I wince. “Don’t mention the L-word to Ari. We stopped by my house to check on things, and she was looking over a takeout menu that came in the mail. She sobbed over the lamb chops then called them and screamed at the hostess, telling her she was a monster for killing cute, helpless lambs. She cried for an hour then took a four-hour nap. It wasn’t pretty.”
“Pregnancy hormones, huh?” Mom says as she taps her chin. “I guess I should keep the veal on the DL, too?”
I nod. “That would be wise.”
She makes a note of it in her file. “I’ll mention that to Bryan. So we’re getting an assortment of meat from Blake, and Clay and Marquis are talking to decide who’s going to cook what, but it’ll be fantastic. Oh, and Blake also said the thing you talked to him about is on its way. Do you know what that’s about?”
Thank God! I was worried he wasn’t going to pull through for me. “Yeah, Ari’s feet have been swelling, and I don’t want her to have to wear heels during the wedding. She’ll do it and be miserable, and that’s just not acceptable. So I emailed Blake a few weeks ago. His ranch is known for its leather goods, especially boots, so I asked him if he thought they could make boots out of pleather for Ari to wear for the wedding. I also asked Mike over at Nike to make her a pair of wedding Nikes.”
“Must be nice to have the CEO of Nike on speed dial.”
“Since Mike can’t come to the wedding, he was so excited to do it for her. He sent me a picture and I think she’ll love them, but I think she’ll like the boots better. Especially since they’re from Blake. They won’t be the designer shoes she’s planning on, but she’ll be comfortable. That’s all I care about.”
Mom gets out of her seat and gives me a hug. “You’re such a good man. Just listening to you in this conversation, I’m bursting with pride. You’re being thoughtful, considerate, and responsible.”
I squeeze her back. “It’s all because of you. You raised me right. I hope I can be half as good of a parent to my kids as you’ve been to me.”
She pulls away, wiping her eyes, then crosses the kitchen to get a tissue. As she walks back, she looks at me with that Mom look. The you-got-straight-As look. The you-vacuumed-without-being-told-to look. The look that tells me I did something right.
“My cup runneth over.” She blots her eyes with the tissue. “Now let’s get back to it. Ari’ll be back any time now.”
I glance at my watch. “You’re right. What else?”
Mom’s cheeks turn pink. “Let’s talk about the dessert situation. I may have gone a teensy-weensy bit overboard with the desserts. I found a great vegan bakery in Austin that makes the most spectacular chocolate cake with chocolate fudge frosting that no one will ever be able to tell is vegan. But they also have so many other non-vegan desserts that were so yummy, and I just kept ordering and ordering…”
“How much did you get?”
“You’ll have a five-tier cake, and bananas Foster, and a Kahlua-fudge torte, and bacon bourbon brownies, and roasted pears with mascarpone, and peach tarts, and brown butter rum cannoli.”
“That’s not that bad for Wednesday through Sunday.”
She drops her head into her hands. “That’s just for the wedding. Aunt Jilly insisted on doing desserts for the other nights. We’re going to be sending people home with desserts in their swag bags.”
“Have them make it a smaller cake. We don’t need all that and five tiers. And line up a shelter or call a food recovery service to donate the leftovers to. Or maybe Uncle Clay can bring it to the diner and serve it to the townspeople for free? Either way, we need to do something with it. Ari will flip if she thinks all of that is going to waste.”
She types a note on her laptop. “Good idea.”
We hear Charlie and Ari come through the front door.
“We’ve got to hurry. If Ari hears any of this, she’ll get involved. What else? Music?” I ask.
“We’ve hired a string quartet to play before the ceremony, then a harpist and the Texas Boys Choir, along with the choir from my family’s church, for during the ceremony.”
I hold up two fingers. “Two choirs?”
Mom rolls her eyes. “Grandma Maggie was telling people at church about the wedding plans, and Ruth Baker—you remember her? She and Grandma have been feuding since kindergarten. Well, she made a big stink that I’ve become too big for my britches now that I live in the big city, that I’ve forgotten my roots. One thing led to another, and I promised her the church choir could sing a hymn or two.”
