Juicy Rebound (IceCats 1)

I shut the door and head to the trunk to put my bag in. When I get behind the wheel, I notice Amelia’s leg is bouncing. I grab her knee, not only to stop it but also because I want to touch her. “You nervous?”

“Oh yeah.” She gives me a wry look. “Pretty sure my mom will have a lot to say.”

I start up the car. “About what?”

Still with the same expression, she says, “About me being in a relationship.”

“What’s wrong with that? It’s been over a year since Fuckface,” I comment as I drive away from the airfield.

She snorts. “Is that what you’re going to call him for now on?”

I nod. “Yes, I feel it’s satisfactory.”

She rolls her eyes as she sighs heavily. “I just feel like she’s gonna say I’m not thinking or that I’m rushing into something with you when I shouldn’t. I don’t know. They kind of scorned me with Drew. I don’t want them to try to make me choose between you and them.”

Now I’m the one showing her my deadpan expression. “I’m the coolest guy ever. Your whole family loves me, and I wouldn’t lay a hand on you. So basically, you’re winning in the boyfriend department.”

She laughs as she pulls out her notebook with her gymnastics lesson plans. She told me she had to work on them during the break. The gym is closed through the holidays, and we’re both thankful for that. We didn’t want her to miss work, but we weren’t skipping Christmas or Ryan and Sofia’s wedding. “Is that right?”

“Totally. Watch…your mom is gonna be so damn happy and be speechless because she’s so excited you chose someone so great.”

“Wow, the confidence is real.”

“So real,” I say with a wink, and she laughs. What she doesn’t realize is that I’m confident because of her. It’s funny as all hell that, at the beginning of this, I wasn’t. I was nervous, and she made me spew out my guts in a panicky way. I would talk to keep her with me, but now, she stays because she wants to.

Because she wants me, and I want her.

I reach for her hand, but she’s already reaching for mine. When our knuckles collide, we glance at each other and start laughing. We lace our fingers, and I kiss the back of her hand when my laughter subsides. As she works, I drive, in love with being with her. The trip to her mom’s isn’t far, about forty minutes through traffic before we hit the open road that leads to her house. The house Amelia grew up in is a little smaller than Ryan’s new house, but what it lacks in size, it makes up for in beauty.

The three-story gray-brick home has the biggest windows I’ve ever seen. They take up most of the first floor of the house. I remember my first time here. Mrs. Justice told me that, before he died, Mr. Justice had secretly hired someone to take out the old windows because she’d always said she wanted more natural light. It took over two weeks and lots of tarps to replace the small windows with the huge ones. It was a simple gesture but one that she still talks about to this day.

That’s special.

I park beside Mrs. Justice’s car, and out of the corner of my eye, I see Amelia taking in deep breaths.

“We have to go in, huh?”

“Yup.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to see her. I do. It’s just I don’t want her to automatically judge that I am making the same mistake again.”

She turns to look at me as I speak. “Are you sure she will?”

She shakes her head, her bottom lip between her teeth. “No,” she says around it. “But obviously I’m nervous she might.”

“Do you feel like you’re making the same mistake?”

She shakes her head more vehemently. “Not at all.”

I lean over, pressing my nose into hers. “Then who gives two shits what anyone thinks?”

Her lips slowly form a grin. “Your confidence is intoxicating.”

“I know what I got, and I know no one can touch it. It’s ours.”

“It is,” she whispers before I capture her lips with mine. She draws the kisses out of me, and I bring my hand up to thread through her hair as I get lost in her kisses. She feels so damn good against my lips. Tastes like heaven with a tiny bit of mocha mixed in there.

“So perfect,” I whisper against her lips, and they curve into a smile.

“Stop,” she says softly, nibbling at my bottom lip.

“Never,” I insist before capturing her mouth once more. She leans into the kiss, her hand coming up to touch my cheek. She strokes it slowly as our kisses turn more demanding, and I don’t want to stop.

But of course, her phone starts going off.