“Do you think John is okay?” I ask as we struggle to hold up my dress without bunching it up. “And the twins? I’m worried that they are already causing havoc in there and it’s a mess…”
“You just worry about yourself, not them. They are being taken care of.”
“My brain doesn’t work like that anymore. You know what I’m like now.”
“Yeah.” Tara beams. “And I want to take inspiration from you. You’re the mom I want to be.”
“Uh oh!” Her words make me emotional and I don’t think this mascara is water proof. “Stop!”
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry, I was just trying to be nice.”
I throw my arms around her and hug her for a couple of moments while I calm myself down. This girl has been there for me through thick and thin, she is the only person who didn’t turn her back on me when times were hard and she has always gone above and beyond for me. There was definitely only one bridesmaid in the world.
“Thank you,” I say thickly. “Thank you for always being there for you.”
“Oh, stop it. Don’t get me started. We can’t both be crying as your wedding ceremony starts.”
“Alright.” We both breathe deep for a couple of moments to calm down. “Let’s do this already.”
Tara goes first, thankfully giving me a second alone to gather myself up. I brush under my eyes to hopefully get rid of any smudging there and I continue to breathe deep, hoping that I still look as good when I walk down that aisle. With so many children on hand, Tony sees me as a mess a lot of the time. It would be nice to be a princess just for one day. We don’t need to recapture the magic, far from it surprisingly, but it would be nice to have that allure just for once, to remind my husband of what I can look like.
“Okay,” I say quietly to myself. “It’s time. Let’s do this.”
It’s really hard not to let the nerves get the better of me as I walk. I’m a little shaky and freaked out, but as soon as my eyes connect with Tony, and I remember what we’re really here for, everything becomes clear and makes sense once more. All the people watching are a part of our story and important, but today really is about me finally getting the man of my dreams and making him my own at long last.
“Hi,” he mouths at me, his smile helping me to keep in time with the music.
“Hey,” I mouth back, running my eyes up and down my handsome man, falling that little bit deeper for him as I do. It’s this way every time I see him, he always makes me tumble just a little bit more.
Actually, it’s difficult for me not to just run to him already and to jump in his arms. I want to have him hold me to make me feel safe and loved like he always does.
“Wow,” he gasps as soon as he reaches out to take my hands. “You look beautiful.”
“Oh, in this old thing?” I shoot him a wink, but his compliment has me grinning from ear to ear. “You don’t look too bad yourself, you know. I’ve always liked you in a suit.”
“Mmm, I love you,” he murmurs in his sexy, growling voice.
“You know what? I think I might love you too!”
Without a word of warning, he leans down and kisses me softly. I want to pull away, to remind him that he isn’t supposed to do that until they tell us to. ‘You may now kiss the bride’ is supposed to be the cue, but his lips feel so good that I can’t resist leaning in to it for a moment.
“Mama!” We only break apart when it sounds like John is free and heading towards us. Sure enough, he’s coming at the speed of light, wanting to stand with us. “Mama, mama, mama.”
I don’t mind as he curls his arms around my leg, making his position clear. He wants to stay with us while we say our vows. I know that this is really just about me and Tony, but John and the twins are such a massive part of us that it wouldn’t be the same without him with us.
“Of course,” Tony laughs. “He won’t let me have Mama to myself, even for a moment.”
“Hey! You know that you have a lot of competition from my little man… and you aren’t winning.”
“True.” He rolls his eyes. “I might as well give up trying now.”
The minister coughs loudly, trying to get our attention which means it might be time to get on with our dream wedding already. I hold John with one arm and give my other hand to Tony who takes it happily. We gaze in to one another’s eyes, barely listening to the introduction of our wedding because we can’t seem to take our eyes off of one another.
This is it, the moment that we have always been waiting for, the start of the next chapter of our lives. The beginning of our story was bumpy to say the least, and the middle got messy as well, but this part is just perfect. Me, Tony, and the kids are about to skip into our happy ever after at last and my god do we deserve it?
I absolutely can’t wait.
I hope you enjoyed reading Lucky in Love. In the following pages, I have included an excerpt from my HOT Selling Boxed Set - Indiana Panthers. It comprises of 6 standalone full length steamy romances which you would enjoy to the core!
Excerpt
6 full length standalone novels specially created for readers who fantasize about HOT Guys with Six Packs.
Books included:
Hotshot
The Touchdown
Redemption
Only You
My Friend’s Sister
With you Forever
Am I crazy to think that this quarterback deserves my V-card?
Chance Atkins…
Sexy, tall, and charming.
Nothing turns me on like he does.
The way he moves on the field with his tight muscular body makes me blush.
He was stark naked when I met him for the first time.
I mean, who does that, right?
I still dream of wrapping my legs around his waist.
But now that his career is on the line…
I might be stupid to think that he feels the same way.
The universe has some cruel plans for us.
