Page 88 of Never Pucking Ending

Head frowns, as if remembering the extent of his injury. “Shit,” he mumbles.

Moskins pats his back. “Thought so. We’ll get you a Shirley Temple. Come on.”

I don’t hear their bickering as the three of them join the other players loitering at the end of the hall. I see more money being passed to Richie, and I want to smack them all upside their heads for betting on my relationship.

“That was…” Belle’s words trail off as she nods slowly. “Something. Have I been blind this whole time? Because they knew more than I did.”

I lift one of my shoulders. “Kind of. But I have too, so it cancels each other out.”

She accepts the reasoning and lets me drop an arm around her back to walk us toward the parking lot. We drove together since her mother couldn’t make it, and I’m looking forward to the drive home.

“Jesse,” she says quietly, watching my teammates joke around and laugh over something that’s sure to be stupid.

“Hmm?”

“Can we skip the bar? Unless you really want to go, of course. But I was thinking—”

“Yes,” I cut her off.

She laughs. “You don’t even know what I’m going to suggest.”

“Yes,” I repeat.

She swats my chest. “What if I was going to tell you that I want to go home and paint your fingernails?”

I pause for a moment. “Then I guess you’ll have to help me remove the polish before I go out again.”

But would I let her paint them? Sure.

Belle shakes her head with an easy smile on her face. It falters only for a second. “We can’t…um…” She bites her bottom lip, making me look down at her. Her cheeks turn pink. “We can’t have sex. I got my period this afternoon.”

She’s embarrassed, but it doesn’t bother me at all. “Okay,” I answer easily. “Do you need me to stop at the store to get you anything?”

She slow blinks at me. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. Tampons. Medicine.”

The way she gapes at me makes my lips curl up slightly at the corners. It’s obvious she thinks I’d shrink away at the mention of a menstrual cycle, but that’s never bothered me. I’ve heard her complain about her cramps before, so it’s nothing new.

“Chocolate?” I offer, brows raising.

Belle lets out a long breath as her only response.

“I can stop and get us ice cream. Then we can go home and put something on TV.”

Her body melts into me like that’s exactly what she wants. And that’s exactly what we do. One pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and a romantic comedy later, I’m carrying a sleeping Belle up to my room to sleep. She curls into her spot on my bed, nuzzles into her pillow, and all I can think is, this is exactly where she belongs.

Hell. I’d bet on me too.

*

I wake up to an ungodly number of texts from the guys asking where I am even though I told them I wouldn’t be joining them. It’s obvious that the messages are being sent when they’re at a level that’s way past hammered considering over fifty of them come after two in the morning.

I ignore them with a roll of my eyes, letting the haze of a good night’s sleep slowly clear as I continue to scroll. There are a few other messages, some spam, some from unsaved numbers, and one from Amber that catches my attention.

Amber A: Core Charge sent over some photos they want to use for their print campaign. You get final approval per your contract, but they’re pushing for number two or number four

Amber A: [four attachments]