A few days after Christmas

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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.