Chapter 22

22

Grady

Sue reads me the riot act when I get home. Apparently he doesn't like being home alone any more than Bailey does.

Maybe I should drop the goat off with Annika's family the next time she calls me for an ice cream run late at night.

If there's a next time.

I hope there's a next time.

I give Sue an extra bowl of goat food and head around the corner to the laundry room. Need to get the goop out of my ear and take care of this boner that won't quit.

"Is this normal?" I ask the goat, who's ignoring the goat food in favor of trying to eat my shirt, since it, too, has ice cream all over it. "Is it normal to be hung up on the same woman after not seeing her for ten years?"

" Maaaa ," he replies sagely.

I wrestle him for my T-shirt and toss it straight in the washing machine in the small room off the kitchen.

He tries to go in after it, and I end up wrangling him all the way to my bedroom, where he starts going after my ass.

"Down, you damn goat."

I'm twisting around, realizing I have mint chocolate chip streaked down the back of my leg and need to toss these pants in the wash too, when my phone rings. I lunge for it and don't even look at the screen before I answer.

"Annika?"

"Whoa, dude. TJ's right. You got it bad."

"I said, way to haka ," I improvise, because I'm not admitting to Cooper where I went.

He'd get it—back in high school, he was hung up on Ariel Bodine, and Jericka Jones, and the cafeteria lunch lady, who was a recent college grad and really fucking hot, among other women—but that doesn't mean I want to talk to him about it.

He's laughing, which isn't reassuring. "So if I called Pop and told him I just met this girl in San Diego who'd be perfect for you?—"

"Quit eating my pants, you asshole," I tell the goat while I try to strip out of them.

He head-butts my boxer briefs, then licks the back of my knee.

"You need some private time with your goat?" Cooper asks.

"Nice win. Fireballs needed that. Why are you calling me so late?"

"Make sure you're doing okay."

I dodge Sue and head back to the laundry room with my jeans, realizing this isn't going to end well for my hard-on, because the goat won't get off my tail. "Doing fine. It's almost midnight."

"Yeah, and you're awake. Got a text from Nana. She saw you leave home when you were supposed to be going to bed and wanted to make sure you weren't planning on driving over a cliff so you didn't sully the family name by getting involved with a girl from Sarcasm."

"Why didn't Nana—never mind."

"Yeah. Tuesday night, man. Business sock night."

"Tuesday's shower sex day, and Pop wore the striped ones today." I have no idea what Pop wore today, but if Cooper's going to throw business sock night at me, I'm going to one-up him.

"Nana told me she spent the afternoon at the spa. Coochie smoochie day."

Don't need to think about Nana having a Brazilian, and I don't know if he's blowing smoke up my ass, but it's helping the boner situation, so I'll go with it.

"Reminds me. Knock before you go into the bathroom next time you're in Crusty Nut. Although, that was an appropriate location, given how old Pop is, and how crusty his nuts must be."

"You think vaginas get loose and hang low like dicks do? Ow . Fuck. Fuck , Darren. You don't like hearing about my grandparents doing it like rabbits, go back to your own room."

"Or maybe you shouldn't talk about your elders having sex," I say.

"I'm calling to talk about you having sex," my little brother replies. "Specifically, with your soulmate."

"My sex life is none of your business."

"It's none of anybody's business but you and your hand lately. Which we need to change, because you can't knead dough right unless you're giving each of your hands equal whack-off time. Does that make you ambi-whacks-trous?"

"I'm hanging up."

"Some reporter lady from one of those regional magazines called my agent and wants my opinion on a bakery I co-own having a war with a bakery in Sarcasm. Just want to know what I'm supposed to tell them."

"Nothing. You're supposed to tell them nothing ."

"I got caught in Duh-Nuts. Dude. I can't tell them nothing . So I want to know. Are we on team Grannika, or team Enemies Forever?"

" Grannika ?"

"You'd rather be Annady? That has a ring to it too."

"It's a good thing you're pretty," I grunt.

"And talented. Don't forget that part. You see that home run I hit tonight? Four hundred and twelve feet."

"You're a baseball god. I have to go to bed or nothing's getting kneaded in the morning."

