Most Valuable Playboy

She arches a brow. “You’re already inviting me to live with you?”

“Vi, I plan on loving you for my whole damn life. I don’t need to mess around with stages and steps and taking things in some kind of orderly fashion. You’re an eighty-yard pass, and I want to get into the end zone with you.”

She rolls her eyes. “That sounds incredibly dirty.”

“Yeah, it does.”

“Hey, do you want to know something?”

“I do.”

She runs her hands down my chest, over the planes of my abs. “Why did the football go to the bank?”

“Why?”

She wiggles her eyebrows. “To get her quarterback.”

I crack up. “You’ve got him. You’ve absolutely got him.”

“I’m keeping him.” She slinks a hand over my hip and around to my butt, squeezing. “After all, you do have the best butt in the NFL.”



Two days later, she wakes up with me on Christmas morning, and I give her one of many gifts. A key to my home. She already has the key to my heart.





Epilogue





A few days after Christmas



* * *



Ah, this is my favorite view.

“You can cut my hair all day,” I say, smiling like the cat that ate all the canaries as Violet snips my hair, trimming the messy strands at her salon.

“You dirty man,” she chides.

“You like me that way,” I say, setting my hands on her hips.

She stops snipping and gives me a look. “You can’t do that when I cut your hair.”

“But the rest of the time I can, right?”

She laughs. “Possibly.”

She finishes my haircut, and that evening, we go out on a date. Violet jokes that it’s the charity date she won from the Most Valuable Playboy auction. I don’t like to think about how the other dates from past auctions went. They were one and done. This date is the start of the rest of my life.

That’s why I make sure it’s different. We meet the whole crew at my favorite karaoke bar in Japantown, in the heart of the city. Trent and Holly wave from a table by the stage, since they arrived first. When Violet and I sit, Trent shakes his head, gesturing to us. “Still getting used to the two of you together,” he says, but he’s smiling.

Violet wiggles her eyebrows. “Let me help you with a little trial by fire.” She turns and kisses me hard in front of him. She’s loud, too, making lip-smacking sounds.

“Get a room,” Trent says, tossing a napkin at us.

When Violet wrenches away, she grins at her brother. “Did that help you? Or do you want to take a picture to hang in your home?”

“Damn. You two really are perfect for each other,” Trent says.

Holly runs a hand through his hair. “I told you so. They were meant to be.”

A few minutes later, my college buds, McKenna and Chris, show up.

The blond and bubbly McKenna wraps Violet in a warm embrace. “You guys are adorable. Also, I had a feeling he always liked you,” McKenna says.

“The feeling has always been mutual,” she replies.

More friends join us, and soon Trent, Holly, Jones, Jillian, Harlan, Chris, McKenna and Rick work their way through standards like “I Want It That Way,” “Hooked on a Feeling,” “Love Shack” and, of course, “Living on a Prayer.”

Yes, I let Jones have my song, because I take my turn with Violet. We sing together, belting out “Islands in The Stream.” We’re no Kenny and Dolly, but if you listen to the words, you’d be hard-pressed not to fall deeper in love. It’s one of the most upbeat, happy love songs ever written.

Which makes it perfect for two people who are disgustingly cute, as Jones shouts to the stage.

“No, they’re ridiculously adorable,” Jillian corrects.

That’s us. We’re those people on stage, singing a popular love song as if no one else is around, as if we’re going to go home and rip each other’s clothes off, then make pancakes together the next day.

Come to think of it, both of those things sound like great ideas, so that’s what we do.



Violet roots from the fifty-yard line in all my playoff games. She shouts the loudest and cheers the hardest when we win the wild-card round in an absolutely epic trounce. She goes nuts in the divisional round, and I’m running on the most exhilarating adrenaline I’ve ever felt when we kick ass with a fat victory.

But our quest splinters in the championship game against Los Angeles. It’s a tight match against our rivals, and we lose by three measly points.

Not gonna lie. It stings. It hurts.

But there’s always next year.

When I drive to the coach’s home a week later, Violet fiddles with her bracelets in the passenger seat, and I set a hand on her wrist. “Relax, baby. Greenhaven isn’t that bad, I swear.”

Violet shoots me a look that says you’ve got to be kidding me. “I’m not worried about the coach. I want his wife to like me.”

I laugh. “She’ll love you.”

And she does. Because Violet is pretty freaking fantastic. She brings a set of antique teacups that she found in a store in Noe Valley, as well as a bottle of wine. No surprise—both Mike Greenhaven and his wife, Emily, think Violet is the bomb. At dinner, Emily pours the wine and raises her glass. “To next year.”

“To next year,” we say in unison.

It’s both a toast and a fervent wish.

Having it all is a pretty tough feat to pull off, and I remind myself that in the scheme of things, I’ve already come out grossly ahead this year. New contract, fat payday, amazing team, strong playoff performance, and the best part of all—someone who loves me and would still love me even if I didn’t have any of those things.

Maybe next year I can add a ring to the mix.

For now, I have everything I need in the woman I come home to at night and wake up to in the morning.





Another Epilogue





A few months later



* * *



“Go, go, go!” Violet thrusts her arm in the air when Smashalie scores a point.

Turns out the little girl was serious about roller derby. She took it up after her last appointment, and joined a junior league that Violet and I happen to fully sponsor. My signing bonus was pretty damn sizable, and I decided to donate it to charities and youth programs in the Bay Area. The children’s hospital is using it for services and research, and Ford is helping me funnel money to worthy programs for kids. That includes sports for girls, but also some sports programs for kids who might need a little extra help, whether after battling cancer or having corrective surgery. I want to give them every chance to reach their fullest potential.

So here we are at the roller rink, watching a bout as Smashalie and her teammates cruise around the oval.

“What would your roller derby name be?” I ask Violet.

She screws up the corner of her lips, looks to the ceiling then at me. “I’d be the Purple Snipper. Don’t you think?” She pretends to cut with scissors.

I grab my crotch. “Ouch.”

“Lavender Cutter?”

I seesaw my palm. “Mildly better.”

She snaps her fingers. “The Lilac Shredder!”

“You’re brilliant,” I say, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“What about you? Would you be Best Butt in the NFL? Hard Rock Cheeks?” She squeezes my ass.