Page 78 of Pretty Broken Promises

“No. I want to marry you because you’re my person. Without you I’m missing a vital piece. I know what it’s like to live without you, and I don’t ever want to be that person again. I don’t know how I managed to win back your trust, but you make me a better man, and I want to spend the rest of my life being the man who deserves to love you.”

* * *

I pullTessa closer from where she’s sitting on the sofa, until her legs are looped over mine and she’s sitting perpendicular to me. It’s been hours, not days, but I can’t even be inches away from her right now. I play with the promise ring on her finger, and wonder when I can swap it out with an engagement ring.

Her eyes flick to my fingers, and she puts her hand over mine. “I like this ring,” she whispers.

“I want to give you a bigger one,” I whisper back.

Tessa shrugs. “Too bad. I’m quite fond of this one.”

Raven comes in and flops down on the couch opposite us, ending our conversation. “I've got delivery on the way. Super healthy stir fry crap for you two athletes and my insane husband. Tess, you and I can eat normal food.”

Tess groans in gratitude. “Thank God. I'm a healthy eater, but damn, and I’m starving.”

Sin joins Raven on the couch, picks her up and puts her on his lap. “I hope you ordered double. From what I heard those two worked up an appetite.”

“You’re just jealous because we didn’t ask you guys to join us,” I joke.

“I was too busy thinking about this to get jealous.” Sin picks up a manila folder from the coffee table and tosses it on my lap. I open it and flip through the first few pages. I've been around him and Lucien long enough now to know what a surveillance log looks like.

I look around the room and notice that Kendall isn’t with us. “Where’s Kendall?”

Raven tips her head toward the door. “On the porch talking to his girlfriend.”

I’d rather not discuss strategy among someone who’s outside of our family. While it’s just the four of us I ask him, “Who have you been cyberstalking?”

“That would be your football coach. When you told me what was going on it just seemed a little too sketchy, so of course I had to do some digging.” He grabs his laptop, opens it, and turns it to face me. There is live footage being streamed of Coach Greer talking to a man in a parking garage of all things. Talk about a cliché place for a covert meeting.

“Not just cyberstalking I see. Why am I looking at a video of Coach Greer playing spy games in a parking garage?” I ask him.

Sin picks up his phone, dials a number, then puts it on speaker. It rings a couple times and then a familiar voice answers.

“Hello, brother. You know calling me kind of defeats the whole undercover thing I've got going on,” Lucien says.

“What kind of psycho has their ringer on?” Sin asks.

“Asks the psycho who calls instead of texts,” Lucien fires back.

“As entertaining as your super weird arguments usually are, can we get to the point? Our food will be here any minute and I'm pretty sure that Ford's friend thinks that we're all insane,” Raven intervenes.

I mouth, “Thank you,” to her.

“Oh, Ford brought a friend? Is she hot?” Lucien asks.

“It’s one of my teammates, Luce,” I say, then mentally slap myself in the face.

“Okay, is he hot?” Lucien asks undeterred.

Naturally this is exactly when Kendall joins us, and lets us know he heard Lucien’s question. “They call me, Ken Doll,” he replies.

“Well, that either means you're hot, or you have no dick,” Lucien says.

“My fiancée doesn't complain,” Kendall says.

“Boo, you're going to be boring,” Lucien pouts.

Raven snaps her fingers by the mouthpiece of the phone. “Dear God, brother. Do I need to get you tested for ADHD?”

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