And he has a decision to make.
It’s either me…or his lifelong dream of playing for the NFL.
Well, what’s it going to be?
Jamie
Alright. This is it. You can do this. You have nothing to worry about. Just don’t blow it.
I rolled out of bed and walked over to the floor length mirror to check myself out. I was a bit tired having tossed and turned all night. I was just too amped up to sleep. Today was the day. My big break was coming. I’d worked so long and hard for this. It was my spot and I’d earned it.
After three years of busting my tail in the journalism department and becoming one of the top sports journalists in the school, I had finally been given the assignment of interviewing the top football players. This was it; I’d been waiting for this type of responsibility ever since I’d declared myself a journalism major during my first semester of freshman year.
I’d always known that I would be a writer. And while I’d tried my hand at fiction and poetry—getting published with both in literary magazines, and online periodicals, I always gravitated towards journalism, covering news stories and finding out what really happened to people.
Answering the questions of who, what, when, where, and how—that was where I thrived. And I loved the investigation process, getting down in the dirt and digging things up. That was what it was all about for me.
And of course my second love of sports. Most notably football. I’d played a lot when I was younger and though I’d worked hard to make the high school girls team, it had become apparent to me that if I wanted to excel I would have to devote all of my energies to football. Since Journalism was more important, so football fell by the wayside, but never my love of it. That would never change.
And with the love of football, came my love of football players.
Oh, nothing turned me on like a sexy football player. The way they moved on the field, their tight, muscular bodies, and the way they handled the ball - all of it made me gush in all
the right places.
I realized the time and quickly got dressed. I was having breakfast with my best friends. It was a Saturday ritual that we engaged in, especially on game day. Being a student at Indiana University, you had to love football. It was more popular than basketball in a lot of ways. That was the reason I had gone to school there. It wasn’t the best journalism department in the country (though it certainly was good), but it had one of the best football teams. And that was just as important to me.
I headed out to meet my friends at the Draco Café, the best little secret on campus. They had the best coffee, donuts, and assorted pastries on the planet. Breakfast, lunch, dinner—it didn’t matter; that was the place to be. At least for my friends, some of whom were in the journalism department, but most I’d met through my best friend Rosie, or just in passing during my undergraduate prerequisite classes.
It was a warm, early fall day and the sun was shining beautifully. Everywhere I turned I saw people getting ready for the game. The whole campus was abuzz with the way the team had been playing so far, winning their first three games by at least two goals. They were dominating.
Speaking of dominating, I would love to be dominated by Chance Atkins, I thought with a song playing in my heart. The man was the sexiest guy on the planet. He was tall, handsome, charming, with a great body and the type of talent that guaranteed if he played his cards right he would be turning pro in no time.
The scouts would definitely be out in full force in the upcoming games toward the end of the season as the team headed into the playoffs. There was no thinking that they might not make it; so far they’d hit the playoffs every single year since I’d been going to school there. Though this year they did have a lot of rookies. So many of their best players had graduated last year. A few had received major league contracts and were well on their way.
I knew that Chance was the next in line. He’d said he wanted it and that was his main focus in recent local newspaper interviews. And if I had any luck about it, he would soon be telling me exactly what his plans and feelings were when I had the interview with him this afternoon. I had contacted the coach and set everything up, but I was nervous about whether this would actually happen or not. The coach had seemed less than enthusiastic and was probably tired of reporters snooping around his locker room and trying to get into his players’ minds. He had games to win after all.
I arrived at the café and was delighted to see Rosie and Collette, two of my best friends already seated and drinking coffee. From the way Rosie was grinning and moving around, I doubted it was her first cup. The girl was such a caffeine junkie.
“Hey, girls,” I said. “You couldn’t wait for me, could you?”
Rosie checked the time on her phone. “Hey, you are twenty minutes late. We thought you weren’t going to show.”
“Why the hell wouldn’t I show? Have you ever known me to miss a weekly breakfast with my main girls?”
Rosie smirked. “Please, we know how far in the clouds your head has to be today.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked, feigning cluelessness.
“Well, if I was about to interview the sexiest man alive, I would be pretty nervous. I’d be worried sick about what I was going to wear, what type of makeup I would use, how I would do my hair, and a bunch of other things—really nasty things.”
“Well, that’s you and not me. I like to maintain a level of professionalism,” I said.
They both started laughing at me. “What in the hell are you talking about? We both know that you are freaking out about this. How could you not be?”
I tried to play it cool. There was no reason for them to know that I was both excited and terrified. It was the biggest story I’d ever done and I was freaking out.
“Ok,” I said. “I’ll admit I am a bit nervous.”
Nothing wrong with that.
“Why are you nervous?” Collette asked.
“It is a huge story,” I said. “I’m not so nervous about actually talking to Chance; I’m more worried that he won’t talk to me.”
“You are gorgeous. Why wouldn’t he talk to you?” Rosie asked.
