by Max Monroe
But Winnie didn’t let it linger, leaning over to speak softly again. “Watching you with her…” She paused, but the silence was substantial—purposeful.
Tonight, she saw me—saw us—for what we really were. Meaningful, romantic, enduring kismet. Weight lifted off of my chest, and warmth quickly replaced it. “Thank you for tonight.”
“No,” I refuted with a shake of my head and a small kiss to her lips. “Thank you.”
Lex’s eyes were wide and watchful as a swath of green light cast a glow on her sweet face.
Her focus, as always with something she was truly interested in, was avid, and each word Elphaba spoke seemed to soak right in through her skin. Like it was becoming a part of her, I knew Lexi would carry every bit of dialogue, every moment created by the lighting and cast and heart-freezing music, through the entirety of her life.
Right then, as her little but meaningful hand reached out to rest on the fabric at my arm, it felt like I would carry it through mine too.
Elphaba’s otherworldly voice made the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand up as she sang about her differences and her peers’ refusal to accept them. Her life had been horrible, outcast, and burdened with the weight of her father’s jealousy thanks to the color of her skin.
It was so relatable, the story they’d created here, and eye-opening to the power of perspective. Two tales of the Wicked and Good, so powerfully interwoven that it was hard to tell what was true and what wasn’t. But the truth of tonight was that Elphaba, no matter her supposed dissimilarities, wanted the things all people wanted: love, tolerance, and understanding. Lexi had never truly felt those things outside of her family, but she had mastered the art of disregard for such trivialities.
Or so I’d thought.
Now I could see I was wrong to assume that the hurt didn’t penetrate, that the whispers weren’t heard as the set of her shoulders so clearly indicated her burden and the weight.
I shook my head and clenched my jaw against the overwhelming surge of raw emotion.
My little Lex heard everything and remembered it even more, and all the intelligence in the world couldn’t keep her pale white skin from sometimes seeming painfully green.
I’d never shed a tear in my life, but right then, when all the special, amazing things Lexi Winslow was intersected with all the stupid, expected things she would never be, I couldn’t have stopped the tiny trickle of emotion if I’d tried.
As she watched them on stage, I watched her. Winnie sat silently on my other side, the small catches in her breath exactly what I needed to watch her too—without having to take my eyes off of Lex.
Because I’d spent months falling into the trap of Lexi Winslow’s mother, but right then, with some of the most powerful voices on the planet ringing out in front of us, I fell deep into her warm little well.
She was everything I’d never expected from a child—both easier and more difficult, affectionless in a lot of the ways I expected, but much, much better in all the others I could not have predicted if I’d had a crystal ball.
When the final notes of the final song echoed in the auditorium, Lexi looked up to me. I held her eyes through the applause that so often made her uncomfortable, and I pictured it in her eyes. The pounding in your chest and the assault on your ears—everything that would be way too much if I’d had the intellectual capacity to notice each individual sound and action as a separate entity—the way her brain saw the world.
The song had moved her. The fact that she viewed me as a venue of safety and acceptance impassioned me.
And, after months of getting here, I was officially in love—with our newly formed “we.”
Wes: What field are you at?
Me: #4
Wes: On my way. How’s Lex? Is she nervous?
Me: I think I’m nervous and she’s excited. :/
Wes: She’s going to do great. Tell her I’m 3 minutes away.
Me: Is that an exact time estimation?
Wes: What do you take me for? A novice? This is Lexi Winslow we’re talking about here, sweetheart, and I know my girl.
My girl. Jesus. He’d pulled the pin, and my ovaries were just about ready to blow.
Me: lol…Right.
I slid my phone into my pocket and felt a little hand tug at the bottom of my sweater. Lexi stared up at me with the calm of a girl who loved pattern and knew this one well. We’d been here before, several times, in fact, since she took up playing football midseason. But as much as she loved routine, I loved her more, and it was never quite so easy for a mother to let go.
“Wes, Mommy?”
“He will be here in three minutes, sweetie.”
“Time, Mommy?”
I glanced at my watch. “Five fifty-seven.”
She nodded. “Six o’clock.”
“That’s right, baby,” I said, and my hand instinctively went to run through her blond locks, but stopped when it met the cold, hard material of her football helmet.
God, she always looked adorable all suited up and ready to play football.
My little kicker.
It took all of my strength not to burst into tears on the spot.
Motherhood changed you from the second you looked into the big, innocent eyes of your child. Within an instant, you had an unlimited supply of love for that precious, tiny being. They would forever be yours, and you would forever be the one person who would always love them, protect them, cherish them, worry about them, and fight for them.
Everything else felt minor in comparison.
It was a different kind of love. The kind of love that had me bursting into tears over something as simple as my daughter in a football uniform.
I was just so proud of her. So unbelievably proud of her. She’d overcome so much. We both had.
“Wes!” she exclaimed. My gaze followed hers, locking in on the man who’d helped both of us get to this point. I’d never, in my wildest dreams, expected it to last. But it had—and it seemed like it might go on forever.
New Year’s had been quiet. Just the three of us in my house with a fire and movies and laughter.
