Chapter 24

Twenty-Four

Gemma

“ M om, Blakely won’t leave us alone!” Beau hollers as he and Sutton barrel into my bedroom. I peek my head out from the bathroom just as Blakely walks in behind them, her little brows furrowed and her arms crossed.

Huffing out a sigh, Grace turns to look at him. “Beau, just let your sister play with you guys. Why is it such a big deal? She just wants to be included.”

Annoyance etches his features at even the suggestion of letting his little sister—who is barely younger, I might add—play with him and Sutton. “Mom, she doesn’t know how to play right! She gets in the way!”

“Beau, I’m so sick of having this argument with you. Let her play with y’all, for Pete’s sake.”

Sutton looks at me like I’m going to save them. “You heard your aunt,” I tell him. “Don’t exclude Blakely. That’s not nice, and you wouldn’t like it if you were the one left out.”

The boys give each other a pained expression before they leave the room without another word.

“Sheesh,” Grace murmurs. “Since when did our ten-year-olds turn into teenagers?”

I chuckle. “Tell me about it. It’s like one day, Sutton was my sweet little boy, and the next, he’s full of sass and attitude, and thrives on arguing with everything I say.”

“What are you going to wear?” my sister asks, flicking through the clothes in my closet.

Tonight, we’re taking the kids to the carnival that’s in town for the weekend. Georgia and Charley are meeting us there since they both had to work today.

“I was going to do my pink overalls, a tank top, and my Nikes,” I call out to her as I finish curling my hair in the en suite.

“Cute.” She pops her head into the bathroom, looking at me through the mirror, eyes gleaming. “You should invite Mr. Hot Teacher.”

I scoff. “I’m not inviting him. That would be weird.”

I’m the one being weird, and I know that. He’s been around me and Sutton enough. I know it wouldn’t be weird for him, but I just… I don’t know. I feel like a teenage girl having to face the boy she just fooled around with. The butterflies are damn near swarming in my stomach at the thought.

“Weirder than riding the tip of his dick like a cat in heat?” My sister giggles as I glower at her.

“Remind me to never tell you anything ever again. ”

“You love me. You’d never be able to keep secrets like that from me, and you know it.”

I roll my eyes at her dramatically, which only makes her laugh more. But she’s right. After what happened with Everett at his place last weekend, I told my sisters and Charley the next morning. There was no way I was going to keep something that big to myself.

My cheeks heat at the memory of just how big Everett was.

And then the classroom incident, which I’ve chosen to keep to myself. Mostly because it’s so fucking hot, I don’t think I could get it out without turning bright red. It’s definitely a memory I’ve thought of more than once… late at night with a toy in my hand.

“And it wouldn’t be weird to invite him,” she goes on, disappearing into the room again. “You guys are friends, he gets along with Sutton, and it’s not like you haven’t invited him to do stuff with all of us before. Just do it. I know you want to.”

“Yeah, but doesn’t that feel kind of… I don’t know… date-like to you?”

Walking back into the bathroom, she hoists herself up on the other side of the counter, sitting crisscross applesauce as she examines her makeup in the mirror, reaching for the blush. “Not at all. Maybe if y’all were going just the two of you, but even then, friends do stuff like that together.”

Pondering what she says for a moment, I finish the last piece of hair that needs to be curled. “I just don’t want him to get the wrong idea.”

“And what wrong idea would that be?” she asks .

“Well, what if he thinks I’m trying to make this more than what it is?”

“Would that be so bad?”

My gaze drags over to her. “Uh, yes.”

Grace breathes out a laugh. “Why is that?”

“Because we agreed to keep this just friends, no strings. I’ve got too much on my plate to even consider something more than that, and he’s still kind of new in town, and I’m sure he has much better things to do than getting involved romantically with a single mom with baggage. Not to mention, he’s also Sutton’s teacher.”

“For such a smart woman, you’re painfully clueless sometimes.”

“What the heck is that supposed to mean?” I scoff, narrowing my eyes.

Spinning around the counter, Grace meets my gaze, a faint smile tugging on the corners of her lips. “Gemma, the guy plays baseball with your son, comes to his games, dropped everything to take you to the emergency room, and then took care of you after your surgery. I don’t think he cares that you’re a”—she uses air quotations—“ single mom with baggage . And give yourself a little more credit than that, Gem. You and Sutton aren’t baggage, and any man worth a damn would know that without a doubt.”

