Sadie, eyeing her best friend’s abrupt excitement, casually asks, “Yeah? What about it?”
“Well, I invited the new hire to come to the barbecue today. I hope that’s okay with you, Niko.”
I glance at her quickly. “Of course it is. It would be good for him to meet the team and get to know us a bit.”
Ellie smirks. “It would be good forherto get to know the team.”
“No shit? The new commentator is a female? Hell yeah! Do you know her?”
Sadie’s voice raises an octave, catching the attention of a few people around us. They move in closer, wanting to know just as badly who she is.
Connor steps in behind me and nods toward the small group of people that’s now gathered around my Blackstone. “What’s with all the excitement?”
I remove some of the food from the grill and set it on the plate in front of him.
“Apparently, the Bobcats hired a new commentator. I think Ellie knows her.”
We both turn our attention back to Ellie as she tells everyone about the new hire. “She’s a few years younger than me but I played against her for one year in college. She’s actually from Green Bay and played at Wisconsin.”
Connor chokes on his drink.
I turn and slap him on the back once. “You good, dude?”
“Yeah, just went down the wrong pipe.”
I don’t believe him for a second. His face is pale and he looks like he’s about to throw up. I’m about to ask him what the hell his problem is but Ellie’s voice catches all of our attention.
“Oh, here she is now!”
Everyone turns their heads at the same time, and I feel bad for the poor woman. I try to peer around everyone’s heads, and that’s when I see her. She looks so fucking familiar. Where do I know her from? And then it hits me.
“Connor, isn’t that the woman you were staring at on your phone after we won game seven?”
The sound of Connor’s beer bottle shattering on the ground causes everyone to turn their attention to him.
I look back to Connor. He and the new hire are locked in a standoff. Everyone looks between them, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
Finally, Connor speaks.
“Avery.”
ONE YEAR LATER
I make my way down to the basement as quietly as I can, hoping to go undetected so I can look in on the girls without them noticing.
As I tiptoe down the steps, the sound of Sadie’s laughter floats up to me and it still has the same effect it did a year ago. My heart rate picks up and my stomach bottoms out.
I still can’t believe she’s mine.
Peeking my head into the window of the yoga studio, I see the two of them in the cat pose position, Princess Sparkle and Kevin climbing on their backs without a care in the world.
Yes, yes, I did finally cave and get my daughter and fiancé—god, I love that word,fiancé—their very own baby goats. Can you guess who named them?
Princess Sparkle tumbles off Sophia, and within a second she’s leaping from the ground in one quick motion, landing on Sophia’s back with ease.
I spend the next five minutes watching my two favorite people attempt to do yoga with their crazy goats.
Shortly after Sadie moved in, I gutted Claire’s oldrecording studio, and with the help of the guys on the team, we transformed it into a yoga studio for Sadie.