And then, once Lex had gone to bed, some of the best sex I’d ever had. His back to the headboard while I straddled him, breaths mingling and thighs shaking with the effort to keep moving, we’d rung in the new year completely connected, in both mind and body.
He’d traced the line of my lips with the tip of his tongue before sinking it deep into my mouth for as long as we could stand without coming up for air, and then, both of our orgasms receding slowly into the night, he’d looked me in the eye and told me he’d never been happier in his life. Me and Lex and everything we gave him, he couldn’t wait to give it back for the next year and then some.
I could still taste the tears that I’d choked down the back of my throat at the sentimentality in his words.
And, unfortunately, I could also feel a sour roil in my gut because not one of them had been “I love you.”
“Lexi girl. Looking fierce!” he responded just as enthusiastically, a giant, proud grin etched across his handsome face, and I felt instantly guilty about having even an ounce of lingering doubt. I had this, and I wanted to lament over three stupid words? It was goddamn ridiculous.
The second he reached us, he lifted her up into the air so that she was eye-level with him. Her little cleats dangled off the ground, and she giggled.
“You ready to show these boys how you really kick a field goal?”
She nodded and her uninhibited laughter rang out into the open space again.
I felt a tingle all the way down to my toes.
He set her back down and came over to stand beside me, wrapping his arm around my waist and tucking me into his side. He kissed the side of my forehead and whispered into my ear, “Don’t worry, Mommy. She’s got all of the proper protective equipment. She won’t get hurt, and she’s done this before.
“In fact, she freaking crushed the Brooklyn Boys last week.” He glanced down to Lex’s uptu
rned face and gave her the sweetest tap on the shoulder. “Didn’t you, Lexinator?”
She nodded enthusiastically and danced from one foot to the other. When the five-minute warning whistle blew on the field and Lexi turned to look, I lowered my voice and asked out of the side of my mouth, “Am I that obvious?”
Wes glanced down at me and grinned.
“Man, I thought I was really doing a good job holding it together. Five games deep, I thought I’d have it in check by now.”
He laughed and shook me lovingly side to side before stepping away to look me in the eye. “To the untrained eye, you’re holding your shi—stuff together perfectly. It’s just me who can tell, and ironically, that’s because of your tell.”
I raised my eyebrows. “A tell?”
He nodded. “You bite your lip when you’re uncertain or worried about something.”
I shoved his shoulder. “I do not!”
“Oh, yeah. Yeah, you do,” he answered far too quickly, smug smirk in place. “You also do that little lip-biting thing when you’re begging me to,” he added, and a low, sexy whistle followed suit.
“Begging? Why’s Mommy begging?” Lexi chimed in.
I rolled my eyes at Wes and little ears, but he just laughed it off, far too amused with himself. “Mommy is begging for me to take you guys to get hot chocolate at Serendipity 3 after the game.”
Her eyes lit up like Christmas lights. “With marshmallows?”
“I don’t know…” he replied with a gentle smirk. “Let’s make a deal. If Mommy promises to whistle with me later, we’ll do hot chocolate, marshmallows, and donuts.”
Lexi’s eyes moved straight to me. “Promise Wes you’ll whistle with him, Mommy! Pretty please! Promise, Mommy! Promise!”
I elbowed Wes in the stomach and felt a little satisfaction when I heard a tiny whoosh of air leave his lips.
Of course, three seconds later, he was back to laughing. And I’d tried so hard for lasting damage.
Coach Sanderson blew his whistle from the center of the field and motioned for the team to head toward him. “Let’s get ready to have some fun!” he exclaimed with a hearty laugh and smile.
Within seconds, a pack of tiny football players ran out toward him excitedly.
To my surprise, Wes took Lexi by the hand and walked out with her. I stood back and watched in awe as he kneeled beside her in the team huddle. One last talk between the two of them, and she was ready to play. Her football helmet shielded her expression from my view, but I couldn’t miss the huge, proud smile on Wes’s face.
He came back to my side and linked his fingers with mine, but his eyes never, not once, left her, even when she was doing nothing more than standing patiently on the sideline.
I knew exactly what Wes was to me—to us. And there was no doubt that it scared the fucking shit out of me.
We hadn’t ever fallen for someone so hard.
Two hours and several frozen appendages later, we were sitting at a small, bistro-sized table inside of a very crowded Serendipity 3. Winters in New York often brought tourists from all over the place to the iconic restaurant, and today was no different. But I didn’t give a flying flip. It was warm, and I had a fucking huge mug of their famous frozen hot chocolate in front of me. Chocolatey goodness in every gulp, I alternated sucking it through a straw and scooping out big, heaping portions by the spoonful.
“She was so awesome out there today,” Wes mooned, looking across the table at Lex. Her nose was buried in his phone, watching some type of YouTube video on advanced algebra problems, but he didn’t need her return attention. Much like me, he’d become completely content just to look at each other.
I’m sure it’s nauseating for outsiders.
“A lot of that was thanks to you,” I said. “You’ve made things so much easier for her by helping her through every step of the season.
A soft smile lifted the corners of his mouth, and his eyes lit up like he was a little boy himself. “I’m having the time of my life, Win. This is what it’s about, you know? This is the reason I love football.”
