The Bet (Winslow Brothers 1)

We sit down in the two empty seats, and I ignore the questioning looks from my mom, sister, and brothers to whisper into Sophie’s ear, “We’re here to cheer on my niece.”

“Oh, okay. Awesome.” Her eyes search the stage. “Which one is Lexi?”

I point toward the spot where the little cutie sits. “The adorable blonde in the center right there.”

She smiles. “Got it.”

Not even a minute later, a teacher steps up to the podium and begins to introduce the contestants of the Mathletes competition. Each kid walks up to the front of the stage and waves, giving the families a chance to clap for them.

When Lexi’s name is called, that’s when I realize it’s not just my family that has come to cheer her on, but Thatch and Cassie and Georgia and Kline, Wes and Winnie’s closest friends, along with four New York Mavericks players.

The mere thought makes me grin. Of course Winnie’s kid would have the fucking Mavericks come to her school competition.

We all stand up to cheer for her, and by far, Lexi’s squad of supporters is the biggest and the loudest.

“Get ’em, Lex!” Thatcher Kelly shouts with a fist pump.

“Go, Lexi!” Quinn Bailey, the famous quarterback for the Mavericks, yells through cupped hands.

Three other well-known Mavericks, Sean Phillips, Cam Mitchell, and Teeny Martinez, also join in with wolf whistles and cheering at the tops of their lungs.

And everyone else is being just as obnoxious.

Including Sophie.

She claps and waves both hands in the air and yells, “Go, Lexi!”

It’s fucking adorable and makes me chuckle, but it also makes my heart feel like it forgets how to beat inside my chest, and I have to swallow hard to quell the odd sensation.

Sophie

I clap and cheer along with the rest of Jude’s family while his niece Lexi stands in the middle of the stage and waves toward us. With blond hair and big blue eyes, she is downright delightful.

And when I glance around the crowd that’s on their feet, I realize just how many people have come out to support this little lady. It’s heartwarming, to say the least. Part of my crazy “I do” dreams always involved having this kind of crowd at my back. A loud, boisterous, unencumbered family of wildly loving people—the kind of people who drop their other plans to come watch your kid in a math competition at school.

The woman standing at the podium smiles down at the large crowd that is here to cheer on Lexi, her eyes crinkling with amusement, and gestures for everyone to take their seats so she can announce the next student.

Both Jude and I sit back down, and he reaches out to wrap his arm around my shoulders, his fingers gently running along the bare skin of my arm.

Several people glance in our direction, his sister, a lady who I’m pretty sure is his mom, and three incredibly attractive men who share enough of the same traits as Jude to lead me to believe they’re his brothers—Ty, Flynn, and Remy.

Frankly, they appear just as curious, just as confused, about me showing up with Jude as I feel about Jude bringing me. I mean, he brought me to his niece’s school function knowing full well that all of his family would be here.

This isn’t Jude’s style. At all.

He’s Mr. Sexy Good Time. The man who sends me text messages with secret meetups that always lead to insanely hot sex. He’s the man who gets me to let loose and be spontaneous and not fixate on things like long-term commitment and marriage and having babies someday.

He’s not a meet-the-family kind of guy. Or at least, he wasn’t that kind of guy.

Was Julie right? Are we starting to become something more than just wild hookups and hot sex?

A war of emotions spurs within me. One part of me is excited and hopeful. But another part of me feels panicky over having any kind of hope. The point of spending time with Jude Winslow wasn’t to catch feelings. It was to have fun without fixating on the future or where the future would take me.

And I can’t decide if it’s a good or bad thing that hopefulness is beginning to grow inside my heart.

“Just so you know, my niece is a fucking genius,” Jude whispers into my ear, and I blink out of my thoughts to meet his handsome face. “She’s going to crush every kid on that stage.”

I can’t not grin at his enthusiasm or his pride. And when I watch the way he looks up at the stage, his focus purely on Lexi, it does nothing to suppress the rose of hope that’s started to bloom inside me. If anything, it’s only making it flourish more.

A lot more.

Two servers from Marco’s steakhouse—the restaurant Jude’s mom was adamant about having Lexi’s after-competition celebration at—step up to our table and start handing everyone a dinner menu, along with their drink order.