“Company, okay?” he asked and Lacey nodded.
“Yes, come on in. You haven’t been waiting all this time have you?”
He smiled sheepishly as he nodded. “I wasn’t sure if Kacey would need to go home, and I was her ride,” he said as he carried the flowers to her little tray table and Kacey’s heart kicked up in speed a bit.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she called to him and he grinned.
“It’s no big deal. My phone lasted the whole six hours.”
She smiled as he shot her a playful grin before looking back over at Lacey. “These are for the momma,” he said before leaning over to kiss her cheek. “Congrats.”
“Aw, thank you, Liam.”
He grinned as he reached over, handing Karson a flask. “For Daddy.”
Karson laughed before taking a long pull. “Thanks, bro.”
Then he made his way to Kacey, pulling a single rose out from behind his back and handing it to her. “For the other birthing coach,” he said with a wink as she took it. Her heart was beating out of her chest as she grinned up at him, laying the rose beside her.
“Thank you.”
“Of course,” he said, looking closer at Mena Jane. “She’s beautiful, guys,” he called back at Lacey and Karson, but they were staring into each other’s eyes, not paying the least bit of attention. He then looked down at Kacey and smiled that sweet grin of his. “You look good with a baby in your arms.”
She smiled down at Mena Jane and then back up at him. Their eyes met and she prayed for the sparks, but they weren’t there. He was sweet and nice, he’d had no reason to wait for her or even get her a rose, but he did. He also was very interested in her. Not sex. Her. But did he want kids?
Holding his gaze, she said, “I can’t wait for my turn.”
He didn’t even hesitate; he nodded and said, “Yeah, I can’t wait to have some of my own too.”
Right there was what she needed to hear. He wanted what she wanted and he really was nice. Totally different from the douchebags she was used to. Yeah, there weren’t sparks or fireworks, but he wanted what she did and he liked her. You didn’t find men like Liam Kelly every day. She needed to take him and run. He was everything she needed.
What else could she ask for?
“So Jordie, how are you feeling?
Jordie looked up from where he was staring down at his hands, trying to forget everything that he had just heard. Jon, a defenseman from the Lightning, was battling some crazy cocaine addiction that sometimes Jordie wasn’t sure he would overcome. He had just been caught with his girl bringing some in, and they were six seconds away from kicking him out. Portia, the therapist, fought for him to stay though. She fought for everyone. She was a good girl. But every time Jon starting talking about his past, the things he’d done which really should have led to him being committed or arrested, it always made Jordie uncomfortable. He hated how much the guy suffered and, most of all, hated all the bad in the world. It was just shitty.
Nodding his head at Portia, Jordie smiled. “I’m good. No need for a drink at all.”
“Good,” she said with a grin. “Is the guitar playing helping with the late-night cravings?”
“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “A lot. Keeps my mind off everything.”
In the last week, they’d discovered that when he was alone with nothing to do was when he craved a drink the most. She suggested playing an instrument, and since he had some experience with the guitar, he chose that. He was happy he did too; he loved playing and it really did help him at night.
“I saw you in church this weekend. That was nice.”
He smiled sheepishly as most of the guys looked over at him. The whole time he had been there, he had fought tooth and nail about going to church. When he was a kid, religion was forced on him constantly by his mother, and he never really wanted anything to do with that. But Portia’s thing was to pray on it. It was easy to say that Jordie had been praying a lot and figured that going to church was the next step. He didn’t hate it, didn’t love it, but he went.
“I mean, don’t get ahead of yourself, Portia. I won’t be turning into some damn holy roller. I like sex and cussing way too much.”
She smiled as she shook her head. “Wouldn’t expect you to stop those things, of course.”
“Never,” he said with a wink.
“So you feel you need sex then?”
Ah, sneaky little shit. Rolling his eyes, he leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t need sex, I love it, and I’m damn good at it.”
A couple of the guys laughed while the others, who were holy rollers, rolled their eyes. Portia, still with a small grin on her face, asked, “When was the last time you had sexual intercourse?”
He grinned. He knew what she expected him to say and he wouldn’t lie, but he was excited to see her little face filled with shock once she heard his answer. The thing about Portia was she was a save-the-world kind of girl. She wanted to diagnose everyone and fix ’em. She’d had the inkling that Jordie was addicted to sex since he’d first gotten there. There was a huge difference between being addicted and just liking it. He was addicted to alcohol in some sense, in that he went for it to stop feeling what he was feeling. He had sex because he wanted to. Minus his trip to Louisiana, he had never had sex to get rid of what he was feeling. He’d tried to fuck his feelings for Kacey out of himself, which was very stupid, but the whole time he was drunk. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t have made a lot of those decisions if he hadn’t been drunk through it all.