by Eden Finley
And after that triumphant win, Ollie gets tripped during preseason and somehow manages to break his ankle. Or foot … whatever.
“Thanks for the perspective, retiree,” Ollie says.
“I may be retired, but I didn’t break a bone during a preseason game … well, ever,” Soren taunts.
“Have to tell you, crying into the Stanley Cup makes me okay with that.”
Maddox groans from across the room. “Even when you’re all retired, you guys are still going to smack talk each other, aren’t you?”
“Hey,” Miller cuts in. “Just because Soren and I are retired, doesn’t mean we’re no longer athletes.”
Soren reaches forward to high-five Miller. “How are your first few weeks of retirement?”
Miller sniggers. “I get to sleep in while these two get up for training.” He points to Talon and Matt. “I’m loving it.”
Miller’s retirement came after he had a rough season with the leg he injured a few years ago, but clearly, he’s not overly upset about it.
Soren turns to me. “See. Miller’s retired, and he gets to sleep in.”
“You get to sleep in.”
“After staying out until should-be-asleep o’clock.”
Everyone in the room makes an old man comment. I’m pretty sure Jackie even tries to say “old man.” She’s smart, this one.
“So, uh …” I glance at Soren who nods. “We have some news, and I can’t remember the last time we were all in one room together—”
“Talon and Miller’s wedding,” Matt and Noah say in unison.
“Okay, so yeah, this kinda can’t wait a few months, so I’m sorry for hijacking your one-year-old’s birthday party, but …”
Soren and I look at each other again.
He stands and makes his way over to me, putting his arm around my shoulders and bopping Jackie on the nose with his finger. “I asked Jet to marry me.”
Before everyone can jump in, I add, “And seeing as we’re hardly ever together as a group anymore, and we’re about to hit the European part of the tour, we figured we should make the most of this. So, we’re doing it tomorrow.”
Everyone’s excitement drops a little.
“Tomorrow? As in tomorrow, tomorrow?” Matt asks.
I cock my head at him. “No, as in the day after today. That tomorrow.”
“We got the marriage license today, booked to get hitched at the courthouse tomorrow, and I’ve already bought flights for my parents and sister to fly in from Toronto.”
I tell them the best part. “And because it’s such short notice, the paparazzi won’t be fucking crazy like at Talon and Miller’s wedding.”
That was insane. There were photographers jumping fences to try to get a shot of the grooms.
“It’s all we want. Our closest friends.” I glance at Ollie and Lennon. “Our chosen family.” I turn to Damon, Maddox, Talon, and Miller. And then I turn to Matt, Noah, and Wade. “And my brothers.”
Soren clears his throat.
“Oh, and his family too, but I’ve met them, like, once, so that’s more for him.” I pat Soren’s chest.
The room is silent apart from Jackie, who’s starting to squirm and fuss in my arms.
“You want to get down and crawl, baby girl?” I look up at Matt as I put her on the floor. “Is she walking yet?”
He doesn’t answer me. He just keeps staring at me. Even when his daughter crawls her way toward the coffee table and puts someone’s wallet in her mouth. Have no idea who’s it is.
I reckon everyone in the room must be taking their cue from Matt.
I sigh. “Go on. Say it.”
Matt at least averts his gaze as he says, “Isn’t it … fast? It’s fast.”
I balk. “Fast? Says the guy who married Noah after a few months. Soren and I have been together for over a year. Known each other for four.” Technically. We’ll pretend those few years of avoiding each other count.
“Yeah, I married Noah after a few months, and now I’m stuck with him.”
“Hey,” Noah complains.
Matt turns to his husband. “Love you.” But now his focus is back on me, and I hate—hate, hate, hate—that he’s making me feel like a kid again. I thought we were past this, but nooooo. “I’m sorry,” Matt says, surprising me. “I’m happy for you. It’s just hard to let go. You’re not old enough to be married.”
“Need I remind you that you were my age when you married Noah? And you did it the exact same way we are. Courthouse wedding with the only people who matter to us.”
“I’m offended,” Talon says. “We weren’t there.”
