As Fate Would Have It (Capparelli & Co. Book 2)

by Dee Lagasse

  Our friends. Everyone, except Travis, acts like I’ve been a part of the secret circle just as long as everyone else. He’s never a dick to me, and he’s just stopped talking to Cole unless it was necessary, but we certainly won’t be sitting next to each other, drinking beers anytime soon.

  Chase and I have gone to four more Patriots games and a couple New England Revolution games together without Hollis and Cole. Tucker and I catch a beer together after work at least once a week, and Davis and I make sure to stick together when it comes to Kinley and Cole…and sometimes even Helen.

  When the girls do their weekly dinner on Tuesday nights, Davis, Chase, and I always end up playing video games or watching whatever sports event is on TV at Chase’s. Somehow, they, with a little added pressure from Hollis and Cole, convinced me to co-coach the girls’ soccer team with Hollis this spring.

  And it’s a good thing they did. If they hadn’t, there’s no way we would have been able to pull off tonight.

  Sending us both an email, Chase—the athletic director for Abbott High—said the local paper wanted us to get the team together on Sunday for a photo shoot. Under the guise the superintendent had gotten wind the school district had a former professional soccer player and an All-State champion Abbott Hills High alumnus coaching together and wanted to gain some momentum before the season, we both agreed. I knew the entire time it was just a scheme to get Hollis to the field, which made it easy for me to get the team involved, making sure to send an email of my own after Hollis sent one out to the entire roster.

  And let me tell you, getting fifteen teenaged girls to all keep a secret? Not the easiest thing in the world. But, they did. And they all showed up today.

  Every member of the team, the entire Capparelli family—including Hollis’ ninety-year-old grandparents who refuse to let me call them anything other than Nonna and Nonno—Chase’s mom, a few people from The Wolf – the radio station Hollis works at, and of course, our friends are all here.

  While we wait for Chase to show up, Kinley, even at seven months pregnant, is completely running the show. This morning while we were all over at Nonna and Nonno’s house decorating for the party after, she was barking out orders like a very pregnant Napoleon Bonaparte. How she’s still going full steam is beyond my comprehension.

  Bouncing around on photographer detail, Cole makes runs to the parking lot at the sound of Chase’s truck. At his arrival, we know we only have minutes left until Hollis is pulling in behind him.

  “Everyone in your places!” Kinley yells as Chase walks onto the field. Making his way right to where his mom, Hollis’ father, and grandparents are standing, he nods and waves to everyone as he passes by.

  After they’ve said their hellos, he looks around with a forced, tight-lipped smile until he sees me, Tucker, Davis, and Travis standing off to the side we were instructed to stay on by Kinley. Letting out a breath, he opens his arms wide.

  “What up!” he says when he makes his way over to us, making his way down the line of us to shake our hands.

  “How you doin’, man?” I ask as he clasps his hand in mine.

  “Honestly, man?” he laughs when I see the text I’ve been waiting for. “I’m terrified.”

  COLE: Hurricane Hollis has touched ground. I repeat, Hurricane Hollis has touched ground.

  Laughing out loud, I turn my phone to show Chase the text from Cole and he nods, making his way to the middle of the group of people. Kinley hands him a microphone and then makes her way over to where Ellis and Ellis’ sister Elisabeth are standing.

  Before we even see her, Hollis is yelling at all of us from the parking lot.

  “What is going on? Somebody better tell me what’s going on.”

  When she gets to Cole, my beautiful Cole, she’s throwing her hands up in the air. Coming in headstrong and ready for answers, I finally understand why Chase calls her Hurricane Hollis.

  She doesn’t bother stopping at anyone on the way, beelining right to Chase. Before she can get to him, he pulls the microphone up to his mouth and his voice begins to carry through the P.A. system.

  “I know you want an explanation, so before you come over here demanding one, let me give it to you,” Chase starts off, holding the microphone. “Well, let me explain that I’m doing this whole thing with a mic because Nonna told me if she couldn’t hear me, she’d design me some cement shoes. I know it was supposed to be a mafia joke, but she still scares me.”

