I couldn’t believe I was looking at fucking tuxedo pictures when I should have been looking at the playbook. We had a bye this week. So the timing was perfect for me to fly to Nashville for the CYAs.

But tuxes? I hated the fuckers.

“Just pick one. That’s all you have to do.” Alexa chimed in. We video chatted every night.

“Why don’t you just pick it.”

“Because, Helena narrowed it down to three. Don’t you like any of them?”

I scowled. “No.”

“Come on, Luke. Just one?”

I scanned my options. “Last one on the left.”

She smiled. “See? That wasn’t so bad.”

“You don’t have to wear it.”

“Have you seen my dress?”

That caught my attention. “No. But it better be tight and you know I love to see your tits.”

“I’ll work on that.” She played with her bottom lip.

“Did you take the test yet?” I blurted it out like a damn idiot. She may have taught me a lot, but I didn’t have a filter.

“How did you go from red carpet wardrobe to pregnancy test?” she asked.

“I want to know, Alexa. I want to know about our baby.”

It was eating me up. Every time I thought I forgot about it, I hadn’t. One of the guys would bring his sons to practice and everyone would get a kick out of tossing him the ball. It hit me in the fucking gut every time. That could be my kid. I could be doing that.

She held up a box and showed me the test on the screen. “I have it. I just don’t think I can do it without you.”

“Put the phone down and I’ll wait.”

“Luke!”

“Was that insensitive?”

“Yes.” She glared at me. “I need you here for this. It’s a huge deal.”

“You want to wait another week?”

“It’s five days. Five more days and we’ll know for sure.”

I turned off the light in my office and carried the phone down the hall with me. “Think it could be a boy?”

Her eyes widened. “You really want this, don’t you?”

Fuck. I didn’t know what I wanted. Only, that when I was with her, I wanted my baby inside her. Hell yeah, I wanted it.

“You’re going to have my baby, Alexa.”

There was silence on her end, but she wasn’t mad. She was stunned. Quiet. Almost crying.

“Why are you so damned far away?” she whimpered.

“Not much longer. Five days, right?”

“Right.” She smiled. “In five days we’ll be out. We don’t have to hide. We’ll take this stupid test. Our worlds are going to be completely different.”

“And Jake knows about everything? He has a plan?” I didn’t give a shit about that fucker, but he was the reason Alexa had to hold off on making this public.

“I’m taking care of Jake. Ok?”

I walked into my bedroom and closed the door. My house wasn’t nearly as large as Alexa’s. She could walk circles in that place.

“Charlie is basically doing somersaults. It’s like she won some kind of publicity lottery. We are officially off her shit list for the stunt we pulled in DC.”

The only way to deal with Alexa’s red carpet invitation was to include Charlie. Alexa was reluctant at first, but after a few calls they seemed to hit it off. I was still trying to wrap my head around how two women could be so different and work together like they did. Alexa swore Charlie was nowhere near as bad as Jake. She was a smart calculated businesswoman with marketing strategy in her DNA.

“I’m getting in bed. So I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

She puckered her lips together. “Good night.”

“Night, baby.”

I hung up and plugged the phone in the charger.

In five days things were going to implode. There was no fucking way around it. But I had trusted Alexa that this was the way she needed to do it. I wasn’t used to someone else calling the shots. Not Linc. Not Charlie. Sure as hell not a woman in my life.

But it didn’t feel like a prison with Alexa. It felt right. And that scared the absolute shit out of me.