I smile. “I’m sure it’ll be great. I remember the choir was my favorite part of going to church with Grandma.”
“Thanks for understanding, honey. The band for the reception is called The Long Road Home, and they’re a big up-and-coming group in the country world. Not only are they fantastic, but that bassist is a huge Niners fan, so when they heard I was looking for a band, they all but begged me to do it. They’re country but have a rock edge. The lead singer has this voice that’s as smooth as silk. Every time he sang a ballad, I was completely mesmerized. We’ve worked out a set list that’s so good, I think even Ari will love it.”
I pull out my phone and type in the band, then I download their albums. “I’ll listen to them tonight.”
“Mom, are you ready to go yet?” Charlie calls from the other side of the house.
“You’d better go,” I say. “Remember, if anything comes up, call me, not Ari.”
Mom kisses my cheek. “I love you.”
“Love you too, Mom.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Arianna
“I get it. I broke the cardinal sin this year. I spoke out against the league. I went rouge, and now I’m a wild card. So either as punishment or to determine if you can really trust me, you’ve decided to put me through three days of grueling questions. From everything from the Rooney rule, to instant replay, to hypothetical acts of terrorism.” I glance at my watch. “It’s now nine o’clock. You promised me twelve hours ago we’d be done by noon, and yet here we still sit in these God awful, uncomfortable chairs. Based on the stack of notecards Mr. Eckert has, I feel as though he has enough questions to keep this interview going for three more days. Personally, I think this filibuster is just a way to ensure you don’t have enough time to discuss reviewing his contract, but that’s just supposition.”
Eckert tries to defend himself, but I ignore him and speak right over his excuses. “Jeb Kane was one of the most respected men in the league. When he spoke, everyone listened. No one questioned his decision-making capabilities or mental capacity, and they valued his opinion. Yet when he picks his successor, you all refuse to trust his judgment. Actually no, it’s worse than that—you’re using the tragedy of his death to try to make a move that will benefit you politically and financially. Shame on all of you.
“The clause that Eckert is hanging this interrogation on was put into the Constitution to prevent people from doing foolish things like leaving their teams to their cat. The clause is there to protect the team, ensuring it will be left in capable hands. That’s your job here today, to decide if I’m capable. Not to determine if I’m going to vote with you, or if your job is safe in my hands. Am I capable?”
Standing, I sling my purse over my shoulder and stride toward the door. “Vote me in or don’t. The choice is yours, and you are ones who will have to live with the consequences either way. You’re the ones who have to answer to Jeb’s daughter and grandchildren. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have somewhere far more important to be.” I open the door and walk out of the room without looking back.
After pulling my phone out of my bag, I dial Chase.
“Hey,” I say when he answers. “Want to get married?”
******
“So you basically told them to fuck off then stormed out?”
I’m lying across the plane’s sofa with my head in Chase’s lap. Once I found Chase, we grabbed our bags and hopped in a cab to the airport, booking our charter on the drive. As soon as the plane
took off, I curled up in his lap and gave him the play-by-play.
“Yup. They’re worried I’m unpredictable and won’t follow the herd, and I basically proved all of them right.”
Chase runs his fingers through my hair. “Blondie, you hung in there longer than most people would have. Eckert made it sound as though you’d be in there for a couple of hours one day, then maybe a few hours the next. They grilled you for three straight days, fifteen hours a day. And the bastard knows we’re getting married tomorrow. Keeping you as long as they did was bullshit. Eckert’s a prick and was completely trying to fuck with you. I’m proud of you for sticking it out as long as you did, but I’m even more proud of you for telling them where to shove it. In fact, if they don’t give you the team, I think you should send them an invoice for consulting. You gave them a shitload of good ideas they never could have come up with themselves.”
“Very funny, but now your retirement might have been for nothing.”
“We had to give it our best shot, which we did. I don’t regret it. Plus, if I wanted to, I could unretire.” He smirks as though he’s the cleverest man on earth. “All the cool kids have done it. Michael Jordan. Brett Favre. Mario Lemieux. Not a bad club to be a part of.”
