Page 156 of Vegas Heat

Maybe it’s too soon, but maybe I don’t care.

I know what I want, and it’s him. It’sus. And maybe I don’t have a stellar maternal example to look up to, but maybe I don’t need one because I’ll have Cooper by my side, and with him, anything is possible. Anything.

He’s made me see at twenty-one that I want the fairy tale. I want the sexy baseball player to put a baby in me. I want a future where we work together and play together and laugh and love. I want the banter we had the weekend we met.

I want to hold his hand as he unleashes his emotions on me. I want to be his first phone call with good news or bad.

I want to cry with him and celebrate with him and eat Slim Jims with him and love him for the rest of my life. I want a future where we create new life to carry on a legacy of love that began at a blackjack table.

Maybe not today or tomorrow, or next week or next month, maybe not even next year. But once I graduate and get a job, once he plays a season—or three—with the Heat, once we’re both settled into our lives in Vegas together…then maybe that will be our time.

It’s not so far off, and now that the truth has come rushing at me, I’m ready for it to begin.

I order a car to the address my dad sent me, which is Cooper’s sister’s house in Oak Brook, and I arrive on the doorstep of a beautiful white and gray stone mansion a little after nine in the morning. My hands tremble and my heart thunders nervously as I press the doorbell.

I hear it chime inside, and a moment later, an older woman who has Cooper’s bright blue eyes stares back at me with alittle confusion and a little curiosity as she glances down at my suitcase. “Can I help you?”

“Mrs. Noah?” I ask.

She nods, and she narrows her eyes and tilts her head like she’s trying to place me.

“My name is Gabby. Gabby Grant.” My voice trembles. “I’m, uh…I’m here to see Cooper.”

“Gabby?” she repeats. “As inGabby-Gabby?”

“Well, not Gabby-Gabby like inToy Story Four, but Gabby-Gabby as in hopefully the Gabby who Cooper has mentioned at least once,” I say.

“Oh my goodness!” she squeals, and she grabs me into a hug. “Yes, yes, Cooper has mentioned Gabby-Gabbymorethan once.” She’s still squeezing me and it’s the kind of hug that feels maternal even tomeand I feel tears pinching behind my eyes. “Oh, he’s just going to be so tickled that you’re here!”

“Mom?” I hear his voice calling from another room. “Who was at the door?”

I hear footsteps on the hardwood floors, and then he appears and it’s like something out of a movie when he steps into a ray of light the sun is casting into the room and he’s illuminated like a freaking angel.

Like the sunshine.

Like the center of my damn universe.

“Gabby?” he says, shock evident in his tone. His mom lets me go, and Cooper and I stare at each other across the room for a beat—a beat filled with nerves and fears and anxiety that he doesn’t want me here. But then he rushes across the room and grabs me up into his arms, and everything tilts back to the way it was always supposed to be.

Because I’m here in his arms.

I’m where I belong. I don’t know what that means for our future, but I’m ready to figure it out.

CHAPTER 22: COOPER

“What are you doing here?” I say into her neck, my words muffled and emotional.

“I’ll give you two a minute,” my mom says, and I assume she leaves the room but I’m so consumed with the fact thatGabby is herethat I’m not really sure.

“I came to see you,” she says, and her voice trembles.

I pull back, and I stare down at her a beat. It’s in that moment I wonder how the fuck I could have ever questioned it.

God, I love her.

She’s here.

She came for me.

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