“Thanks,” I said. “But I didn’t mean it in that way. What if he won’t answer any of my questions or doesn’t take the interview seriously?”
“Don’t sweat it,” Collette said. “Wear something low cut. He won’t be able to take his eyes off you.”
I groaned. “That’s exactly what I don’t want. I don’t want to be a sleazy journalist and I really don’t want him to be too distracted by my cleavage to give me an intelligent interview.”
“Ah, I see,” Collette replied.
The waitress came and I ordered a black coffee with a slice of apple pie. It was my favorite.
“Wow, nothing of real substance,” Rosie teased. “I’m impressed.”
“I know I should eat something filling to give me strength so I’ll be at my best,” I said. “But I’m a sugar fiend. Sue me.”
“You remember that you are not playing football, right?” Collette joked.
I smiled and stuck my tongue out at her. My friends were a laugh riot. And their personalities totally fit their majors. Rosie was majoring in fashion design and Collette was majoring in marketing. If you spent a lot of time with her, you would get the impression you were hanging out with a game show host. It was a bit exhausting at times.
The waitress brought my coffee and pie. I took a sniff of the coffee and greeted it with a little hum.
“Why do you always do that?” Collette asked.
“What?” I replied.
“Smell your coffee and then hum over it. Kind of looks like you are praying to it.”
“I’m not praying to it, but with this day I might try that. I could use the help. No, I just love the smell of coffee. I actually think I love the smell of coffee even more than the taste of coffee.”
“Yeah, I never noticed that before,” Rosie said. “Your little ritual.”
“Ritual? Ok, now it sounds like I have some weird coffee religion or deity that I pray to.”
I hummed and pretended to worship my cup of coffee for a moment. The girls laughed.
“So, what are some of the questions you got geared up for Mr. Perfect?” Collette asked.
“I’m mostly going to ask him about how he got started in the game and then I’ll segue into some more serious questions about the upcoming game with Stanford and the game with Maryland; those are the ones everyone is worried about.”
“That sounds like the standard, stock interview,” Rosie said leaning back in the booth.
I looked at her with shock. “What a thing to say,” I teased.
Rose shrugged. “You need to learn to take that criticism.”
“Oh, I can take that and a lot more,” I replied. “I didn’t get this job just because of my looks.”
“You should have been getting the top sports assignments last year.”
I took a sip of my hot coffee a bit too fast and burned my mouth.
“I agree,” I said. “But Alicia, in her infinite wisdom, has decided that there were other things I needed to be focusing on at the time, and she let my spot go to others.”
“Too bad you have to wait for people to graduate to get a top spot around her,” Rosie said.
“Well, that’s the way of the world, isn’t it? You can’t take a top level job until the person who is already there is vacating the spot.”
“So, what if Chance tries to flirt with you?” Rosie asked.
I didn’t really have an answer. That was something I was definitely not prepared for. I’ve always been considered attractive, some would even say sexy, and I’ve always had a fair share of interest from the males of the species, but at the same time, a top, alpha male like Chance who could have any and all the girls he really wanted, had never given me any serious chances.
Mostly, this was because when they tried they figured out very quickly that I was not giving it up any time soon. And with guys my age,
they would move on so quickly you’d almost swear they were invisible. It was ok; I was used to it.
And guys in college were not used to girls being virgins, like me. Only my closest friends knew that I’d never been with anyone. It had nothing to do with any moral or religious reasons for me. It was just that I wanted the first time to be special. I didn’t need to be in love or anything, but I wanted the first guy to be something special, someone I would always look back on very fondly when I recalled the memory. I figured that the very first time you would always remember. And if it was a bad experience or you shuddered at the guy you gave it to, it would haunt me for the rest of my life.
So, I’d been picky, much to the annoyance and total aggravation of so many guys I’d dated over the years.
It was almost a fun, powerful game on my part. I’d toyed with the idea of making guys jump through crazy hoops to steal my virginity. Hell, I’d even heard of girls who were auctioning theirs off for money online. That was an idea… but no… I wanted mine to be real. I wanted it to be with someone that I could not imagine not ever sleeping with.
And so far, I had not met that guy.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I guess, I’ll just try to steer the interview back on course.”
“And what about when it’s over?” Rosie asked. “And he still wants to take you out.”
I smiled. “Well, if he asks, I probably won’t say no.”
Rosie and Collette cheered, giving each other high fives. “Do you think he might be the one?” Rosie asked.
I shrugged and looked around to make sure no one was hearing any of this. There were a few things about myself I liked to keep very private.
“It’s possible,” I said after a few seconds of consideration. And now that I was thinking about it… yeah… that was possible. He did embody all of the attributes I’d want in a guy like that, except I didn’t really know him as a person. I mostly knew him as this entity, this spectacle that was worshipped campus wide and possibly statewide among football fans.
Lucky in Love Page 21
