“I’ll have Tuesdays off… sort of.”
I chuckled. “I’ll take whatever I can get.” I paused then, searching his honey eyes with my own. “I’m really proud of you.”
Makoa answered with a deep, breath-stealing kiss, and then the DJ announced that it was time for all “the single ladies” to gather on the dance floor.
I groaned at the prospect, but Makoa shoved me out there, and I stood with my arms crossed in the back of a group of giggling, excited girls waiting for the bouquet.
Except when Gemma stood on the little stage at the front of the dance floor, she didn’t have flowers at all.
She had a football.
Because, of course.
And I knew when I saw that devilish gleam in her eyes when she turned around that she was launching that sucker straight at me.
It was a flurry of hands and hair and chiffon when that ball was tossed in the air, but the girls had absolutely no chance at catching the ball. Gemma had thrown it high and far to the back where I stood, and I didn’t have to move a single inch to reach up and catch it.
She turned, acting like she was surprised when she saw the ball in my hand, and she did a little dance of glee before hopping down off the stage and going back to dancing with the Chicago Bears players.
I made my way over to where Makoa still sat at the table, tossing the football to him when I was close enough.
He caught it easily, laughing and reading the writing on the ball once I was back in his lap.
“Great catch, you’re next!” he read aloud, tossing the football up and catching it again before he looked at me. “What do you think of that?”
“What do you think of that?”
He shrugged, putting the ball aside and holding me in his arms. “I think you’d look pretty damn hot in a white dress.”
I smiled. “That so?”
“Mm,” he said, pulling me into him for a long, promising kiss. His lips found my ear next. “Belle Kumaka,” he whispered. “Kind of has a ring to it, don’t you think?”
My stomach filled with butterflies, their wings so powerful that they floated me up to standing, and I tugged on Makoa’s hand until he was standing, too.
“Alright, Romeo. Let’s just get through our first year of dating, huh? Then we can talk about weddings.”
“You’ll be lucky if I wait that long,” he said as I pulled him out onto the dance floor. When we made it, he swept me up in his arms, pressing a kiss behind my ear. “I’ve been waiting my whole life for you, Belle Monroe. And I’m never letting you go now.”
He kissed me again before I was spun out, twirled back in, and dipped back for a dramatic entry to the dance floor. I shoved him off me when we were standing again, rolling my eyes as he winked and did the cabbage patch over to where the rest of the team was dancing with Gemma and Zach.
For a long while, I stood at the edge of the dance floor, watching all of them. I watched my best friend smile like it was the best day of her life, and I knew without a doubt that it was. I watched her husband, who looked at her like she was his entire world, and I knew without a doubt that she was.
And I watched Makoa Kumaka, who paused mid-dance with furrowed brows like he’d lost something before he turned, finding me, and held his hand open with the most giant, goofy smile I’d ever seen.
He looked at me like I was his everything, like we were stupid in love, like no matter what life handed us from that moment on — we would make it.
And I knew without a doubt that he was right.
The End
A Note to the Reader
Thank you for reading The Right Player! I hope you loved reading Makoa and Belle’s story as much as I loved writing it.
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Keep reading for a sneak peek inside book one – On the Rocks.
All My Love,
Kandi
Noah
When you hear the word Tennessee, what do you think of?
Maybe your first thought is country music. Maybe you can even see those bright lights of Nashville, hear the different bands as their sounds pour out of the bars and mingle in a symphony in the streets. Maybe you think of Elvis, of Graceland, of Dollywood and countless other musical landmarks. Maybe you feel the prestige of the Grand Ole Opry, or the wonder of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Maybe you feel the history radiating off Beale Street in Memphis.
Or maybe you think of the Great Smoky Mountains, of fresh air and hiking, of majestic sights and long weekends in cabins. Maybe you can close your eyes and see the tips of those mountains capped in white, can hear the call of the Tennessee Warbler, can smell the fresh pine and oak.
Maybe, when you think of Tennessee, all of this and more comes to mind.
But for me, it only conjured up one, two-syllable word.
Whiskey.
I saw the amber liquid gold every time I closed my eyes. I smelled its oaky finish with each breath I took. My taste buds were trained at a young age to detect every slight note within the bottle, and my heart was trained to love whiskey long before it ever learned how to love a woman.
Tennessee whiskey was a part of me. It was in my blood. I was born and raised on it, and at twenty-eight, it was no surprise to
