Not My Romeo (The Game Changers #1)(101)

“All that pressure of hosting Sunday lunch. It got to him.” Clara smirks. “He was too busy singing Katy Perry and forgot about the main entrée. Amateur. He might be a Super Bowl champion, but when it comes to cooking for his wife . . .”

“Katy Perry’s ‘Firework’ is stellar,” I murmur. “Did I tell you Scotty is coming? Yep. Any minute he’ll be knocking at the door.”

Her face flames. “You hussy!”

“Hmm, he jumped at the invitation when he brought the mail on Friday. I personally invited him.” My eyes gleam.

“You just wait. The next time you come in for a haircut, I’m gonna cut it all off.” She glowers at me.

Cynthia lasers her attention on her sister. “Just marry the man. Look at Jack; he made Elena official years ago. You’re gonna get old soon, and then what will you do? Be a forty-something virgin?”

“I’m going to set the table!” She marches off, and we all laugh.

“She’s really going to fix her lipstick.” Giselle chuckles.

We gaze down at the terrible, awful chicken casserole. “I really wanted to do it right.”

Cynthia gives me a hug. “Oh, honey, she’ll eat anything—especially if you make it. Plus, between keeping up with you and that job with the lingerie company, she’s too tired to care.”

“What the heck is all the smoke?” Devon says, waving his hands as he walks in the kitchen with Quinn and Aiden.

“Do I need to get the fire extinguisher?” Quinn adds.

“Nah. Jack just ruined Elena’s favorite meal,” Giselle says.

“Slipping, old man. Did you hesitate? Need me to run out and grab some KFC?” Aiden gives me a grin.

“I got distracted,” I exclaim. This is a big day . . .

“By his dancing and singing,” Giselle says as she pops a piece of fried okra in her mouth. “Did you always want to be a pop star, Jack? Stick with football, ’kay?”

“He tried; bless his heart,” Cynthia says. “Good thing I brought a backup.” She nudges Giselle. “Go get the one I brought in the car. It’s in a container in the back seat.”

I’m not surprised at all that she brought another chicken casserole, but I act indignant. “You didn’t think I could do it, even after you went over the recipe with me three times last week?”

Romeo runs in the room, his little nose sniffing the air. His gaze follows me as I head to the new custom stainless steel fridge and pull out a small cucumber and lean down to let him snatch it and dash off.

“There you go, bribing that pig. He still loves me most of all.” Cynthia smirks.

“He naps on me every day,” I counter. Not exactly true, but he has come around since I officially moved in two years ago.

She laughs. “Go check on Elena. Let me handle the rest.”

She wants to take over, and I want to see my wife, my hands already jonesing to hold her.

I walk in the dining room, my breath hitching when my eyes find her. Wearing jeans and a soft-blue sweater, she’s standing in the dining room, the sunlight catching her long auburn hair as she sets the table.

There’s something about her that calls to every part of me.

She’s mine.

We were married in August, as soon as my shoulder surgery allowed me to wear a suit. Six months from the first time we met, we stood side by side in her hometown church and said our vows, with Patrick officiating. She wore a long white dress Cynthia and her nana had both worn, an heirloom that Elena had altered with painstaking care, adding pearls and lace. I clearly recall her walking down the aisle to me, her hips swaying, that gorgeous hair down, with pink and purple flowers in her hands.

She took my breath then.

To know that she loved me.

That I was her one. And she was my one.

I whispered my vows, and it wasn’t because I was unsure—no, there was not a hesitant bone in my body when it came to her and how she made me feel. I was blown away by her, the depth of my love, the wave of emotions that tugged at me every time she walked in a room.

After all this time I still sometimes gaze at her and just . . . stare.

How is this even my life?

How did I ever find her, this crazy love that destiny brought me?

The Tigers won the Super Bowl this past season, my shoulder repaired, me at the top of my game. But even that particular victory doesn’t compare to her next to me in our bed, my arm curled around her waist when we sleep.

She resigned from her job as the librarian and took the intern job with Little Rose Lingerie, quickly working her way up the ladder to a paid position in their research and development division. She still makes her own things just for me.

My image repaired itself in an organic and real way, especially after the Tennessean wrote a kick-ass article about the play and how I professed my undying love for a certain small-town librarian. I still don’t give interviews. And no one seems to care.

“Dada!” comes from little Eleanor Michelle Hawke, barely eleven months old, as she sits on Lucy’s lap, laughing up at me, her little hands reaching out for me. I swing her up. She’s got a headful of dark hair, big aquamarine-colored eyes, and two little teeth.

Elena laughs, her gaze on me, then Eleanor, the same love and amazement in her eyes too. I have everything. A real home filled with laughter. Trust. Love. Family. Things I never dreamed of having.