4th & Girl (Mavericks Tackle Love)

by Max Monroe

  Without a moment’s hesitation, he pulled her from my arms and toward the stage, and all I could do as she looked back at me was laugh.

  Laugh at the comedy, laugh at the fact that I’d found the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with and fucked up beyond royally in telling her the three most important words in the world.

  If I were being frank, I’d fucked it up twice.

  The opening bars of “Black Velvet” purred through the speakers as she took her place at the microphone, and I swallowed the lump in my throat. She shot one last glance back at me, the lights came up, the crowd quieted, and when the words started, so did Gemma.

  Soft and sweet and the perfect pitch, her voice was everything I’d never heard from anyone on the music scene and then some, and the crowd was drawn into her trance with ease.

  As the verses ticked on, she found her footing and a little more comfort, coming to life before all of our eyes.

  Gone was the woman with the insecurities, and back was the one I’d seen in Drag and at the karaoke bar.

  Back was the woman I’d fallen in love with.

  Back was the woman Gemma was born to be.

  I swayed and danced as everything right in the world came out of her mouth, and I laughed at the fact that I’d have to admit to Cam that he’d been right.

  She’d needed the push. And I’d needed to be the one to do the pushing.

  She and I were meant to be, and I couldn’t think of anyone I’d rather spend my years in the spotlight with.

  And I had no doubt she’d be in the spotlight.

  If you please fell from her lips with ease and edge, and every single patron fell at her feet. As the lights came up and the song came to a close, the entire place took to their feet and took no pity on my ears. The roar was wild and the night was young, and as Gemma leaned into the microphone, I knew my life was just beginning.

  Clear and steady, she said the words for everyone to hear.

  “I love you too, Leo.”

  Funny how in a packed club full of people, it still felt like I was the only one she wanted listening.

  Five years later…

  After the class’s valedictorian finished up her inspirational speech, RIT’s president stepped onto the stage, and my belly fluttered with excitement.

  It was officially time. The big moment my handsome husband had been striving to reach for the past five years.

  I’d watched him slave over term papers and fit in exams around football games.

  I’d watched him take a full-time course load in the off-season.

  I’d witnessed him do homework when we were in Fiji on our honeymoon and when he’d spent three months on a tour bus with me and my band.

  Basically, I’d seen Leo never stop working toward his graduate degree goal, and finally, we were able to celebrate all of his hard work.

  I smiled like a loon, but then my lips turned down at the corners as pain gripped my rounded stomach. I discreetly breathed through the discomfort while I placed a comforting hand to my hard as a rock belly.

  Thirty-nine weeks pregnant with Leo’s and my first child, and contractions had become a frequent occurrence in my life. According to my last doctor’s visit with my OB/GYN, I was one centimeter dilated and our baby could make his or her arrival any day now.

  I silently offered up a prayer that today would not be that day.

  Tomorrow, though, that would be perfect.

  But today, well, it was a big fucking day for my husband, and I didn’t want to ruin it with an impromptu visit to the maternity ward.

  Alma flashed me a side-eye and glanced down at my belly, but I forced a neutral smile to my lips to ease her curiosities.

  It was just a few contractions. No big deal.

  The university president spoke proudly into the mic. He talked about Leo’s graduate class. He congratulated them on their victories and their hard work, but I couldn’t quite focus on his words because my uterus apparently wanted all of my attention.

  Another contraction gripped me tightly, and I pursed my lips into a tiny O and slowly breathed through the building pain.

  Then the man at the mic proceeded to go into a long-winded, inspirational ramble about changing the world and shit, and I had two more contractions before he’d even paused to take a fucking breath.

  But I was breathing. It was all I could manage to get through the uncomfortable fuckers.

  Alma looked at me again, her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed as she homed in on my belly. She reached out and placed her hand against my stomach, and instantly, she looked up at me with a glare.

  “How long have you been having these?” she asked, and I waved her off.

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “How long, Gemma?”

  Even in her old age, the old biddy was still sharp as a tack.

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “A few hours or so.”

  “A few hours?” she shouted, and everyone sitting around us, Leo’s closest family and friends, turned their gazes toward us.

  “Shut up, Nonna,” I whisper-yelled. “I’m fine. It’s fine. I promise.”

  She shook her head and pursed her lips again, but I averted my attention from her nosy ass and back toward the stage.

  The graduate marshal had now taken the mic and had started to announce the graduates one by one as they took to the stage and accepted their diplomas.

  He rolled through the alphabet only slightly quicker than my contractions rolled through my uterus, and by the time he reached the L’s, I was thanking everything under the sun.

  Graduation ceremonies inside a hot as balls auditorium while thirty-nine weeks pregnant was hard enough, but add in contractions that had turned painful, frequent, and consistent, and it felt like the longest minutes of my life.

