The Running Series Complete Collection: 3-Book Set plus Bonus Novella (112 page)

Derek knows Evan’s beer of choice, and hands him a Smithwick’s Irish Ale.  They shake hands and Evan samples the beer, checking for the proper temperature.  Satisfied, he nods, and Derek goes back to taking care of our customers.

It still breaks my heart that Derek hasn’t found that special someone.  He certainly deserves to be happy.  He’s funny, flirty, and disarmingly attractive.  His shoulders are wide but lean, like the rest of him.  He’s more toned than he is muscular.  He moves with the confidence of someone who’s comfortable with who his is.  I know from personal experience that he knows how to dance, and there’s something sexy about a man who knows how to move his body.

I scan the room and spot Marcus pulling some tables together for our group.  There are nine of us tonight.  I excuse myself from the bar and go back to help Marcus with the chairs.  He’s pushed three tables together, and now we’re rearranging silverware and napkins.  Reese comes up from behind me and hands me a stack of our new menus.  “Hey, Jette.  I’m off.  The second shift just got here to relieve me.  I’m going to go clean up a little before dinner.  Be right back.”

There was a time when I had hopes of Reese and Derek working things out, but that ship has sailed.  They tried to make a go of it, but it didn’t work.  Derek is easy to fall for, but he couldn’t give Reese the one thing she needs the most – stability.  She’s looking for someone who can take care of her financially, and although we pay Derek well, he’s not rolling in the dough.

Of course, there was Shaun Marise, one of Evan’s teammates, but that relationship was doomed to fail before it even began.  Shaun is sweet, kind, and completely trustworthy.  But he didn’t challenge Reese enough to keep her interested for long.  Poor guy.  Fortunately, he took the news well, and has moved on.  But Reese is still searching for her Mister Right.

Slowly, our little group assembles at our dinner table.  Emmy and Derek have been relieved at the bar and join Evan, Adam, Auggie, and me. 

Before long, Marcus’ wife Camilla joins us.  They’ve been married for two months now, and seem blissfully happy.  Camilla is carrying a rather large tote bag with her, and after a quick kiss for her new husband, she sits with us and empties the contents onto the table.  “Look what I’ve got!” she squeals.

“Wedding pictures!” we exclaim excitedly. 

“Emmy, quick – go get Reese and tell her to get her ass out here,” I order as we make room on the table for the albums.  The men have congregated at the end of the table, giving us girls (and Auggie) enough room to work.

“Why are there so many albums?” Auggie asks.

“Well, this one has pictures of us getting ready.  This one is of the wedding ceremony.  This one is the reception.  And this one is from the honeymoon.”  She spreads them out proudly.  “I have to choose the photographs I want for my bridal album.  I need you guys to help me pick.”

Reese and I both reach for the honeymoon album. Marcus took her on a romantic vacation to Cancun.  They stayed at the swanky Ritz-Carlton hotel right on the beach.  Auggie grabs the album from the ceremony.  He was still in Alaska during the wedding and he didn’t make it back in time.  Lucas wouldn’t let him leave, and besides, I don’t think he was in any rush to get on an airplane.

As I flip through the pages, I feel sparks of electricity firing off throughout my body.  I don’t even have to look up to know that Evan is watching me.  I can feel his eyes on me.  He ignites something deep inside me that I have no words to explain.

Camilla interrupts my thoughts with questions of her own. “So Jette, are you almost ready for your wedding?  It’s only three months away, you know.”

“We got another offer to get married on national television,” I tell her.

Auggie stops abruptly and asks, “Another?  Seriously?  Who is it this time?”  Auggie hates the media attention almost as much as I do.  He got a taste of it after the plane crash.  For nearly two months, the life and death of Laci Keilani was broadcast relentlessly.  When the public found out that her death saved Auggie’s life, everyone wanted to know more about him and Lucas.  They became the unwitting public face of marriage equality.

“TMZ made us a very generous offer,” I tell him.

He looks at me skeptically.  “And?”

