Page 56 of Time Out

“I need more food,” Belle said and stood from the couch.

“You’re eating like you’re the one who’s pregnant,” I teased, unable to take my eyes off the game even though they were going to a commercial break.

I didn’t, however, complain when she returned with a single serve bag of tortilla chips and guacamole. “Did you search his fridge, too?”

She plopped back down on the couch and Lance leaned over to kiss her cheek. “He bought you tortilla chips. No one eats them plain.”

Of course they didn’t. Belle was too much.

Lance gave her the same adoring smile he always did when she was slightly unhinged. “She has a point,” he agreed.

The game came back on, and I sat at the edge of the couch. The quarterback, Cole, got the ball, and threw it to the guy named Butler.

“Five yards. Come on…” Lance’s knees bounced violently, and he cupped his hands together.

I’d thanked them for spending New Year’s Eve with me, but if I wasn’t mistaken, this was probably where Lance would have preferred to be anyway. His fascination with the game was intense, but as Cole got the ball again and handed it off to Davis, it was me who jumped to my feet first.

“Go, go, go,” I chanted. He dodged around one guy. Then another, and after he shook off a third guy, he lunged into the end zone. “Touchdown!”

“Holy crap, they did it!”

Lance threw his hands in the air and gave me a high-five. “Your baby daddy is incredible.”

One hand, on instinct, went to my stomach. There was nothing there except maybe some bloat late at night, but that didn’t mean his words didn’t pierce straight to my soul.

Davis was proving himself incredible in many ways, both on and off the football field.

Chapter 17

Davis

“We did it!”

Cole slapped my back, and Dawson threw himself on both of us. There was a minute and change left on the clock, but our defense had successfully held Raleigh scoreless in this final quarter.

We had this. This was our comeback.

“Hell yeah, we did!” Cole screamed, wrapping his hands around my shoulder.

Our offense was a relatively young team. Cole at quarterback, me at running back, and hell, even Mason only had a couple years in the league himself. But it was our defense that helped us most of all, veteran players who were currently screaming their heads off on the sidelines, knowing just as well as I did that the game was done.

They were going to take the field, kick some ass, and we were returning home, clenching our division title.

Complete with a hat and T-shirt to celebrate.

Which is exactly what happened, and three hours later, our team’s plane touched down back in Nashville. Next to me, Charles Carr jumped into the aisle as soon as the plane hit the tarmac.

“Carr, get your ass down!” Coach shouted from the front of the plane

“As soon as I get a headcount for whoever’s joining me at the Big Ass Honky Tonk, Coach!”

“The honky tonk again?” one of the guys several rows up complained.

Oddly enough, that was the bar I was supposed to go to the night I met up with Maggie instead. I hadn’t been back since, and now was not the night I was going.

Honky Tonk on Broadway on New Year’s Eve?

“You took one too many hard hits to the head if you think I’m going anywhere near Broadway tonight.”

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