"Where'd you go?"

"To the laundry room to— dammit , Sue, let go of my underwear."

"How does Annika feel about your goat?"

"You know where she works. Why don't you call and ask her?" Fuck. Now I need to warn her that Cooper might be calling.

"Does that mean things aren't great in Grannika-ville, or does it mean you're trying to throw me off the scent?"

"Don't you have a curfew?"

"Gods don't need them."

"But you do."

"Oh, snap . Nice one. When are you seeing Annika again?"

"What difference does it make to— Sue, get off the fucking dryer ."

My goat snorts at me, turns, and drops goat pellets all over the top of the dryer, and they fall to the floor.

Yeah.

That kind of goat pellets.

My brother does that laugh where he sounds like a hyperventilating hyena, and I turn around, bare-ass, and walk out of my laundry room, wishing Annika was here, because she'd be laughing too, but if she laughed, I'd laugh.

Her happiness makes me happy.

She's not happy right now.

She's a flaming ball of tension over shit that isn't her fault but that she still has to clean up.

Sue maaa s at me indignantly, like it's my fault he's stuck on the dryer.

"You ever wonder if you and Annika will end up like Pop and Nana? Having business sock day, running the pirate festival, walking your goat through town, horrifying your grandchildren by having sex in public…"

No.

I've never wondered.

I've just known .

Deep down in my gut, I've always known it was her or no one. Even when I dated other women, I'd think about the future, and I'd see Annika.

She snuck into my head when I was fourteen, and I found the woman I've been soulmates with from the dawn of time.

"Playing matchmaker for my loser brother who can't date one woman at a time to save his life…" I finish for him.

"You date. I hook up. We're equally right in our own ways, and I wish you'd accept my promiscuity the way I accept that you have a self-righteous stick up your ass."

I step into the bathroom and crank the hot water. "I'm going to bed."

"Grady. Bro. Listen. You want her, go for her. Fuck anyone who doesn't support you. Let love win, man. Let love win."

"Who are you, and what did you do with Cooper?"

"I just had a very philosophical discussion with a Louisville Slugger, and that's what the wood told me."

"Thanks for the pep talk."

"Me and my wood are always here for you. And for Annika."

"Keep your fucking wood away from Annika."

He hyena-chuckles again. "When you have babies, I want the first named after me."

"Arrogant bastard?"

"Fuck, yeah. That kid'll grow up to go places. President Arrogant Bastard Rock . Got a ring to it, doesn't it?"

Steam is rising in the shower, and I'm grinning as I hang up with my brother, because he might be obnoxious, but he's still my brother, and he's fucking hilarious.

So long as I don't think about owing him money if my plan doesn't work and he has to bail me out.

As soon as I step into the hot water, all that melts away though, and Annika's face pops into my head, those eyes searching mine, her nimble fingers pushing down the straps on that tank top, and in this fantasy, she's not wearing a bra.

Or panties.

I grip my cock and stroke, eyes closed while the water pounds down on me, imagining her in the shower with me, her hands roaming my skin, her mouth claiming mine, her legs wrapped around my waist while I pound into her.

But it's not enough.

I jerk harder.

I don't know what she likes. I don't know where she's most sensitive. I don't know if she's hot and hard or slow and deep.

I don't know if I'll ever get a chance to find out.

But I want to.

I want to slather her in brownie batter and lick every inch clean.

Her toes.

Those sexy as fuck calves.

Her thighs.

Her pussy.

My balls are tight, and I can feel myself getting close to release.

Is she bare? Does she wax? Or does she have a pretty triangle of curls?

What color are her nipples?

Will she scream when she comes, or is she a quiet, gasping moaner?

I hear her pleading my name, imagine her straddling me and taking me into her hot core, and I groan in relief and despair as my cock jerks and I come in the shower.

Alone.

Just me and my hand.

Cooper's right, the fucknut. I have more of a relationship with my hand than I've had with a woman in too long.

But I have to earn my way back into Annika's life.

I've been a shit.

Time to fix it. Time to be the man she needs me to be.

I'm going to earn her, and I'm going to help her bakery succeed.

No matter what it takes.