I nodded.
“She’s done such a good job of adjusting too. It’s not easy being the only little girl on a team filled with rowdy boys.”
I laughed and nodded. “Truer words have never been spoken.”
His voice turned giddy. “She’s on a team full of little warriors. I can’t wait to see her play in the championship game. That team from the Bronx is no joke.”
“What, have you been scouting the Pop Warner teams?” I asked incredulously.
He scoffed and tipped his head to Lexi. “Come on. You had to know we were going to do our research.”
“And your research says the Bronx kids are bruisers?”
He nodded excitedly, and I groaned. “Okay, maybe I’m not as okay with it as I thought I was.”
He chuckled softly. “Don’t worry, Fred. She’ll do just fine.”
I rolled my eyes at the nickname. Stupid nickname. It probably shouldn’t have made my heart beat speed up at the mere mention of it. I had to take a sip of my frozen hot chocolate just to distract myself from the frantic pace.
“Have you told her dad about football yet?”
I shook my head. “No. I haven’t talked to him since she started.”
He didn’t exactly look surprised because it wasn’t like Nick had been around in all the time that Wes had, but he still asked, “Is that normal?”
I nodded and rolled my eyes before lowering my voice to a nearly silent volume. Lexi was preoccupied, but she still heard everything. “Nick is very much an absent father.”
“Has it always been that way?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “From the very start, it’s always been that way. He didn’t try for a while and then figure out he couldn’t do it. He knew from the moment I told him the news, he wasn’t ready to try.”
He stretched his mouth into a tight line. “So, you’ve been doing this on your own from the very start?”
“Well…yeah,” I answered with a shrug. It was all I knew as normal. That’s why I had such a hard time accepting this version of Wes as real. “I’ve always had my family, though. There is no way in hell I could’ve finished med school and residency without my mom or crazy brothers. Remy, especially.”
His face hardened at the mention of Remy, and I laughed. “I know, hard to believe with his offensive demeanor and all. But Lex is probably the only person who knows how many licks it takes to get to the center of his lollipop heart.”
He stared at me in awe. “You’re really something, you know? Kind of like a real-life superhero. Maybe it’s weird to be proud of you,” he said with a cringe. “But I am. I’m proud of everything you’ve accomplished and everything you’ve done and do for your daughter. She’s lucky to have you as her mother.”
“Thank you.” I couldn’t not blush at his sincere, sweet words. I felt like every day I was seeing a new side of Wes. And every day, I fell for each of those sides. God, I had to concentrate on talking again, thinking about each goddamn word individually, so powerful was his ability to consume me. “But I should say that I learned from the best.”
He tilted his head to the side in confusion.
“I used to date Clark Kent. Well, Henry Cavill, but I figured that’s the next best thing. It’s a shame I just couldn’t find the time to return his phone calls. He’s very needy.”
Wes smirked. “Poor Cavill.”
“I know, right?” I laughed. “I actually meant my mother. My dad just up and left one day. It came out of nowhere, and all of a sudden, he just didn’t want to be a part of our family anymore. And somehow, despite the pain and heartbreak she went through, she managed to pick up the pieces and give all five of her children a good life.”
“Wendy Winslow is a saint.”
“Yeah, she really is. If you think I’m strong, she’s even stronger than me.”
“I know how strong both of you are,” he said with obvious pride in his voice. “I’ve s
een you in action. Busting balls and taking names with a bunch of overgrown kids dressed in professional football uniforms. No other woman on earth could’ve walked into that locker room and handled those cocky sons of bitches as well as you did from the start—except maybe your mother. She’s basically commanding a locker room every time your brothers get together.”
“All four miscreants were good training, that’s for sure.”
He grinned. “I’m sure it was a little of that, but it was also just because you’re fearless Winnie Winslow. The take-charge woman who attacked me near a vending machine in a hotel in Miami.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, get over yourself. That was all you. You started it.”
Wes laughed. “I’m pretty sure you started it, sweetheart. I’ve got detailed mental notes.”
No way…he started it.
Oh, who was I kidding? We both started it. For months, everything we apparently biologically knew was right for us in the other had nagged and poked and pushed until the tension was so high we’d all but attacked one another in front of a vending machine in Miami. And…it seemed we hadn’t really stopped.
Only now, we’d developed hand signals and whistles to discuss our pervy desires in front of my daughter.
I just had to hope Wes wouldn’t grow tired of that. He’d lived fast and loud, but people did change. They could grow. They just had to have a reason.
But could Lex and I really be the reason for Wes?
“How was Lex at practice?” I asked Winnie as I unbuttoned my suit jacket and sank into the car to go to dinner with the enemy.
Jerry Townsend owned the Baltimore Bengals, and we were one hundred percent not each other’s favorite people. But he had something—someone—I wanted, and the chance of getting Andre Bodville, one of the best, yet underrated, left tackles in the league, was worth the gamble—and the torture of our meeting. Nothing would be effective until postseason was over, but other than pretty much every regular facet of my life, I couldn’t deny my belief in the early bird getting the worm. And I wanted this fucking worm really badly.