“And I told them I would think about it.  It’s a lot of money.  Evan and I were thinking about buying a horse ranch in Texas, and their offer would totally pay for all of it.”  I’ve finally done it – Auggie is speechless.  He stares at me in disbelief, eyes wide open and mouth hanging slack.

Emmy is the first to see through me.  “Oh Auggie – you’re so gullible.”  She gives him a playful elbow jab.  “You know there’s no way that would happen.”  As he lets out a breath I don’t think even he realized he was holding, Emmy continues, “Tell us what you really said, Jette.”

“We told them to shove their offer up their ass.  At least, that’s what we told Adam to tell them.  I have a feeling he may not have said it as colorfully, though.”

“Have you gotten other offers?” Camilla asks.

“We have.  It sucks.  I know Evan’s an even bigger celebrity now, but why can’t everyone just leave us alone?  Every time we go to check out a potential location, someone leaks it to the press.”  I let out a sigh of frustration as I think about the last place we visited.  “We found a beautiful golf course near Atlantic City, and it was perfect.  Apparently, one of the cooks sold the story to Access Hollywood, and they called offering to televise it.  They knew the date, the location ... even the menu.”  I shake my head, still disappointed by the turn of events.  “Obviously, we had to cancel.  Back to square one, I guess.”

“Listen, if anyone deserves a fairytale wedding, it’s you, Jepetto.  And I’m not going to sit quietly and watch it all get ruined.  You need to pull out all the stops.  I just sold an eight-thousand-square-foot home in Mantoloking to the CEO of Infinity Broadcasting.  His daughter is getting married to some famous racecar driver.  He’s using a wedding planner.  I think you two should do the same thing.”

Reese, as usual, agrees with Auggie.  “If you had a wedding planner, she could do all your legwork.  She could go to the places you can’t go.  The minute you and Evan take another tour of a golf course, a winery, or a resort, it will become front-page news.  You’re not private people anymore.  Time you started dealing with it.”

I hate to admit it, but they’re both right.  “Auggie, can you get me the number of their wedding planner?”

Auggie takes out his cell phone and starts scrolling through his contacts. “Already on it.”

Luckily, the conversation comes to an abrupt halt when our meals arrive.  Before anyone takes a bite, Evan stands up to make a toast.

“Please raise your glasses and join me in toasting to life.  To Juliette, who found me and brought help when I was trapped with Averee.  To Laci, who took Auggie’s place on that doomed helicopter ride.  And finally, to Adam, who single-handedly rescued my fiancée from a fiery inferno.  To each of you I owe a debt that can never be paid.  Auggie, Juliette, and I will always remember how lucky we are to be here with you now.  To life!”

Everyone repeats, “To life!” and we all reach across the table to clink our glasses with one another.  Tearfully, I get up from my seat and find my way to Adam.  Standing behind him, I wrap my arms around his shoulders and whisper in his ear, “Thank you.”

Learning the Ropes

I
t’s our first Saturday morning back at the beach house.  We moved back home earlier this week, and it feels so good to be home again, where we belong.

Unfortunately, it’s also time to pack another overnight bag for Evan.  Today he’s flying to Baltimore.  It seems silly to me – Baltimore is just a few hours away by car – but I suppose when you’re moving eighty people and enough equipment to fill a Mack truck, putting them all in one place and transporting them together makes sense.

I hear the water running in the bathroom while Evan showers.  AC/DC is blaring, and when I hear Evan singing along to “You Shook Me All Night Long”, I can’t help but smile.  We have a routine when he’s got an away game, and “You Shook Me All Night Long” pretty well sums it up.  The first few weeks of the season, I felt guilty for keeping him up all night so close to a game, but then I realized that the night before the game, he’s safely tucked away in his hotel room by seven o’clock.  That more than makes up for whatever sleep he might have missed the night before.

He doesn’t need to take much with him when he travels.  He’ll wear a suit jacket on the plane, and then again on the way home, so there’s no need to pack that.  He needs workout clothes, something to wear to dinner, and lots of clean socks and underwear.  God, he has great underwear.  Some say
Armani
on the waist.  Others say
Andrew Christian
in gold.  They are all tight-fitting boxer briefs, and all make him look sexy as hell.  Not that he needs any help in that department. 

