Page 94 of Call the Shots (For The Arena #1)

BEAR

EPILOGUE: VEGAS, BABY

Xavier tried to leak King’s information a few years later and the NDA blowback was hilarious.

Not only were there financial repercussions but June threw her own legal fees into the mix too, using the law firm she worked for to take on her own case.

He must’ve been addicted to digging a bigger hole for himself because when it came out that he’d hired a private investigator to trail her—add stalking to the mix, and the judge wasn’t happy.

Two years in a state prison was the verdict. Xavier ended up serving eight months with good behavior and finally learned to leave June alone. With the restraining order, he didn’t have a choice.

I hadn’t talked to my dad in a long time, but he contacted me to say if I ever wanted to set foot into his house again, it’d have to be without June. That was probably the funniest part of it all, the idea that I’d go there without my wife.

I cut out my family and made new ones.

There were the Gladiators, who’d always be my family, the Boston Bulldogs, who I captained my last four years with them, the community that June and I built in Boston, and then what we created ourselves.

We didn’t get pregnant until I retired and then there was this tiny thing that came screaming out of my wife.

He had a shock of blond hair, which the nurse assured us would darken. It didn’t.

June picked the name—Leo, because he’d been basically planned since our first summer together, and because it only felt right to name him after the stars. Our summer star baby, who wiggled out of every outfit I put him in, and I loved him so much, it scared me.

King taught me this trick to use whenever I was overwhelmed. It was simple—count from five.

Sometimes, when June and I took Leo to the park or the grocery store, it’d hit me. How much I loved them, how scared I was of something happening to them, and I’d have to take a moment to count Leo’s chubby fingers, reminding myself that we were in this moment together.

There were so many things about Leo that reminded me of June, it was like having a living memory to love.

When he took his first steps, I cheered him on, and he gave me this uncannily exasperated-June look.

The two of them spent hours digging through the garden together, and the way he carefully patted down the soil— that was June.

When I took Leo to the ice for the first time, he twisted his face in that determined look June had and pushed my hands away when I tried to help.

You think you can love with all your heart and then your heart gets bigger for someone new.

King and Willow stayed over for the weekend and that meant I put my classwork aside for a couple of days. I decided to go back to school for video game design, which worked out perfect for Leo’s baby years and being a chauffeur for a frozen yogurt stop for my kid and my godkids.

I pulled my car into our driveway and my godkids, Flint, Amber, and Emmy, raced out. I opened the back door to see my son.

Leo squirmed in his car seat. “Papa, Papa?—”

“I know, I’m helping you, buddy.” I chuckled, unbuckling his car seat. “They left you behind, what’s up with that?”

I picked him up to place him on the ground, but he thumped my chest with his fists. “Bear cub, bear cub?—”

I mock-growled. “Are you my bear cub?”

He growled back, hands up like bear paws, and I tickled his stomach. I couldn’t remember exactly how it stuck but we watched the documentary my mom was in, and Leo seemed to realize his dad’s name was an animal. Suddenly we had to have bear-themed everything in the house.

With a chuckle, I grabbed the frozen yogurt out of the cupholder, ready to put Leo down, but he pressed his face to my neck and hugged me. Those always took me off-guard, those insistent hugs when he’d hold tight.

“I love you, bear cub,” I whispered. “More than you know.”

“Papa, down—down—” he struggled until I set him on the ground and then he was off, waddling in his star-print overalls. He stumbled and shoved himself back up again. “Mama! MAMA! ”

Emmy opened the door, and I followed after them with the frozen yogurt. Immediately, I was accosted by our dogs, the ugliest dogs at the pound because my wife was persuaded to get the ones that’d been there the longest.

Leo was knocked down and I ushered the dogs away. “Stop licking my kid, let him go?—”

“Mama!” Leo hollered. “MAMA! WHERE ARE YOU?! ”

“I’m in the kitchen!”

My wife stood at the counter, talking to Willow, her long, blonde hair swept into a ponytail, green eyes twinkling as Leo ran over, just to get hauled up by Amber.

“Ambs,” Willow stopped her. “He’s too little, don’t hold him like that?—”

“What? He likes it?—”

“ Put him down .”

Leo thumped to the floor and wrapped his arms around June’s leg. “Mama.”

Yeah, I’d do that too, but we had company. My wife was so achingly gorgeous. Every year, there were new things to love about her, and I didn’t realize I had a thing for MILFs until I had my own. Seeing her in the maternal, caring role…it wasn’t hard to fall in love with her all over again.

“I get to say hi to Mama too,” I interrupted, holding out her frozen yogurt. “Strawberry, every type of sprinkles, heavy on the chocolate sauce, marshmallow sauce, caramel sauce, banana slices, whipped cream?—”

“What would I do without you?” she breathed out, digging the spoon in.

I wrapped my arms around her middle, kissing her neck from the back. “How’s mama bear doing?”

