It’s the top for her to wear tonight, for many reasons. “Perfection. The sparkles are so very you. Plus, you totally look like a WAG,” I tell her as I kick my foot back and forth in our Vegas hotel room.
“I’m not a WAG for much longer,” Katie says, but she doesn’t sound wistful. She sounds happy, like she’s been about, oh, say, pretty much everything these last few months. She turns to the other person in the room. “And I guess you’re not a . . . what . . . much longer?”
Abby giggles. “I’m not a KAP after tonight. Kids and pets,” she adds as she ties the shoelaces on her royal blue Converse sneakers, the team colors.
“Wait. Kids and pets of sports stars go together like wives and girlfriends?” Katie asks the cutie-pie perched on the end of a king-size bed.
“Yes, because pets are important too. Like the pony you and my daddy might get me someday,” she says, batting her lashes.
I hold up a hand to high-five the seven-year-old. “Work it.”
“I’m trying. I swear I’m trying,” Abby says.
Once she tugs on her sweatshirt, Katie goes over and bops Abby on the nose. “You sure are trying. And trust me, I’ll campaign pretty hard too, once your daddy retires.”
Abby pumps a fist. “Yes.”
I point to the bed. “Sit,” I tell my best friend. “I need to touch up your makeup.”
Katie’s eyes turn serious, her forehead creasing. Hmm. Is she remembering the last time I did her makeup? Her wedding day that never happened?
Well, today couldn’t be more different.
I can’t wait.
“I’m just going to make you pop for TV. You know the cameras are going to be on us,” I tell her and Abby. But I shake a finger at the adorable kiddo. “No makeup for you.”
“I know,” Abby says, then stares intently as I powder Katie’s nose, dust on some blush, and give my friend a smoky eye.
“Are you excited for today?” I ask breezily, doing my best to keep my tone casual.
“I’m excited and insanely nervous,” she says, fiddling with a friendship bracelet in Renegades colors that Abby made her. Abby wears a matching one. “I can’t even imagine how he feels, playing in his last game.” She flashes me a smile. “Except, I can. He’s told me.”
“And how does Mister Harlan Taylor feel?”
“Ready,” she says with a crisp nod and a smile. “Like the timing is totally right.”
Abby pops up from the bed. “I need to use the little girls’ room. ’Scuse me.”
She rushes to the restroom and shuts the door. “And speaking of timing, thank you again for babysitting her in your room tonight,” Katie whispers, nodding to the bathroom. “Tonight might be the night.”
She has no idea.
I just grin. “Happy to help.”
“And what about for you? How’s everything with you and Nolan? You looked so cozy in your last episode.” She says it like she’s leading a horse to water and wants me to drink up a whole stream.
As I swipe on her mascara, I smile softly. I’m not drinking from that river. No way. “We’re just friends. The show is going great. We’re landing new sponsors. He’s my friend and my co-host.”
“That’s what you say now,” Katie teases.
“That’s what I’ll always say,” I add.
But when Nolan, all broad shoulders and smoldering gaze, joins us as we head to the stadium for kickoff, I wonder how long always will be.
It’s like he gets better looking every day.
Sexier every night.
More dangerous by the hour.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he says, then drops an arm around my shoulders.
A friendly arm.
Since he’s a friendly guy.
A friendly guy who, every now and then, makes me think dirty thoughts.
I shove those all out of my head, though, because it’s game time, and I’ve got a job to do.
Epilogue
Katie
* * *
Four Hours Later
* * *
I’ve lost my voice, and I don’t care.
We are all going wild in our fifty-yard-line seats. If I thought the noise at the December game was eardrum-crushing, that has nothing on the Super Bowl.
Pretty sure half the noise is coming from our crew.
Harlan offered to get us all a suite, but we opted for a row instead. So I’m cheering as the clock winds down. Abby’s by my side, along with Emerson, Nolan, Jillian, Olive and Zachary, my dad, and Harlan’s buddy Jason—Jason’s team didn’t make it to the big game—as well as some of my new favorite people—my boyfriend’s mom and his sisters.
His mom is a fabulous Southern gentlewoman, all sass and manners, with lungs the size of a hot-air balloon. No one has shouted louder for her son.
“C’mon, run it in, sweetie-pie,” she shouted when Harlan caught a pass in the third quarter.
Sweetie-pie.
I nearly fainted from cuteness. But I will not faint, because we have plans for tonight. Timing matters when it comes to baby-making, and I stopped taking birth control in December. I’m moving in with him when we return to California, but tonight—fingers crossed—I’m ovulating.