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  “So…” I think that through. “We can go bareback when we’re committed?”

  Miranda opens her pretty mouth to reply, but the words about to leave her tongue die when my bedroom door crashes open, followed by Buzz Wallace, followed by, “Yo, dipshit, you guys in here?”

  With a horrified gasp, Miranda disappears below the covers with a loud groan. “Oh my god, tell me that is not who I think it is.”

  “It’s Wallace.”

  “Why? Why is he like this?”

  Because he cannot help himself. He’s the fucking worst.

  “What the hell man—have you ever heard of knocking?”

  His wide shoulders shrug. “The door was unlocked.”

  Why I ever gave that dude the passcode to the gate is beyond me. I hate myself now.

  “Wallace, you cannot just barge in. Did you not see Miranda’s car outside?” Not only did he definitely see the car outside, he is the one who sent her to the stadium to fetch me!

  Now look at the bastard, picking at a fingernail and ignoring my scorn. “Yeah, so? I thought the three of us could hang.”

  Hang? Not a fucking chance. “Don’t you have anything better to do than follow me around? I thought you were with your brother or going to your mom’s, or some bullshit.”

  “Oh. Right. I did say that.” He walks to the overstuffed chair in the corner of my room and plunks himself down, propping his feet up on the ottoman in front of him. I didn’t choose the furniture—the decorator did—and now I wish there wasn’t a suite of seating options for him to get comfortable on while Miranda and I are held captive on the bed.

  “Do not make yourself comfortable, asshole! Get out!”

  Beneath the covers, I hear a giggle—the traitor in my bed thinks this is amusing? I’ll deal with that later.

  “This is what you’re doing? Taking a nap?” He yawns. “I was hoping you’d be having sex.”

  Too late, did that already—three times.

  “What do you want?”

  “I told you: I was bored so I came here.”

  “You are not picking up on my sarcasm—at all.”

  The fingernail he’s been picking at gets popped into his mouth, and he peels it off, spiting it on my carpet. The fuck!

  “No, I’m picking up what you’re throwing down. You just never know what’s good for you—I do.”

  “How is you barging into my room while we’re naked good for me?”

  This seems to perk him up. “You’re naked? Can I climb in?”

  Finally, Miranda reacts, sitting up on the bed, hair and eyes wild. “Don’t you dare! No.” She holds the covers over her boobs. “Stop staring, you creep!”

  “Can we go for dinner?” Buzz throws his head back on the cushion behind him. “I’m starving.”

  Beside me, quietly, Miranda makes an eh sound. “I could eat, actually.”

  Jesus Christ, these two are going to be the death of me. “The last thing I want to do is spend more time with you.” I cannot escape this dude. “Work, meetings—now you’re busting into my house.”

  “I know, isn’t it great?”

  It’s not great. I wonder for a second if I’ll ever get used to having a best friend who’s so…goddamn needy. None of my friends from home act like this. How the hell did I get stuck with the biggest playboy on the team? We’re polar opposites!

  Buzz turns his attention to Miranda. “You look pretty cozy—you’re not going to move in here, are you?”

  “NO!” Miranda practically shouts. “I mean…no. We just started seeing each other, my gosh.”

  Buzz isn’t deterred. “Because if you did, you’d bring the rest of that baseball card collection, wouldn’t you?”

  Goddamn him!

  Miranda’s mouth drops open. Dips her head a bit lower, shielding herself. “We haven’t…we…”

  Wallace repositions his feet on my ottoman, the bottoms of his white socks dirty. “Well since I’m here, maybe I can broker the deal between the two of you for those remaining cards, yeah? It’s the least I can do.”

  Oh for fuck’s sake.

  “Jesus, Wallace—now is not the time!”

  A finger pokes me in the thigh from under the covers. “He’s right though—we do need to talk about the rest of those cards.”

  She is not helping.

  Even though they’re both right—I still want those cards and she still has to sell them—we’re not fucking discussing it right here, naked, in front of Dipshit over there.

  “Get out, so we can get dressed.”

  “I want tacos,” he announces, standing.

  After he’s gone, Miranda and I speak at the same time.

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “He’s five.”

  With a laugh, we climb out of bed and get dressed.

  Epilogue

  Two months later

  Noah

  “I can’t believe there are two of them.” Miranda hands me a bowl of pasta salad and I carry it to the table she has set up at the front of her office space. “They could be twins.”

  I follow her gaze. Buzz and his brother Tripp are arguing over near the makeshift bar, set up for the official opening of Miranda’s design business.

  “If Wallace were a twin, I’d punch myself in the nuts.”

  My girlfriend rolls her eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic—he’s not so terrible. And his brother seems nice.”

  Nice? Not a word I’d use to describe either of them, especially not Tripp Wallace, but Miranda is delusional and, much to my irritation, has grown to love Buzz like a brother. As such, she’s using words like nice, and cute, and adorable to describe them both.

  Vomit.

  A professional football player for Chicago, Tripp is as big an asshole as his brother, if not worse. Taller. Bulkier. Cruder. The day they were handing out god complexes, Tripp was first in line to receive one.

