His groomsmen, Cade, Max and Alexei, are sharing the duty of watchdog with him. I actually heard Max yell, “That’s my fifteen-year-old sister, you fucking perv,” to a guy who catcalled as the girls were getting out of the limo earlier.
They may have spent their lives so far without a father, but they’ve got a protective brother, and in a few months, Erik’s adoption of them will be finalized.
He pulls me aside before it’s time for more photos, kissing me again and saying, “Hey, Mrs. Zimmerman.”
“Hey, Mr. Zimmerman,” I say, arching a brow.
He glances at his watch. “How long until we get to consummate this union?”
I throw my head back and laugh. “A while.”
In addition to the two hundred people invited to our ceremony and reception, another one hundred fifty people were only invited to the reception. It’s being catered by Reese Deveraux, the wife of Erik’s teammate Knox. She’s become one of my best friends in Chicago over the last year of traveling back and forth to visit Erik.
“I don’t think I could love you any more than I do in this moment,” Erik says, giving me a tender look.
“I feel the same way about you. This is a dream come true.”
He kisses me again, and I hear the photographer taking photos with her camera.
“We should go do those posed photos,” I say. “We have a lot, and I don’t want to be the assholes that make people wait for hours before we get to our reception.”
Erik grunts and says, “It’s an open bar, babe, no one will even miss us.”
The photographer takes photos of me and Erik, us and the kids, us and the bridal party, and us and his mom and aunt. Aunt Jo is walking like she never injured her hip in the first place, and she’s happier than ever.
Other than the kids, I don’t have a family member here. Jenna was sentenced to four years in prison for kidnapping Vi. She’ll be eligible for parole before long, but I don’t plan to attend her hearing. We’ve never visited her and we don’t plan to. Our new home has a great security system and Erik plans to hire a security guard for Vi for at least a few months if Jenna is released on parole.
I hate that it’s come to this. But it’s her poor choices that brought us here. Vi clung to me for the first couple months after she returned home, afraid to be out of my sight.
When all the Blaze players line up for a photo, all wearing tuxes, I get a little misty-eyed. Erik is still in contention for his postseason scoring record because the Blaze made it to the postseason this year. He scored three goals. They didn’t win the Stanley Cup, but they had a good run and we watched every game. As the kids stood and cheered Erik on, their faces painted with the Blaze logo, I knew we were already a family, official or not.
I’ve always known the kids needed love and security more than anything. As a single mom, I was never able to give them much more than that. This life we have now, with Max taking off for college at Indiana University in his new Jeep and the girls choosing furniture for their rooms in our new home, isn’t something I ever expected to be able to give them.
I’m sweaty and in need of the touch-up the makeup artist gives me in the limo on the way to the reception. The girls, riding with us, are taking selfies and giggling.
“Hashtag baller,” Vi says, typing on her phone.
I shake my head and look at Erik. He winks at me and we’re gazing at each other with the look of love when the girls get up and move to sit between us.
“Smile!” Vi says, holding her phone up to take a selfie of the four of us.
“My girls look beautiful today,” Erik says as Vi scrolls through the photos on her phone. “But girls, if any other man says that to you tonight, you come tell me immediately.”
Vi groans and looks at me. “Are you going to make us do that lame sex and drugs vow you made Max do before school every day?”
“Um, obviously,” I say. “And I’ll be adding more verbiage on not being so mouthy.”
She turns back to her phone and Erik puts his arm around me. I momentarily relax as I think about our trip to Hawaii.
“Did I pack my tennis shoes?” I ask, trying to remember if I put them in my suitcase. “That’s not something I can just pick up in Hawaii; I need the ones I already have.”
“If you didn’t, it’s too late to go back for them now,” Erik points out.
“Ugh. I hope I packed them.”
“Don’t worry about it, babe. This is a night of no worrying.”
“Okay, you’re right.”
We booked the date of our wedding so we could get married right before the annual Blaze trip to Luca and Abby’s place in Kauai. The kids are flying there with Knox, Reese and some others who are leaving tomorrow, and Erik and I are flying separately. We’ll spend a week in Maui alone before joining the others in Kauai for another week.
The kids have never left the Midwest for a vacation, and they’re crazy excited about the trip. It’s another experience I’m grateful to get to give them. Not just the exotic trip, but also the feeling of family we have with the rest of Erik’s team. Everyone keeps an eye on everyone else’s kids and there’s no drama. They’re all genuinely happy for each other when good things happen.
The limo pulls up to the hotel hosting our reception, and Erik takes my hand as we walk inside together. The ballroom is lavishly decorated with tropical flowers, a nod to our honeymoon destination.
We’re introduced as Mr. and Mrs. Zimmerman and Erik sweeps me into his arms for our first dance as man and wife. As we dance to At Last by Etta James, the words echoing in my soul, I meet Erik’s gaze and know that we both have finally fulfilled the dreams we shared all those years ago, at last.
Want more?
The next Chicago Blaze book, Jonah, releases Sept. 15, 2020. Preorder it HERE.
For more information about Brenda’s books, visit www.brendarothert.com.
Acknowledgments
If you’ve read very many of my books, you may have noticed that the first person I always list in my acknowledgements is Janett Gomez. A couple months ago, we suddenly and unexpectedly lost Janett to a brief illness, and it was devastating to me.
Janett was a book blogger who first reached out to me after reading my fifth book, Bound. We became fast friends. Janett was a dear friend to many authors, championing stories she loved whether the author was well-known or not. We had so many good times together, and she became family to me and my two youngest boys. She read my last 25 books or so one chapter at a time as I wrote them, sending encouragement and feedback. Her whip cracking GIF always made me laugh and want to write faster. She also became my assistant, helping promote my books. I dreaded writing a book without her, and I’ll be honest—it was really hard. I cried when I finished the first chapter because I couldn’t send it to her. Finishing this book was bittersweet, because it’s the first one in more than five years that she won’t be reading. I just miss her, and a piece of every book I ever write again will be for her.
Some dear friends helped me reach the end of this book. ME Carter went above and beyond, reading my chapters and keeping me accountable for getting the writing in. Darlene Avery was there for me every time I needed to talk, mostly about Janett. Janett loved both ME and Darlene, and it felt like I still had a small part of her with me.
My friend Jane helped me plot this book when it was time to start writing and I was fighting it. My publicist Jessica Estep is just one hundred percent awesome, all the time. My editor Taylor Bellitto did a fantastic edit and encouraged me when I needed it. My proofer Rosa Sharon waved her magic wand and cleaned up the ms, and also propped me up at a time I needed it.
Beta readers Chantal Gemperle and Michelle Eriksen read this book and reassured me when I needed it. I don’t know how I got so lucky to have such amazing book world friends, and it means a great deal.
To all the bloggers and readers who invested your time in reading this book, thank you, thank you, thank you. The book world is a unique, mostly beautiful, fantastically supportive place
. I’m grateful for my small space in it.
Easy: A Chicago Blaze Hockey Romance Page 16