  The sound of everyone’s laughter fills the field when Nonna shrugs.

  “Not too many people, okay, that’s a lie, everyone who knows us, knows we loved each other long before we got together. But no one, not even you, knows the moment I knew I loved you. We were right here, pretty much right at this exact spot. I had just scored the game-winning touchdown and we were state champions. As soon as the buzzer ended the fourth quarter, the field flooded with people. I was surrounded within seconds. But there was only one face I was looking for,” he says, turning his attention to his mother. “Sorry Mom.”

  Misha Merrimack answers him by wiping the tears streaming down her face and then waving him off.

  “Then I heard you. All five foot nothing of you, pushing your way through an entire high school football team and coaching staff. It was like Moses parting the Red Sea, grown men, double your size were getting out of your way. You had a running start and jumped in my arms and whispered, ‘I’m so proud of you’ with tears rolling down your face. That’s when I knew, Hol. I knew there would never be a moment that compared to having you in my arms. I knew that making you proud of me was what mattered the most. And while we certainly took the long road to get here, I promise, if you’ll let me, I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make you proud.”

  By the sound of her gasp on the microphone, I’m going to assume Chase just went down on one knee. I’m sure that I’m the only one on the field that doesn’t have my eyes on the two of them. After all, they’re the reason we’re all here.

  The words Chase is saying has my attention, but I’m zeroed in on the cute blonde trying to hang back enough to give Chase and Hollis their space but be close enough to take pictures.

  I wonder what our day will be like. Will we be surrounded by our friends and family? Or will it be just the two of us?

  When I realize the thoughts that are running through my head, I freeze internally. Hell, I haven’t even told her I love her yet. I mean, I do. There’s no question about that, but I haven’t found the nerve to tell her yet.

  “I love you. I love everything about you. Even your last name. But I’d love it even more if you had mine. Hollis Grace Capparelli, will you marry me?” Chase asks, his voice shaking.

  The silence on the field is deafening. Pulling my attention away from Cole, sure enough, Chase is down on one knee. Hollis is covering her mouth in shock.

  “Did you ask my daddy?” Hollis’s voice is caught quietly on the microphone, looking over to Lorenzo for confirmation.

  This time it’s Hollis that sends the crowd into a bout of laughter.

  “I did,” Chase chuckles. “And Davis and Nonno, too.”

  “Then, yes. Oh my God. Yes, I will marry you.”

  The thud of the mic crashing to the turf below when Hollis jumps into Chase’s arms echoes throughout the field, though it’s muffled by the excited cheers and applause from everyone. With that, the soccer team bends down, picking up the poster board that had been on the ground in front of them the whole time.

  “COACH SAID YES!”

  After catching a few more pictures, Cole makes her way over to our little group.

  “That was so perfect!” she squeals, her eyes swollen and her cheeks damp from happy tears.

  “It was like something out of a movie,” Tucker agrees, looking over at his brother and his future sister-in-law.

  “I knew Zia would say yes,” his daughter Lola adds, referring to Hollis.

  Grabbing my arm, Cole nudges me over to the team.

  “C’mon, Coach Callaghan
. Let’s get a few pictures of you with your first team.”

  After thanking each member of the soccer team for keeping the secret and giving up their Sunday afternoon, Cole snaps a few pictures. As we’re walking away, she turns the camera around on us, snapping the shot without warning.

  “Oh, come on,” I groan. “If you’re going to take a picture, you need to let a guy know.”

  “Okay fineeeeee,” she concedes. “I’m about to take a picture, Paxton.”

  Turning, I quickly pull her face to mine, leaving a long, slow kiss on her bright pink lips. When I pull away, the hand holding the camera is down by her side.

  “Whoa,” she says at my display of affection. “What was that for?”

  “Just because I love you.”

