From Ashes (From Ashes 1)

Her eyes had begun drifting to the TV as Jake got it on the channel where they were still doing pregame footage and she did a double take, her eyes going wide. “Shh!” Her hand flew up and she turned more so she could watch, her hand still up in the air, like that would keep us all from still talking. Oddly, it did.

I did let out a groan though when I saw what she’d seen and was now intently watching. As soon as Tim Duncan’s interview ended I started talking again. “You happy to be gettin’ your fix?”

Cassidy turned and her eyes were bright, her smile bigger than ever. I shook my head at her but pulled her close and kissed her hard. I wasn’t complaining; she was so damn cute when she got excited over watching Tim Duncan. I didn’t even mind that she always reminded me she would leave me for him; if Tim Duncan was the worst thing I had to worry about, I’d say I had it pretty easy.

“You know what I think isn’t fair?” Jake asked. “That Gage gets a girl like Cassi. She actually knows what’s going on in every sport we watch, and she enjoys watching the game. Where’s my Cassi? That’s what I wanna know!”

“I’ll find you one, Jake,” she promised as everyone laughed, and left my arms. “Nothing fancy tonight, guys, I’m just gonna make sandwiches. Anyone wants a beer, we stocked up the fridge at the bar; help yourself.”

“And that. Right. There. I want a damn SMB too! Doesn’t matter if she thinks it’s ‘nothing fancy’ or not, there isn’t another SMB out there like Cassi. That’s it, I’m kidnapping and keeping her.” Jake sounded exasperated.

“What the hell is an SMB?” Ethan asked, but we all looked confused.

Jake looked at us like we should know this already. “SMB? Sandwich-Making Bitch.”

The room got tense as at least Adam, Ethan, and I got ready to rip into Jake for talking about Cassidy like that. But all of a sudden Cassidy burst into laughter so hard she had to grip my arm to keep herself standing. Jake and Grant laughed with her.

“See, she gets it,” Jake said, and picked the remote back up to turn up the volume.

Cassidy was wiping tears from her eyes when her laughs turned into soft giggles. “Jake, just for that I’m making your sandwiches first and I’ll get your beer for you.”

“You’re serious right now?” Ethan asked her, still looking pissed off. At least there were some sane people in the room still.

“Well, yeah. That was the funniest thing I’ve heard in a while.” She looked at me and her smile faltered when she realized I wasn’t finding anything about that funny. “All right, Jake, did you mean that to be offensive?”

Jake said, “Hell no. That’s the best compliment I could give a chick. I won’t let just anyone make me a sandwich.” He grinned ridiculously at her.

“And I didn’t take it as offensive.” I still hadn’t relaxed my tense frame, and from the looks of it, neither had Ethan or Adam, so she kept talking. “It’s like that whole women-belong-in-the-kitchen-barefoot-and-pregnant thing; it’s funny. If Jake meant any of that literally, I doubt he’d be okay with me watching the game with you guys.”

“Exactly!” Jake threw an arm out toward Cassidy, pointing toward her. “She gets it, why don’t y’all?”

Cassidy kissed my cheek and moved to the kitchen. “But, Jake, I expect an early birthday present this year of a Cowboys jersey with the initials SMB on the back rather than a player’s name.”

“Gage, you are one lucky motherfucker. That’s all I’m gonna say,” Grant said, soft enough that I doubted Cass could hear him, and Jake grunted his agreement.

“Seriously, man, it’s a compliment, you need to relax,” Jake said, and turned up the volume even louder.

But by this point, I was relaxed, completely. Something Cassidy said was replaying through my mind over and over again, and I turned to look at her. She glanced up as she finished getting everything out of the fridge and smiled softly at me. That smile I’d realized was reserved just for me. She turned to get a carving board and bread and I let my eyes roam over her again, her long hair reaching her waist, the tank top Lakers jersey resting loosely on her hips and those super-short black shorts that were driving me crazy right now. My jeans got tight as I continued over her legs down to her bare feet. The corner of my mouth lifted slightly and I snapped my eyes back up a little just in time for her to turn. I kept my gaze in that spot, letting the image she’d put in my mind play through, and finally looked back up to her beautiful face. Was it twisted that I hardened even more at the thought of Cassidy pregnant? Before the guys could notice I was sporting a hard-on again, I turned and headed back for our room.

