Hard Love (Trophy Boyfriends #3) - Sara Ney Page 0,17

brother a jab with his hip just as they reach the stairs. Buzz stumbles, curses.

“Tripp, knock it off!”

Tripp laughs, loud and good-humored—I can’t see his face, but I imagine the whole thing has been transformed by that laugh, smile shielded behind the stack of boxes in his strong arms.

“Where do you want these?” his voice asks.

“Living room.”

Before I know it, I’m collapsing on my couch—not from exhaustion, but from the piles of totes and boxes, hours’ worth of work taunting me.

I order a pizza and, sighing, heave myself off the sofa.

Time to get to work.

Five

Tripp

Tonight I was able to dress myself.

I grunt, sliding down out of my pickup truck, feet hitting the pavement of the church my brother is going to be married in.

I’m late by an hour, not because I was fucking around at home, but because I’ve been at work, stretching with the trainer after a minor injury from last week’s preseason game.

My brother and Hollis tried their best to book their wedding for a weekend Buzz and I both were in the off-season, but that was a damn near impossible feat and they weren’t able to pull it off.

We are never not training, so even though I don’t have any games, haven’t started my regular season, and we’re still only working out and practicing, the season is rapidly approaching.

Choosing a wedding date was like moving mountains, and in the end, they sandwiched it between Buzz’s baseball season and my football schedule.

My hair is still damp from the shower I hastily took before leaving the stadium, the clothes on my back a little casual for a church rehearsal, which I’ll hear about from my mother as soon as she catches sight of me.

This wedding is like the Met Gala for Genevieve Wallace—you would think she was the mother of the bride.

I’ll admit, Hollis has been amazing, taking my mother’s input and letting her do some wedding planning without balking, which has turned Mom into something of a momzilla. Suddenly, she’s making demands of me—do this, don’t do that, wear this, cut your hair, don’t say this, try to smile.

Try to smile? Pfft.

I smile plenty.

Frowning, I shuffle my way into the building, flanked by potted trees that, apparently, are going to have pale pink roses in them? And white twinkling lights?

Who knows. It’s like the goddamn bubblegum forest barfed all over the church and I have to hear all about it from my brother and his fiancée every time I go over to their place or they come to mine for food.

I cannot escape this wedding, their bliss, the nonstop merriment.

I cannot wait for it to be over.

Also, my brother refused to delay his honeymoon so I could go to the Maldives with them, a place I’ve never been, and is it too much to ask that they fucking postpone it until February?

They wouldn’t even listen to reason; he was such a selfish dick about it.

“Get your own wife. You are not coming on my honeymoon. Are you insane?”

“Who gives a shit if I don’t have my own wife—stop being greedy. It’s not like you’re going to be alone on that island, so what if there’s one more person?”

Me.

“I don’t need my brother breathing down my neck while I’m trying to get laid and romance Hollis.”

“What if we all come?” That idea sounded horrifying, even to my own ears. “Then I’d have someone to hang out with in the sun and sand.”

“We who?”

“You know, me, Mom, Dad, True—”

My brother threw his hands up in the air at that point. “Stop talking.”

“I’m going to get me one of those pedicures where you put your feet in the fish tank and they eat the dead skin off your heels.”

“You aren’t going to do shit.” Buzz laughed. “And that’s fucking disgusting.”

But cool.

“Why won’t you let me live my life? You’ll hardly know I’m there. I’ll get my own hut over the water if it’s going to be such a damn problem.”

“Oh, I’ll know you’re there alright. You’re like a fucking bull in the housewares department.”

A bull? “There’s no need to name-call.”

“You’re not coming.”

“You don’t have to answer now. Take some time to think about it.” I reached over to press a finger to his lips, but he smacked my hand away.

“I don’t have to think about it. The answer is no and will always be no. Nein. Nyet. Ochi. Non. Loh.”

Dang. I didn’t realize he knew so many languages.

“Shhh.” Is he being a bitch about this because I stole the last of