As if sensing my unease, Jensen’s hand slips into mine as he leans down and presses a kiss to my temple.
“Are you all right?” he asks and I nod, squeezing his hand back and leaning against him.
“Just thinking about Scarlett and how happy I am to be here.” The emotions remain complicated, my own needing to be nurtured with each of Remi’s milestones and my love for Jensen. I didn’t want to feel guilty and even though I worked tirelessly, sometimes it still snuck in.
“You’re allowed to have both.We’reallowed to have both. But what we’ve built is ours and the past doesn’t change that,” he says firmly before placing a kiss on my lips.
“It’s like Montana and Ellison all over again!” Mason yells and everyone laughs, Jensen ignoring them and taking one more kiss before straightening and lifting one shoulder.
“I don’t know,” Bea chimes in, fanning her face dramatically. “Those two were all about the tension.”
“We’ll try harder next time,” I muse as I turn back to the game set up on the other side of the table.
“Nessa, in honor of it being your very first game night, you get the privilege of going first,” Ellison says with a flourish as she points at two muffin trays with paper numbers in the bottom of each well. “If you get one of the balls into a tin, you get that corresponding prize.”
Jensen groans behind me, and I grin as I take the ping-pong ball, standing behind the line taped on the floor and tossing it gently.
“Fifteen, baby!” I cheer, doing a little dance after sinking the ball in my jersey number. Ellison high-fives me and hands me a container that has a gift card to Cedar Lake Day Spa in it. “Aren’t you fancy.”
She winks. “We had to mix it up a little. Last time the prizes were abysmal,” she says pointedly at Archer.
He raises his hands in surrender. “I told you I’m sorry and that I shouldn’t have been in charge of it.”
Montana snickers as Bodhi points at Jensen. “You’re up.”
Grumbling under his breath, Jensen takes the ball and stands behind the line. He throws it no harder than I did, but instead of landing in the tin, it bounces along the side before jumping to the counter and onto the floor.
Chaos ensues as Jensen tells everyone to fuck off, Montana cackles, Mason is laughing so hard he can barely stand, Ellisonand Bea are giggling and holding each other up, and Bodhi’s lips twitch as he silently picks up the ball and stands behind the line.
He sinks it, and this time when the laughter breaks out, Jensen throws me over his shoulder and marches down the hallway to an open bedroom. Whoops and catcalls follow us as he kicks the door shut with his boot and locks it.
“They were right; you’re such a sore loser.”
“Doesn’t matter, Trouble.” He brings my left hand to his mouth, placing a kiss next to the diamond sitting there. “Where it counts, I already won.”
THE END