How many times had I thought about marrying Cassidy and having a family with her? Thousands, at the very least, but for whatever reason I’d never thought of her actually pregnant. And damn if I ever wanted that image to leave my mind. It’d only been a month and a half since we’d gotten together, but I’d been in love with her for almost two years now. That’s not too crazy, to think of this already, is it? Fuck . . . who am I kidding? Of course it is. I’m only twenty-two, and she’s nineteen. I shouldn’t be thinking about this for years. And I doubted I would have actually thought about having kids if she hadn’t made that one completely innocent comment. But she did, and now it was all I could think of. Cassidy round with my kid. That would be an incredible sight.

“Babe?”

I turned to see her worried expression as she closed the door behind her.

“Are you okay? You aren’t really mad at Jake, are you? I thought it was funny.”

“No, I’m not.”

Cass smiled softly before her brows pinched together again. “Then what’s wrong? Why are you in here, and . . . I don’t even know how to explain your expression. I can’t tell if you’re mad or confused or—I just have no idea.”

God, I wanted to tell her. I wanted to say I was gonna kick the guys out, that I wanted her to stop taking birth control and I wanted to marry her immediately. But I knew I’d freak her out—hell, I was freaking myself out. Not the marrying-her part; I’d have married her in an instant. But the rest of it. I needed to take all this slow; I needed to find a way to ease Cassidy into the idea of even having a family. I knew because of her childhood, she had this fear of having children. She was terrified she’d turn into her mother. I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that could ever happen. Right now, though, if I were to tell her I was imagining her pregnant, I could only imagine that mask I hated so damn much slipping back on her face. It would ruin things for us, not just today, but for some time to come. She’d shut down, I had no doubt about it. So instead, I pushed the image of her pregnant to the back of my mind and smiled down at her.

“I’m fine, sweetheart. I’d just been checkin’ you out and got hard thinking about what we’d been interrupted doing. Decided it was better to walk away before any of the guys noticed.”

Her honey eyes widened and heated before she looked down. Instantly my erection made itself known again. Down, boy. She took another step closer and pressed her body to mine. “I’ll take care of that as soon as they’re gone,” she whispered huskily, and with a suggestive smile, turned and walked out of the room.

Chapter Thirteen

CASSIDY

I’D SPENT MOST of that next week at Jesse and Isabella’s, and thankfully Gage went with me. We were both completely enchanted with her tales of Italy and the man she’d grown up with and loved. She was a sweet woman, and we hated seeing her so ill, which is why we’d spent every free second there since the morning after the whole SMB basketball game.

Isabella had some good days and other not-so-good days, but this whole week had been awful, and I could see how much it was wearing on Jesse. That Monday he hadn’t been able to even put a coffee with three sugars together correctly, and I’d finally sent him on a lunch, and then home when he told me Isabella couldn’t get out of bed that morning, even with his help. It wasn’t until this morning that she’d been able to get around on her own and seem like herself again.

In the month and a half since we’d first brought food to their house, it’d become a weekly ritual for us. Every Sunday morning before the guys came over for the game, we’d go over with food for the week and talk with her and Jesse for hours until it was time to go home. After this week though, Gage and I were exhausted emotionally. I couldn’t understand how Jesse could do it; after only a handful of afternoons and nights with her, we were both so emotionally drained from worrying about her, all we wanted to do was sleep the weekend away and pray that she got better. But Jackie had called as we were on our way back from Isabella’s and said we absolutely had to be at her party tonight.

Figuring we needed all the help we could get to bring our spirits up, we’d decided to go and I was already seriously regretting it.

“Damn it,” Gage mumbled under his breath, and I paused. Tyler was there; this was the first time I was seeing him since the morning he’d shown up at Gage’s door, and he was with that redhead he’d brought home the night he kicked me out. “Darlin’, if you want to leave, tell me and we’re gone.”

“It’s fine. I’m not going to let him control what we do; that’s dumb.”

As soon as Ty saw me, he broke away from the redhead and walked quickly over to us, giving Gage a death stare before stepping close to me. “Cassi, how are you?”

My heart clenched and my arms twitched, wanting to wrap them around Tyler’s waist, but a squeeze from Gage’s hand and one look at the redhead glaring at our group reminded me why that wasn’t an option. “Tyler.”

“Don’t be like that, baby.”

“Don’t. Call. Her. Baby,” Gage said through clenched teeth, and pulled me closer to his side.

Tyler’s eyes narrowed and swept over to look Gage up and down. “She’s never complained about it.” His brown eyes came back to me and turned pleading. “Cassi, can we please talk?”