One Baby Daddy (Dating by Numbers #3)(115)
“I don’t care what you do with the nursery, Adalyn,” I admit, knowing she’s going to end up winning most of these fights.
She kisses my chest, her lips grazing past my nipple, sending a jolt straight to my dick. “I actually like airplanes. I think it’s sweet. Who knows, maybe one day he’ll be a fighter pilot.”
I shake my head. “Nah, with a name like Connor Holmes, he’s bound to be a hockey star.”
“The poor kid, he’s doomed from the beginning.”
Chuckling, I kiss the top of her head. “As long as he’s happy and you’re happy, then I’m happy.”
She kisses my chin and sighs, snuggling closely into me. “Good thing being married to you is all I ever needed to be happy.”
“Damn right it is, Mrs. Holmes.”
Lying on the floor of our son’s room, I stare at the ceiling and realize how good I have it. I have my beautiful, feisty girl in my arms and a wonderful future ahead of us. A crazy, chaotic, but fulfilling future.
And all it took was a few punches. One punch to an asshole during the last game of a season. One punch to my heart when I met and fell in love with the person who became my everything. And then the final punch to my soul when she became my wife to have and to hold from this day forward. My dad’s always told me we don’t solve problems with our fists. Wise advice, although I may not have solved problems, but because of that first punch, I won the most important game of my life, and she’s currently wrapped in my arms. Score one for the baby daddy.
THE END
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JOCK ROW
By Sara Ney
Chapter One
“The Friday When We Met.”
FIRST FRIDAY
SCARLETT
“No offense, Scarlett, but if you didn’t feel good when I invited you to come with us tonight, you should have said something. Now I feel terrible.”
Tessa—a girl I lived next door to in the dorms freshman and sophomore year and remained friends with—flips her perfectly coifed hair, eyeing up my soft sweater, the one I always wear when I’m getting over a cold, or sick, because it’s cozy, oversized, and comforting. It’s more appropriate for a bonfire or night at home than a college party, and when Tessa shoots me that sympathetic face—lips turned down at the corners, eying me skeptically—I manage a soft laugh.
“Trust me, I’ve been home for the past few weekends—I needed this night out.”
Two to be exact, couch surfing and binging on random TV shows, consuming copious amounts of hot tea and chicken noodle soup.
“Are you sure? Because if you’re not…”
“I’m fine—that’s why I wore this sweater. It’s going to keep me toasty warm tonight so I don’t catch a chill.”
The last thing I want is her changing her plans because of me.
“But that sweater…” Tessa worries her bottom lip, chewing off some of the lipstick. “It gets so warm inside those parties…maybe just take the scarf off? And the jacket?”
Fingering the gray, cable knit length around my neck, I breathe in the merino wool that’s the only thing keeping my neck warm and my cough from coming back.
“My scarf? What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it, but we’re going to the baseball house—you know, on Jock Row.”
When she says Jock Row, her voice changes, fills with this weird wistfulness and a playful giddiness, like we’re heading to some magical place. We’re not.
Jock Row: the off-campus housing block where student athletes live and party. Similar to Greek Row, each sport has its own designated apartment or house, spanning an entire city block. They study together, play together, live together. Hell, they even eat together in a special cafeteria I’ve only heard whispers about, with super special, healthy jock food.
How nice for them.
I remember listening to her talk about it in the dorms when we were new students; she’d babble for hours about wanting to date an athlete, explaining which ones she thought were cute, trolling them online. Crushing hard, wondering what it was like to date one but never having the lady balls to go to one of their parties.
Well, we have the courage now.
Tessa still has the same stars in her eyes when she talks about it, still has that same breathiness in her voice.
In a way, I don’t blame her, because the guys on Jock Row?
They aren’t boys—they’re a different breed of student body altogether.
These boys don’t compare to the guys from back home that I’m used to flirting with: the gangly, juvenile boys I grew up with who went to college but still haven’t matured—they are nothing like the boys of Jock Row.
Not physically.
Not mentally.
These guys? They’re men, with actual responsibilities and obligations. They work hard and play hard.
Bigger.
Brawny.
In peak physical condition—probably the best shape they’ll ever be in their lives.
Cocky.
Quick.
I’ve seen them in action on the baseball field; I know the team is good, and damn, they look good, too.
Smell good.
How do I know? I got close to one once, rooting around for a beverage at the football house one weekend a while back. A big, burly player cut me off in line at the keg, leaning over to grab the beer tap with his meaty fingers, and I accidentally caught a whiff—a long, deep whiff, one that ended with an internal ‘ahhh’ that only comes when we appreciate something truly delicious.