Vegas Aces: The Wide Receiver Complete Series

CHAPTER 22 TRISTAN

“It’s yours?” Travis asks. His voice is quiet as we walk from the beer tent to the auction table. Austin decided to volunteer in the beer garden a little longer as he chats with Tiffany Gable. I gave him a warning look, but he ignored me in much the same way I ignored Luke when he warned me about Savannah.

Travis is the one guy I can level with. The one guy I trust not to tell anyone if I tell him the truth. He’s my best friend, and apart from my parents, I’ve been making these decisions and going through this virtually alone.

I don’t need anybody except Tessa.

That still holds true. I haven’t felt alone because I have her. And yet…somehow having a friend reaching out feels like what I need anyway.

“In all the ways that matter, she will be,” I finally answer.

“That’s sort of what I figured. So Tessa’s your ex?” he asks.

I nod. “I guess you can call it that, although technically we never broke up. It was our senior year of high school, and one day over spring break she just vanished.”

“Vanished?” His brows furrow.

I nod. “Her dad sent her off to Chicago to finish high school and live with her aunt.”

“Why would he do that?” The furrow deepens.

I shrug. “He was a pastor, a man of God, and I guess he didn’t like that his daughter was engaging in sinful acts with the boy next door. So he removed the temptation.”

He frowns a little. “I feel like it doesn’t add up, man.”

“You know what? It doesn’t to me, either, but I also feel like it doesn’t matter. She’s back now. We’re together again. She’s pregnant, and I’m fucking finally divorced. We both made mistakes.” I leave it at that.

“Why aren’t you pushing for the truth? If I was in your shoes, I sure as fuck would be.”

I glance back at Austin, who’s saying something to Tiffany. She throws her head back and cackles. “Maybe we both have things that are better left in the past,” I murmur.

He nods, and then we’re at the auction table. “Oh, come on. Jaxon Bryant’s signed football has a higher bid than my jersey?” he jokes to someone checking out the items, and he garners himself another bid.

I chat with the locals, too, who all have similar questions about my life in the league. It’s fun answering them with my best friend beside me. He’s entertaining and hilarious, and all the older ladies I’ve known since I was born look at him with hearts in their eyes—especially when he flashes that wide smile of his. They practically fall over swooning at the smile, and the tattoos snaking down his arms give him just enough of an edge that he seems like the bad boy of their dreams.

He uses that smile to his advantage, whether it’s to make old women swoon or to make younger women drop their panties. It works every time, the bastard.

Austin is still talking to Tiffany, which makes the skin on the back of my neck prickle. Tessa is off chatting with the crafters, who I’m sure are telling her what a great event this has been and how they want her to run it every year. Savannah is still slithering around here somewhere, and my eyes finally zero in on her laughing with Stephanie near Mrs. Burton’s table.

Savannah and Stephanie. Now there’s a duo that scares the shit out of me. All they need is to toss Tiffany into the mix, and then they’ll really have a trio to be feared.

My heart picks up speed at the mere thought of the three of them talking earlier, but Tiffany is so enthralled by Austin that I doubt she’ll leave his side to chat up Savannah and Stephanie, although I wouldn’t put anything past Savannah. She digs until she knows everything, and that thought is nearly enough to propel me into action.

I force myself to lay low, though.

“Is that kid yours?” a voice to my left asks, and I glance over at Cory.

He’s another guy I can trust, but he also knows I wasn’t in the same zip code as Tessa when she would’ve gotten pregnant.

I nod. “In all the ways that matter.”

He narrows his eyes at me. “Is that why you were riding our asses when you were in town a few weeks ago about settling down?”

I nod again.

“This is what you want? To be a father at twenty-five when you’re young and good looking and a fucking NFL player who could have whatever pussy he wants?” he presses, asking the question I’m sure Travis was thinking but didn’t have the audacity to ask.

I chuckle. “She’s it for me, man. The only woman I’ve ever wanted.”

He sighs. “What a huge disappointment you turned out to be.”

I laugh. I know he’s just teasing me. “Fuck off.”

He slaps me on the shoulder. “I’m happy for you, man.”

“Does this mean we’re not going to be roommates when you get back to Vegas?” Travis asks, sauntering up behind me.

I shrug. “I hadn’t really thought about that,” I admit. “I bought her a house here in town. I don’t know if she’ll want to come to Vegas or stay here. We’ve been so wrapped up in planning this event that we haven’t really had much chance to look beyond it.”

“The offer’s still on the table,” he says. “Even if your dumb ass is committed to one woman, we’d still have a hell of a lot of fun.”

It’s a conversation Tessa and I need to have. If she wants to come with me, of course I’d rather live with her and the baby. But if she wants to stay here, I don’t see much point in setting down roots in Vegas. It’ll just be the place I go to work for a little over half the year.