I’d never considered that. Most comebacks are a flop, but that’s because the athletes are on the tail end of their careers. Chase is young and healthy. I bet he could come back without missing a beat. “It’s definitely a viable option.”
“But the only way I’d do it is if I went to a team whose owner supported you and as long as they know we’re going after every team who voted against you.”
“So you’d come out of retirement for revenge?” I chuckle, not because the idea is preposterous, but because I can totally picture him doing it. No one does revenge like Chase.
He shrugs. “I’d only come out if I got the itch to play. Revenge would just be icing on the cake.” He leans down and kisses me. “Whatever happens, wherever life takes us, we’ll figure it out. Maybe it’ll take us back to football. Maybe it’ll take us in a totally different direction. Look at Foreman. He made more money on those damn grills than he did boxing.”
Feeling he’s missing my point, I sigh. “It’s not about the money.”
“Of course it’s not. Neither one of us knows how to sit still and do nothing. We’ll do projects with the Aldrich Foundation. We’ll invest in some businesses, or start one. I’ll finally start that camp I’ve been talking about since high school. Or we’ll get the team, and we’ll lead the Niners into another fifty years of greatness.” He moves his hands to my stomach. “We don’t need football to be happy. All we need is each other.”
I lean into his embrace. “Ohhhh, good line, Brennan. You certainly can be charming when you want to be.”
“It’s no line, Aldrich. I mean it—every word.”
I slide my hands over his. “Can you believe in less than a day, we’ll be married?”
He holds me a little tighter. “It’s about damn time is all I can say.” He kisses my neck. “I’m so fucking excited. I wish we could do it the second we land.” His eyes narrow. “Do you think we could?”
I laugh. “Bryan would murder us. He and your mom have put so much effort into making tomorrow happen, I think they would both have a nuclear meltdown if we changed a thing.”
“Yeah,” he says, sounding disappointed. “We need to get you to bed anyway. I can probably count on one hand how many hours of sleep you’ve gotten this week.”
My initial response is to tell him to get off my case, but then I feel as though I have fireworks going off in my stomach, and I’m suddenly grateful he cares. “I’ll get to bed as soon as I can.” I shift onto my side, hoping a change in position will help settle my stomach. “Do you think anything will be different?”
He furrows his brow. “What do you mean?”
“We’ve been together for a long time, but over the past year, it’s been different. We’re different. It hasn’t been me and you moving on independent paths that sometimes intersect and overlap. I feel as though for the first time, we truly unified. We’ve faced everything together, side by side. Each obstacle we dodged made us stronger. I’ve never felt so connected with you, and I’m not sure anything could possibly make me feel any closer to you than I do right now. It’s hard to believe we’ll feel much different tomorrow with rings on our fingers than we do now.” I glance at my swollen hands. “Speaking of rings, what if we can’t get my ring on? Dr. Shultz warned me I should stop wearing my rings soon. I would really hate to have to get them cut off.”
Before he can answer, his phone rings. He fishes it out of his pocket then holds the screen so we both can see. “It’s my mom, FaceTime.”
“Oh good, I tried her earlier, but I couldn’t get through.”
While I struggle to sit up, he presses Accept. “Hey, Mom.”
“Do you have any idea how awkward it was having a rehearsal dinner without the bride and groom?” Katie’s scowl tells me just how pissed at us she is.
Bryan’s face fills the screen. “You two are going to be the death of me! I’ve planned three weddings for you! It would be nice if you bothered to show up!”
“We’re coming,” Chase replies. “The pilot says we’ll land around eleven. Can you send someone to pick us up? Is anyone still sober?”
“Eleven!” Bryans screeches at a pitch so high, I’d swear it came from a little girl. “You won’t get here until after midnight! This is not the prom you’re getting ready for—it’s your wedding. You need to be well rested and relaxed! You cannot be relaxed when you don’t show up until fifteen hours before you walk down the aisle.”
