Grinder

Gage’s door was wide open, so I walked in, the scent of him lingering from the night before. His sheets were a rumpled mess, but the sleek fabric was beyond tempting, practically begging me to slide in and breathe in where he’d slept. One of these days I’d wait for him in nothing but those sheets, reward him properly after a hard day’s practice.

Yeah, when Lettie is in high school.

I clenched my eyes shut, stifling a laugh. There was no escaping the beauty now. She was sneaky, wicked smart, and had perfect timing—just like her Daddy—so there was no chance of seducing Gage that way unless she was with her Grammy. Luckily, I loved her so much I could have fun spending quality family time with her, and ravage her father after bedtime.

Family. That’s what this was. This feeling of near-perfection, the ease of our lives, the overwhelming love in my heart.

I could feel the sock in my pocket as I gathered the trash from Gage’s massive bathroom, and I knew in that moment of content, I would love nothing more than to be Gage’s and Lettie’s forever. The one who didn’t leave. The one who completed them with a new addition of our own. The vision of Lettie showing a little sister how to finger-paint damn near brought tears to my eyes.

A drawer underneath Gage’s sink was half open and when I tried to shut it, it got hung on something, which successfully distracted me from the emotional onslaught filling me with life-changing fantasies.

I set the trash bag down and sank to my knees, trying to wrench free whatever had jammed the drawer. After a good amount of pulling and tugging, the thing came free so quickly I flung backward, bringing the drawer and all of its contents with me.

A comb had been the culprit, but the thing had been full of all manner of products—hair gel, fresh sticks of deodorant, travel sized luxuries like toothpaste and floss—all of which now littered the marble floor. I shook my head, picking up the items and rearranging them so that the drawer wouldn’t get stuck again. A pill bottle had rolled underneath the cabinet and I had to lay flat to retrieve it.

It was empty but the bold lettering on the label gave me pause.

Valium?

I read the date on the bottle, which was around the time of his shoulder injury. That didn’t make sense, though, because they’d given him codeine for the pain. I remembered because he’d once told me how incredible they made him feel, which is why he promptly stopped taking them the minute he could manage his pain. He wasn’t afraid of becoming dependent, but with a newborn, he wasn’t going to take any chances.

Had he been mixing these drugs? I thought about tossing the bottle but left it on his counter just in case he had saved it for some reason. More than likely he’d forgot about it, but it didn’t stop the curiosity churning in my mind, even as I grabbed the rest of the trash and took it outside.

When I finished cooking the romantic late night dinner hours later—long after Letti had gone to bed—it still bothered me. Something like a cold dread had settled in my stomach and I couldn’t understand why. Gage wasn’t the type to self-medicate. He wouldn’t take those kinds of risks with Lettie around. Hell, the man didn’t even drink as it was.

“Honey, I’m home,” Gage called as he walked into the kitchen, freshly showered from practice. His tone was light and joking, but I swallowed back the nervous acid that had collected in my throat.

He kissed my cheek, then my neck, before glancing across the hall to the dining room table I had set.

“Is this all for me?” He asked, walking toward it.

I nodded, bringing the steak sizzling from the cast iron skillet and sliding it on the plate on the table. After taking the empty pan back to the kitchen, I took the spot to his left, and slowly sipped my ice water as he loaded his plate with roasted red potatoes and the bacon green beans I’d made for sides.

“How was practice?” I asked, hoping to quell the urge to ask him about the pill bottle out right. I swear the thing was on fire in the bathroom, nagging me with its mystery.

“Good,” he said, putting a bite of steak in his mouth. “You are the perfect woman.” He moaned and closed his eyes. “Thank you. So good.”

I smiled softly. “I try.”

He opened his eyes and set down his fork. “What’s wrong?”

I swallowed hard. How could he tell? “What do you mean?”

“Come on, Bailey. I think it’s safe to say I know when something is bugging you. Hell, I’ve known how to read you since before you could actually read.”

I chuckled, sucking in a sharp breath. “Did you ever have to take any other medications when your shoulder got hurt?”

Confusion colored his eyes as he tilted his head, then something darker crossed over them and he stabbed another piece of steak. “No, why?” His voice was quieter than it had been moments before.

I wrung my hands out underneath the table. “I was cleaning, not snooping, and came across an empty bottle of valium. I thought they gave you codeine for the pain.”

“They did,” he said in a clipped tone.

I stared at him, eyebrows raised, waiting for him to elaborate.

He didn’t, instead he kept shoving more food into his mouth like he could prolong the moment.

“Gage?”

He took a long drink of his ice water.

“Why do I feel like you’re about to drop an axe over my head?” I asked, the churning in my stomach stealing my appetite.

He glanced at me, then his plate, then back to me. “I wasn’t crossing meds, Bailey. You know I never would do that.”

Relief pooled out of me, the air leaving my lungs in a long sigh. The tension in my chest loosened and I felt silly for ever thinking such a thing. I knew better. Gage was too good for that. “That’s good,” I said and took another drink, instantly lighter. “I found something else today too.” I reached into my pocket, smiling for the first time in hours.

Gage’s eyes lit up when he took the tiny pink sock I held out to him. “Where did you find this?”

“Buried underneath some of Lettie’s toys. No clue where the other one would be. I have trouble enough keeping up with the socks she has now.”

He chuckled, gripping the fabric between his hands.

“Could you imagine having another one of her running around?” I asked, despite knowing it was too serious a conversation to have now. I couldn’t help it, though, the love in my heart, paired with the way we’d made love in the hotel room, and the sock, combined into one big ball of want and for the first time in my life I knew exactly what I wanted.