LOGINHis eyes widen. "Oh god, no! I am nowhere near ready for that." I relax. "Good. Neither am I.""Quincy, I'm not even ready to talk about moving in together." "Sorry. I didn't mean to freak out. You started making a speech, and I wanted to make sure we were on the same page before you dropped down on one knee in front of everyone and got turned down."He smacks me on the ass. "Do me a favor. If I ever do propose, and it happens to be in public, say yes no matter what. You can break it off with me as soon as we're alone, but it'll save me the public humiliation."I chuckle. "Deal."He runs his hand down one of my cheeks to cup my jaw. "I really do love you, though, Quincy. You juked me."I smirk. "You're gonna have to teach me all your soccer lingo if I'm gonna stick around a while. I have no idea what you just said."He smiles. "I saw you coming, but before I could even get my guard up, you ran right over me and left me dazed.""That doesn't sound very good," I joke."Oh, but it is,"
5 weeks later…"What is Tiffany the tramp doing here?" I shush Geni and smack her with a towel. "She's with Rowen Flanigan.""The rookie?" she asks, taking a sip of her wine. "Since when do the players bring groupies to team parties? I thought they only had special parties with those girls."I roll my eyes and slice more cheese for the cracker platter. I'm thrilled so many players showed up for Chance's first birthday party, but they eat a lot. Daniel hasn't even started grilling yet."Be nice," I reprimand her. "They're dating now. From what Daniel says, Rowen really likes her."Geni chokes on her wine. "Does he know what she does for a hobby? He seems a little too, I don't know… virtuous for her.""The heart wants what it wants. I'm not judging."After greeting a few teammates and their significant others, Tiffany and Rowen make their way through the crowd and over to us. It's obvious Tiffany is uncomfortable. Her eyes keep darting around the room like she's waiting to be jumped. It
After talking to the court clerk and Erik's attorney, Doug returned to congratulate us on our win. We all recognized Rosemary had scored the equalizer and go-ahead goals to save this case in the last seconds, but it didn't make the feeling of victory any less sweet. From what we can all tell, Rosemary is a nice lady, who has an interesting son. She seems to care about her grandson, even though she hasn't met him yet. "Is it weird that I'm excited about his visit with Rosemary?" Quincy asks as I drive to the day care. I'm still holding her hand. I haven't let go since we got to the courthouse this morning, except to change positions. I can pretend it's because I'm being supportive of her and don't want her to think she's alone in all this, but the truth is, when she told me last night she might lose custody of the baby, I was scared shitless and needed to hold onto her as much as she needed to hold onto me."I don't think so." I turn on my blinker and wait for the light to turn green
I turn cold. Doug immediately stands. "Mrs. Cope," he says. "I'm Doug Linus, Ms. Watson's attorney.""Oh good," she says. "I'm glad you're here. That makes this so much easier. May I sit?" She gestures to the bench perpendicular to us. There's just enough space for her to sit next to Daniel. I look at Doug. He shrugs, putting the decision squarely on my shoulders. Do I want to talk to Erik's mother, or do I want to wait to get into the courtroom?Frankly, I'm afraid of what will happen in that courtroom. So I nod. She smoothes her skirt as she sits and crosses her feet at the ankles."First things first," she says without wasting any time. "How is my grandson?"I look at Daniel for reassurance. I'm not sure why she wants to talk to me, but at least she's asking about his well-being. Erik didn't even do that."He's, well, he's wonderful." I smile as I think about the toothy grin my sweet baby boy gave me this morning. "He's eleven months old, and he's just the most wonderful, loving ba
"Let's go over what's likely to happen in court today."Doug, my attorney, stops the idle chitchat and gets down to business. I feel like I've been taking deep breaths all morning, mostly because I feel like I can't breathe at all. The pressure on my chest is unbearable. Daniel squeezes my hand and puts his arm around me, rubbing his other hand up and down my arm. He made good on his promise to call in a personal day today. This, after he basically held me all night long. I tried to get a good night's sleep, but instead I was restless and cried out several times. Daniel kept holding me, murmuring encouraging words into my ear in a soothing voice. I feel bad that I kept him from resting well, but more than that, I'm grateful he was there to get me through a tough night.He was still there this morning when my alarm went off. He was already up, had coffee made, and had even gotten a suit from his apartment so he could help me get the baby ready to go this morning. When he'd said he was
I bite back a grin. What she doesn't realize is how painful the weeks without her were. I already learned my lesson the hard way. I won't make that same mistake twice."The pattern has changed," I say. "I didn't see it before, but now that Blanca has pointed it out, I can do something about it. I'll have to keep it in the forefront of my mind when life throws a curveball at me. Sometimes you may have to call me on it, but now that I know it's there, I can fix it."Quincy takes a breath. Ironically, I feel like I'm holding mine."I really missed you, you know?" I say.She reaches up and caresses my cheek. I close my eyes and relish the feel of her touching me again. "I really missed you, too."I slide to my knees and hug her around the waist. I probably look like a total pussy in front of her, but I don't care. I can breathe again. She's giving me another chance.We stay like this for a few minutes, me hugging her, her running her fingers through my hair. I'm so content, if I wasn't hyp
We played a shitty game. Really shitty. Not only did our sweeper get hurt again, Mack Shivel decided to be a dick and taunt a forward from the other team. Finally the ref had enough of his shit, and he ended up with a yellow card. Several times.Pissed me off and pretty much ruined the flow we had go
We won. Took out the Galaxy five to four. Except for our sweeper rolling his ankle when he came down wrong during a head shot, the game went fine. It wasn't necessarily pretty, but we got the job done.I might have had more enthusiasm if I hadn't still been pissed at my family. It's been a week since
After the nightmare that was meeting Daniel's family, we went back to my place to watch Netflix and chill. And by that I mean we talked, put the baby down for the night, and had sex.Lots of sex.The kind of toe curling, mind-blowing sex romance novels are made of.And Daniel apologized. A lot.I'm slig
I feel really bad about the article in the newspaper. Quincy is taking it like a champ and doesn't seem all that fazed by it, even though I know she's annoyed that several of her new clients seem to be fans. One actually had the nerve to ask her for tickets to a game.Most times fans are great. But i