Matt ignores him. “I know you’re not the kid I left back in Tennessee, but sometimes I need reminding.” Matt steps forward and hugs me tight, and then the rest of the guys follow with rounds of congratulations.
The guys mutter, “You hurt him, I kill you” and other variations in Soren’s ear, but he laughs them all off.
I lift my head to look at Soren behind me. “Are you sure you want to marry into this? You can still get out.”
“Not on your life. I’m not going anywhere. Never will.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Soren
FOREVER LOVE
The best thing about a courthouse wedding?
No frills.
We’re both in jeans and button-down shirts. Jet’s wearing a leather jacket, and I’m wearing a tie, but that’s as formal as we get.
It’s legal and that’s all we need.
Jet and I don’t need big declarations of love because what we have is complete confidence in each other and our relationship. We just want to make it official.
Our epic love is inside him. Inside me. It encompasses us as a couple and as individuals.
So, when the judge tells Jet to place the ring on my finger, it’s like the last piece clicks into place.
Getting married doesn’t change anything between us. It doesn’t change how I feel or how I see Jet. I understand Maddox and Damon’s and Ollie and Lennon’s decision not to take this step, but for me and Jet, that wasn’t an option.
Jet has lived a lonely existence, and the ring on my finger is a promise he never has to do that again.
With Damon planning appearances for me and being part of Lennon’s podcast, there will be times when we’re apart, but with our marriage vows, I promise Jet will always know I’m his.
“I now pronounce you husbands,” the judge says.
When we kiss, I can hear my mother blubbering and can’t help but laugh into Jet’s mouth.
“First kiss as a married couple, and you’re laughing? That doesn’t bode well.”
“I’m sorry, but my mother is ridiculous.”
“First kiss as a married couple, and you’re thinking of your mother? That’s even worse.”
Our small group snickers.
“I’m sorry.” Mom sniffs. “I’m just so happy my Caleb has found a loving family to be a part of when he’s not with us.”
When I stare around the room at the gay brigade and their warm smiles, I realize I really am a part of them.
I have been in some way for the past four years, but not being with Jet made me hold them at arm’s length.
“He’s one of our brothers,” Matt says. “And not just because he married JJ.”
We reach the steps of the courthouse when Noah says, “I booked us a table at Sky. It’ll be the last time we’re all together in one city for a long time.”
With Matt and Noah now living in Chicago permanently, Talon and Miller only coming to New York to see Miller’s family during the off-season, and Jet and me on the road for at least the next four months, it will be a while before we’re all together like this again.
We’re all moving on, all finding our own lives, but we know that no matter what, if any of us needed something, we’d all be there in a heartbeat.
Not because we have to out of some sort of obligation, but because it’s what chosen families do for each other.
&nb
sp; I squeeze Jet’s hand. “I’ve been thinking. After the Europe leg of the tour, maybe we should go on a honeymoon.”
“Where’d you have in mind?”
I want to take Jet somewhere that changed both our lives. It gave us our defining moment. It was the first time I’d heard Jet’s song the way it was supposed to be heard, the first time I saw how much we had truly affected each other’s lives, and the whole place means so much to me and to us. “How about Fiji?”
Jet answers in the most perfectly Jet way.
His lips curve up into his trademark smirk—the one I always want to take away by covering his mouth with my own. And now that we’re together, and I’m his husband, I can. Always. I will never get enough of kissing him.
Jet’s head rests on my shoulder at the dinner table. The restaurant is in the highest building in Chicago and overlooks the entire city.
The views are amazing, and it’s perfect for our wedding dinner.
Low-key but beautiful.
Jet’s lips hit my cheek. “I’ll be right back.”
I watch as he walks away, but my sister’s hand on my arm brings my attention to her.
“We really do love him.”
The only other time my family has met Jet was when Radioactive played in Toronto not that long ago. They came to the show, and I knew they’d fall for him, just like I had, without even properly meeting him. Even Dad was vocal in approving of Jet, which is more than he’s ever been when it’s come to my sexuality, so I’m taking it all as a very big win.
Jet’s on the shy and awkward side around them, which is weird for him, but he says it’s because he doesn’t know how to act around real parental figures seeing as how he never had any growing up.
