Page 48 of Going for Two
“The pumpkin pie is cooling on the rack. The turkey is in the oven. The stuffing is on the stove …” I paused as I tried to think through everything I had done this morning.
“You know what,” Nolan said as he reached out to put both hands on my shoulders. He brought me close, so my attention was forced to focus on him rather than the endless checklist in my head. “I’ll handle it. I’m sure Olivia can fill me in. You go get yourself ready before everyone starts showing up. Knowing Adam, he’ll be thirty minutes early.” If my baby sister wasn’t watching the two of us like we were one of her favorite reality dating shows, I would have kissed him right then and there.
“Thank you.” I breathed a sigh of relief.
Nolan nodded. “I know today’s important.” He glanced at the bucket list still pinned to my fridge.
I gave him a smile as my heart warmed. He had remembered my desire for the holidays to be different this year, which meant the world to me. Instead of watching the ThanksgivingDay parade over store-bought pie and turkey with my sister, I wanted us to be surrounded by our friends that had quickly become the family we felt like we never had.
“I think only the salad is left.” I watched Olivia show Nolan where I kept my serving bowls while she pulled out the ingredients I had bought yesterday. I hesitated in the doorway to my room as I watched the two work together as they began to chop everything up.
My heart squeezed at the unfamiliar sight. Neither of us had a male figure in our lives that ever took the time to simply spend time with us. I could tell by the set in Olivia’s shoulders and the quick glances she cast toward Nolan that she was just as nervous as I was.
By the time I had finished getting ready, I found the two of them chatting on my couch with glasses of wine in their hands like they were suddenly old friends. As if Nolan could sense me entering the room, he turned with his wine glass in hand. He took in my freshly blown out hair, the red sweater I had tucked into a belt at my waist to give myself some shape with the black silk skirt that ended right at the top of my ankle boots.
A part of me wanted to fight against the way Nolan’s gaze made me feel like a teenager again with her first crush. A small voice in the back of my head reminded me that men never stayed long in my life. It reminded me that if I swooned at the way his eyes hungrily roamed over my body, I’d be too blind to see the signs of him getting closer and closer to the door. If I let myself put a word to the way I had become excited to see him every day, I’d miss the reality that I was only there to serve a purpose. That I was never going to be the most important thing in someone’s life.
“You look beautiful.”
Nolan’s words brought me back to my living room, aware again of the gorgeous man’s attention that I had captured. I glanced over to my sister, only to see her smiling at the two of us as if she were happy to finally see me being treated the way I deserved. When my eyes swung back to meet a pair of brown ones that were quickly becoming a haven for me, I tried to remind myself that I did deserve happiness and not all men were like my father.
I silenced that voice inside of my head—that sounded suspiciously like my father’s—telling me I didn’t deserve the sincerity in Nolan’s gaze and wrapped my arms around his neck to pull him into a hug. The moment his arms encircled my waist, closing me in like my personal sanctuary, the voice finally went quiet. There was a hesitation between the two of us now after the conversation I’d had with him about the boundaries we needed to put in place for the rest of the season that hadn’t been there before. I could practically feel how badly Nolan wanted to kiss me in that moment, but instead settled for a hug.
“Thank you,” I whispered into his ear.
The buzzer to my apartment went off again and Olivia went to go answer it this time as Nolan offered me the glass of wine sitting on my coffee table that I hadn’t noticed he’d poured for me.
“I’m only letting you up if you brought those pumpkin chocolate chip muffins you said you would make,” Olivia spoke into my speaker.
“I’ve got them! Now let me up, it’s cold out here,” Derek’s voice crackled back.
Olivia buzzed Derek in, and my eyebrows shot up as I met my sister’s gaze. “And when did you learn that Derek makes pumpkin chocolate chip muffins?”
“After we all went sledding in that snowstorm.” Olivia shrugged her shoulders, completely ignoring the curious look I was givingher. “He told me he baked, and I said I wouldn’t believe him unless he baked them for me.”
Nolan leaned in toward me, so his lips brushed against the outer shell of my ear. “I didn’t even know that Derek baked.”
The two of us exchanged a knowing look as we watched Olivia open the door for Derek, who had three containers of what looked like bite-sized muffins, and if I wasn’t mistaken, I thought I saw a smudge of flour still on his forehead. Olivia reached up and brushed the white powder off his face and I watched a blush color Derek’s cheeks.
“Oh, fuck yeah,” I heard Nolan say under his breath. “I finally have something to make fun of that bastard with in the locker room.”
The buzzer went off again and Nolan stepped away from my side to let Hawthorn and his family up.
By the time that Jamil, Maggie and Tommy, and Adam and his family arrived, my apartment was filled to the brim with laughter and so much excited energy that I had never really experienced before. I tried my best to commit everything to memory so I could replace all the bad holidays I’d had with today.
Adam’s wife, Nora, and Hawthorn’s wife, Sarah, joined me in the kitchen to help carve the turkey and get the rest of the food set up for everyone to dish from.
“I don’t want to overstep or anything like that”—Sarah spoke softly so only the three of us could hear her—“but I have never seen Nolan look so genuinely happy the way he does when he’s with you.”
I sucked a breath in when I realized what Sarah was trying to say.
Had we been that obvious or did Nolan talk with her and Hawthorn about us?
“The only person we have seen him with was his ex, Rachel, and those two never looked at each other the way you two do,” Nora added as she took the lids off all the dessert containers.
“And please don’t be nervous that we know or anything like that,” Sarah added quickly because she must have seen the panic all over my face. “Nolan hasn’t spoken with us about anything that’s happened between you guys. But it’s hard to miss the way you look at each other.”
“We’re not dating or anything.” I wasn’t sure why I found it necessary to clarify that to these two women that had Nolan’s best interests at heart, but the words slipped from my mouth before I could stop them and then just continued to spill out. “We don’t want anything to interfere with his last season or my job while he’s still playing.”