but they ring truer than ever. There’s no chance a rich, brilliant, sophisticated woman like Ellie would consider a serious relationship with a guy like me—accidental baby or not.
The reminder stabs my gut.
“Where is Grandma these days?”
“Still in Texas. Outside of Eastwood, in a nicer area now,” I say, barely above a whisper. “I, uh, I bought her a new house as soon as I signed my first NFL contract. It was the easiest decision I ever made.”
Ellie’s eyes sparkle, and her smile seems to make them glow even more. It’s almost like I can feel her physically weaving more and more into my life.
“That’s amazing, Matt. I bet she was over the moon.”
I chuckle and smile out at the ocean. “Oh God, yes. Thought she was gonna pass out when I told her.”
“You talk to her a lot?”
“Just about every day. She always told me I’d be winning a Super Bowl one day. From the time I was, like, five. She just knew.”
“And, like you said, here you are,” Ellie says with a bright smile and vibrant encouragement in her voice. She looks up at me, her eyes wide with that same glittery charm that captivated me the night I met her. Except now, the way she looks at me is…deeper.
I’m suddenly really, really glad I told her all of that. I’m really glad she called.
“Here I am,” I say quietly after a long pause.
“Really no other family, though? Cousins or siblings or anything?”
“Probably a foreign concept to you, with the whole tight-knit clan who all work together and have dinner once a week, but…no. Closest thing I have to a brother is Chase fucking Kennedy.”
Ellie laughs heartily, tilting her head back.
“Frightening, isn’t it?” I tease. “But yeah, that’s pretty much me.”
She stops walking, and so do I. As she turns to face me, her expression is filled with something bright and new. She’s not looking at me with pity or sympathy for my past, but with…admiration?
Breaking the locked intensity of our gazes, a wave crashes onto the shore and splashes up around our ankles.
We both jump and laugh, and she practically leaps into my arms.
“Shit, that’s cold!” Ellie exclaims.
I hold her tightly and carry her away from the water as she wraps her legs around me, and her soft giggle fills my head.
I keep her propped up around me and fall down onto the sand. She falls with me, laughing and shrieking and letting her entire self melt into me.
“Matt!” she says on a gasp.
“I’m sorry! I just fell,” I tease, holding her slender waist and feeling heat flood me as she positions herself, those slender legs straddling me and her red hair a sexy mess.
She sits up on my hips, lacing her fingers through mine and leaning against my hands.
I hold my arms out straight and rock her back and forth, watching her skin glow in the moonlight and wondering how she could look this unbelievably sexy in a college hoodie.
Another wave crashes in the distance, and I barely even notice it.
She keeps her hands gripped tightly through mine. “Thanks for telling me all of that.” Her voice is steady now, and her wild, giddy smile fades into something more serious.
I shrug a little and give a half smile, trying to focus on her emotional sentiment and not on the fact that my dick is getting harder by the second, and her grinding herself all over me is definitely not helping. “Sure, of course.” I laugh softly, pulling her toward me slightly. “Now you know. I’m just a poor, small-town kid at heart.”
“You’re a lot more than that,” she whispers, her voice almost drowned out by the crashing waves.
“Nah.” I shake my head. “That’s who I am. So now you can see why…” I slip my hands out from between her fingers and slide them along the curves of her sides, insanely hungry to touch her more. “When I look at you…and where you come from…and who you are…”
Her eyes flash a little, and she glances away for the first time since we’ve been on the ground.
Her brows knit together, and she leans down, close enough for me to smell that sweet shampoo. “I like you, Matt McKenzie.”
I attempt to ignore the zing of warm, fuzzy, childish excitement from that comment. “Enough to have a baby with me?” I tease with a wink, letting a little lighthearted humor cover up the obvious and gaping difference of worlds between Ellie and me.
She wrinkles her nose and giggles softly.