Happily Ever All-Star: A Secret Baby Romance - Sosie Frost Page 0,289

didn’t exist. Prince Charming only showed off his tight-end, he didn’t play one on the field.

For three days, I had been a part of Lachlan’s world. Now I was back in mine.

And no magic spell, wish from a magic bottle, or shooting star would bring us together again.

2

Lachlan

“Look, I’m telling you guys, she was real.”

The team didn’t believe me. Hell, I didn’t believe me.

What kind of mystery woman roamed the streets, rescuing men from speeding cars and then flittering off into oblivion? If that wasn’t hard enough to imagine, I still remembered flashes of her—some beautiful princess straddling my hips and whispering my name.

I had wet dreams that weren’t as exciting as that.

I leaned against the goal post, banging my head against the padding. It still hurt from where my skull tried to imbed itself in the pavement yesterday, but the training staffed played nice and loose with their assessments. After a couple Ibuprofen and a trip to the locker room, I was cleared to practice faster than I could say concussion.

And I wasn’t about to miss a single day of training camp.

Every camera, media outlet, coach, player, and fan waited to see the magic I would cast over the offense. I’d give them what they wanted—a little song, little dance, some gratuitous stretching in my pads as I suited up for my first official practice with the Rivets. Plus, I looked damn good in the gold and black uniform.

Or I had looked good, before the team dressed me in copious amounts of ankle tape. Amusingly, the tape was everywhere but my ankles. It’d be a bitch to peel off my arms, but I wasn’t about to complain to the handful of offensive linemen, diligently working to ensnare me. No need for them to offer me a full-body wax as well.

I’d only ever done that once.

No amount of sex was worth polishing the boys with molten sugar.

Well…it depended on the girl.

And the sex.

Though it had felt pretty nice in silk boxers. I wasn’t too classy of a guy—no monocle or top hat—but a velvet-soft manscaping felt like the chivalrous thing to do for a lady willing to gargle my bits.

But I wasn’t giving them any ideas. Jack Play-Maker Carson had another nickname—Trouble-Maker. Yeah, he was reformed. Yeah, his new son had tamed him a bit. But I’d be damned if I trusted that man with a roll of tape in his hand, half of the offensive line at his disposal, and me as the only rookie in a three-hundred-foot radius.

It paid to be cautious.

“Men…” Jack tossed another roll of tape to Caleb, his right guard. “Proceed. Let’s make sure his head stays on nice and tight. He nearly shattered his skull yesterday.”

“You gotta believe me, Jack…” I pinned my elbows to my sides and let them mummify me. At least it wasn’t superglue. Not sure what I expected, but I hoped for a little more originality with their hazing. This was the pros after all. “She was real. She came out of nowhere and saved my life. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

Orlando, Jack’s left guard, was too familiar with this particular style of bondage. He snickered and stretched the tape tighter across my chest.

“How cute was she?” he asked.

“I’m willing to go stand in traffic to find her again.”

Jack was impressed. “Nice eyes?”

“Color of melted caramel.”

“Curvy?” he asked.

“In all the right places.”

“Dark?”

“Toasted hazelnut.”

“Strong as an ox too.” Caleb taped me up vertically and horizontally, just for some added structural support. “She tackled Wonder-Boy here.”

The nickname was Charming, but I wasn’t correcting any veteran on the team. I already owed Caleb a bagel every morning before we stepped onto the field. No sense making his order any more complicated.

“She had legs to her chin,” I said. “The most perfect pair of legs you’ve ever seen. Would have thought they were created by goddamned magic.”

They ran out of tape, but Jack was prepared. He whistled to summon Cole Hawthorne—not the beast I would ever trust with a good, old-fashioned hazing.

Cole didn’t play well with others, but his new wife was my agent. I got to see a completely different side of Cole when our strategy meetings transformed into play dates with her toddler. Cole marauded the field as a two-hundred-and-eighty-pound rabid beast. But at home? He was a perfect teddy-bear for Piper’s two-year-old daughter.

Jack ripped a piece of tape from the new roll and directed the offensive line to wrap my knees. He crossed his arms, surveying the work.

“So she