Page 47 of Reckless (Adventures in Love 3)
“What’s with the smile?” he asks, meeting my gaze as he goes to the fridge to grab some cheese, and I shrug one shoulder.
“Nothing, just happy,” I admit, and his face gets soft before he turns to tuck the cheese in the middle of the bread and then places both sandwiches on the pan.
“Me too.” His voice is quiet, and then we both look at his phone on the counter next to me when it starts to ring. “You wanna tell me who that is?” He turns back to the stove, and I flip his phone over, and my heart feels funny when I see the name Lizzy on the screen.
“Umm, it’s someone named Lizzy. She’s FaceTiming you.”
“My sister.” He walks over to me with a smile and grabs the phone off the counter before sliding his finger across the screen. As soon as the call connects, what sounds like chaos fills the room.
“Hey, baby brother,” a woman shouts over the noise in the background behind her. “You haven’t called me to check in for a couple of days.”
“Sorry about that,” Maverick tells her, moving back to the stove, and with his back to me as he looks into the phone, I can see his sister on the screen. Even from where I’m sitting, I can see that she has the same dark hair and striking features as her brother. “I’ve been helping Tanner with a project.”
“Mom, is that Uncle Maverick?” a little boy shouts.
Then another yells, “I want to talk to him.”
“You’ll have to wait a minute. I’m talking to him right now,” Lizzy says as two little faces fight to get in front of the screen.
“Who’s the girl at your house?” one of the boys yells.
“Wait, there is a girl at your house?” Lizzy shouts, and my eyes widen as her face appears in front of the boys on the screen. As Maverick turns to me, I wonder if I should duck under the counter but don’t get the chance when he walks over to where I am with his phone in hand.
“Lizzy, I’d like you to meet Jade. Babe, this is my sister, Lizzy.” He places the phone in front of my face, and I’m sure I look like a deer trapped in headlights.
“Umm.” I clear my throat. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too,” she says, looking at me, and then her attention goes to Maverick. “You have a woman at the house?”
“I do.” He turns the screen so that it’s angled toward the wall, then kisses me swiftly on the lips before he goes back to the stove. “I’m gonna call you back, Lizzy. Jade and I were just getting ready to eat.”
“You better call me,” she says sternly.
“I’ll call,” he assures her, then adds: “Kiss the boys and tell them we’ll talk later.”
“I will,” she agrees before the screen goes black.
“You do know that I’m wearing nothing but your shirt, have sex hair, and my makeup is probably a mess, and you just introduced me to your sister.” I lift my hair up and go to tie it into a bun but stop when I realize my rubber band isn’t on my wrist. “And you know if you keep taking my hair ties and tossing them every time we’re together, I’m not going to have any left.”
“Or you could stop wearing your hair up when we’re together.” He puts both grilled-cheese sandwiches on one plate. “And your makeup is just fine, you don’t have sex hair, and my sister doesn’t know that you’ve only got on my tee. She only saw your face.”
“But I know all those things,” I point out as he rips off a couple of paper towels, then grabs a soda from the fridge.
“Come on.” He motions with his chin for me to follow him, ignoring my comment.
“Where are we going?”
“Back to bed,” he says, so I pick up my water glass and walk behind him to his room. As I get on the bed and sit next to him cross-legged, Lizzy’s comment comes back to me.
“You don’t bring women to your house?”
“Nope.” He picks up one of the sandwiches and wraps half of it in a paper towel before passing me the plate and other sandwich.
“Never?” This is shocking to me; he’s a good-looking man, and even without a whole bunch of words, I have no doubt he’d have no trouble sealing the deal with any woman anywhere.
“Never.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t like women in my space,” he says, and I blink. Since we decided to see where this goes, I’ve been to his place more than once, and on what I consider our first date, he said he wanted me to spend the night the next Saturday. He never acted like he didn’t want me around or like me being here made him uncomfortable.