The picture on the screen shakes.
“Bryan, honey, I think we need to talk about your caffeine intake,” we hear Charlie say. “You’re officially banned from the coffee maker.” Charlie’s face comes on the screen. “Don’t worry, everything will be fine. You missed a great party though. The food was ah-mazing. Uncle Clay has seriously upped his game. People started buzzing about you not being there, so since we couldn’t tell them what was really going on, we just started telling embarrassing stories about you. I put on the blooper reel from the time Ari hosted SportsCenter. Then we showed the talent show from senior year when Chase and the football squad sang ‘SexyBack.’”
I shove Chase playfully. “You told me no one filmed that! Charlie, you have to let me see it!”
“Oh, just wait,” Charlie says. “It got better. We passed the mic around the room, and… holy shit. My sides still hurt. Spence actually fell out of his chair when Boom told some story about you running across campus wearing nothing but a tutu.”
Scrunching his face as though he’s reliving something painful, Chase pinches his legs together. “No one warned me there would be so much chaffing.”
I burst out laughing. “I’ll have to spend some quality time with Boomer at the wedding. Maybe now that he doesn’t think we’re mortal enemies, he’ll share the good stuff.”
“There was plenty about you too, Ari,” Charlie chimes in. “Stuff even I hadn’t heard about. Two words: Jell-O Pool.”
Chase’s eyebrows shoot up. “Jell-O pool?”
I drop my head in my hands. “I’m going to kill Justine. I thought she wasn’t coming?”
“She lost in the quarterfinals of whatever tournament is going on and asked if she could come at the last minute. I’m so glad she did.” Charlie’s evil smirk tells me Justine spilled a number of tales of my teen years on tour. She doesn’t have a lot of embarrassing stories—my schedule didn’t allow much time for screwing around—but there are a few.
Chase stares at me expectantly. “I’m gonna need some more details, Blondie.”
I shake my head. “No chance. I’m taking it to the grave.”
“Psst,” Charlie says. “Don’t worry. I got the whole thing on tape.”
“Have I told you you’re the best sister a guy could ever have?”
Charlie beams. “Feel free to tell me
as often as you’d like.”
“Seriously though, thanks for holding down the fort. We couldn’t have pulled this off without you,” Chase says.
“Are you kidding? I’ve had so much fun the last few days. Catching up with everyone from Stanford. Hanging out with all the cousins I haven’t seen since my wedding. It’s been a fantastic reunion. I just wish you were here to enjoy it.”
“We’ll be there soon,” I say with a sad smile before disconnecting the call.
“Put the sad face away.”
Avoiding his gaze, I pick up a magazine and absentmindedly flip through the pages without really looking at them. “What? I’m not making a face.”
He rips the magazine from my hand and tosses it on a seat on the other side of the aisle. “Bullshit.” He cranes his neck so his face is next to mine. “Paintball and horseshoes and rehearsal dinners would be fun. But do you know what will be more fun?”
“What?” I mumble.
“Owning the fucking Niners! We made the right decision. If you really want, we can throw another glamping party next year.” He kisses me. “Now show me that beautiful smile. We’re getting married!”
Chapter Fifty
Chase
Pop picks us up at the airport and confirms everything I’ve been telling Ari.
“Owners are a weird bunch. You never know what they’re going to do,” he says. “But like the board of directors of any big conglomerate, those greedy bastards, I mean owners, will care about the bottom line over and above all else. Even their respect for Jeb.”
“It’s bullshit,” I reply. “Jeb was a big part of making the NFL as big as it’s become. He helped line their pockets with more cash than they can spend in a lifetime, and they’re just pissing all over his wishes.”
Pop cranes his neck to glance at us over his shoulder. “You’re right, it’s complete bullshit. I hate to say this, but if Aiden were still alive, God rest his soul, the team would have gone to him as Jeb wanted, and then one day the team would have been Ari’s anyway. The team’s supposed to be hers, it’s fate. They just need to pull their heads out of their asses to see it.”
Love To Love You (Love/Hate #3) Page 43