The Endgame Is You (Rixon Raiders #4) - L A Cotton Page 0,76
thrust the handful of balloons at the first person I saw and scooped up the birthday girl. “Are you enjoying your party?”
“Yes,” she shrieked with glee. “I am free.”
“Three, you’re three, Lily.”
“She’s a handful, is what she is.” Fee came over with our youngest, Poppy, asleep in her arms, and leaned in kissing Lily, and then my cheek. “Thank you.”
“Anything for the birthday girls. This place is crazy.” I eyed my wife discreetly. Three-year old's were cunning things, wily and intuitive. Cam kept telling me it was a girl thing, which meant I was shit out of luck since I had two daughters. At least he had Xander and Avery to balance things out.
Lucky fucker.
Guilt flashed through me. Cameron was lucky. He had a beautiful family, but it had come at a steep price. Three years after his mom had died, Clarke, his dad, had been killed in a traffic accident. He and my sister had become Xander’s guardians after that, their family of three turning into four. Then Hailee found out she was pregnant again. Now they had their hands full trying to raise a teenager, a six-year-old, and a three-year-old.
But they made it look easy. Hailee loved being a mom and Cameron was so good with the kids, I was a tad jealous.
“There’s my beautiful niece.” Hailee approached us. “Where’s my cuddle, Lil?”
“Auntie Ailee.” Lily reached for my sister and I let her go.
“Where’s Cam and Ash?” I asked her, hooking my arm around Fee’s waist.
“The last time I saw Asher, he was trying to wrestle the twins upstairs for a diaper change.”
“That I would pay to see.”
“Babe,” Fee warned, pressing her hand to my stomach. “He’s trying his best. But twins are…” She shuddered.
“Yeah, I can’t even imagine.”
“Good, because I’m done. Two is more than enough for us.” She grinned up at me and I captured her lips in a kiss.
“I’m going to find the men.” In my experience, you needed to stick together at these things, otherwise the little monsters would divide and conquer.
I found Cameron hiding in Hailee’s studio. Ashleigh was asleep on his shoulder. “Hey,” I whispered. “Too much for the birthday girl?”
Lily and Ashleigh were born only days apart, so we usually celebrated together.
“She just crashed like ten minutes ago. I don’t want to disturb her.”
“It’s crazy out there.”
“It’s life.” He took a long pull on his beer. “I can’t believe they’re three already.” He gazed at his daughter.
“How did we end up here, man?”
“End up where?” Asher joined us.
“Here in a house full of screaming kids.”
“Don’t look at me,” he said, perching against the sideboard. “I don’t even know what day it is right now.”
“You should just come home,” Cam suggested. “Move back to Rixon and let your folks help out with the twins.”
“We’re thinking about it.”
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Yeah. Mya’s aunt is sick, and she wants to be closer to her. But we’ve got to think of the kids.”
Mya and Asher had fostered six kids over the last few years. I didn’t know how they did it, but they made it work.
“You can still foster in Rixon.”
“We can, but you know how Mya feels about being in the city.”
“It would be good to have you both back, the kids can grow up together…”
“Fuck, can you imagine?” I liked to live in denial about having daughters… daughters who would one day become teenage girls.
“Do you ever think it’s karma for all the bad shit we did back in the day?” My eyes went to my niece still sleeping soundly on her daddy’s shoulder.
“Karma?” Cam chuckled. “You think having daughters is karma?”
“I’m not ready for it.”
“For what?”
“School…” My jaw clenched. “All those little punks thinking they can—”
“Jase, they’re three.”
“Yeah, and one day they’ll be seventeen thinking they can tame the bad boy.”
“You’ve really given this a lot of thought, haven’t you?” Asher smirked, and I flipped him off.
“You’re telling me you haven’t thought about it? Remember what we were like in high school? What Hailee, Mya, and Fee were like.” I glared at both of them and realization slowly dawned on their expressions.
“We’re fucked,” Cam said.
“Totally fucked.” Asher ran a hand down his face.
“Welcome to my world,” I grumbled.
There had once been a time I’d thought football was everything… but football was the dream. This right here, this was the life.
It was everything.
Every-fucking-thing.
The End.
Stay tuned for a new generation of Rixon Raiders, coming early 2021. Pre-order Lily Ford’s book now
It feels like it’s the end of an era… except, the next generation are coming!!!
Originally, when I planned this series, I planned three books. But a wonderful thing happened, readers wanted more. More Cam and Hailee, more Jase and Flick, more Asher and Mya… The Endgame Is You was only supposed to be a short peek into their futures (and an opportunity to introduce their children), but it became so much more. I fell hopelessly back into their world, and I’ll be honest, I’m a little sad it had to end.
But when one door closes, another opens. And I hope you’ll stick around to read about Lily, Poppy, Ashleigh, Sofia, and Aaron.
Thank you for loving these characters, for embracing their stories, and for wanting more.
As always, it takes a village to publish a book, and this one is no different.
Huge thanks to my whole team (editor, alpha and beta readers, my authors pals, my proofreaders, audio narrators, and foreign publishers). I feel blessed to work with such incredible people. But just a few quick special mentions…
Andie, you rock my socks! I gave you a crazy deadline and you STILL managed to get it back to me before the final hour… there really aren’t enough thank yous!
Nina, you’ve been with this series from the beginning and I’m so grateful. I hope I did your boys justice.
To my beta readers: Annissia, Heather, and Cassie, thank you for reading the story as I wrote it and for all your helpful feedback!
And to every single reader, blogger, and bookstagrammer who has supported this story – I get to do this job because of you. So thank you!
Until next time,
L A xo
ANGSTY. EDGY. ADDICTIVE ROMANCE
Author of mature young adult and new adult novels, L A is happiest writing the kind of books she loves to read: addictive stories full of teenage angst, tension, twists and turns.
Home is a small town in the middle of England where she currently juggles being a full-time writer with being a mother/referee to two little people. In her spare time (and when she’s not camped out in front of the laptop) you’ll most likely find L A immersed in a book, escaping the chaos that is life.
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