Page 8 of The Game Plan

“In your dreams, stud,” I tell him.

We’re having a face-off, shoulders back, chests puffed out, and for my part, tingling all over, as Lauren shouts, “Mitch! Mitch!”

We rush to the group, where Mitch is slumped in his seat, face pained, clinching his chest and arm.

“Someone get help, please,” Lauren screams. “I think he’s having a heart attack.”

4

AUGUST

Jax

My To-Do List

I tap gently on the door to the hospital room I’ve been guided to from the nurses’ station. My perky glutes are red hot from the laser stares of those ladies – and man – as I walk away. Since I’m a decent guy, I add a little extra clench and sway for them as I move.

Mitch spent yesterday in surgery. I’m told heart conditions run in his family but it’s shocking to me because the guy’s barely fifty and he’s fit as a fiddle, relatively. Doesn’t eat half the amount of crap my teammates and I do. He works out in the gym alongside us when we’re home during season, running for more time than I could be bothered to on the treadmill. It’s a monotonous workout but you know, good for his vascular health.

I open the door and see him sitting upright in his bed, eating something that looks like a dull as hell breakfast for a Sunday in Las Vegas. Guess that’s what happens when you have a heart attack.

“Honey, I’m home!” I say, stepping into the room.

Mitch chuckles and Lauren leaps up from one of the chairs at his bedside, placing a hand on his arm as if to tell him don’t get too excited, darling. Damn, his life is going to be pretty shitty for a while if he’s not allowed to get excited around his wife.

I’m about to make what would be a highly inappropriate quip in the circumstances, though I’m sure it would make him laugh, when I clock the other person sitting next to Lauren.

“Oh, hey, wifey.”

Sienna looks a lot perkier than yesterday, even if still tired. Her long hair is in a thick braid across one shoulder and she’s wearing a thin strappy summer dress, not like the usual tailored clothes I see her in because ordinarily, she’s on official business when we meet. Certainly not like that sexy as sin little number she was wearing on the strip into the early hours of the morning yesterday. The one that ended up on my bedroom floor, though I’m still piecing together the how and why of that – after conversations about her ex cheating, her company and her visa, everything goes awry in my mind.

All I got from the guys yesterday were grunts and unhelpful comments like, Man, I’m hungover to shit, ask someone else. Even my own brother pulled his cap over his face and said, Because you wanted to marry her.

No matter how blurred my memories or how damn pretty my wife looks this morning, I am dying inside witnessing the disgust on her face. This is fucking hilarious.

I’m married, for one.

Two, my wife already hates me and it’s our first full day of wedlock.

“Hi, soon to be an annulled husband,” she says, maxing out the sarcasometer. “Speaking of which, sweet pea, have you had our marriage annulled, yet?”

She’s so pass-agg.

“Well, darling, it’s Sunday, so no. But I assure you, despite how much I can see you’re in love with me and want to jump my bones every time I’m near you, it’s on my to-do list.”

“Oh, you have a to-do list? Is the annulment of our drunken marriage number two, right behind the thing you have in number one slot?” She raises an eyebrow that’s strangely sexy and Dr. Evil all at once. “Puck bunnies?”

Okay, she’s getting a little less pass and more outright agg.

“May I remind you, my little peach, that it takes two intoxicated people to get married. But yes, in answer to your question, right behind everything that I consider more important is being no longer married to you. As you’ve noted, I’m a busy man.” I wiggle my brows at her, amusing Mitch, which is part of the reason I’m here. I cheer people up when they need a clown. It’s a top skill on my non-existent resumé.

“I think I just threw up a little bit in my mouth,” Sienna says.

“That’s gross, babe,” I tell her.

Mitch and Lauren are looking back and forth between us like we’re having a game of verbal ping-pong and my spouse throws me a filthy scowl.

“Anyway, I’m not here to see you, I can see you every day at home when you arrive in your little car, parking by our white picket fence and wandering inside, unbuttoning your work mac to reveal lacy underwear and killer heels, then you say to me, Hey hubby, screw me would you?”