Rolling my eyes, I leave the bathroom, padding into the closet to get dressed. “He’s a teacher, Grace,” I say. “Of course, he enjoys playing catch with Sutton. And he’s a nice guy. Him taking me to the hospital when Sutton came to him worried about his mom isn’t that far-fetched for somebody who’s a good person.”

The words sound like bullshit even to my own ears. Deep down, I know everything Everett has done is about more than being nice, but something about sharing that with my sister feels… scary, I guess. I’d be lying if I said his actions haven’t made my feelings grow for him, but I’m not ready to admit to that.

“Does nobody answer the damn door around here?”

I poke my head out from the closet as I hear Georgia’s voice, watching as she and Charley waltz into my bedroom. “What are you guys doing here? I thought you were meeting us there.”

Georgia plops down on my bed, making herself comfortable. “I got off earlier than I thought, so I swung by and picked up Char. Neither of you bitches bothered to respond to my text; otherwise, you would’ve known we were coming over.”

“Oh, shit. Sorry.” I walk over to my nightstand and grab my phone. “I didn’t even hear a message come through.”

“Tell Gemma to invite her boy toy,” Grace says to them. “She won’t listen to me, but I know she wants him to come.”

“Do it,” Georgia says, flicking her gaze over to me. “Graham’s coming too, so he won’t be the only guy there.”

“He is? Is Megan coming?”

“For a little bit,” Charley chimes in. Megan is Graham’s wife, but she’s also pretty close with Charley. Being our sister-in-law, Megan gets along with Grace, Georgia, and I just fine too, but she and Charley have always been close because their parents are neighbors, and they have been since the two of them were kids. “She wasn’t feeling too good earlier, which is why you guys probably didn’t know they were coming. ”

“How far along is she again?” Georgia asks.

“I think she just hit her third trimester, right, Char?” I ask.

“Yup, she’s getting close.”

“Okay, enough about our soon-to-be sweet baby niece,” Grace cuts in, hands on her hips. “Invite him, Gemma, or I’ll walk over there and do it myself.”

Grumbling, I pull up our message thread. “He’s probably busy,” I mutter as I type out the message, inviting him anyway. “It’s last minute on a Saturday night.”

As I press send, I can’t deny the flutter low in my belly, the hope that he’ll actually say yes.

“You never know.” Grace shrugs. “My guess is he’ll jump on any opportunity to hang out with you.”

“My money’s on Grace,” Georgia adds.

I flip off my sister as I toss the phone on the bed so I can finish getting dressed. Not even a few minutes later, it chimes with an incoming notification, and my heart stutters, knowing it’s from him.

“That was awfully fast for somebody who has plans,” Grace teases.

I grab it, swiping to unlock the phone.

Everett: That sounds like fun! Count me in. ;)

Ignoring the butterflies swarming around in my stomach, I bite back the smile trying to come through. “Would you look at that,” I mutter. “He can come.”

Me: Perf! We’re leaving here in about twenty minutes if you want to meet us out front!

“I’ll bet he can,” Georgia mumbles, a smirk ticking up on her lips, and yet again, I’m reminded of the hot hookup that happened in his classroom .

The way his hands felt on my body, how his heated gaze seared into every inch of me as I sucked him off. The way he made me come with his fingers and the filthy words leaving his mouth. How hot it felt knowing how easily we could’ve been caught. And my god, the way he looked when he came. The flush to his cheeks, the way his full, tempting lips parted on a moan. There’s something to be said about a man who isn’t afraid to make noise in the—metaphorical—bedroom. It’s so undeniably sexy.

There’s not a single part of me that doesn’t want more. So much more. I want to know what it feels like to come with his dick inside me. Know what it feels like to watch him fall apart and spill inside of me. Stuff me full of his cum. Feel it drip out of me.

Everett Windward is a gorgeous man, and when his arousal and attention are directed my way, it’s hard to think straight. I haven’t quite figured out if that’s a good or bad thing.

Walking over to my full-length mirror, I take in my reflection. The loose curls hanging down my back, the mascara painted on my eyelashes, the blush splashing my cheeks with color, and the shimmery lip gloss kissing my lips. “Does this look okay?” I ask.

“You look hot as fuck,” Charley gushes. “He’ll be wishing he could put his hands on you all night.”

I roll my eyes, turning to face them. “That’s not why I was asking.”

Georgia snorts. “Right, that’s believable.”