I take my attention away from Jax to look out onto the field. Jamie has the ball, and he’s able to run straight through the middle at the twenty yard line, right into the end zone for a touchdown.
“You guys gotta watch the replay,” Dominic says. “That was amazing. Dude has phenomenal footwork.”
I look up to the large screen in the corner, listening as the analysts dissect the play. “Wahlberg is typically a passer. Look where the wide receiver is here,” a player is circled in red, “and the running back here,” another circled in blue. “He drops back, fakes to the running back, but Diamante on the Tigers read the play, running perfectly with the wide receiver so Wahlberg can’t throw. A window opened up and he took off. Now look at his face when he gets into the end zone.” The camera zooms in on Jamie, with a massive grin on his face. “He may not be known for running the ball, and he’s currently one of the oldest quarterbacks in the league, but Jameson Wahlberg just proved why he’s an MVP candidate year after year.”
I then notice Jamie looking up, over the crowd, and run to the window. I see his grin from here, and he points to me, then makes a heart with his hands, and points to me again. Jax chuckles beside me. “Never thought I’d see the day when he’d be as gone for a woman as I am for my wife. But damn, it’s good to see it happen.”
Jamie
Four years later
“It’s your fortieth birthday. It’s monumental,” Audrey says. “We should do something special.”
“You know birthdays have never been a big thing to me. Well, except for his,” I say tenderly, looking down at my two-year-old son, currently building an elaborate tower of magnetic blocks on the floor of our kitchen.
I didn’t know what happiness was until Audrey walked into my life, and the bliss I feel being a dad is indescribable. Brooks Jameson Wahlberg was born almost two years to the day from when I met Audrey.
“What if,” Audrey says softly as she sits in my lap, “I were to tell you a secret?”
I rest my hand on her very swollen belly, full of our daughter. “A secret? Is this a secret you think I’ll be happy about, mad about, or one you feel I need to prepare myself for?”
“A little of all three, I think,” she says with a nervous giggle. “Maddox and the O-Line are planning a surprise birthday party for you, and they asked me to get you to pick out a restaurant for it. Then they’d do the rest.”
“Baby,” I sigh. “My birthday is too close to your due date. I don’t want to risk something happening to you.”
“I figured you’d say as much, which is why I have compiled a list of suitable restaurants we both like that are within five minutes of the birthing center.”
I stare at her incredulously, then throw my head back in raucous laughter. “I will never not be surprised by how well you know me.”
“That’s my job as your wife,” she replies.
I proposed to Audrey one year after we met, at the exact restaurant. In the same booth. With the same server. Was it the most romantic proposal out there? No. But it was poignant and so special to us. I proposed with a simple three carat solitaire ring, because I knew Audrey’s tastes. She’d never want something outlandish or blingy. She attaches moments to physical things, and she finds joy in small details. A diamond the size of her knuckle would overstimulate her, and a band with tiny diamonds would scratch her skin. So the simple diamond on a thin platinum band was perfect.
We had a small ceremony in our home, with only a handful of friends in attendance. Flash was our flower girl, and the five guinea pigs were ring bearers. Weird? Maybe. But very much us. We did invite my dad, but he’d been unable to attend. We did not invite anyone from Audrey’s family. They were furious when she ‘purchased’ me at the auction, saying she shouldn’t have access to the one hundred thousand she bid on me. Audrey very firmlytold them to fuck off, and reminded them that her trust was hers to do with as she pleased. Since I wasn’t actually up for auction, I said she didn’t have to pay, but she vehemently argued that it was the best thing she’d ever purchased, and the money went to a good cause anyway.
I can’t fault that reasoning, especially when I know I’d have dropped well over a million if the roles were reversed.
We’ve run into the Carringtons a couple of times in the last four years, but my beautiful wife walks past them with her head held high. She doesn’t give them the time of day, and it makes me so proud of her. There have been rumblings that her father may have tried to blackmail an elected official in Douglas County, but no arrests have been made.
I meant what I said about the Carrington family business. I pushed them out, then broke apart the business, piece by piece. I interviewed every single employee personally, finding suitable jobs for them at a variety of other businesses I own. In the end, fewer than fifteen employees were furloughed without a new job. All of those individuals were tied to the Carrington family by blood or marriage, and none of them deserved the jobs they had. I fucking hate nepotism.
Audrey’s sister, Paige, was divorced by her husband a year ago. It turns out he wasn’t having affairsallthe time. He was working nonstop to pay for all of her expenses. He knew she was sleeping with more than one man, though, and he strategized his divorce to coincide with the demise of REC. He immediately married the woman he got pregnant, telling Paige he’d wanted to be a father more than he wanted her family’s connections. Audrey’s brother, Preston, was arrested for trying to orchestrate a Ponzi scheme, which was absurd because the dumbass had zero experience with investments. He’d basically been told his entire life that he was God’s gift to business and real estate, so he thought he could get away with anything. As soon as REC wasunder my control, everyone in the commercial real estate world began to recognize the Carrington family for what they were. Preston was dead in the water before he even stuck his toe in the tide.
A few weeks after Audrey and I got back together, I called my mom. She was in the end stages of her cancer fight. Breast cancer had metastasized into her lungs, kidneys, and spine. She apologized for all the things she’d done, admitting she had lived vicariously through me in high school and college. She’d gotten divorced again, and remarried a man from Portland. They lived a modest life up until her death, only days after we spoke.
I struggled with my decision to call instead of visiting her, but Audrey wisely reminded me that I’d been so used to being disrespected by my mother. She never honored my very clear boundaries. I didn’t owe her anything during the final days of her life just because she was dying. It may seem cruel, but it was what I needed to hear. I spent my childhood dealing with toxicity from her, and when I finally went no-contact, I had an immediate sense of relief. Throughout those years, my mother didn’t love me for me. She loved me for what I could do for her. Hearing her apologize was closure that I needed, and I was able to move on without any guilt.
“Daddy.”
I look down at my son, with his cherubic face and eyes the exact shade of his mother’s, and smile. “Yes, Brooks?”
“Bay boot ball today?”
I chuckle. “No, I’m not playing football today. We played Thursday night. Remember?”
“Bay boot ball.” I will honestly be sad when he figures out how to pronounce sounds correctly, because ‘bay boot ball’ sounds so much better than ‘play football.’
“Okay, I’ve picked a restaurant,” Audrey says, putting her phone down on the counter. “I figured you weren’t going to settle on one, so I chose what I’m craving most.”
