Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92180 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92180 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
I suck in the bubbly right down my windpipe and start choking. Drake chuckles but taps me gently on the back until I get myself under control.
He dips his head. “Glad the thought of it affects you the way it affects me. I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d let me drag you into one of those unisex bathrooms right now?”
“No,” I exclaim, taking a step away from him and pasting on a polite smile. “No way. Now go away. You’re bothering me.”
Drake laughs deeply and pivots. But then a thought occurs to me. “Wait.”
Stopping on the third step down, Drake turns and tips his head.
“Were you telling Baden about us?”
He shakes his head. “Just asking him if he knew the guy who was talking to you. When he told me it was Clay and I saw him touching you, I knew I needed to stake my claim.”
“You’re a barbarian,” I mutter.
“You have no idea.” He winks and starts back down the stairs. I don’t watch him retreat but rather glance around to see if anyone noticed us.
I get no time before someone touches me on the shoulder—one of the donors—and I’m back in CEO mode, ready to relieve people of more of their money.
CHAPTER 15
Drake
I glance at my watch for probably the fifth time in just as many minutes. I know it won’t make my sister show up any faster. Just as I know sitting out here on the porch with my eyes pinned down the street, waiting for her car to come into view, won’t hurry matters along.
I’ve never been away from my kids this long. It’s been a tough three weeks—one week for training camp and two weeks of preseason—but it was the best decision to leave them back in Red Wing with my sister and mom. I could’ve tried to find a nanny, but it wasn’t a good choice. My boys were going to be stressed out enough moving to a new place, and to have me gone and leave them with a virtual stranger wasn’t an option.
While Kiera wrapped up things back home—packing, working with her employer to set her up for remote work, and watching her nephews—I concentrated on getting through the first few hectic weeks on a new team in a new city.
But now that’s all over. My family will be whole again very, very soon, and it feels like I am holding on to an electric fence I’m so excited.
Even though the task of raising three kids on my own while also trying to deal with their strung-out, absent mother has been trying at times, I’ve never bemoaned being a single dad. If anything, while the work of solo parenting is demanding, I realized quickly that I was fucking cut out for this shit. My love for Jake, Colby, and Tanner is so deep and intense, just being around them is like a nonstop endorphin rush I’ve never felt before.
You’ve felt it since, says the little devil sitting on my shoulder.
He’s not wrong. It’s just a fact that being near Brienne ignites a firestorm of endorphins to rage through me, but I push those thoughts away. I had my fill of her last night after the charity dinner, and I can focus on her again Tuesday after our game in Boston.
Kiera’s driving my old burgundy Tahoe, and it finally comes into view down the tree-lined street. My heart gallops as I push up off the porch and the vehicle drives closer.
The back window rolls down, and I see Colby waving at me madly. “D-a-a-d-d-e-e-e-e!” he yells, and I break into an all-out jog to the sidewalk where Kiera parallel parks.
All three boys are yelling as I jerk the door open. Jake is the more adept at getting himself out of his car seat in the third row, and next thing I know, he’s crawling over his brother and flinging himself at me.
Laughing, I wrap an arm under his butt to hold him to me, sparing a moment to tickle his face with bearded kisses. Kiera’s at the other passenger door to free Tanner, and I continue to work at Colby’s harness one-handed. It seems to take forever, but in only a few seconds, I’m holding all three boys.
Jake on one hip, Colby on the other, and Tanner hanging off my back with his arms locked in a death grip around my neck.
All three boys are crying—good, happy, emotional tears—and yeah, I am, too.
I flop us down on my small front lawn that’s starting to crisp in this first month of fall. I spend quality time letting them crawl over my chest and hug the ever-loving shit out of me.
Yeah… think I’ll just stay this way for eternity.
I look up and Kiera stands above us, a huge smile on her face. My sister is a replica of me. Only two years younger at twenty-six, she has the same dark blond hair and ocean-blue eyes. She’s tall—but so was our dad who passed away when we were kids.