Page 61 of One and Only

All around us, players and their significant others warmed up for the charity game. We’d started the traditional flag football game about four years earlier, and it was a hit with fans and families alike. We opened the training facilities to a few ticket holders, filling the sidelines with a few hundred fans and sports journalists who loved watching the players go up against their spouses or girlfriends.

And my quarterback’s wife had been relentless all week, wanting Greer’s contact information. Even Parker lifted his hands and said he was staying out of it when I wouldn’t pass along her phone number.

Christian shook his head. “Did you do the thing I told you to do?”

My face felt warm, so I angled away from him to stretch out my back. “Yeah.”

“What thing?” Melinda asked.

“The coffee,” he said.

She sighed, melting into her husband almost instantaneously. “I love it when you make the coffee for me.”

He slung an arm around her shoulder, kissing the top of her head. “I know you do. That’s why I do it.”

What a simple thing.

When Christian heard in the weight room that she was moving in after our quickie wedding, it was his number one piece of marriage advice.

Set up the coffee she likes before you go to bed. Put out her favorite mug. It’ll be waiting for her when she wakes up.

“Seriously?” I asked him. “That’s the advice?”

“Yes.” His face was shockingly earnest. “Every single day, she wakes up knowing you’re thinking about her. That shit matters when you do a job like this one. They don’t get the time they want with us during the season, but you better believe my wife knows I go to bed and wake up with her on my mind.”

So that’s what I did.

Even though we’d been nothing more than polite roommates those first couple of days, only passing glimpses of each other while she worked on Olive’s room, the awareness of Greer moving around my house was a weighty thing.

In truth, I hadn’t even considered telling her about the charity event. She wasn’t really my wife, and it would only serve to complicate things if she became a fixture in this part of my life too.

And despite all the cameras around the room, most professional players didn’t live with their life on display, regularly consumed for gossip and celebrity chatter. Even if my single status had been commented on, I never would have known it.

“I asked for her number because I want her on our starting lineup, though,” Melinda said again. She tightened the ponytail on top of her head, on her cheeks were small temporary tattoos with the Voyagers logo. “She’s got brothers who play, and she’s tall, so she’d help us win.”

“If you win.” Christian snorted.

At their easy banter, I smiled, but it was impossible not to imagine what it would be like to have Greer there with me.

I pulled my gaze from Christian and Melinda, glancing around at the general chaos, the happy buzz of noise. A few kids on the sidelines caught my eye—one of them was wearing my jersey. I turned my ball cap backward and walked over to where they were waiting.

“You guys ready for a good game today?” I asked.

They all spoke at once, telling me about their favorite plays and their favorite games and asked if I’d sign jerseys and programs. I laughed, scrawling my signature over everything they held out in my direction.

We took a few pictures, and when Parker ambled up out of the corner of my eye, their excitement ratcheted up about ten more degrees.

I smiled. “They like you better than me, Wilder.”

The kids laughed, shoving all the same items at him to sign.

“Of course they do,” he answered smoothly. “They’re really smart.”

As he signed, he tilted his head back toward the entrance to the field. “Figured you’d need to go anyway.”

“Why?”

His eyebrows popped up slowly. “Yourwifejust arrived.”

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