Page 5 of Irresistibly Us
Caitlin gives us one of her rare smiles. “I was born for this moment. Give me a day and I’ll have a fifteen-point plan ready and waiting.”
I consider that, my traitorous eyes straying to the dance floor, watching Tyler jump up and down, waving his hands in the air as he yells something to Drew. Any other night, I would be right in there with him. Dancing is one of our favorite things. But my stupid brain has chosen tonight as the night it hit the limit of what it can take when it comes to proximity to Tyler Hansley. “I think I might need something more immediate than that.”
“I know what you need,” Maya declares, reaching over and pulling my phone out of the bag hanging off my shoulder, holding the screen up to my face to unlock it.
“Uh, what are you doing?” I ask, watching as her thumbs tap at the keyboard.
“Giving you the solution to your problem.”
When Maya holds the phone up, flashing us all the login screen for an app called VibeCheck, I let out a loud snort. “A dating app? Hard pass, My. I love you, but I’ve sat through one too many of your dating horror stories to get within a hundred feet of one of those.” Maya is a hopeless romantic who is always sure that her next date will be the great love of her life. Unfortunately, he never is, and she has the stories to prove it.
Sarah makes a face. “I think I have to agree with Soph. Your date a couple weeks ago where he brought his mom with him sealed it for me.”
“What about the one where the first thing the guy told you was that your boobs looked bigger in your picture?” Emmy visibly shudders. “Men shouldn’t be allowed to exist.”
“They really shouldn’t,” Maddy says. “Except all our dads. And…Cam.”
“What about Cam?” The man in question comes up behind Maddy, wrapping his arms around her waist and bending to kissher neck. With his blue eyes that soften and warm when he looks at her, he is every inch a man in love.
Maddy grins, turning and leaning up to kiss his jaw. “Aside from our dads, you’re the only man who’s allowed to exist because you’re the very best. The rest of your gender kind of sucks.”
Cam chuckles, leaning his head against Maddy’s, and they both look so happy, so in love, that my heart gives a little squeeze. “We usually do fuck it all up.”
“You ready to go?” Maddy asks, laying her hand over his.
“Yep. I promised Riley and Ethan a late-night walk down Bourbon Street,” he tells us with a smile. Cam’s thirteen-year-old daughter and ten-year-old son both made the trip here for the game, too, but they went back to the hotel with Cam’s mom when we all came out. “It’s after midnight so it’s probably terrible parenting, but they’re so excited about it and, well, New Orleans.” He shrugs, smile widening to a grin as he presses a kiss to Maddy’s hair. “Do you want to stay?” he asks her. “I can come back and pick you up after Ry gets her fill of the wild and wacky.”
She shakes her head. “A late-night Bourbon Street walk sounds like exactly what I want to do right now. Besides, I promised Riley we could do palm readings together one more time before we went home. Give me five?”
“Definitely,” he says, pressing his fingers to her jaw to tilt her head and bending to kiss her. When they break apart, he keeps his face close to Maddy’s, murmuring “Love you, Wildcat,” against her lips, and I practically sigh at the romance of it all. “Meet you at the front in ten?”
Maddy nods, her eyes a little hazy and unfocused. Cam grins again and drops a kiss on her cheek before walking away with a wave at all of us.
“God.” Sarah clasps a hand to her chest dramatically. “You guys are so cute I can’t even take it. That’s what a man in love looks like. Every other guy in the world should take lessons.”
Maddy grins, her freckled cheeks pink with happiness. “I know. If you would have told me seven months ago that I would be leaving a Super Bowl winning after-party with one of the players to go hang out with his kids, I would have asked you what you were smoking, but…” She trails off, a kaleidoscope of emotion passing over her face, and I know she’s thinking about what it took for her and Cam to get here. The way they had to keep their relationship a secret for months and navigate the complexities of their jobs and his kids to get where they are now. Their happy ending was hard earned, and they deserve every bit of the love between them. The family they’ve made.
And if I feel a kind of longing, wishing for that kind of happy ending for myself? Well, that’s just being human, right? It doesn’t have anything to do with Tyler. Probably.
Maddy shrugs, grin returning to her face. “I’m just happy. That’s all.”
“That’s a lot,” Maya says, wrapping an arm around Maddy’s shoulders and kissing her cheek. “Go hang with your man and his kids. Your kids.”
Maddy laughs, leaning into Maya. “My kids. That’s a weird fucking flex. I kind of love it.” Letting Maya go, Maddy wraps her arms around me. “You going to be okay, Soph?” she asks quietly.
I nod against her hair. “Always. It’s just a weird night. See you for breakfast tomorrow?”
“Definitely. And think about Maya’s idea. Getting out there might not be the worst thing.”
I pull back and make a face. “There has to be a better way than a dating app.”
She kisses my cheek. “I’ll brainstorm. Love you.”
“Love you back, Mads.”
She waves and heads out, and I turn back to the rest of my friends. “So…are we done here? I bet we can still catch the end ofHamiltonnight.”
Emmy makes a noise like a game show buzzer. “No one wantsto hear me sing. Besides, I like it here. The view is…impeccable,” she says, looking at a group of Renegades rookies crowded around a high-top table littered with shot glasses and bottles of what looks like top-shelf liquor, her eyes falling directly to their extremely excellent asses.
