“So, you don’t want to marry my daughter?”
“Well, yeah,” I backpedal, “of course, but I’m not sure?—”
“That she is the one?” Viktor keeps putting words in my mouth.
“No.” I hold up my hand. “I love your daughter, more than anything.” I look at her. “And when I feel the time is right, I will ask her to be my wife. Honestly, I would take her now.” She gasps. “But I know she’s not ready for that, so we’ll have to settle with her living with me because that’s what she is willing to give me.”
“Did you hear him?” Zoe asks Viktor who turns to her. “The whole time he spoke, it wasn’t about him; it was about Lexi and what she wanted.” She turns to smile at me. “You’re a good one, Kirby.”
“Pfft.” Viktor rolls his eyes. “A good one would have asked her father if it was okay.”
“Didn’t Zara get pregnant with the twins and you hadn’t even met Gabriel?” she mentions her sister.
“We met him,” Viktor retorts. “Besides, we are not talking about your sister right now.” He looks at Lexi. “We are talking about you and your choices.” His voice goes higher.
“Okay.” I hold up my hands. “Respectfully,” I say to him, “let’s bring the tone down a bit.”
I’m expecting Lexi to tell me not to talk to her father like that. “Yeah, respectfully,” she repeats.
“Watch your tone,” Zoe says to him. “Now, sit down because our daughter obviously has something she wants to tell us, or she wouldn’t have invited us here.”
She starts to move to the couch and then stops. “Oh my God, are you pregnant?” She looks at Lexi.
“No,” she says at the same time I mumble, “I wish.
“What?” I say, throwing my hands up. “How cool would that be, us having a baby?” I ask her and she bites down and her jaw gets tight. I’ve thought about it each and every single time I’ve seen her with Jagger. I lean in and whisper in her ear, “Seeing you pregnant with my baby turns me on like never before.” I move away from her ear seeing her cheeks getting pink. “Not now, but if it happens,” I say loudly.
“Can we move in with each other first?” Lexi says to me, walking over to the couch. “Anyway, that is not why I called you here, and I didn’t call you here to discuss where I’m going to live either. The reason I called you here is because I signed my divorce papers officially today.” She sits and her mother claps her hands together in celebration. “And with that, I got the house I hate and the apartment he used to have affairs in.” Viktor looks to the ceiling and I’m sure he is holding on by a string, especially when he was told he wasn’t allowed to go there and break his neck. “Anyway,” she continues and he looks back at her. “I’ve obviously decided to sell both of those, along with my wedding ring and engagement ring. And with the profits, I’m going to use half of the money to open a women’s shelter for battered and abused women in Arizona.” She stuns us all. “The other half will go to the children’s cancer unit. Since Kirby and I will be living there in the off-season and then once he retires. It made the most sense.”
“Wait a second.” I hold up my hand. “Who says we are going to be living there? You hate it there.”
“I don’t hate it there. I hated being there because it felt like it was my prison, but you have your house there and Kylie says you love it there.” She shrugs. “So I want to go back there, with you.”
“We don’t have to do that.” I put my hand on her knee. “We can do that anywhere. As long as you’re there, I don’t care where we live.”
“Good,” she says. “I feel the same. I spoke with Cheryl, who is going to help run the shelter for me when I’m not there, and then I’m hoping to take a more active role once big man over here hangs up his skates.”
“Shouldn’t you keep some of that money for you, just in case?” Zoe asks and she shakes her head.
“I have everything I need. I’m going to keep this house and rent it out,” she tells them. “Plus, I get alimony, which I plan to use to start building my real estate portfolio.” Which again shocks me since she never spoke to me about it. She gets up. “Now, I have to continue packing since the movers will be here tomorrow morning, and we have a dinner thing tonight with Kirby and a couple of his teammates.”
“Well, what can we do to help?” Zoe asks, getting up, and the four of us work side by side to pack up her house. It doesn’t take long since she is only bringing her clothes and a few special mementos.
When we walk out of her house, she hugs her parents and we make plans to get dinner tomorrow after my game. I pull into the garage and look over at her smiling. “Welcome home, officially.” I kiss her lips and then slip my hand in hers and pull her into the house. The lights are off, and then when she walks into the living room, I hear the roar of “Surprise!” fill the house.
She takes a step back, not sure what is going on, and I step in behind her. “Surprise, baby,” I whisper in her ear and look around to see that Sofia did not fuck around.
“What is this?” She has her hands over her mouth as she looks around.
“It’s your divorce party.” Kylie rushes up to her first. “The brute over here”—she points to me—“had me write the words ‘not’ on the ‘single and ready to mingle’ napkins.” She moves out of the way as her aunt Zara and uncle Evan come up to her to give her a hug. Matthew and Max are next, with their wives, Karrie and Allison.
Then she sees her sister, Zara, and she bends her knees and looks like she’s going to sit on the floor. “You didn’t think I’d miss this party, did you?” She picks her up from the floor. “Come on, let’s get you changed.”
“I need a hug,” she hears from the side, and when she turns her head, she sees Matty there, and that is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. She literally sobs in his arms as he whispers something in her ear and she nods her head. “I’m here until eleven and then I have to get on a flight to head back home.”
“You came,” she croaks out when she lets him go, “all this way for me.”
“Lexi.” He looks at her. “I would scale Everest for you.” Then he looks at me. “After him, that is.”