He laughs. “Why are you staring at my underwear?” I was so caught up in my thoughts I never heard him turn off the music.  Now he’s standing in front of me wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist.  Water droplets cling to his skin, and all I can think about is licking them off one by one.

“I was just thinking about how hot you look in just these boxers,” I tell him as I toss him a pair of black Armani.

He unceremoniously drops the towel and stands before me as naked as a jaybird, with a goofy grin spread across his face.  Slowly and deliberately, he puts one leg at a time into the boxers and pulls them up, keeping his eyes locked on mine the whole time.  “Good to know I can still get my future wife all hot and bothered.”

He takes the towel and removes the excess water from his hair, face, shoulders, and chest.  “I never thought I would say this, but I like getting ready for away games.”  He opens a drawer and pulls out a pair of dark wash designer jeans.  He pulls them on, leaving the top button undone as he wanders around the room, grabbing things to toss into his overnight bag. 

My God, he’s delicious.

“Okay, let’s go through the checklist one more time,” Evan demands.

“Seriously?  Again?  Evan, really, I’m not a child,” I remind him.

“I’m perfectly aware that you’re not a child.  You proved that over and over again last night, my love.”  He walks over, presses a chaste kiss to my lips, then continues, “But you know I’m going to worry, and having a plan helps me worry less.”

It saddens me to know that Evan blames himself for the house fire.  Well, not exactly.  He knows Ryker is at fault for that, but he thinks that if he’d insisted I stay with a friend, I would have been safe.  But I’m stubborn and I wanted to stay in my own bed, so if either of us were to blame, it would be me.

I rattle off the agreed-upon plan.  “Before going to bed, I make sure there is a fully charged, working telephone in every room of the house.  I set the house alarm and turn on the motion detectors.  When I’m ready to turn in for the night, I take my cell phone and charger, keep them on the bedside nightstand, and call you no matter what time it is.”

“Anything else?” he asks.

I pause and think.  Did I leave anything off the list?  “I don’t think so.”

“Make sure you have Maddy with you.  She’ll warn you if something happens,” Evan reminds me.  The moment she hears her name, her little nub of a tail begins wagging wildly.  I have no doubt that if some danger were to present itself, she would know immediately.

While Evan finishes gathering his toiletries, I head into the kitchen to make our breakfast.  Still wearing nothing more than an unbuttoned pair of jeans, he saunters into the living room and turns on Sports Center while I finish cooking.  He likes to hear the early predictions before the game.  The Ravens’ record this season is four and seven, but they’re playing at home.  Three of their wins were at home, so the predictions are split.  The Sentinels haven’t lost a game in five weeks; they’re on a run and I hope it doesn’t break anytime soon.

I watch Evan, glued to the television with his bare feet propped up on the table and his arms folded behind his head like he doesn’t have a care in the world.  He looks much like any other man watching the Sports Channel.  That is, of course, until they put a picture of him up on the screen opposite Joe Flacco, quarterback for the Ravens.  Statistics flood the screen and I see Evan studying them carefully.  Watching him staring at himself on the screen is unreal.  Sometimes I feel like I have to pinch myself as a reminder that this is not a dream, it’s my life.  It’s a life I’ve chosen, and a life I wouldn’t change for anything.

After breakfast, Evan finishes getting dressed while I clean up.  All too soon it’s time for him to leave.  He places his overnight bag near the front door and turns to say his goodbyes.  I wrap both arms around his waist and lift my chin to meet his.  He presses his lips against mine as he grips my ponytail to keep my head tilted back while his other hand gently touches my face and neck. 

I slip my hands into his back pockets and grip his firm, tight ass as he deepens the kiss.  Our tongues slide over each other, teasing and torturing.  Electricity zings through my body, leaving me weak in the knees, so I hold on tighter and lean in closer.  He responds by wrapping his free hand around my waist and effortlessly lifting me off the floor.