up for a visit, as had Nixon and Liberty, Nicole now toddling her way around the backyard.
I shimmied my way through the sliding glass door, smiling at our little tight-knit family as I set out the chips and drinks on the glass table underneath the patio awning. I relished the sound of my friends’ laughter and the soft giggles of the children. We were celebrating the official adoption of Rosa by Teagan and Roman, but I couldn't help but beam for another reason.
A secret reason.
My world shifting once again—even though it had been the best three years of my life. I had settled perfectly into my job with the Hurricanes, my best friend doing her thing with the Reapers, and my husband, Hendrix maintaining his best wide receiver in the NFL title.
Life was perfect.
Absolutely perfect.
And of course that meant everything was about to change.
I took a minute to appreciate the gorgeousness of my husband, the way his jeans hugged his muscular thighs, the way that white T-shirt hugged every inch of his gorgeous chest. Showed off the muscles beneath, even with the black apron slung over it. He clicked the tongs back and forth, laughing at something Roman had said. But his eyes snagged on Nicole running away, giggling as Nixon chased her.
I crossed the distance, sneaking up behind Hendrix to run my fingers over his back.
"You look happy," I said as he turned around to hug me.
He set down the tongs on the counter beside the grill, closing the lid so the heat wouldn't get to us. "How could I not be? I have the best wife in the world, and I finally got my old teammates to come hang out with us. "
"We have made this a quarterly thing," Nixon chimed up from where he chased his baby girl around the yard.
"Still not an everyday thing," Hendrix teased.
"We can’t all get traded," Roman teased. "Some of us actually like being Raptors."
Where those words used to sting, nothing but love radiated from him now. Hendrix was absolutely happy with his team, as I was with life here. The life we’d built together.
I swallowed a ball of apprehension, smoothing my hand over my still flat stomach. Watching as Hendrix’s blue eyes lit up as he continued to watch Nixon play with Nicole in the backyard.
Hendrix worked his hand down my back, holding me close. "Maybe it's time we start thinking about our own family," he whispered in my ear, and I had to bite back my smile as he looked down at me. "What?" he asked. "I think you would look phenomenal carrying our child. Not to mention if we have a boy, he’ll be a shoe-in for wide receiver. And if we have a girl, she’ll be the biggest little badass we've ever seen."
Tears threatened to fill my eyes, but I shook my head.
"What is it baby?" he asked suddenly, concern filling his eyes.
I grabbed his hand and smoothed it over my belly, grinning up at him. "You always have to be first, don't you?" I teased.
For a few seconds, he didn't understand, confusion coloring his eyes. But then something hit him over the head, and he jolted, looking from my stomach to me and back again.
I nodded, and he let out a whooping holler and scooped me off my feet, gently hugging me as he spun us in a circle. He kissed me until I was breathless and my head spun. My heart raced and everything felt right in the center of my world. He didn't set me back on my feet, not even as I arched back a little to meet his eyes, cupping his cheeks in my hands and tilting my head.
"What do you say?" I asked, smiling down at him. "You want to add another life to this lifetime?"
"I think we can pencil it in," he said, then crushed his lips on mine.
I lost myself in his kiss.
I sank inside the happiness from the life we’d built together, despite the odds stacked against us. The happiness we carved and shaped and made our own. I relished in this new chapter and the new adventures this baby would take us on.
And I knew it wouldn't be easy. I knew raising a child was one of the hardest things we would ever do. The most challenging, but the most rewarding too.
Hendrix Malone had never been able to back down from a challenge.
And neither had I.
Thank God for that, or we never would’ve found our way to each