Page 8 of Before. Then. Now.

luca

I did not,in fact, get the vasectomy in time to start football camp.My coaches were grumpy as fuck about the delay, but they didn’t argue.Remington still had my back from the grave.I’d been with Nashville my entire career and they treated me like royalty, but I was planning my retirement.

Not this season, but soon.My body was at peak performance.I was still a beast on the field.Continued to scare bodily fluids out of the opposing team’s offense from the first Monday in September all the way up to the last week of January—and sometimes lasting until the first full week of February.

Every time my team had won our championship and moved on to the Super Bowl, we’d won.Like most players, I wanted one more shot before I walked away and focused on my family.Vi and our kids deserved my full attention without me being half crippled from one too many hits on the field.

It was with a pulse throbbing in my ball sac the day after my vasectomy that Vi gave me that sweet, innocent smile and informed me that she was pregnant.

With twins.

Again.

I had taken one of the painkillers an hour before, so I was seeing double of her.But she had the first ultrasound in her hand, waving it around as she talked animatedly.

Pregnant.

It was easy enough to pinpoint when it had happened.That day she’d kissed Shaw in front of me for the first time.I’d lost control that day.How the hell was I supposed to remember something trivial like birth control when I’d turned into a man possessed watching my smoking-hot wife kiss the second-hottest woman I’d ever met?

That may have been the first time she’d kissed her best friend in front of me.But it hadn’t been the last.Experimenting Era 2.0 was starting slow.I was sure that I was the reason she was taking things one step at a time instead of diving in headfirst.She wanted to make sure I was comfortable.

Apparently she still hadn’t completely realized that she was my fucking world, and now that world had expanded a little.If it made Violet feel good, I was down for anything.

But only if thatanythingwas with Shaw.

Which was a lie that I was done telling myself.

I was tired of pretending I didn’t notice how Jagger looked at Vi.How lost he got, unable to tear his gaze away.The yearning that radiated off him in waves that would drown a normal person in utter despair if they didn’t get what they ached for so deeply.I knew that look well—I had fucking been him those years I’d spent without Violet’s love.He never tried to touch her, though.Which meant he had a hell of a lot more willpower than me.Because when it came to Vi and Shaw experimenting, I couldn’t last two seconds before I was begging them to let me participate in some way.

Jagger had watched me go down on Shaw only two weeks ago.Something Vi had encouraged.Flat-out begged for it.But she’d barely gotten the words out before I was on my knees.At the time, I hadn’t cared how Jagger felt about it.I’d take the ass-beating if he wanted to throw down.

He didn’t.

He hadn’t moved a single muscle while he watched us.Didn’t seem to breathe until Shaw had come twice on my tongue.And then he was pulling her to him, fucking her right in front of us.

I knew why he hadn’t touched Vi, though, and I respected him for it.

Jagger was waiting for Vi to ask.Or maybe to put him out of his misery and just take.

Admittedly, I was having fun with all the experimenting when we had private time with our friends.But it would all stop in the blink of an eye if Vi said it wasn’t what she wanted.Her wants, her needs?That was all that I cared about.And if she wanted Jagger to kiss her, any part of her, I’d be down for that in a heartbeat.

“This is crazy, right?”Vi exclaimed, returning me to the land of the agony in my scrotum.She had on a pair of running shorts and a tank top that showed off a nice view of her tits.

I should not have been able to get so much as a twitch from my dick yet.The doctor had assured me that the swelling wouldn’t be too bad if I kept an ice pack on my balls and took the meds he prescribed.That fucker was full of shit.My balls felt like they were the size of peaches, and I was half hard.

“Insane,” I agreed, making a mental note in my high-as-fuck brain to double- and triple-check that my vasectomy had taken before I put my dick back in her.

“You said that out loud, babe.”

“Oh.Sorry.Did it hurt your feelings?”Fuck.I couldn’t tell.She was all bright-eyed and full of smiles.She’d even given me that beautiful laugh I was so in love with.But what if I missed something while I was lying there recovering from a little snip to the boys down south?

How did anyone get shit done on drugs?If this was what it was like every day for an addict, there should never have been an opioid epidemic.The most I’d ever done was get stupid drunk and do even stupider things.And that was plenty of experience with not being in control for one lifetime.A shudder crawled up my spine, regret making my stomach turn.

“Shaw.Where’s Shaw?”I glanced around, half expecting her to materialize out of thin air.I was surprised when she didn’t.Maybe I’d said the wrong name.“Jagger?”

Nothing.

“Where the fuck are those two?”Realizing I was swearing, I pressed my lips together and peeked around, hoping I hadn’t said bad words in front of my little princess.But Love Bug was absent.And there was no Grier chirping happily.Or Fallon terrorizing Elijah and Ethan.She scared the living hell out of them the majority of the time.They screamed when they saw her most days, then did absolutely everything in their power to avoid being in the same room with her.

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