I can’t see her staying here without me, though I’d understand it. She’d be alone a great majority of the time with the baby if she came with me to a place where she knows literally nobody except me—and those friends of mine who made the trip out here for the festival. But at least here she’d have help from her mom.

“Thanks, man. I’m going to go see if she needs me to do anything,” I say as we spot Tessa walking near the first auction table. The day has gone amazingly well, and the sun is starting to set. I have a feeling the party will go right up until ten o’clock, when the city has told us we have to pull the plug.

The deejay turns up the speakers a bit and a crowd gathers in front of his booth. The teenagers are dancing and having a good time. They’re probably all drunk since that’s what we would’ve done when we were their age. We would’ve gone out to the cornfields on the east side of town with a fifth of rum and drank ourselves silly. We might’ve gotten in trouble with our parents, or we might’ve slid under the radar.

I leave Cory and Travis so they can chat up the attendees, and I head over toward my girl, setting my hand on her lower back. “Everything okay?” I ask.

She nods, and she sets a hand on her hip as she leans back to stretch her stomach and back before running a hand along her stomach. “Yeah. I could sit for a few minutes. My body’s aching, but otherwise, everything seems to be going well.”

“I have a surprise,” I say quietly.

She glances over at me, her brows furrowed. “What is it?”

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

Her face lights up with a smile, and her eyes twinkle. “Tristan Higgins, what have you done?”

I laugh. “You’ll see.” I walk her over toward the Fallon Tavern since it’s closest to where we are, and we find two empty chairs in the beer garden. I excuse myself to grab us a couple bottles of water, and when I sit back down, I hand one to her.

“Take it all in,” I say, nodding toward the perfect view we have of Main Street.

We each drink our water quietly for a couple minutes as we watch the crowd.

Music, people dancing, others laughing, others walking and looking at the vendors. More laughter behind us in the beer garden. The streets are full, and business is booming. It’s starting to get dark—the moment I’ve been waiting for seemingly for weeks.

It seems as though everyone from our little town made it out today, plus we have plenty of visitors from towns nearby. It’s been a successful day, and it’s all thanks to the gorgeous woman sitting beside me as we take it all in together.

“Pretty incredible, isn’t it?” she asks.

I toss my arm around the back of her chair and lean in. I press a soft kiss to her neck. “Thank you for putting this together.”

“Thank you for having the idea and trusting me to take it on. I had a blast doing the planning. I think it was exactly what I needed, but now I have to think about what’s coming next.”

I nod. “We will.”

“There are just so many unanswered questions,” she murmurs.

I grab her hand in mine. “There are, and we have time to answer all of them. Together.”

She glances up at me, and our eyes connect meaningfully.

At that exact moment, the lights twined around the tree branches down Main Street go dark, and I know this is my moment.

Tessa gasps. “The lights!” she says, standing as she looks around frantically. “Are we losing power?”

And then the first burst of red illuminates the sky, followed by white and blue and purple. She stares up at the fireworks as they crackle and boom above us, and then she falls back into her seat.

She tears her eyes from the sky to look at me. “Fireworks? Did you do this?”

I offer a smile. “Surprise.”

She punches me in the arm with a wide grin. “This is amazing.”

We sit together and watch the first few, and then I take my moment while everyone’s attention is overhead.

I get down on my knee and recite the cheesy line that I’ve been planning for weeks. “Tessa Taylor, you are all the fireworks I need. You light up my life in a way no one else has ever done, and I don’t want to live another day without the promise that we’ll spend forever together.”

I pull the little box out of my pocket and flip it open, and she gasps as she looks at the ring.

“A princess cut surrounded by pave diamonds,” we both say at the same time. It’s the ring we saw on some television commercial when we were back in high school, and she told me she wanted it someday when she got engaged. I never forgot it.

“Will you marry me?” I ask as the fireworks continue to hiss, pop, and boom overhead.

She nods as tears sparkle in her eyes. “Yes. Oh my God, yes. Is this a dream?”

I slip the ring onto her finger, and she’s crying and I have tears forming in my own eyes as emotion plows into me. She leans forward and puts her palms on my cheeks as she searches my eyes, and I feel this intense closeness with her in the moment, like she’s searching into my soul, connecting and latching onto it since she’s its other half.

I’m going to marry the only girl I’ve ever loved. We’re having a baby together. We own the house on the corner.

She presses her lips to mine, and we seal our promise to each other while fireworks continue to pop overhead.

Could life get any better than this moment right now?

It’s pure bliss that I know won’t last forever, especially as I open my eyes and focus on my girl. I hardly feel the eyes on us. Tiffany Gable. Savannah Buck. Stephanie Taylor.

I thought maybe we could live in the bliss a little while longer.

I guess I was wrong.