I hustled down the short hallway. Peeking around the corner, I watched as Lily embraced our girls, planting a kiss on the tops of their dark-haired heads. They had both inherited my dark hair and eyes, but they each had the same dimple in their left cheek that their mother did. While the reporter might've thought Lily’s affection was all for show, I knew better. The sight caused warmth to flood my chest.
Glancing over Lucy's head, Lily met my gaze. The beaming smile she had for our girls tightened considerably. "So glad to see you finally made it home safely." While the reporter might not have caught her veiled hostility, I heard it loud and clear. I had to do something fast to get my ass out of the doghouse.
Plastering on my most apologetic smile, I power-walked around the corner. I then threw my hand out to the reporter. "Brayden Vanderburg."
As he pumped my hand, he replied, "Giovanni Coppola."
"I'm so sorry I'm late. I'd love to blame the kids, but sadly it's all my fault."
He laughed good-naturedly. "It's okay. You guys have a lot on your plate with the wedding. I just appreciate you making time for me."
"We're just honored that an esteemed magazine like yours would want to interview us,” I drawled, laying it on extra thick.
When Lily raised her brows at me, I winked. She ignored me and turned to the kids. “Okay guys, Mia is waiting on you next door. She’s had an early dinner delivered from her dad’s restaurant.”
“Mama Sofia’s!” Melody squealed while Lucy gave an enthusiastic smile.
“Good. I’m starving,” Jude replied before he headed to the door with Melody and Lucy trailing behind him.
Before Lily could ask me if I had also managed to forget to feed our kids, I held up my hands. “He ate everything you packed as well as raiding the concession stand twice. I swear that kid will be eating us out of house and home when he turns thirteen.”
Lily cocked her head at me. “I seem to remember you having the same appetite when you were a little older than him.”
Sensing an opportune moment for interrogation, Giovanni asked, “Just how hold were you when you met?”
“Sixteen,” Lily and I replied in unison.
Our shared reply brought a beaming smile to Giovanni’s face. “Do you finish each other’s sentences, too?”
“Sometimes,” Lily replied.
“I’m usually forgetting what I want to say so I need her to finish,” I joked.
Giovanni scribbled something down in his notebook. When he glanced up, he motioned to the patterned sofa. “Why don’t you two sit there, and I’ll have a seat here?” His hand fell on the back of one of the antique chairs.
I nodded. Easing down on the sofa beside Lily, I leaned over and gave her a quick kiss. “You smell good,” I complimented.
The tight expression that had been on her face since I came in receded, and a genuine smile appeared. “You smell even better because you smell like the ocean.”
I then turned my attention to Giovanni. “Once again, my deepest apologies for being late.”
“It’s all right.”
Cocking my head at him, I asked, “Did my lovely wife give you the sad sap story as to why I’m not always with it?”
Giovanni grinned. “Yes, she did. And I have to say it was quite fascinating hearing about your head injury and how without it, you might not be where you are today.”
With a chuckle, I replied, “I would have to say that’s the truth because if it weren’t for the short-term memory issue shit, I would have been here a lot earlier.”
Waving his hand dismissively at my joke, Giovanni said, “I don’t think most of our readers or your fans know you didn’t grow up playing guitar or having the desire to be a rock star. That without the football related injury, you would have never taken up the guitar or written your first song.”
I shifted in my seat. Talking about my injury always made the hairs stand up on the back of my arms and neck. It was one of those life-altering moments that set me on an entirely different path I could never have imagined. At sixteen, my entire universe revolved around the emerald green grass of the field and the smell of pigskin in my hands. I had my eye on a college scholarship and maybe some time in the NFL. I was that good.
But life changes in an instant—a play you had executed flawlessly a hundred times before can go so very wrong. Instead of being carted off victoriously on the shoulders of your teammates, you leave in a neck brace laid out on a stretcher. A brain injury coupled with a cracked vertebrae that narrowly missed severing your spine brings the curtains down on your dream. But then you realize the life you thought was ending was truly just beginning.
The squeeze of Lily’s hand brought me out of the past and back to the present. I cleared my throat. “Yes, it is true that my life would be so very different and not for the better. But I don’t mean in the sense of not having the fortune or the fame.” I turned to gaze at Lily and smiled. “I might not have Lily by my side.”
She brought my hand to her lips and kissed it. “When I was seventeen, I told you I’d follow you anywhere and everywhere. If your life had taken you somewhere else, I would have been there.”
“Thank God,” I murmured.
“So was it love at first sight for you?” Giovanni asked, leaning in expectantly.
Lily tilted her head at me before giggling. “Not exactly.”
Giovanni’s dark brows knit together. “Oh?”
I couldn’t help the smile that stretched across my face as the familiar memory played in my mind. “I owe my marriage to my lovely wife’s penchant for apple thievery.”
Lily sputtered with outrage. “I was not stealing apples. We had just moved in, and I wasn’t sure where our property ended and your grandparents’ began.”
After winking at her, I focused my gaze on Giovanni’s amused one. “The first time I ever laid eyes on Lily she was wearing a blue sundress with a satin ribbon in her hair. She could have had the face of an angel, but I wouldn’t have noticed because she had the hem of her dress flipped up to cradle the apples she was picking from my grandparents’ tree. All I could focus on were her long, tanned legs and the brief glimpse I got at what was between them.”
“Brayden Michael Vanderburg!” Lily exclaimed. Just hearing her call my full name caused warmth to enter my chest. I loved her voice, I loved her outrage, and I loved that a woman as amazing as she was actually loved me.