First and Tension (Summersweet Island 4)
Shepherd comes down the stairs at that moment, saving me from having to answer, lugging a big bag of ice in his arms as he walks through the room.
“I promise I won’t interrupt your bitching for very long,” he says, pausing by the picnic table to lean down and give Wren a sweet kiss that lingers for a little too long, making all of us groan good-naturedly and Birdie throw a handful of popcorn at their faces.
With a laugh against each other’s lips, Shepherd finally pulls back, moving over to the counter against the wall behind the bar, where he had a giant slush machine installed, to empty the bag of ice into it.
“I just ordered a few pizzas that will be here in a couple of minutes, since I know you ladies get hangry when you’re sipping and bitching,” Shepherd says over the loud clinking of the ice being dumped into the machine. “Birdie, I’ve got Palmer finishing up your bridal shower invitations upstairs and stuffing them into envelopes. Honestly, this whole idea to have a Tea Time with a tea party under a tent out on the golf course is just brilliant. The decoration ideas I’ve been mulling over will blow you away. Tess, if you don’t mind, I think I’m gonna let Bodhi go crazy with your baby shower invitations. He’s really taken to calligraphy quite fast.”
“For fuck’s sake, I said no baby shower!” Tess complains.
“You’re getting a baby shower!” we all shout back at her in unison, including Shepherd, as he balls the empty ice bag in his hands and tosses it into the trash can under the bar.
“We already promised it would just be a room full of people bringing you gifts, where you can eat a whole bunch of really good food and then go home and take a nap,” Birdie reminds her.
“I’m not opening jack shit in front of people staring at me, or playing any of those stupid games where you put baby food in diapers and make people guess what it is,” Tess mutters petulantly, rubbing her hands over her belly.
“Here. You look like you could use a double.”
Looking up from the couch, I smile at Shepherd as he holds out a plastic cup to me that he filled with a brand-new boozy slush the machine just spit out. I take it from his hand and thank him, smiling at the purple cup that says Sip and Bitch on it. He made us an entire cupboard of reusable Sip and Bitch cups with his Cricut, also for Christmas.
Jesus, Wren is a lucky woman. And so is Birdie. And so is Tess. And I could be too if I’d just stop being so afraid that I’m going to mess up Quinn’s life.
“Did Wren ever feel like a distraction to you?” I ask Shepherd quietly, while Tess continues to argue with the girls about her baby shower. “I mean, I know you were retired when you two got together, but the whole time you were flirting leading up to that. Did it take your focus off your game?”
Shepherd laughs softly, turning and flopping down on the couch next to me.
“You need to stay off social media,” he says, making me roll my eyes.
“When you find someone who’s worth it, it’s the best damn distraction in the world.” Shepherd smiles at me, taking a minute to glance over at Wren. “She made me want to do better and make her proud. She still makes me feel like that… every damn day. So, no. She didn’t throw me off my game, then or now. And Palmer will tell you the exact same thing about Birdie. In case you haven’t noticed, Palmer is at the top of his game now with her by his side. Quinn’s been doing this for a long time, sweetheart. He knows how the pressure works, and he knows how his schedule works. He knows what he can handle on his plate, and he knows what he can’t. And it sounds to me like you’re the best damn distraction he can’t wait to handle again.”
He gives me a wag of his eyebrows that makes me laugh, patting the top of my knee twice before pushing up from the couch to go make Wren and Birdie new slushes.
Once he delivers the slushes and gives Wren another kiss that makes everyone yell at them, he disappears back upstairs with the rest of the guys.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about you from the first moment I met you.”
The words Quinn said to me that were another one of the main causes for all the tossing and turning I did the last couple of nights, and the ones that are still keeping my ass rooted in place in Wren and Shepherd’s basement, instead of getting to him as fast as possible, flash like the neon Sip and Bitch sign in my head. Scooping my phone off the floor, I get up from the couch as I pull up my contacts, putting Carson on speaker as I walk over to the picnic table and straddle the bench next to Wren.