Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 113330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 567(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 567(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
The thought of my mother springing from her chair and taking me down in her pretty lavender dress makes me smile to myself and glance at her. She’s sitting in the front row with my father and my four-year-old son, Maverick, right next to my aunt and uncle, Marco’s mother and father.
When my eyes train on my son, my heart skips a beat. Maverick looks so damned cute guarding that ring bearer’s pillow with his life. Give my kid a job, and he’ll do it with every fiber of his being. In that way, among others, my son is exactly like me.
Maverick’s gaze shifts to me, and when he realizes I’m smiling at him, he proudly points at the lace-covered pillow in his lap as if to say, “Look how good I’m doing my job, Daddy!” I can’t help chuckling at his exuberance as I flash him a thumbs-up sign.
I can’t believe there was ever a time I reacted negatively to Vanessa’s positive pregnancy test. Of course, I immediately requested a paternity test, simply because Vanessa and I had only been dating casually. Not even dating, really, in the true sense of the word. It was more of a brief situationship. And when the result came back unequivocally positive—the baby in Vanessa’s oven was definitely mine—I wasn’t pleased, to say the least. Of course, when Maverick arrived in this world and I held him in my arms and heard his little, cooing voice, I immediately realized he was the best damned thing that’s ever happened to me. A true blessing. Which is why I’m now working so damned hard to switch teams next season.
If it weren’t for Maverick, I probably would have re-signed with the Crusaders, despite all the bullshit, stress, and personality clashes I’ve been experiencing there for quite some time. But with Maverick in the picture, I can’t stop dreaming of a different kind of life for us. One in which I’d play for a team in Maverick’s hometown of LA. One in which I’d get to live within driving distance of my son and therefore get to hang out with him all the time, unlike now.
“That was beautiful, Cordelia,” Luca says, yanking me from my thoughts. The song is over and everyone is applauding, so I quickly join in applauding, too.
“And now, it’s time for the vows,” Luca reports. “Nico, do you want to kick things off?”
“Gladly,” Nicola replies with a beaming, bright smile. She takes her future husband’s hands, looks deeply into his eyes, and proceeds to earnestly explain all the ways she loves Marco and always will.
All of a sudden, a strange sensation of yearning settles into my chest, followed by a thought I’ve never had before: I want someone to talk like that about her love for me.
What?
I want the kind of love Marco’s found with Nicola.
Jesus Christ. Is this another side effect of all those spiced rum punches? I’ve never in my life felt the urge to get married. Not even when Vanessa told me about her positive pregnancy test. Not for a nanosecond. And yet, I can’t deny, witnessing Marco and Nicola’s love makes me think there might be something to the whole marriage thing after all. Did Maverick cracking my heart wide open do this to me? Has my relatively newfound love for my son turned me into a greedy bastard who wants even more unconditional affection in his life?
I rub the back of my neck and tell myself to cool my jets. It would be the worst possible time to even think about finding myself a wife, when I’m on the cusp of switching teams and cities to become the father my son deserves.
“You’re a lucky man, Marco,” Luca says to our cousin, after Nicola finishes her vows. “That’s gonna be a tough act to follow.”
Marco chuckles. “Nico’s always a tough act to follow. No matter what she’s doing, she always throws a frozen rope.”
Ding, ding, ding! It’s the first football reference of the ceremony, as far as I know. I’ve been daydreaming, so in theory I could have missed a couple before this. If I’m right, however, then I need Marco to make at least three more before this ceremony is through so I can win a cool two hundred bucks—one hundred from each of my twin brothers—in the three-way bet we made last night over a game of pool.
“Evil Levi,” as our family calls him, took zero to one football references in our bet. Not surprisingly, since Levi’s the most skeptical of the three of us. Luca, on the other hand, took two to three football references. Still a low number, especially for an optimist like him. But given the topsy-turvy path he’s been forced to walk lately in his football career, I don’t blame him for playing things kind of safe these days.