CHAPTER 26 LINCOLN

"That went better than expected," I say as she slides into bed beside me.

"Much better than expected," she agrees. She lets out a soft sigh of contentment. Her dad may not be totally on board, but an I won't stop you is better than the reverse. "Were you serious about getting married before the baby gets here?"

"Yeah," I say softly. "I would marry you right this second if I could. We've waited long enough, don't you think? Sealing our commitment legally would just strengthen our fight against whoever else might try to step in our way."

"God, I hope there's no one else. Though I wouldn't expect Jeremy to stay quiet for long, and Rivera is still dancing around in the periphery, which makes me more nervous than we've really admitted."

I blow out a breath. She's not wrong…and that's partly why I want to move forward sooner rather than later. "It makes me nervous, too. But that's not a reason to get married."

I lift her hand and brush my lips across her knuckles.

"Then what is?" she asks.

"Our love. Our commitment to each other and this family we're building. I don't know…I just have this urge to make you my wife. I know it's what I want, and I want it sooner rather than later. Not that I know much about babies, but I feel like once he or she's here, we're going to be busy with a newborn, and things will get pushed off…I guess I want to focus on us while we can."

"Oh, Linc," she murmurs. "That's really sweet. And it will get busy. The focus will shift a little. But that doesn't mean that you won't still be at the center of my world."

"And you will be at mine, too. But that doesn't change the fact that I want a little time with my wife before our baby arrives." I shrug.

"Then let's do it. Sooner rather than later, before I'm really showing. We can just do something quick, close friends and family only, and then have a celebration after the baby gets here," she suggests.

"Next week is our bye week, so if we're getting married during the season, this is the week to do it." It should scare me. I'm a thirty-six-year-old man who has managed to avoid marriage to this point.

It doesn't.

When you know…you know. And I know.

"Next week?" Her words come out in a soft little stutter. "Where?"

"We could try one of those cheesy little Vegas chapels. Or at the Complex or the stadium."

She raises a brow as she considers that. "What about in the media room where we first connected and then reconnected again and again?"

I chuckle. "With Jack as our officiant?"

"Oh my God, yes!"

My chuckle turns to a full-out laugh at her response. "Consider it done."

She turns toward me and sets her palm on my chest. "All this getting married talk is making me horny."

I laugh. "Well, then, allow me to divert the topic from Jack Dalton elsewhere. White dress. Flowers. Rings. Reception."

She reaches down to cup my cock with her palm, and I thrust into her hand.

"Makes me horny, too, I guess. Or just having you in a t-shirt and panties beside me. Or just knowing you're about to become my wife." I lift a shoulder as her lips come down to meet mine.

"I love you, Linc," she murmurs against my mouth.

"I love you, too." I pull her down on top of me, and our wedding plans are put on hold for a bit as I push into her and show her how much she means to me.

The days that follow move quickly as my attention has to shift back to the team I'm coaching. We have practice and meetings on Wednesday and Thursday, and it's Thursday evening when my phone rings and I see it's Spencer calling.

"What's up, bro?" I answer.

"You sound cheerful," he says.

"That'll happen when you finally get things right." I can hear the smile in my own voice as I say the words.

"I heard. The news is everywhere right now," he says. "Thanks for letting your little brother in on the intel first."

We made the engagement public, but we haven't announced the baby just yet. Not publicly, anyway. We'll wait a bit and make sure everything is going smoothly before we do that, but we did announce the engagement via the podcast, and apparently the thought to notify my brothers really didn't cross my mind.

"Unlike my brother, I prefer to break exciting news personally instead of having my closest family members find out about it through the media," he says.

"Oh?" I ask, my curiosity piqued.

"I did it, Linc. I proposed to Amelia."

"Well I'll be damned," I murmur. "Congratulations, Spence. I'm so happy for you."

"Imagine that. Two Nash men off the market at the same time."

I laugh. "As the patriarch gets back on the market."

"Jesus. There's an image." We're both quiet a moment, and then he asks, "How are you doing with the whole mom and dad thing?"

I'm vague in my response since he doesn't know my suspicions about my own lineage. "Fine. You?"

"It's hitting me harder than it should given that I'm a grown adult," he admits. "It made me pause for a second before I popped the question. Is marriage meant to last forever?"

"Heavy question for two newly engaged men, but I'd like to think we're our own men and the mistakes our parents made aren't ours. Instead, we learn from them and live our own lives."

"You're pretty damn smart sometimes for an asshole," he says, and I chuckle.

"Right back at you, Spence."

"Asher said you're not talking to Dad," he says, clearly prodding for more on that.

"It's a little more than that," I admit. "Sort of like how Mom's divorcing him…I'm cutting him out, too. He's done me more harm than good in my thirty-six years."

"You really believe that?" he asks.

I blow out a breath. "Look, anyone can see he treated me differently than the rest of you."

"You're the oldest. He expected more out of you." He says it so simply, like he saw exactly what I'm talking about and justified it in the way he saw fit.

"Maybe that's true," I admit. "But maybe that's not what it was at all."

"Oh, come on. You can't really believe that he's done you more harm than good. If it weren't for him, none of us would've had the resources to make it to the NFL. None of us would have the lives we have."

"Maybe you're right about that," I say. "But I also never would've had to break up with Jolene in the first place. Maybe we'd have six or seven kids running around by now. Maybe I'd be something other than a coach. Maybe I wouldn't be involved in sports at all. But we'll never know because that's not how the chips fell."

"What would you be doing if you weren't a coach?" he asks.

I don't answer. I can't.

I've never known the answer to that.

I've never had to know because I never had to think beyond football. When you're done playing, you coach, or you scout, or you broadcast. The game is life. We're the Nashes.

It was drilled into me practically from birth. My first stuffed animal was a football my grandmother crocheted for me, and I was expected to love it.

And I do. There's no doubt about that. I'm a driven competitor.

But with a woman who's about to become my wife and a baby on the way and a stepson I love as if he were my own…I'm also starting to think about life beyond the game.

I'm starting to think that maybe I won't coach until I'm too old to step onto the field.

I'm starting to think maybe I don't want to broadcast. Maybe instead of working with the game, I want to travel with my wife and attend games as a spectator rather than as an analyst.

Or maybe she'll encourage me to keep coaching until the kids are out of the house, and maybe that's what I'll want to do.

There's a future for me out there, and I don't know if it's in coaching or if it's somewhere else. I'm tied to the Aces for three years—provided they want me here that long, of course, but after that, it's anybody's guess as to whether I'll stick around.

But whatever I decide, I know it'll be with Jolene by my side supporting me and helping me arrive at the decisions that are best for me and our family.

All in all, that feels pretty damn good.