  Prick.

  At the moment, he’s trying to steal a wine bottle out of my friend’s hands and I watch as he gets elbowed in the gut. Jeez, they fight like kids.

  Someone needs to take him down a peg or two.

  And someone needs to stop those idiots from arguing before they knock the entire bar over. It took me two hours to hammer that fucking thing together and longer to paint it.

  Miranda hands me a plate of sushi and kisses my cheek. “Thanks for all your help arranging this, baby.”

  Baby.

  She loves using endearments when she’s talking to me, hardly ever calls me by my name anymore. It’s always babe this, honey that, oh hey sweetie.

  I fucking love it.

  I love her.

  All our friends have come out to support her. Claire, Emily, Gretchen and her boyfriend, whatshisface whose name I can’t be bothered to remember. A few people she’s met networking. Friends of mine, mostly all teammates and their wives or girlfriends. It was an act of God getting them all here because our season just started and everyone is tired and strapped for free time, but I managed it. Also packed into the room? The two new hires she found as support staff: Tanner, a woman in her late twenties whose job will be new building design, and a dude named Kyle who does residential, but will act as her intern, too.

  It’s a full house, seemingly packed with giants, especially considering her office space is pretty tiny.

  I stand back and watch as Sophie Blackmore approaches Miranda and leans in for a hug, the glamorous WAG the wife of another Steam player.

  “Oh my gosh, it’s so nice to finally meet you,” Sophie gushes. “I started following you on Instagram a couple months ago and I love your stuff.”

  We all know what happened a couple months ago and I shift uncomfortably, waiting for Sophie to keep talking.

  “Bam and I just bought a new little lake cottage and I would love for you to come take a look at it—he said if it will keep me quiet, I can redo the entire thing.” She giggles, sipping from the champagne flute in her hand, a submerged raspberry kicking up bubbles.

&nb
sp; “I would love that!” Miranda enthuses. “I’m actually really busy the next couple days, but I can make time for you next week?”

  Damn right she’s busy—after the whole mess online with the tabloids, her business page blew up. Some people called her out of sheer curiosity, others just trolls to hassle her, but quite a few were legitimate clients who wanted to hire her for design work. She was off and running, never slowing down since. It won’t be long before her two employees turn into four, or six—maybe more?

  My girlfriend is the fucking shit.

  “Here is my number.” Sophie hands Miranda a business card. I can’t imagine what the hell is on it, because as far as I know, Bam Blackmore’s wife does not work outside the home.

  “I’ll shoot you an email Monday morning,” Miranda promises, tucking the card away as Sophie saunters off to join her husband. She turns to me. “Oh my god, Noah, it’s happening. People want to hire me—I’m freaking out!” She squeals a little. Kisses me again on the cheek, eyes bright. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”

  “Yes you could have.”

  But I know what she means: the remaining $50,000, I paid to buy out her entire baseball collection, that money enabled her to hire Kyle and Tanner. To pay her utilities and buy an actual desk—the one she really wanted, not the cheap one she had in her Amazon cart.

  Stars shine in her eyes when she looks at me now, but I know it’s not from the money. “I love you.”

  It’s because of that. Her arms wrap around my waist and she kisses the tip of my chin.

  My lips part. “I…” A lump catches in my throat. I’ve never said the word love to anyone other than my parents. This will be the first time and I mean every fucking word of it. “I love you too.”

  Miranda bites down on her bottom lip to stop it from quivering. “Let’s not get sappy in the middle of the room. We’ll embarrass ourselves and I’m trying to be professional.”

  She pulls herself away. Straightens her long skirt. Tucks a few errant strands of hair behind her ear.

  She’s perfection. Sassy, chaotic perfection. “I’m so proud of you.”

  An air kiss and she disappears into the small crowd.

  Then.

  Claire stalks over, weaving her way through, steam practically rising from her ears. “Those buffoons pretending to bartend are making a mess! That big one just told Kyle he was cut off from life! They’re asinine—could you please go do something?”

  “Tripp? That big one? Or Trace, the other big one?”

  That gives her pause. “Are you being serious right now?”

  “Yes.”

  Miranda’s best friend scrunches up her nose. “Those are not their names.”

  “One hand on the Bible.” I laugh.

  “Well that explains a lot.”

  “Aww, come on,” I tease, knowing she’s still single. “You don’t think either one of them are cute?”

  Another eye roll and she crosses her arms. “Hard. Pass.”

  The End

  Mark your calendars for Buzz’s story next in Hard Fall releasing August 18t!

  Pre-Order at your favorite book retailer!

  About the Author

  Sara Ney is the USA Today Bestselling Author of the How to Date a Douchebag series and is best know for her sexy, laugh-out-loud New Adult romances. Among her favorite vices, she includes: iced latte’s , historical architecture and well-placed sarcasm. She lives colorfully, collects vintage books, art, loves flea markets, and fancies herself British.

  For more information about Sara Ney and her books, visit:

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