“You’re all invited to our official housewarming next weekend.”
“Our?” Right fielder, Nathaniel Wu, asked.
Soren smiled smugly. “Clarke finally agreed to move in with me.”
Childish “ooohs” and kissing noises broke out throughout the locker room. Soren didn’t seem to mind. He knew that we were only teasing; we all loved his girl.
Hell, it wasn’t every day that a group of grown ass men stayed up all night re-stitching the name on the back of their teammate’s jersey, just so he could declare his love in a very public and slightly embarrassing grand gesture.
Like the ones in Nessa’s books.
The ones she didn’t know I read . . . and loved.
She didn’t know that the age gap romance I had picked up in her shop months ago had only been the beginning of my erotic education. She didn’t know that I had a growing stack of paperbacks on my nightstand—all of which had also been purchased from her store’s website under a different name—as well as another dozen or so on the e-reader I kept in my travel bag.
Shedefinitelydidn’t know that I was already three hundred pages deep in the romantasy book I’d snatched off the douche at the bar last week. I’d torn through the first half of that Shrek-fucking fantasy during the flight back from Dallas.
It was official: I was a bona fide—more like boner fide—romance reader. I had read more novels in the past three months than I had in the last three years, and it was all thanks to her.
Even if she didn’t know it.
“Next Sunday, three o’clock. And the theme is B.Y.O.B.”
“You’re too cheap to spring for the drinks now?” Bennett taunted.
“B.Y.O.B.,” Soren repeated. “Bring your own board. Like a charcuterie board, a pizza board, veggie board—”
“Dibs on potato board!” I shouted.
I’d never met a French fry I couldn’t fuck with.
“Does this mean my gourmet kitchen is ready?” Wes asked. Wesley Nuñez, our center fielder, was one hell of a gourmet chef.He had been itching—demanding, really—to get his hands wet in Soren’s freshly renovated kitchen.
“Yes, chef.”
“Órale!” Wes exclaimed, smacking his hands together.
While the rest of the guys brainstormed ideas for their boards, I stepped to the side with my captain.
“So, domestic bliss, huh?” I asked him.
“It’s pretty great. You should try it sometime.”
I gasped, feigning outrage. “What am I, a child bride?”
“No, just a child.”
His sickly-sweet smile told me everything I needed to know. He was a man in love. I couldn’t believe I’d ever doubted his intentions with Clarke. She was clearly the light of his life, the answer he’d been searching for—even if he hadn’t known it.
“So, who else is invited to your little shindig?”
The knowing glint in his eyes told me he knew exactly what—or rather, who—I was fishing for.
“Just ask.”
“Ask what?”
“Ask ifshe’llbe there.”
