All Chapters of Play Me Like You Mean It: Chapter 121 - Chapter 129

Not that I hadn’t expected it. The drum set was destroying our household.Noah discovered very quickly that drums were not instruments you played quietly. They were instruments you attacked with enthusiasm. Every morning, afternoon, and evening. Even the nights weren’t spared.Bang. Bang. Bang.Romi was the one the noise affected the most.“This is your fault,” she said one weekend, pointing accusingly at me while Noah went wild in the living room. “You let Cade buy that thing.”“I didn’t let him,” I argued weakly.“You absolutely did.”Grandpa tried to intervene too.“Buddy,” my father said patiently one evening, “how about we only play drums during certain hours?”Noah paused thoughtfully.Then he started playing louder.My mom was the worst of them all. Instead of helping us stop the noise, she became Noah’s biggest fan.“Bravo!” she cheered as if she were watching a concert. “That was excellent!”Our suffering had officially become her entertainment.More than once, I considered h

Gradually, I settled into my new position at Dad’s office. At first, I had hoped to be treated like everyone else.I wanted to walk into meetings, do my work, and earn my place the same way every other employee did. But reality didn’t quite work that way.I was the boss’s daughter, and one day I would be the boss.No matter how politely people tried to act normal around me, that truth hovered quietly over every interaction. Assistants stood a little straighter, managers spoke a little more carefully, and doors opened a little faster.Eventually I stopped fighting it, because some battles simply weren’t worth exhausting yourself over.Cade, meanwhile, had made it his mission to keep my life outside the office interesting. A few days after the breakfast incident, he had asked me, very seriously, to be his girlfriend. I had stared at him like he had lost his mind.“You realize we’re already married, right?”He had shrugged. “That didn’t exactly happen under normal circumstances.”Then he

The Instagram post did exactly what I expected. It exploded.My phone had barely survived the first fifteen minutes before the notifications started pouring in. Messages. Mentions. Comments. Old contacts suddenly remembering I existed.But the one message that made me laugh out loud came from Drew.Send me your number immediately.I stared at the screen for a second, already knowing what was coming. Then I sent him my number.My phone rang less than ten seconds later. The moment I picked up, Drew started yelling.“Are you kidding me right now, Mira?”I laughed.“You disappear for years,” he continued dramatically, “and the first thing I find out is that you’re engaged through Instagram?”“I’m sorry,” I said between laughs. “I’m sorry.”“You shut me out!”“I know.”“You vanished!”“I know!”“You have been a very bad girl.”“I said I’m sorry,” I repeated, still laughing.There was a long pause, then Drew sighed loudly.“Send me your address.”Before I could say anything else, he hung up

Friday night started quietly, but it quickly turned into something much bigger than we had planned.At first, the plan had been simple. We would host a small gathering for the people closest to us before the wedding, let everyone relax, laugh, and enjoy themselves.But once everyone started arriving, the energy changed. The house came alive in a way that made it feel less like an event and more like a memory being made in real time.Noah was with my parents for the night, which gave the rest of us the freedom to stay out late without worrying about bedtime routines. Cade had arranged for most of the guests to stay at one of his other properties nearby, so no one had to stress about driving home or cutting the night short.A few of my old college friends flew in. Some people from my modeling days came too, the ones I had stayed cordial with over the years. Drew and Lauren arrived with their usual loud, familiar energy. Jesse and Chanel came together, which made me privately smile. Romi

Six months later.Sometimes I sit quietly and wonder how life managed to change so completely.For so long, everything had felt uncertain and fragile, like happiness was something that could disappear if I held it too tightly.But now…Everything felt beautiful. Perfect, if perfection even existed.Six months had passed since the wedding and our honeymoon, and somehow those months had gone by faster than I expected. Every day seemed to move with its own quiet rhythm as Cade and I continued building the life we had once struggled so hard to reach.And if there was one thing I had learned about being Cade’s wife, it was this: that man loved to spoil me.Not just in the loud, showy ways people could see.Cade covered every version of pampering – the loud, the quiet, the soft, and the deeply personal. He made sure my coffee was exactly how I liked it every morning. He never forgot the small things that mattered to me. And sometimes I caught him looking at me like he still couldn’t believe