Page 117 of Man Advantage

“Pfft.” Mike smacked my arm. “You know we don’t do spoilers.”

“Oh come on. Does he look good?”

In unison, they all rolled their eyes.

“Dude.” Jake shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what we think. Cam could rock up in sweatpants and a jersey from your biggest rival, and you’d still think he looked hot.”

My face burned. “I mean… maybe not arival’sjersey, but?—”

“Bullshit,” they all said.

Eh, okay. They once again had a point.

“Anyway,” Jake said. “We just wanted to stop in and say congrats before everything got rolling.”

“Thanks,” I said with a smile. “I still can’t believe we’re getting married.”

“I can’t believe it took you this long,” Don said.

“No shit,” Mike said. “We always knew you two would end up together.”

That brought me up short. “You… You did?”

“Well, yeah.” Beside him, Don shrugged. “We all did.”

“Really?”

“Uh, yeah?” Jake said. “You guys were inseparable in high school. When you started dating, we were all like, ‘okay, yeah, Cam and Trev, that makes sense.’”

Mike nodded. “Yep. Now that you guys got rid of the dickbags you were with, I mean—no shit, you’re together. Whoelsewould you have ended up with?”

I eyed all three of them. “None of you guys ended up with anyone from high school.”

“No,” Don acknowledged, “and I can barely remember some of my high school girlfriends’ names. You two, though? You were it. You always were.”

Jake and Mike nodded.

My mouth went a little dry, and my throat got tight. Truth be told, I was pretty sure I’d subconsciously known it too. It was just mind-blowing to realize that three of our closest friends from back then—ourstraightfriends, no less—had clocked us as the real thing even when we were stupid kids.

“Well,” I finally croaked. “We got here eventually.”

“Yeah, you did.” Mike clapped my shoulder. “Congrats, man.”

They each hugged me one more time, and then left to join the rest of our guests.

Alone in the room, I faced myself in the mirror again and fussed with my bowtie for the millionth time.

My friends’ words kept rolling around in my head. It had taken Cam and me a while to get here, and we’d taken some unfortunate detours over time, but we’d made it. And maybe those detours had been necessary to get us here. We’d needed to grow up. If I hadn’t married Bryan, I wouldn’t have Zach and Zane. If Cam hadn’t needed a job when I’d needed a nanny, we wouldn’t have been thrown into the same house with our simmering attraction.

Maybe we still would’ve made it here if things had happened differently. Maybe we needed all those bumps and switchbacks. All I knew was that we were here, and there was no other man I wanted but him. Of course our relationship wasn’t all sunshine and roses, and we could argue and snipe as much as anyone, but it was perfect for me. I loved him. I loved coming home to him. I loved watching him bonding with my twins. I loved the boring evenings we spent watching TV in our sweats.

I couldn’t have asked for anything better.

The past year and a half had been good for both of us individually, too. I’d re-signed with the Pittsburgh Rebels for four more years. Though I hadn’t made any noise about wanting Chats gone, I wasn’t sad in the least when he was traded to San Jose. I still didn’t know if Eric had decided Chats was too toxic to keep, or if San Jose had wanted him in exchange for thedynamitegoalie we’d acquired. I didn’t ask. Either way, he was no longer on my team or even in my division or conference. And we had a kickass goalie, so… seemed like a win all around for me!

Getting Cam in touch with our team’s fitness managers had worked outverywell. They’d been super impressed with him, and they hadn’t been bothered by his disclosure about why he’d been fired from his previous gym. This was especially true after one of them had called the gym to verify the information, and she found out that Cam’s ex had been fired as well. Turned out he’d been caught on camera harassing both male and female gym goers. Oh, and he’d tried to badger a younger trainer who’d just been hired into sucking him off in his office, only to find out that younger trainer was the son of the gym’s owner.

In fact, the person our trainer spoke to said they’d been trying to get in touch with Cam to hire him back now that they’d discovered he’d been fired over false allegations from a predator. They were out of luck, though—the Rebels were offering Cam significantly more money to come work for them.

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