Page 64 of Her Football Star Ex

Stuck with himwasn’t exactly a phrase I would have picked. And when I glanced at the other bridesmaids around us, I got the feeling several of them wouldn’t mind trading places with me.

I turned away from the envious gazes and looked up at Landon. “Kira said you and Derek were friends in high school.”

He nodded. “We go way back.”

“Derek’s from Utah, right?” I asked. “Do you still live there?”

“Yeah, I can’t seem to leave.” He shrugged a broad shoulder. “I teach Psychology at the University in our hometown.”

A psychologist? “Does that mean you’re going to psychoanalyze me?”

“No.” He chuckled. “I’m off the clock, so you don’t need to worry about that.”

I wiped my forehead. “Well, that’s good. Because I’m not sure I want to know what you would find.”

I was about to ask him more when the wedding planner came through the chapel doors. She was a tall, spindly woman with red hair in a pixie cut. “It looks like everyone is here now,” she said. “So how about we get this rehearsal started.”

And with that, all the bridesmaids and groomsmen linked arms with their partner.

“Ready?” Landon held his arm out for me.

I slipped my arm in his and couldn’t help but notice that his bicep was almost as big as Vincent’s. I know I wasn’t supposed to be comparing men to Vincent, but it was hard not to.

Either way, this psychology professor was definitely a nice distraction from the heavy conversation I’d had with Ivy earlier today. I wondered if he was single.

But just as I was trying to figure out a good way to ask him if he’d brought a date with him, the song “Marry Me” by Jason Derulo started playing through the speakers, indicating it was time for the wedding procession to start.

I tightened my grip on Landon’s arm to keep myself upright, because the sound of the familiar music and the memories that instantly flooded my mind made my legs go weak under me.

“Are you okay?” Landon was looking at me with concern etched in his eyes.

My cheeks flushed with embarrassment, but I managed to stand up straight after a moment and said, “Yeah. I just lost my balance there for a sec.”

“Okay.”

I blinked a few times and stared ahead, attempting to steel the nerves swirling around inside me as Jason Derulo’s rich voice sang the introduction with the piano accompaniment.

It had been a long while since I’d heard this song—but there had been a time when I’d listened to it several times a day, reliving the memory of the night Vincent had surprised me with something I’d never thought he’d do.

When we’d been married for a little over a year, this song was playing on the radio. It was several years old at the time already, but somehow, I hadn’t heard it when it first came out. And I was instantly obsessed with it.

Jaxon was just a baby back then, so when I was stuck in the recliner nursing and rocking him for several hours a day, I ended up watching a lot of YouTube videos. And since I was the type of person who listened to their favorite song on repeat until I’d played it out, I had looked up the music video to this song, which had led me down the rabbit hole containing all sorts of videos where people had used this song.

I watched wedding proposals that had made me a little envious, since our engagement and wedding had been such a rushed thing. There were also videos that featured a compilation of some people’s favorite couples from TV shows and all their romantic moments, the song playing in the background.

Then I stumbled upon a couple doing a ballroom-type dance to this song. And I was instantly captivated by it. I must have watched that dance on repeat for about an hour as Jaxon napped in my arms.

When Vincent got home from practice that day, I showed the video to him and told him we should take ballroom classes during the upcoming offseason so we could learn this dance.

He’d laughed and basically patted me on the head, telling me it was a cute idea, but he would never be caught dead taking ballroom classes.

So, with my bubble burst, I put the thought away and moved on to a new favorite song and other things—the thought of ballroom dancing with my husband getting shoved under the rug.

But then, on our anniversary weekend six months later, Vincent got my mom to watch Jaxon for the weekend and took me to a private dance studio where we had the very couple from the YouTube video teach us the choreography to their dance.

I’d thought he’d brushed me off, but apparently, he had been secretly practicing on his own in our home gym early in the morning when I was still sleeping, so he could eventually get to the point where he was confident enough to surprise me.

It was one of the best gifts anyone had ever given me, and it had showed me how much he truly loved me. Because really, how many macho football players would learn a ballroom dance just to make their wife’s silly dream come true?

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