With the time change and the long flight, it was morning by the time we touched down in Orlando, and I knew Cate would be drinking her coffee and waiting for my text. She couldn’t travel to the game for a good reason, but I had to hurry up with my current plan. When the team landed at the airport, we were swept up in Lincoln Navigator limousines and shuttled to the arena where our personal cars waited.
I fiddled with my pocket the whole ride, my knee bouncing and my head pounding. I hoped I’d make it in time.
A sea of people waited in a cordoned-off area as the Navigators pulled around back of the arena. I wasn’t in the mood, but I waved to the fans through the window and smiled. There were posters and streamers, and confetti flew through the air, some landing on the windshield of the limo. When we hit the end of the route and the driver threw the limo in PARK, I jumped out and booked it to my truck.
With no time to waste, I peeled out of the lot and off to my destination. The guys knew what I was up to . . . I’d see them at the celebration parade. Hopefully.
Rounding the golf course toward to our house, I turned into the driveway, passed the garage, and drove down a newer gravel path. I stopped in front of a barn. We called it our castle mostly because of the cylinder-shaped chimney, and the lagoon that wrapped around the far edge looked like a moat. But this was also Orlando, and everything was make-believe here.
I’d surprised Cate with the barn when she returned from her first HBO interview. I’d had the whole thing framed while she was away, and then we watched it be built together. It was the most perfect place to celebrate with Cate, and I wanted to spend as much time as possible back there before we couldn’t.
I jumped out of the truck and ran for the door, stopping short when I saw Cate standing there, round and plump and glowing in the doorway. Yep, I’d knocked my girl up pretty damn fast. It was an accident, I guessed you could say, but we didn’t care. We were excited.
“Hey, baby.” I closed the distance to run my hand over her distended belly. When she just smiled, I looked up and said, “Oh. Hey, Cate,” and kissed my girl, prompting her to smack my arm while kissing me.
She was the first to pull away. “Nice game,” she said with a wink.
“Did you watch?”
“I caught a few minutes,” she said, squeezing my hip.
The doctors gave a firm no when she asked about traveling to the game. She was eight months pregnant and at just a tad over five feet tall, she pretty much looked like she was going to explode. The flight was too long and if she went into labor there, she would likely have the baby in another state without her own doctors.
After Mo had talked some sense into me, I tried to let it go. When I thought about what he went through with their baby, I realized it wasn’t worth dragging Cate with us. But I was still a wreck over potentially missing my baby’s birth as we sang the national anthem.
Our assistant coach—a female, by the way—came up to me right before the tip and said, “Shut it down, Steele. If she goes into labor, we’ll win and you’ll go straight there. But she wants you to win.”
I’d nodded, realizing she was right, and then that’s what I did.
“Come on.” Cate tugged on my arm, dragged me inside, and pushed me onto the sofa. We didn’t sit on the floor anymore.
An array of food was spread out on the coffee table. She nabbed a scone and sat down to snuggle into my side, and my hand went straight to her belly.
Rubbing figure eights, I asked, “Sarina take good care of you?”
“Yep, I think she was kind of hoping for me to have the baby. I think she misses that stage or something.”
“Everything work out with her staying here? Her little guy sleep okay?”
I used my free hand to move Cate’s hair behind her ear. When I bent to nibble on her lobe a bit, she leaned into my mouth.
“Yep, Sean had fun. He loved the guest room, and was super happy when Ri made pancakes in the morning. He likes his new school, and of course, thinks you’re a god. Pretty sure he volunteered you to come speak to his class.”
I laughed. “No problem.”
Sarina had moved to Florida after Christmas when Cate told her she was pregnant. She’d still been making movies in Ohio, but Cate wanted her to have more choices. I’d anonymously provided two scholarships to the same college Cate was finishing up at, and made sure Sarina was offered one. Now she was studying business and tended bar in the evenings at the Capital Grille. She made good money there from the business travelers and all my NBA buddies who went in.
“Glad she was here for you,” I told Cate, pressing a kiss to her cheek.