“Ask Lainey if she feels the same way,” he mocks.
I lean down, bracing one arm on the table and one arm on his chair back so that all he sees is my stone face. “You’re desperate and craven. There’s no point in bargaining with you. What you don’t see, because you’re so damn myopic, is that you’ve lost your leverage. You led with your trump card, and it wasn’t good enough. I’m going to go win tomorrow and then the next game and the next. I’m dragging this team to a second Championship, and when I’m done, it won’t matter how many pictures you have of my soon-to-be wife.” Chip’s head jerks back in surprise. That’s fucking right. I’m going to marry Lainey, adopt Cass, and ruin Chip. “The press will rightly label you a predator, desperate and washed up. My team will lay down their collective lives to keep me, and the town will kiss my feet. We both know that winners can do anything they want in this world.”
“And if you don’t win?” he says hotly.
“We both know I will.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lainey
“Your parents are amazing, Charlie.” I lean over to pin another flower in Charlotte’s hair. “The way your dad looks at your mom—like it’s the first time he’s laid eyes on her and he can’t bear to look away—is swoon-worthy.”
Charlie wrinkles her nose. “They get to be a little much; both them and Nate’s parents. I swear Uncle Noah and Aunt Grace were fooling around in the car before they got to the rehearsal dinner.”
I hide a smirk under the guise of searching for the right-sized sprig to stick into the bride’s bun. Grace Jackson’s lipstick did appear to be smeared when they arrived at the swanky downtown Chicago restaurant, but, whereas my friend and her fiancé might be squirming from embarrassment, I think it’s beyond adorable and inspirational. These two couples have been married over twenty years each. I didn’t know my father, and my mother never remarried.
Maybe if I’d met Nick’s parents sooner, I would’ve understood what a truly good man he was and given in to my impulses earlier.
“You look gorgeous.” I stick the last of the flowers in Charlie’s hair and bend down to plant my face next to hers. We stare at each other in the mirror. My best friend is marrying her childhood sweetheart today, a boy who needed nine whole years to get his head on straight. Would I have had the patience for that? “You deserve so much happiness, sweetie.”
Tears glisten in her eyes. “Do I? Sometimes I feel like I have too much in my life, and everything that has happened is some kind of leavening effect.”
“You mean the cancer?”
She nods, the tears slipping down. I dab them carefully away. “No. You’re going to beat it. You did before. We all love you too much to let you go.”
All my troubles with Chip seemed insignificant when we heard Charlotte’s cancer was back. Nick had to keep playing ball, so I stepped in to help with the wedding details between his best friend and his brother.
After the opening game, Nick told me that he wasn’t able to beat Chip to a pulp like he wanted to but that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst was that Nick was going to have to deal with Chip for the rest of the season.
“Once I win the Super Bowl again, I’ll be able to kick him off the team no problem,” Nick had declared as if winning the Super Bowl a second year in a row was as easy as tying a pair of shoes.
But Nick keeps winning and so I seal my lips shut. In his defense, Chip hasn’t said a word to me since Nick confronted him.
We’re still keeping our relationship on the downlow. Charlie’s got a lot of her mind. From time to time, she gives us suspicious looks so I start fights with Nick to throw her off the scent. I think it’s working—either that or she’s distracted by other, more important, things.
I slip my arms around her slender shoulders and squeeze her tight.
Her head falls down to press against my head. “I love you, Lainey.” She takes a deep, calming breath and stands up. “You know that your happily ever after is waiting for you. I hope you don’t wait too long to grab it.”
The wedding is beautiful—an absolute spectacle, although surprisingly small in scale given the wealth of the two families involved. I’ve never seen Charlotte so happy. The couple recites their own vows. The heartfelt emotions that ring in each word bring tears to the eyes of everyone present. I keep my own gaze locked to the floor, afraid of what others might see in my eyes. From across the aisle, though, the intense stare of Nick bores into me.