Back to Me (Carolina Rebels 1)

Unfortunately, no other Rebel scores, not for lack of trying. Coach Mike makes a comment about how we did good taking every shot we could, but it just didn’t pay off. Not to mention we had a bad start and it took us too long to get our shit together. Hopefully, we’ll do better in the next game. We need to be looking forward.

I’m most looking forward to going home and seeing Meredith.

After we win the next game, of course.

“Noooooaaahhh,” Meredith half-whines, half-laughs as I attack her neck with my mouth. “We’re supposed to be planning our wedding,” she reminds me.

Yeah, I come home from the New York road trip and she thinks the first thing on my mind is wedding details? No. The first thing on my mind is having sex with my fiancée. It absolutely has priority over some list her mother sent her home with. “Don’t fucking care about that, Mere,” I grumble.

Her body turns to stone beneath me. “You don’t care about our wedding?”

I sigh and lift my head. “Of course I do. I meant that I don’t care about the details. All I need is you in a white dress and someone to marry us.”

“Then we have a problem.” She folds her arms over her chest.

“Why?”

“Because I want your input on those details you don’t care about. And I want to talk about my house back home.”

Usually, that would make me tense, but not anymore. She’s here to stay and be with me. “What about it?” I ask.

“I thought about selling it, but then Mom said I should keep it. That it could be ours to stay in when we go to visit. Plus, I already told you she mentioned having the wedding in the backyard.”

I sit up on the couch and pull her with me since it’s obvious she isn’t as desperate for sex as I am. “Do you want to keep it?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I mean, I fell in love with it, but it never felt like home. Mom said you’ve been trying to find a house, so maybe mine can be it.”

“Why don’t we keep it in mind and make a decision later? We can stay there for Christmas.”

“Yeah, that sounds good. Maybe it’ll feel like home if you’re there.”

That makes me smile. “Can I get back to seducing you now?” I pull her over to straddle my lap.

“Is that what you call what you were doing?” Her voice lacks the teasing quality of her question.

“Now you want to insult me, Mere? Might want to rethink that.” I quickly remove her shirt.

“It’s about time for Leo’s walk.”

I rest my hands on her thighs. It’s unusual for her to keep throwing excuses my way. “Is there a particular reason why you don’t want to have sex with me? I’ve been gone for four days, haven’t seen you in longer than that. What the hell, Mere?”

Her eyes harden and her lips flatten. She crosses her arms over her chest again, but without her shirt, it just brings my attention to her breasts. She slaps my arm to get my attention. “You act as if I owe you sex.”

Damn, this is going bad faster than I can breathe. “That’s not what I mean. I’ve been gone. I’ve missed you. All I want is to be with you before I have to leave again at the end of the week. What’s so bad about that?”

Some of her resolve falls away as she drops her arms to place them around my neck. “Nothing,” she answers. “Ignore me. I’m just being weird.”

I grab her hips and give ‘em a squeeze. “Something going on, Mere?”

She reaches over to grab her shirt and puts it back on. Those green eyes flick toward mine before glancing away again. She takes a deep breath. “I just...I was late, so I thought that maybe...you know, but I’m not because it started yesterday. I don’t really know how to feel about it.”

“Fuck, Mere. Why didn’t you say something sooner?” Now I really feel like a dick. I wrap my arms around her shoulders as she rests her head on one of mine. She’s on the pill but I don’t wear a condom, so it’s not like we’re extremely careful.

“You had a game yesterday, and I was trying to figure out how I felt, so I didn’t want to bother you yet.”

“Don’t worry about it, okay? Whatever happens happens, and we’ll be fine. Let’s focus on today and only look as far as our wedding. Let’s get your list and see if we can knock out some of what’s on it.”

I reach for the list she had abandoned and spend the next few hours answering questions about the stupidest of details. But it’s important to Meredith and it’s now or later. I’d rather get it over with now, even though I know this is only the beginning. I’ve never been happier to see Marc in my entire life when he pops by. Meredith promised to cook dinner and she couldn’t leave Marc out.