Angie clomped to the back of the truck, while Tony sauntered to Trish.
“Hey,” he said, widening his grin and looping his arm around her waist.
She was just about to protest when he pulled her against him, and thrilled her with a hard, hot kiss.
“Tony, so help me God…” Angie’s voice mixed with the truck’s clanging, rolling rear door.
Tony didn’t seem to care. His arms tightened around Trish’s waist, and she had to push palms to his chest to gain release.
“You should go before she gets angry,” Trish whispered.
“She’s always angry,” he replied loud enough for Angie to hear, and then he placed a kiss on Trish’s nose and joined his sister inside the truck.
Trish wandered after them, warmed by his kiss. Was this really her life, thriving design company, hot male companion who made marriage seem appealing, and a baby on the way? It sounded like a fairytale.
“Boss, we got a problem.” Nico Corcarelli held open the front door. “You need to call the plumber. Mickey hit the main line.”
That was when Trish remembered she never held much stock in fairytales. Real life got messy. Planning and preparing weren’t guarantees. Angie’s crew had blueprints and hashmarks, and still they had hit the line. Trish’s lists had pros and cons, and still some things fit both sides. She hated that, wished there was some way to control the chaos. But when she found herself standing ankle-deep in tap water, the only thing she could hope for was to be strong enough that chaos couldn’t wash her away.
“Can I stay?” Tony dragged his lips from Trish’s lobe to follow her jawline.
Since the Collins’s family room flooded, she’d been preoccupied. Tony hoped a little lovin’ would put her body and mind to rest, but she had yet to reciprocate his advances, so he figured he better ask, being a gentleman and all.
Technically, she wasn’t his “woman” to be pawing anyway.
“If you want.” She fidgeted beside him on her living room couch.
He winced and sat up, giving her some space. “Do
She sighed. “I’m sorry. I have a lot on my mind.”
“Like?”
“Work. You were there. You saw the mess.”
“It’s being professionally cleaned.”
“But it’s a setback and more dollar signs.” She ran her fingers through her shiny hair, tugging on a clump when she reached the ends. “And then there’s this.” She patted her stomach. “Am I? Am I not? It’s a constant back and forth.”
He slid his arm along the back of the sofa, lifting his hand to play with her hair.
“And then there’s this.” She gestured at his hand.
Tony froze with a strand wrapped around his index finger. “What? This?” He tugged the strand.
“Yes.” She lifted her shoulders and shuddered.
“What about this?” He dropped his hand to her head and rubbed.
“What is this?” She shrugged again, this time acting an awful lot like she wanted to be free of him.
He could take a hint. “A massage,” he said, dropping his hand and sliding a few inches away.
“That’s not what I meant. I’m sorry. I’m…” she sighed and shook her head. “Maybe it’s the hormones making me cranky.”
“Maybe. Or maybe you’re realizing you don’t like me as much as you thought you did.” It didn’t sound like the joke he meant for it to be. He leaned forward, embarrassed he sounded so needy.
“No.” She flattened a hand against his back. “That’s definitely not it.”
The heat from her hand seeped beneath his skin, warming his blood until his breathing quickened. “Good,” was all he could manage to say.
“I just feel a lot of pressure, and I worry it’s somehow going to end badly, you know?”
He nodded. Despite the great sex and his strange lack of horror at the thought of marrying Trish, he could relate to her worry. Hard not to, with Angie warning him daily of the potential for doom. Two days ago, she backed him against the tool cabinet in her garage and threatened to castrate him if he fucked up. Talk about pressure.
“And the more we carry on like this, the more I worry we’re kidding ourselves that we’ll be able to be objective if…” her hand dropped from his back, “I’m not pregnant, and Nonna...” She huffed. “I’m sorry.”
Glancing over his shoulder at her bunched face, he reached across the cushion and took her hand. “Don’t be. Nothin’ to be sorry about. You’re a thinker. That’s a good thing. I should probably do a little more of that.”
She shrugged, but then settled into tracing her thumb over his knuckle. He liked the way her hand looked smaller in his. “Thinking is good,” she said. “Overthinking is not. There should be a balance.”
He straightened, moving closer, keeping her hand wrapped in his. “Like you should feel as much as you think?”
“Exactly.”
He wanted to kiss her again. “I can help with that, you know?” He lifted her hand from his lap and placed it on his chest as he moved in for that kiss. ‘If you want me to.”
“I do,” she said, tickling his lips with her whisper.
And he did.
After two nights of half-hearted sleep on surprisingly uncomfortable couches, Tony hauled Trish to bed. Of course, they didn’t sleep much once they got there either, and that sort of bothered him. He slipped out of bed, making a mental note to Google
While she slept, bathed in moonlight, he showered and brushed his teeth with the spare toothbrush she magically produced the night before. It only partially wigged him out that she kept it in the holder next to hers.
Without waking her, he headed downstairs for coffee. Two nights and days in a row, and somehow it felt like routine. All he needed was a change of clothes and it’d be like he was living here.
The thought stopped him on the bottom stair. He glanced around the flashy, floral surroundings lit by the soft glow of the crown molding lights. Hardly what he’d call his style, but damn, he liked that sixty-inch TV. And the bed. And the family room couch. Hell, every piece of upholstered furniture here.
That thought got him moving again, eyeing each piece he’d created. Some of his best work lived in this house. He swelled with pride, and then he thought about his child, being raised here, climbing all over that couch. Something sparked beneath his breast.
The spark lingered, even after a lightning-quick bike ride to his apartment through the dark and driving rain. Hours later, in the late of day, standing in the middle of Angie’s garage, the flash of feeling only intensified. The next thing he knew, he was sketching plans for a rocking chair. Suddenly, nothing seemed more important than taking care of Trish and his kid.
“I’m headed over to Nonna’s. You wanna come?”
Tony looked up from the sketches and blinked a few times to clear his head. Somebody else was pretty damn important. “Yeah. I do.”
Angie nodded, glancing at the papers pressed beneath his hands. “You ready now?”
“Yep,” he said, folding the papers and stuffing them into his pocket.
“Top secret plans?”
“Maybe.”
Angie narrowed her eyes as she hit the button, raising the garage door. “Would you show me if I asked?”
“No. You called my table trash.” He fell in step beside her as she walked to her car.
“I was kidding.”
“You hurt my feelings.”
“You’re an ass.”
When they were both inside the car, she gripped his headrest and narrowed her eyes again. “Show me.”
