She grinned. “Yo, wassup.”
Reaching the door, Mason tucked his phone into his back pocket and then wrapped Samara up in a bear hug, lifting her off the floor and making her laugh.
As he set her back down, she wagged her head at him. “Why am I not surprised to see you here on your Sunday off?”
He grinned. “I heard my mama’s food was headed this way. So I followed.”
“Of course you did,” Samara teased, closing the door. “Good game on Thursday night. Two hundred and ten receiving yards and three touchdowns? I’m impressed, old man.”
Mason laughed. “Now, see, why you gotta throw shade? Why couldn’t you just congratulate a brotha without adding the ‘old man’ diss?”
Samara laughed. “It’s all love, boo.”
“Uh-huh. Right.” He was grinning as he started from the foyer. His jeans sat low on his lean hips, hugging a round ass that female sports fans had lasciviously dubbed “the best ba-dunk-a-dunk” in the NFL. When he retired from playing, women everywhere would go into deep mourning.
Mason and Samara reached the kitchen to find Sterling, Asha, Stan and Prissy gathered around the huge center island. They were laughing and drinking wine from Asha’s French vineyard as fragrant aromas wafted from the double ovens, making Samara’s mouth water.
Mason went over to greet his aunt and uncle, grinning boyishly as Asha planted a loud, smacking kiss on his cheek and Sterling affectionately rubbed the back of his head. Mason might be a future Hall of Famer and a sex symbol, but to the Wolf Pack, he would always be Pipsqueak.
Everyone ribbed him good-naturedly as he helped himself to a handful of holiday canapés from a platter on the center island.
“The food’s heating up,” Prissy told her youngest son, “so you can eat when everything’s ready.”
“That’s what’s up.” Mason polished off a canapé and popped another one into his mouth. As Samara came up beside him, he playfully bumped her shoulder with his. “Where your husband and kids at?”
“Milan’s napping,” Samara answered, selecting a smoked salmon pinwheel. “Marcus and the boys are out back shooting hoops.”
“They wore Uncle Sterl out,” Stan teased his older brother. “That’s why he came back inside with a quickness.”
Everyone was still laughing when they heard the front door open followed by the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. Michael and Reese appeared in the arched doorway, each holding a child in their arms. They were joined by Manning and Taylor, their three kids in tow.
Everyone called out enthusiastic greetings to the newcomers, welcoming them with hugs and kisses and delighted smiles. Asha plucked MJ out of Reese’s arms while Prissy took Savannah from Michael.
When Marcus emerged from the backyard with Matthew and Malcolm, the older children greeted one another excitedly and then raced off to play downstairs, Shadow barking behind them.
It wasn’t long before Montana, Magnum and Maddox Wolf showed up, broad grins wreathing their handsome faces as they looked around the bustling kitchen.
“We heard there was a party going on,” Montana drawled.
“With food,” Magnum added, rubbing his stomach.
Everyone laughed as the three brothers made their way to the platter of canapés. More glasses of wine were poured, more dinner plates added to the growing stack on the center island. Sterling put on some holiday music, Nat King Cole crooning about chestnuts roasting on an open fire.
Marcus wrapped his arm around Samara’s waist as she fed him the last canapé and slowly licked her fingers. They held each other’s gazes, the air between them sparking with heat and electricity.
The festive gathering grew even larger and noisier with the arrival of Prissy’s brother and sister-in-law, Theo and Winnie Kirkland. They were accompanied by their twin daughters Maya and Zora, along with their husbands and young children. More boisterous greetings and hugs were exchanged, everyone laughing and talking at once.
When someone brought up the family’s upcoming trip to France, Zora called out to no one in particular, “What day are we leaving again?”
“We’re leaving on December twenty-second at sevenA.M.,” Manning called back in a deep, authoritative voice that halted all conversation. When twenty pairs of eyes swung to him, he took the opportunity to elaborate. “As everyone may recall, it’s an eight-hour flight to Paris followed by a ninety-minute drive to Burgundy. It’s going to be a long day and we’re traveling with small children, so we need to get an early start. We ain’t operating on CP Time, folks. Anyone who’s late to the airport is getting left. I’m looking at you, Maya and Zora.”
Everyone burst into knowing laughter as Maya and Zora traded sheepish grins. The twin sisters’ perpetual lateness was a long-running joke in the family. They’d even been tardy to their own weddings.
Manning joked, “I can already see y’all running down the tarmac yelling ‘Wait! Wait!’ while the rest of us wave at you from the plane.”
As more raucous laughter erupted, Navarro and Zachary made a show of consoling their pouting wives.
More than forty of them would be spending the holidays at Asha’s luxurious château in Burgundy. To avoid overloading one plane with everyone’s luggage and Christmas packages, they were splitting up into two groups. Half of the family was traveling on Manning’s Gulfstream, the other half on Marcus’s.