  Focus, Gem, I mentally coached myself.

  And please, sweetheart, wait just a little bit longer, I silently whispered to the baby.

  My husband had worked so hard for this moment, and I didn’t want to do anything but celebrate this huge accomplishment with him.

  I could focus on the contractions later.

  But right now, I wanted to watch Leo get his diploma, and I didn’t want anything to get in the way of that moment.

  I spotted him in the sea of caps and gowns, and when he stood from his seat and lined up beside the stage, my heart fluttered inside my chest.

  It’s time, I thought to myself and smiled.

  But that smile was quickly wiped away with a contraction, and it took everything in me not to grip an unknowing Cam Mitchell’s shoulder and groan.

  Thankfully, I kept my cool, and a good thirty seconds later, the contraction faded away and I had a moment of reprieve.

  “Leonard Landry,” the graduate marshal announced into the mic, and our little cheering section jumped to its feet.

  “Leonard! Leonard! Leonard!” Cam, Sean, Quinn, and Teeny chanted together, their booming voices carrying over the noise of the crowd.

  People in the auditorium turned in their seats to find the raucous commotion, but these guys gave zero fucks.

  They cheered and clapped, and my heart swelled inside my chest as I watched my husband walk onto the stage.

  Leo glanced up to his cheering section with a huge smile and waved toward us, and proud tears pricked my eyes.

  “Hell yeah, Leonard!” Cam exclaimed once it had been made official with a shake of the dean’s hand, a clench of his diploma between his fingertips, and a slide of his tassel from the right side of his cap to the left.

  Alma took a goddamn air horn out of her neon-pink purse and startled the entire crowd.

  Quinn put his fingers to his mouth and wolf-whistled, while his wife Cat adjusted their one-year-old daughter Callie on her hip and offered up her congratulations through a big smile and a clap of her hand against her thigh.

  With a smile on Sean’s lips and a GoPro in Six’s hands, the two of them hooted their excitement toward the stage while Teeny helped
their adorable son Fallon onto his shoulders so the little guy could get a better camera view of the ceremony.

  Only five years old and already he was following in his momma’s footsteps.

  And me, well, I clapped like a lunatic.

  Until another contraction gripped me so fucking hard that I had to clutch Cam’s shoulder just to breathe through it.

  “What the hell?” he muttered, but when he took in the strained lines of my face, his eyes turned wide. “Gem?” he questioned, and he glanced down at the free hand currently resting against the tight muscles of my belly. “Are you okay?”

  “Uh-huh,” I whispered through a panting breath, trying to play it off, but Alma didn’t miss a fucking beat.

  “Nope,” she said. “She’s not okay. She’s in labor.”

  Our entire cheering section turned the gazes away from the stage, away from Leo’s shining moment, and fixated their focus directly onto me and my overactive uterus.

  “I’m fine,” I said and held up what was supposed to be a reassuring hand. “I’m not in labor,” I added. “It’s just a few Braxton Hicks.”

  “Bullshit,” Alma refuted and pulled her air horn back out of her purse and sounded the damn thing off a good five times. “Leonard!” she shouted at the top of her lungs.

  Oh, for fuck’s sake.

  “Stop it, Nonna,” I whispered through another building contraction. “Don’t make a goddamn scene.”

  She ignored me completely, sounding off that fucking air horn again, and Leo looked up from where he’d just sat back down beside his classmates, and his eyes narrowed in confusion.

  It was indisputable; his cheering section had officially gone wild.

  Sure, none of us were topless or taking body shots off one another, but with the way his great-aunt kept firing off the air horn and scaring every goddamn person in the crowd, it probably wouldn’t take long before security made an appearance beside our row.

  “Leonard! Get your shit, and let’s go!” she shouted again, but this time, she wasn’t the only one yelling toward my extremely confused husband.

  Sean and Cam had joined in.

  “We need to get Gemma to the hospital!

  “The baby is coming!”

  I watched as understanding covered my husband’s face, and it didn’t take long before he was hopping up from his seat and running across the auditorium floor like a bat out of hell.

  Of course, by that point, people in the audience had grown hip to our embarrassing game. Hell, some even pulled out phones and started recording the shenanigans that included several top players for the Mavericks helping a panting, pregnant lady out of her seat and toward the exit route.

  We’d officially fucked up the whole damn graduation, and I was certain I’d find my beet-red and panting face splashed across TMZ or some shit.

  But the contractions kept coming faster and stronger, and I didn’t have much time to contemplate the media reaction we’d receive from this.

  Our little cheering section had turned into a “Get Gemma to the hospital section,” and by the time we reached the exit doors, Leo had met us there on a sprint.

  The concern on his face had my heart clenching in discomfort.

  “Baby, are you okay?” he asked and placed both of his hands onto my belly.

