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“Take care,” I tell him.
Berto flashes another smile. “Let’s go, Cyclones. Can’t wait for next season.”
He’s still smiling as he walks away. Turns out it’s really not that hard to make people happy.
Before moving on, I take a moment to pound out a text to my assistant, asking her to handle the task of sending the jersey over. If I don’t do this now then I might forget later.
Hiring an assistant was Tess’s idea. She noticed that I was getting overwhelmed while trying to keep up with small tasks and scheduling issues. I tend to overcommit, make too many promises. Tess even helped me find Angela. Angela doesn’t give a flying leap about football. She and her husband run a horse rescue ranch south of the city. And she’s fanatically organized.
I’m not surprised when I receive an instant response from her with a promise she’ll take care of the matter. That was easy. I should have hired an assistant years ago.
Now I need to get back to my mission of finding Micah. Since he’s not hiding behind a palm frond out here in the garden it’s time to look elsewhere.
After returning indoors and poking my head into a series of random doorways I’m about to give up and try to call him when I walk in on my cousin making out with his bride.
They look like a book cover, standing in the middle of a sunlit room with their arms around one another and oblivious to anything else.
I wait for a few seconds and finally clear my throat. Loudly.
Tess quits sucking face with her soon-to-be-husband but doesn’t look at me. “What was that noise?” she asks Micah.
He keeps his arms locked around her and smirks. “Don’t know. Sounds kind of like an overbearing quarterback.”
“Overbearing, haha.” I have a good laugh over that one.
Tess turns her head and gives me a pretty smile. “Conner. Hello. When did you get here?”
I wag my finger. “You guys aren’t supposed to see each other before the wedding. It’s tradition. You’ll wind up with seven years of bad luck or something.”
“We already have a baby,” Micah points out. “Fuck tradition.”
Tess smiles up at him. “God, I love it when you talk dirty.”
“Then you’ll have a hell of a good time on the honeymoon.”
“I plan to.” She stretches to plant another kiss on his mouth. “So will you, big boy.”
I don’t mean to stare. There’s nothing unusual about seeing them all over each other.
It’s just really hitting me hard today, the reminder of what it took to get them here.
Tess and Micah grew up on the same street. Since we were kids it’s been a running joke in our group that they could hardly stand to be in the same room. When that changed, no one saw it coming, not even me. And usually I have a knack for sensing when people want to fuck each other. Guess I’m losing my touch.
But Micah, the guy who’s been through many layers of hell, who rarely cracked a smile and wielded the chip on his shoulder like a trophy, was knocked flat on his ass by feisty little Tess Ballerini.
That doesn’t mean their journey was easy.
It was anything but easy.
“You have to save Tess. That’s what I need you to do. So you better fucking do it.”
That night.
Thatfuckingnight.
It never stops haunting me.
The night Micah lost his hand and nearly lost his life.