  It came out so effortlessly…and completely on accident.

  “What did you just say?” she whispers, looking up to me for confirmation.

  “I said I love you,” I answer, knowing there’s no going back now.

  “You do?” she questions, as if it was possible for me to tell her I was lying.

  “With every fiber of my being,” I confirm as tears slide down her cheeks.

  “I do too,” she says, her body shaking in my arms. If I hadn’t been right next to her, I wouldn’t have even heard her. “Love you, I mean. I love you too.”

  Just like the first time I kissed her, I wrap my hands under her jaw, leaving the pads of my thumbs on her cheek. Pulling Cole to me, I press my lips to hers. Not wanting to draw attention to us during Chase and Hollis’s moment, I pull away a lot sooner than I’d like to.

  “Think we can stop at home before the party?” I ask, wanting to celebrate the moment properly…Preferably with significantly less clothing.

  “If we go now.” She smiles as if she knows my cock just twitched inside my pants.

  Grabbing my hand, she leads us off the field, telling everyone that asks that she just wants to go home and change before heading to the engagement party at Hollis’s grandparents’ house.

  Unlocking my car, I open the door for Cole, letting her in before sprinting over to the driver’s side door. The second I hear the click of her seatbelt, I shift into reverse. Pulling out of the parking lot, I’m almost tempted to speed the five miles to our apartment, but I’ve been doing everything I can to avoid getting pulled over by Travis. Even though I know he’s still behind at the field, I’m not taking any chances.

  After sitting at the longest red light in the history of all red lights, I pull into our apartment complex. Douglas, the weekend daytime gate attendant, waves us in, raising the gate without stepping out of the attendant’s booth. Whipping my car into a spot, I cut the engine and all but jump out of my seat.

  Unlocking and holding the main door to the building for her, Cole stops for a kiss before she starts running up the stairs. A trail of her laughter echoes in the hallway ahead of me as I run to catch up to her. Almost running into her when I find her back to me, at the top of the steps, frozen in place.

  “Babe?” I question when I see the mix of confusion and concern written across her face.

  Following her line of sight, I find a very pregnant redhead sitting on the floor in front of the door to my apartment.

  “Alyssa?”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Cole

  Alyssa.

  That’s the name that left Pax’s lips, a name that he had only spoken of with anger and resentment. But today? The way he said her name with such concern made my stomach flip. When he crouched down to the floor to help her get to her feet, the worry on his face caused my knees to buckle.

  “I’m going to let you two handle this,” I say, motioning to the two of them. “Whatever this is.”

  He tried to stop me. The last thing I heard before I shut the door of my apartment was my name, said in the same exact tone he had just used on another woman. And for forty-five minutes, I sat in anxious agony, waiting.

  When my phone rang, his annoying handsome face coming up on the screen, I expected him to tell me he was ready to go. Instead, I swear my heart stopped when he told me he was going to bring Alyssa down to Nashua because “she was in no condition to drive home.”

  “I’ll be back in two hours max,” he said. “I’m sorry, Cole. Obviously don’t wait for me to go to the party. I’ll meet you there.”

  And then, he lied to me.

  Then, he told me he loved me.

  Because he didn’t meet me there. I lied to all our friends, telling them he had a “family emergency.” Which left everyone worried for him instead of me. He wasn’t back at the apartment by the time I cried myself to sleep almost nine hours after he left. He wasn’t there at four in the morning when I screamed, waking up Ellis from her room and Travis on the couch. Not expecting to find a man snoring in my living room when I peeked out the window looking for Pax’s car.

  He wasn’t there when I went over to my sister’s still in my pajamas at seven.

  He wasn’t there. He lied to me. Just like he did when he told me he loved me.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Pax

  I should have known.

  I should have known everything would go wrong. From the second I saw Cole’s face, I should have known.

