Page 337 of Don’t Say Mafia

Riley scoffed at the nickname, and then her gaze flicked to me, warm and assessing in the way of someone who’d already decided to like you.

Jagger didn’t hesitate. “This is my girlfriend,” he said smoothly, drawing me closer, “Eden.”

Girlfriend.

The word echoed in my head, bigger than it had any right to be. There had been a bigger word once—wife. A ring slipped onto my finger in a small ceremony that felt less like a decision and more like momentum. Ryan had been familiar. Safe in the way small worlds can be safe.

Getting married hadn’t felt romantic so much as inevitable. The next step. The next box to check when you didn’t know there were other boxes.

And somewhere along the way, that word had grown heavy. What once had felt like security had slowly tightened into something that pressed down instead of lifted up.

This—standing here with Jagger’s hand steady at my back while he said girlfriend felt nothing like that. What was wrong with me that it somehow felt a million times more thrilling than being Ryan’s wife ever had?

I swallowed down the guilt suddenly churning in my chest and worked on keeping my face calm so that no one could see the storm that had just moved through me.

Riley’s smile widened. “Eden,” she repeated, like she was tasting the name and liking how it sounded. “Finally.”

Before I could figure out what to say—Hi, nice to meet you, please don’t hate me—she closed the distance in two steps and pulled me into a hug.

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” I murmured, really meaning it.

She pulled away but kept one hand on my arm, squeezing lightly. “Jace has been asking about you every five minutes. He’s down on the field pretending to focus, but trust me—he’s counting the seconds until the game’s over so he can meet you himself.”

I nodded, my nerves flaring all over again. Ryan and I hadn’t grown up with siblings, so the idea of meeting someone’s brother already felt like a milestone. Meeting Jagger’s brother felt like stepping onto a stage when I wasn’t sure about the lines.

“Jace Thatcher, what the hell was that route?!” Natalie screamed. “You saw him coming—get your head around and break that tackle! Don’t let some safety punk you like that! Get up and show him who’s got the speed!”

I glanced down to where number 77, Jace, was on the ground. He pushed himself up, shaking his head like he was clearing stars. Jace’s helmet tilted, and I swear he looked up at our suite, even though there was no way he could hear her.

Natalie dropped back into her seat, breathing hard. “Idiot,” she muttered, but there was affection under the bite. “Always thinks he can outrun the hit. One day he’s gonna learn the hard way.”

“You met Natalie.” Riley smirked, apparently unbothered that Natalie had turned her fury to Jace. “And that’s Casey, Parker Davis’s wife—he’s the quarterback.”

Casey grinned at me. “Welcome to the madness.”

A whistle shrieked across the field, and the crowd shifted in unison, anticipation tightening the air. The ball snapped, and everything moved at once. Jace exploded off the line, cutting across the field in a smooth, aggressive arc. The quarterback launched the ball high, and for a suspended second it seemed to hang against the sky before dropping straight into Jace’s waiting hands.

He caught it, and the stadium detonated. Everyone in the suite shot to their feet as if pulled by the same invisible string. Natalie screamed first, her voice slicing through the roar, while Casey clapped hard, her composure breaking just enough to show how much it meant. Riley laughed and grabbed my arm as she joined in.

Jagger clapped once and put his fist in the air, his grin unmistakable as he watched his brother sprint into the end zone. I found myself clapping, too, laughing without thinking . . . pulled into the energy whether I fully understood what was happening or not.

Natalie leaned over the railing again, triumphant. “That’s how you finish a fucking route!” she shouted.

As if the universe had decided that wasn’t chaotic enough, her phone began buzzing in her hand. She glanced at the screen and, without missing a beat, swiped to answer. “You’re late,” she said, flipping it to FaceTime.

I only half paid attention at first. And then I looked and did a double take so sharp it nearly gave me whiplash.

The face filling her screen was unmistakable—dark hair, devastating jawline, cinematic bone structure that had probably funded at least three production studios. I’d seen that face on billboards. On red carpet highlight reels. On magazine covers in grocery store checkout lines.

Easton Maddox.

The Easton Maddox.

“Did we score?” Easton demanded through the speaker, his voice distorted slightly by the stadium noise.

“Yes,” Natalie said happily. “Because I yelled at them.”

“Breathe,” Riley murmured, patting my shoulder as she clearly clocked the fact that I was seconds away from short-circuiting.