I’m sure it won’t take long for him to show his true self, and now that we’re married, my family has to love him no matter what.
Too late, suckers.
I’m assuming Jet’s gone to the bathroom, but then his voice cuts through the noise of the restaurant.
“Geez, does he carry microphones around with him?” Talon asks.
I laugh. It wouldn’t surprise me if Jet did.
We turn and find him sitting at a grand piano on a tiny stage in the corner of the restaurant.
“Does someone want to get out their phone and record this for me?” His eyes lock on mine. “We’re about to go viral again, babe.”
Damon moves his chair to the side of the group and gets out his phone. When he nods to Jet, my husband starts playing a melody on the piano.
My husband.
Yeah, I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to that.
Jet looks at me while he plays. “Even though we didn’t have a traditional wedding with any vows, I wrote some down anyway.”
Of course, he did.
Then he starts singing, and I fall for him all over again.
Insecure
Unsure
Faking confidence
You see it all
I’m not myself
A little off
You know immediately
When times are rough
I cannot lie
You’ll see right through
And this is why
I love you
You want me for me
And not for Jay
You know my heart and soul
And love me anyway
Forever, is what you said
Forever love …
He pauses and looks me dead in the eyes as he says, “I wrote this last line for you, but there’s no way it’s going on the official single.”
Forever, is what you said
Forever love
Our epic flove.
He wrote me a love song. Not one about heartbreak, or pain, or the new one on their latest album about missing me. It’s love.
Epic flove.
Afterword
Thank you all so, so, so much for loving these guys and this universe so much that one little idea of a straight guy pretending to be gay for his entire hometown turned into five books about friendship, love, and chosen family.
Maddox was the beginning of this journey and it ends with Jet—the character I knew I had to give a voice the second he appeared in book two but didn’t quite know what his story was yet.
While this is the last full-length novel in this series, these guys weren’t quite ready to let go. I decided to give them a bonus epilogue each to let you all get a glimpse into their lives now.
Want to see how Matt and Noah gain custody of Wade and adopt baby Jackson?
Or witness Maddox’s disastrous proposal in Fiji?
An update on all the couples is coming in Final Play. To learn more, you can join my reader group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/absolutelyeden/
Alternatively, you can join my mailing list: http://eepurl.com/bS1OFH
Want to read how Marty and Luce met and how Luce became Jet’s manager? Their story is in Winning You, which is part of the Fake Boyfriend Breakaways collection along with two other short stories about side characters from this universe—Aron & Wyatt from Trick Play and Max and Ash from Deke. Available here: getbook.at/Breakaways
**The beginning of Marty and Luce’s story was originally published in the Heart2Heart anthology in 2018 but has since doubled in length and story.**
Notes About Hat Trick
Rua Daulomani Island isn’t a real place. Sad face, I know. Neither is the dirty escape room with seemingly sexual clues.
Songs that inspired Jet and I listened to on repeat while writing:
Lewis Capaldi
Someone You Loved
Forever
Morgan Evans
Young Again
Andy Grammer
Don’t Give Up On Me
Colby Bennett (YouTube) version of Imagine Dragons
Radioactive
Eden Finley Books
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FAKE BOYFRIEND SERIES
Fake Out
Trick Play
Deke
Blindsided
Hat Trick
Novellas:
Fake Boyfriend Breakaways: A Short Story Collection
Final Play
STEELE BROTHERS
Unwritten Law
Unspoken Vow
ROYAL OBLIGATION
Unprincely (M/M/F)
Acknowledgments
I want to thank all of my betas, especially Leslie Copeland and Jill Wexler from Les Court Services, Deb Nemeth for development edits, Susi Selva fro line edits, and Kelly from Xterraweb editing for copy-edits.
Thanks to Lori Parks for one last read through.
To all the ninja typos who still got through all of that, you deserve a medal.
Kellie from Book Cover by Design for putting up with my almost never-ending search for the perfect Soren.
And to photographer Wander Aguiar for providing me said perfect Soren.
Lastly, a big thanks to Linda from Foreword PR & Marketing for helping get this book out.
