.
Julie is leaning on the railing as if she would topple over without its support, her face just a little green and set in a grimace. She’s wearing leggings and a hoodie with a puffy hip-length jacket tossed over it. Black tie dress at the gala Julie stopped me in my tracks. Football jersey and jeans at the playoff game Julie made me forget my own name. Professional Julie mid-panic attack had all my protective instinct roaring. And casually dressed, hungover Julie? Well, I just want to bundle her up and snuggle her, green face and all. I almost do it, just to see how she’d react, but we’re about to get in the car and drive five hours so I put a pin in that. Lots of opportunities to snuggle the shit out of her while we’re on the road. Hopefully. I’m manifesting.
“So, anyone want coffee?”
“Asher, if you are toying with me, I will actually kill you right now.” Molly slips her sunglasses down and eyes me warily.
Chuckling, I turn to open my passenger door and grab the take-out coffee tray on the floor. Ben texted me this morning to tell me the girls had a sleepover last night that included bottomless margaritas, so if I wanted to live though picking Julie up, I should bring coffee. Then he texted me everyone’s regular coffee orders.
I lift the first cup and give it to Molly. “Peppermint mocha for you, my lovely.”
Ihear Julie suck in a breath at the “my lovely” and I light right up. Jealous looks good on her.
“Bless you, quarterback. You are my favorite person today.”
“Just over here doing the lord’s work. French vanilla with regular milk,” I say, handing the next cup to Emma.
“Hallie, Ben said to tell you he assumed you already had your first cup of coffee, and to get you an iced coffee. I told him he was insane since it’s twenty degrees out, but he insisted. It has milk and one Splenda.”
I hand her the cup and assume Ben got it right, because I can practically see the hearts shooting out of her eyes.
I lift the last cup and give it to Julie with a wink.
“Juliette. Latte for you. Caffeinate while I put your bags in the car.”
“That’s not my name,” she grumbles. I grin at her, more excited than I have any right to be at the prospect of being alone in the car with her.
While she takes the first sips of her coffee, I grab her bags where they sit at the bottom of the steps. Opening the trunk, I swing the bigger suitcase inside first and as I do, a white-hot bolt of pain lances through my shoulder. Hissing out a breath, I drop the suitcase into the car harder than I mean to, and it lands with a loud thud. I wrap my right arm across my body to hold it steady and with my other hand flat in the trunk, I lean into my left side, dropping my head down and closing my eyes while I wait for the pain to pass.
My shoulder has been aching since I woke up this morning. It’s been aching every morning since I took the hit in the last game. In a mild panic thinking of spending the entire road trip with Julie in pain, I called the guy I buy the meds from, thinking I should stock up. I lost my nerve and hung up before he could answer. I’ve been able to justify the anti-inflammatory injections during the season as a necessary evil to helpme play, but if I start using them in the offseason too, what does that make me? I shove that thought from my mind, not ready to go down that route. I’m both anxious and relieved thinking of the black zipper pouch I tucked into my suitcase this morning.Just in case.
Once the pain ebbs, I take a deep breath and push myself up off the car. Turning back to the girls, I see Hallie, Emma, and Molly chatting away, clearly feeling better after a hit of caffeine. But Julie isn’t talking to them. Instead, she’s looking at me. Her eyes are narrowed, and her face is set in thoughtful lines like she’s trying to work something out, and fuck. I wonder how much of that she just saw.
Sauntering over to them, I stop at the bottom of the stairs and look up at Julie.
Shit, she’s pretty. The kind of pretty that has my heart pounding my chest and my dick wondering about the next time I can get my hands on her.
“Ready to go, Juliette?”
“You’re seriously going to call me that?”
“I like it. It suits you.”
“It was my great-grandmother’s name, and it’s prim and proper and stupid and doesn’t suit anyone under the age of eighty. No one calls me that. Not even my parents.”
“I love that he calls you that,” Molly says. “Pretty swoony, quarterback.” She flashes me a grin.
“Shut the fuck up, Molly,” she hisses again, pinning Molly with a death-glare that is almost entirely offset by the fact that Julie’s cheeks are also flushing red.
Looks like someone likes their new nickname after all.
“I like it too,” says Hallie. “It’s like something out of a romance novel.”
“Okay.” Julie speaks a little louder than absolutely necessary. “Time to go.”