  “I promise I tried to wait,” I whispered, and tears started to spill from my eyes. “I tried to make the baby hold out a little longer so I didn’t ruin your big day. I’m so sorry,” I said just as my tears turned to full-on sobs.

  “Baby.” Leo smiled down at me as he pulled me into his arms. “I can promise you that a graduation ceremony doesn’t even come close to comparing to the day I get to meet our baby,” he whispered into my ear.

  I sniffled and nodded and buried my face in his shoulder.

  When another contraction gripped my belly, I had to step back from my husband’s comforting embrace and place both hands on my stomach as I found my focus to breathe through it.

  “Gem,” Leo said softly as he put a strong arm around my shoulders. “What do you say we get you to the hospital?”

  “Can I get an epidural?” I asked and he grinned.

  “Yes.”

  “And can you make sure someone takes away Alma’s air horn?”

  He chuckled. “Trust me, it’s already been made a priority.”

  For the first time since we’d arrived at the hospital, we were alone.

  My parents had driven Alma home. And our friends, Gemma’s parents, and Grandpa Joe had left about thirty minutes ago.

  “I can’t stop looking at him, Gem,” I whispered as I stared down at the baby inside my wife’s arms. He was hands down the most beautiful little human I’d ever laid eyes on.

  A healthy baby boy that my beautiful, strong wife and I had created.

  At eight pounds, six ounces and twenty-one inches long, Noah James Landry made his surprising debut into this world on the day that I officially graduated from grad school.

  Gemma’s labor had lasted all of two hours once we’d arrived at the hospital, which, from what her nurses had said, was like a fucking record for a first-time mom.

  Apparently, my kid was already fast and agile and quite the go-getter.

  “Me either.” Gemma grinned up at me, and I watched as Noah wrapped his entire little fist around her pinkie finger. “I love him so much, Leo. More than I ever knew was possible.”

  “Me too, baby.” I kissed her forehead and then pressed a soft kiss to Noah’s. “Me too.”

  “I was kind of hoping you would’ve waited until tomorrow to make your big debut,” she whispered toward him, and he cooed as he stretched out his little legs. “But God, I’m so happy you’re here.”

  I couldn’t have said it better myself.

  With my whole world sitting right before my eyes, I couldn’t imagine life getting any better than this.

  I’d married the woman of my fucking dreams and created the most perfect little human being I’d ever seen.

  I’d finally finished that fucking master’s degree.

  My career on the Mavericks’ squad was still solid as a rock.

  And my wife’s music career was only just starting to take off.

  After a six-month tour across the United States and two hit songs on the radio, Gemma Landry was becoming a household name in the music industry.

  Thankfully, her success had made it pretty damn easy for her parents and Grandpa Joe to understand why Gemma’s career path didn’t end the way they’d originally thought. The night all three of them had been sitting beside me in the front row while her band played the Staples Center had been one hell of a validating and emotional moment for her. One I’d been more than proud to be a part of.

  When Noah started to cry, I didn’t hesitate to pull him into my arms and rock him back and forth a bit.

  But the cries only came harder, and I looked at Gemma in confusion. “Is he hungry?” I asked and she shrugged.

  “Honestly, I think he just needs his diaper changed,” she said. “Check that first, and if he’s still upset, I’ll try to breastfeed him again.”

  I grinned down at my son as I moved him over to the plastic hospital bassinette and laid his tiny body down on the miniature mattress.

  He kicked out his legs the instant I unswaddled his blanket, and when I removed his onesie and diaper, it was pretty apparent the little dude had in fact needed a bit of freshening up.

  Only ten hours old and I was learning pretty quick that babies spent most of their time eating, shitting, and pissing.

  I grabbed baby wipes and a fresh diaper from the drawer below his bassinette, but just before I could get my little guy all cleaned up, an arc of urine left his small body and hit me directly in the face.

  “Ah, shit,” I muttered, and with the help of baby wipes, I prevented the stream from hitting me directly in the eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” Gemma asked from the bed.

  “Noah just pissed all over me.”

  The
room turned silent until it wasn’t.

  My wife was laughing her ass off, and my son, well, he was crying again.

  “Stop laughing,” I muttered as I quickly cleaned up Noah again and put on a fresh diaper. “It’s not that funny.”

  “Trust me, it is flipping hilarious.” She giggled, and I glanced at her over my shoulder.

  When I quirked a brow, she added, “You getting peed on by our baby? Yeah, I’m having some serious déjà vu moments over here. Not to mention, I think it’s safe to say Noah is one hundred percent our son.”

  And then the memory hit me.

  That fateful day I’d met the woman of my dreams.

  While it’d been slightly tainted, it had been the best fucking day of my life.

  It had changed everything.

  She had changed everything.

  Yeah. I was certain life couldn’t get any better than this.

  THE END

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