Page 92 of Irresistibly Risky

Asher’s forehead drops to mine, using his free hand to wipe away my tears, and then he kisses me. Right here in front of all his friends. In front of my parents. In front of our son.

“Thank you,” he whispers against my lips. “Thank you for him. Thank you for you. Thank you for completing my life in ways I never knew it was lacking.”

His gray eyes, nearly colorless against the sunlight filtering in from above and the blue glow of the water, swim with love and gratitude. He’s standing waist-deep, soaking wet, holding our son, staring at me like this, and all I can think is, I feel the exact same way.

26

I’ve changed out of my wet clothes, and I’ve got my big guy sitting on my lap. He’s picking at some puffed rice, carrot and cheese ring things that he seems to love but that taste like stale pieces of air to me. Who cares. My son called me dada. Actually, he signed and said it, which makes him a fucking genius.

Something he likely gets from his mother.

And while I’ve been working with him on saying it, I wasn’t expecting how it would make me feel when he finally did it. It’s becoming harder and harder to pretend that this isn’t everything I want. That they don’t own my heart and soul.

Today was impossible for me, but Wynter was there, touching my hand and reassuring me, and visually checking in with me at random points in the game. Then Mason said dada, and I wasn’t sure my heart could handle how quickly it swelled in my chest.

“Do you think if I bought her a ring, she’d say yes?” Callan—not me—asks, though I won’t lie and say I haven’t been having similar thoughts.

“I think she’ll say no,” Grey says with a grimace. “Layla has told you from the start that she is not looking for that, and she’s only… what? Twenty-three? She’s entering her second year of medical school. I think you need to wait.”

Callan does not like hearing that. “What the hell does age matter? Aurelia is the same age as Layla, and she’s wearing Zax’s ring.”

“Different,” Zax states in that gruff way of his. “Aurelia has been on her own since she was sixteen. She was an adult before Layla was out of braces.”

Callan pouts a bit and then tosses back his drink. “Fine. You are all right. I’ll wait. But would it be such a bad thing if she needed me half as much as I need her?”

We all fall silent, each of us secretly feeling the exact same way about our women. Well, all except Lenox, since he’s now the only single holdout of all of us.

He makes a noise. “Pussy-whipped.”

We all turn in his direction. “That’s no joke, brother,” I tell him. “It’s a defining moment when you meet the woman destined to own your balls and your heart. One day, it will happen to you. Though for the life of me, I have no clue who could tolerate your surly, silent ass.”

He grins pompously at me. But it’ll happen. One day, it will. I hope.

Some big plays go down on the television, and it calls us back to the screens. My boys are all around me, sipping on beers and bourbon while I drink snobby electrolyte-infused water. The end of the 4:00 p.m. games is playing on RedZone on the television above me, but that’s not what concerns me right now.

It’s the man on my right who holds my undivided attention.

“I wanted to ask Wynter’s mom to marry me after a week of dating. But after all she went through, I knew I had to wait for the right time. Especially considering she had Wynter. When I met Wynter, it took her months and months to consider me as a man who wouldn’t run out on her.”

I freeze at Gary’s words. We all do.

“She would be kind and smile, but I had to work so damn hard to prove to her that I wouldn’t abandon her or her mother. I married her mother when Wynter was ten, but it took the Olympics for everything between us to change. She turned fifteen a week before those games and by that point, I’d done everything I could think of to prove myself, including marrying her mother.”

I swallow audibly, and I catch the way my guys are watching me.

“What happened there?”

“We were teammates—on Team USA, that is—and though I had been introducing her as my daughter for five years, something about doing it there, something about being there for her, is what finally won her over. Joe was at the games too.”

My breath snags in my chest.

Wynter and the women are on the other side of the pool area, so we’re trying to make this look like light, friendly bro banter, and to them, it probably does. Even when it’s anything but.

“Does Wynter know he was there?” I ask, even though I’m pretty sure I already know the answer.

“No,” Gary replies, swirling a chip around in the pile of salsa on his plate. “I never told her. And not because Joe asked me not to—which he did—but because I felt it would only break her heart more, and those Olympic games meant the world to her. She truly came back to life in those two weeks, and there was no way I was going to let him take anything else from her. Or from me, truth be told. I wanted to be her dad, and he didn’t deserve her the way I did.”

I smile softly to myself. Gary is a good man. A good father. Joe is clearly not.

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