Facing West (Forever Wilde 1)

I bit my tongue to keep from grinning like a fool. “You’re insane. Are you sure you didn’t sneak a little something-something from the opiate supply at work this morning before you left?”

He continued to dance around the kitchen in his underwear, shaking his gorgeous fucking ass as he gathered supplies for the coffee. Pippa squawked in my arms, and I realized I’d pressed the bottle’s nipple into her cheek instead of her mouth.

“Sorry, baby girl. I was busy staring at a fine man’s ass. One day you’ll understand,” I promised her under my breath. I settled down with her on the sofa and pulled a blanket over my legs. “You want to watch the game?” I called out, grabbing the remote.

West stopped dancing and gawped at me. “You watch football?”

I raised my eyebrows at him as he spluttered to cover his misstep. “No. I mean, yes. Cool. I’d love to. I just didn’t…”

“You didn’t think a queer from San Francisco enjoyed watching the Forty-Niners crush the Cowboys? Are you fucking nuts?”

West’s face changed from guilt to a shit-eating grin. “Let the record show, those aren’t my words, queer boy. They’re yours. And if you think for one minute your team is crushing mine, you’re in for a rude awakening. You’re talking about a low-ass ranked team beating a top-ten team.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh please. The Niners are just waiting for their time in the sun. Get ready for a pummeling. We’ve been holding back until it was the right time to strike.”

The sound of West’s rich laughter warmed the open space between us, and I felt myself relax farther into the sofa after clicking on the remote and finding the right channel. Pippa’s tiny blue-green eyes stared up at me, and I smiled down at her.

“Hey cutie-patootie. How was your sleep?” I murmured to her. She reached out a hand toward my nose, and her tiny fingers curled in an attempt to grab on. I gave her my index finger to grab instead. After propping my feet on the coffee table, I settled in to watch the game.

West joined me a couple of minutes later with two mugs of coffee and a couple of sandwiches he must have pulled together from stuff he found in the kitchen.

“This okay?” he asked, sitting down next to me and pulling part of the blanket onto his legs.

“Thank you. It’s perfect.”

We drank and ate in companionable silence, passing the baby between us as needed to keep the hot coffee away from her. West had been right, of course. The Dallas team crushed the San Francisco team. At least he was a good sport about it, only giving me a gentle elbow to the ribs every time his team scored.

Eventually I found myself dozing off against one of his shoulders while Pippa dozed on the other. Once again, I thought about how sticky sweet the scene was and wanted to scream from the irony of my life. If only Griff could have seen me then. Me and the perfect man curled up in our underwear watching Sunday football with a baby. It was ridiculous.

I felt him shift me off him at one point so he could put the baby on a play mat on the floor with hanging toys. When he settled back in beside me, I drifted off again.

“This is amazing, Nico,” he murmured after a while. When I cracked open my eyes and saw him flipping through a familiar spiral notebook, I jumped up and grabbed for it, accidentally elbowing him in the shoulder and falling over his lap in the process.

“Ow. What the hell?” He gasped, rubbing his shoulder.

“Give me that,” I said, grabbing the notebook out of his hands.

I stretched to put it on the other side of the sofa from where he sat so that he’d have to go through me to get to it again. How stupid of me to have left it on the coffee table. I hadn’t been thinking.

“You’re writing down memories of Adriana,” he said gently. “Is it for Pippa? To help her get to know her mom?”

A thick lump in my throat threatened to choke me, so I just nodded. West reached out and slid an arm around my waist, pulling me over until I was straddling his lap so he could pull me into a strong hug.

“I think that’s amazing. Why don’t you want me to see?”

I shrugged, tucking my face into his neck and taking comfort in the warm feel of his skin against my nose and cheek.

West continued, “I don’t mean to make you self-conscious about it, but the drawings are spectacular. You’re really talented. I’d love to see and read more sometime, but I understand if you’d rather me not look at it again. It’s your business. But just know it’s very thoughtful and loving. Pippa is lucky to have you.”