  Before I even had a chance to find out why my very pregnant ex-girlfriend was sitting in front of the door to my apartment, Cole shut the door on my face. Had I followed my gut, I would have called Alyssa’s brother, told him where she was, and immediately given my attention back to Cole.

  But I’m a glutton for punishment. So, like a fucking idiot, I asked Alyssa why she was here, how she even got past the gate attendant and into the locked building. Furthering my stupidity, before she answered any of it, I let her in my apartment when she asked if she could use the bathroom.

  When she came out, she sat on my couch, patting the open spot next to her like we were old friends about to have a heart-to-heart.

  “Just tell me what you’re doing here, Alyssa. I have places to be,” I sighed, standing on the other side of the coffee table.

  “The baby might not be Tyson’s,” she said. “He found out last night that I slept with Derek Waters, too. Derek figured out how far along I am and wants a paternity test done to make sure the baby isn’t his.”

  “I don’t understand what any of that has to do with me, Alyssa. It’s been eight months since we broke up. You’re about to have someone’s, someone that isn’t me, baby. What the hell did you think coming here would accomplish?” I question, getting more irritated by her presence by the second. “You need to go, Alyssa. I need to go.”

  Suddenly she clutches her stomach, her face twisting in pain.

  “Will you drive me home?” she asks, looking up at me pitifully. “I keep getting these Braxton Hicks contractions and I’m afraid I’m going to have one while driving. That’s why I was sitting in front of your door. They kept coming.”

  And that is when I wished I had it in me to be an asshole. That I wished I could look a nine-months pregnant woman in the eyes and tell her that her Braxton Hicks contractions weren’t my problem. But, I couldn’t. I didn’t.

  Instead, I called Cole, praying to God that she would understand, and told her that I would meet her at Hollis and Chase’s engagement party in a couple hours.

  I should have known.

  I should have known by the sound of the phone disconnecting after I said “I love you” without any response in return I was making a mistake.

  If I believed in signs, I would have left the car in park when “Bad Moon Rising” by Creedence Clearwater Revival played through the speakers after I turned the key in the ignition. The universal warning about trouble on the way and bad times today should have been a flashing red light. But I don’t, so, I didn’t.

  On the way back to Nashua, Alyssa revealed she told the gate attendant her name was Kennedy because she assumed my sister would be on my visitor’s list, and that she managed to get in the building when someone held the door open f
or her.

  “How did you know where I lived though?” I asked.

  I hadn’t told any of our mutual friends my address. Every time I got together with any of them, it was always in Nashua or around there for someone’s birthday. No one has ever come up here aside from my family, and my sisters would never have given Alyssa my address.

  “I did a reverse image search on one of the pictures your girlfriend posted on Instagram a little while back and then I saw your last name on the tab by the buzzer for your apartment,” she laughed. “I wanted to know where you ended up.”

  “You realize that’s a little crazy, right?” I said, making a mental note to tell the office she isn’t Kennedy and she isn’t welcome. “Creeping on Cole’s Instagram, the whole reverse image search, coming up here…the whole thing is crazy, Alyssa.”

  “I’m just going to blame the hormone imbalance.” She shrugs. “I needed someone I knew I could count on. You’ve always been that person for me.”

  “I was that person for you,” I reminded her. “Past tense. You gave that up when you decided to cheat on me with my best friend and apparently other guys too.”

  “So, this girlfriend of yours. Do you love her?”

  Before I can get a chance to tell her I love Cole more than anything, smoke comes billowing out of the hood of my car. Being more concerned with getting Alyssa back home and getting myself back to Abbott Hills, I hadn’t noticed it overheating. Pulling off to the side of the highway, I pop the hood, a sweet burning smell hitting me right away.

  Right ahead of us was the sign letting drivers know “Exit 7. Nashua Amherst. 1 Mile.”

  One. That’s how many miles between my car and the exit I needed to take to bring Alyssa home. That’s also how much percent I had on my phone. Searching for my car charger, I curse under my breath when I remember I left it in Cole’s car yesterday.