Chapter 22 Lottie

Chapter 22

Lottie

"Are you sure you don't need to check on the turkey?" Olivia asked me as she sat at my kitchen island.

It was Thanksgiving afternoon, and the team had a short practice earlier this morning before Coach Randolph had given everyone the remainder of the day to spend with their families. I wasn't sure what had come over me earlier in the week when I had invited all our friends over to my apartment for Thanksgiving dinner because boxed stuffing and a supermarket turkey were the extent of my knowledge—which Olivia was reminding me of with her judgement over my first turkey.

"I'm following the directions," I told her.

"When does everyone get here?" She glanced over at the clock on the wall, which read an hour before I had told people to show up and I had yet to start getting myself ready. My hair was still in a dirty bun, and I still had on the clothes I wore to practice earlier today.

"In about—" The buzzer to my apartment cut me off. Panic clenched at my insides as I began to wonder if I had given someone the wrong time.

"Who is it?" I asked into the intercom.

"Nolan."

I ignored Olivia's laugh as I buzzed him up.

"And the two of you aren't dating?" I continued to ignore my sister as she gave me a look that said I was kidding myself. But before I could reply, Nolan walked through my front door with multiple containers of food.

"Did you make all of this?" I asked as I rushed to help him.

My eyes danced over the jeans that accentuated every muscle in his legs that he had paired with a light blue button-down shirt and navy sweater. He was easily the best-looking thing in my apartment, and I struggled to take my eyes off him. I would have stared at him all day if Olivia hadn't cleared her throat to grab my attention and subtly tell me to stop staring at him.

"Of course," he replied, as if it were the simplest of gestures. "I couldn't imagine cooking an entire Thanksgiving meal by myself—especially my first one."

Once Nolan had emptied the containers onto my counter, he stepped back to take in my dirty hair and clothes. "What else needs to be done?"

"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 Thanksgiving Day 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 giving her. "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."

Nora nodded her head as if that was all quite logical. "All things that are meant to last will always work out in the end." She reached over and placed her hand on mine before she announced to the room that dinner was ready. I stood there in the kitchen for a moment longer, looking down at the hand that she had touched, trying to understand what she saw.

"Coming." I glanced up to see Nolan standing next to me with two plates in his hands. He handed one to me and the two of us went to get in line with everyone else.

For the first time in my life, I got to sit down at a kitchen table in a room full of so much love and not a single argument filled the air.

Derek and Olivia broke the wishbone together and Olivia cackled in his face when her piece came away bigger. Hawthorn took first duty with their kids so Sarah could eat. Adam laced his arm over the back of Nora's chair. Jamil told stories about Thanksgivings with his family of ten back in his hometown in Florida growing up. Maggie and Tommy were snuggled up in each other's arms as they laughed along with everyone else.

It was all just so … perfect.

"Lottie and I can clean up," Nolan told everyone once the food was nearly all gone, and another bottle of cranberry wine had been opened. The two of us collected all the plates and brought them to the kitchen together.

"I'll wash, you'll dry?" Nolan asked me as he started filling the sink up with water and soap. I grabbed a couple of dry towels from under the sink and began drying off the dishes he handed to me.

"Thank you for your help today," I told him once we'd settled into an easy rhythm.

"Was it everything you hoped it would be?"

"And more," I told him.

A smile lit up his face when he saw the happiness on mine. "Even Olivia and Derek's fight over the wishbone?"

A laugh bubbled out of me. "Especially that."

"Then I think there's only one thing left to do," he told me as he grabbed a pen off my counter and extended it to me. I gently took the pen from him and uncapped it as I walked over to the list on my fridge.

"Only a few left," Nolan noted as he watched me mark off the one about Thanksgiving.

"A lot of them are thanks to you," I told him.

Nolan studied me for a few moments before he spoke again. "Once I stopped being a complete asshole to you, I realized that I quite like it when you're happy."

This time, I completely ignored that voice in my head telling me that it was all a lie and by tomorrow he'd be bored of me as I reached for him and pulled him toward me until our bodies were flush together. As soon as his arms wrapped around me, I found enough courage to kiss him in a room full of our friends and family simply because it made me happy.

Because I wanted to prove that voice wrong and show it that I was worthy of someone's love, even if it believed otherwise.