Page 63 of Scoring His Obsession

She places her hand over her stomach then, and Athena moves to a standing position. “It’s okay,” she says offhandedly to the snout that’s come to rest on her shoulder.

I reach over and place my hand on her thigh. “It’ll be fun.”

“Who else is coming?”

I tilt my head, surveying her. “Why? Is there someone I should be worried about?”

“Oh…” she mocks. “Did I forget to tell you about that teammate I hooked up with last year?”

My blood runs cold. I’m not gullible enough to fall for her teasing, but my body doesn’t like the idea of it anyway. It makes me want to crawl into the back seat with her and prove to her that she’ll never think about another man again.

“Kidding.”

“I know,” I say through clenched teeth.

“You’re absolutely irresistible when you’re jealous like this.”

“I’m glad you think so because it’ll never go away.”

I get out of the car and walk around it to help her out. “It’s okay if Athena is here?”

“That’s the first thing I asked him.”

“Before you even invited me?”

I laugh. “If you think they don’t know about you, you’re mistaken. In fact, I get texts on the daily.”

“Can I read some of them?”

“Yeah, no.”

She sticks her chin in the air defiantly, as if she’s going to figure out a way around that. She keeps eyeing me as she takes Athena out of the back and holds tightly to her leash.

“Come on, they all want to meet you.”

“When you say all?”

“I mean an appropriate amount of people.” There’s no way I’m going to tell her that I asked Reid to keep the crowd to a minimum so that Raeann wouldn’t be frozen all day in a state of panic. I want her to enjoy herself and to be introduced to this part of my life.

I slip my hand in hers and lead her toward the side gate. I can already hear the murmur of voices on the other side.Athena keeps pretty close to Raeann while we walk up and she absentmindedly strokes the cute pup’s fur.

When I grab the handle to the gate, I wait as Raeann takes a huge breath of air and lets it out slowly before pulling it all the way open. As soon as it closes behind us, a female pokes their head around the side of the house. Briar. Reid’s girlfriend.

“Hey, Micah,” she says, waving. “And you must be Raeann. Hi!”

“Hi,” Raeann responds, her voice a little too peppy. She laughs nervously. “This is Athena.”

“Oh my goodness,” Briar squeaks. “I keep telling Reid we need to get a dog. Can I pet her?”

“She’ll love you forever,” Raeann says.

Briar kneels down, giving Athena a good head rub. “She’s so cute.” She gets to her feet then, beckoning us forward. “Well, come on. Let’s get you introduced to everyone.”

Raeann turns to me with wide eyes and mouths,Everyone?

When we turn the corner, however, she relaxes. A small gathering, just like I promised, and she’s already met most of them, albeit briefly.

Briar reintroduces everyone, and a few of the guys give me knowing smiles. It’s not hard to guess why. We don’t bring just any girl to these intimate gatherings with teammates. If it’s a party after a game, sure, everyone is invited. You could be seeing the girl casually or a hook-up. But once you start getting wives and girlfriends involved in get-togethers like this, they are keepers. We’re a family like that. Pro teams all have their own feel and level of family, and it so happens that the Wildcats aren’t only a bunch of guys who play football at the same time. We’re more like cousins coming together to play for one another. When one of us gets traded or retires, we feel it.

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