“Papa.” Leo shoved at my knee. “ My mama.”

“Uh, no, my June,” I corrected him. “I’m just letting you bum here until you go to college.”

With an irritated grunt, he tried pushing me, hugging June’s leg, and I nestled against June, resting my chin on her hair, nudging him away. My godkids laughed at us while they ate frozen yogurt and King grinned, grabbing spoons from them to take his dad tax.

“I don’t know where he gets this from,” I joked.

“You really have no idea?” June teased.

“What do you mean?”

“He hugs just like you. Buries his face in my neck and everything.”

“And?”

June reached up to stroke my jaw. “My body spent nine months building your clone.”

I grinned and kissed her neck, ignoring my son chanting below for me to move. “This sounds like a good theory about the genetic makeup of our kid. We should make another one just to be sure.”

“Uh-huh,” she laughed. “Before then, we have the backyard set up. Everything’s ready when you are.”

There was a new viral challenge that some of my Bulldog teammates tagged me in, shaving your head for donations to cancer research. I grew out my hair and my beard for the occasion and we were dedicating the video to my mom, Alicia Moreau.

We headed to the backyard, alive with the red maples that my wife adored.

She had an entire living ecosystem built in our backyard with bird feeders, shrubs for butterflies, and low-level native flowers.

I loved spending my evenings relaxing outdoors with them, but I understood that the garden was June and Leo’s domain.

Ever since I tried to take out a dead tree— it’s food for the wildlife, Bear— I was demoted to someone who wasn’t allowed to touch the watering cans.

“It’s so pretty, Auntie Junie,” Emmy whispered, giving the garden a wide-eyed look. “You have so many hummingbirds.”

After Marrs, I grew close to King and Willow, especially after they had their kids. It made sense, with them in New York, and us in Boston, June and I were the natural babysitters. I grinned, nudging Emmy. “That’s right, Emmy. Butter her up, it’s the right decision.”

“I have to warn you…” King gave me a pained look when I sat down. “Adam said he’ll put down fifty thousand if you shave your eyebrows.”

“My eyebrows? ”

“He’ll drop it in the main chat too.”

I groaned and waited for June to start recording. I gave the same speech everyone else did before I listed the players who tagged me. “And there’s a great part about having a bunch of pro-athletes as friends,” I added. “They’re rich. Cough up the money.”

“Montoya’s in the chat!” June exclaimed.

“He better be.” I frowned. “We’re seeing him next weekend.” I stared into the camera. “Montoya, if you don’t donate, I’ll tell your kids what happened on that water slide back at Marrs.”

“Aww, the Gladiators are here. Nick said for twenty thousand, he wants you to shave— Nick. ” June pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is a family stream—oh, they banned him from the site.”

“Papa?” Leo yelled, running over with dirt clutched in his fists from his mother’s garden. “What—what?”

“Mm…” Willow grimaced. “Adam said for fifty thousand?—”

I motioned my wife over. “Say goodbye to my eyebrows.”

The audience leaped in numbers for the stream and there was no dignity in it. There were too many little kids staring at me, bursting into laughter when June finished off my eyebrows.

“Uncle Bear!” Flint laughed. “You look like an egg with a wig!”

Amber doubled over. “You look like your forehead’s an eraser, Uncle Bear!”

“Kids, be—” Willow stopped herself, giggling. “Kids, be nice.”

June gazed down at me, and then my wife, my beautiful, lovely wife, who took care of me after my shoulder surgery, who pushed a lawsuit against North Dakota for me, and supported me when the ACL tear forced me into early retirement, stumbled away to muffle the laughter. “I’m sorry—give me a minute?—”

I sighed to the camera. “Donate. Make this worth it.”

“Kassie said if you shave a heart, they’ll double their donations,” King said.

“Okay but she texted me…” Willow dropped her voice. “She’s going to screenshot it and tell everyone you have a B-A-L-L-S shaved into your?—”

“BALLS?!” Flint yelled. “UNCLE BEAR LOOKS LIKE BALLS!”

There were interesting mohawk and non-mohawk shapes shaved into my scalp until it was wiped clean.

Tears streamed down June’s eyes, and she stepped away, choking out laughter.

That was my wife. I watched her, heart swelling with love.

We’d been together more than ten years. Those years flew by, and I loved her more than she’d ever know.

The gift burned in my pocket, but I bided my time, waiting until the right moment, just enjoying being with my family.

“Papa…” Leo whispered disapprovingly.

“Is it bad?” I grinned. “There’s more of a breeze.”

He patted his stomach. “Papa’s so shiny.”

“It’s not that bad,” June giggled. She clapped a hand over her eyes. “It’s different! I need to get used to it—that’s all?—”

“But you won’t divorce me over it?” I asked, taking the moment.

“Nope,” she giggled, eyes closed.

“That’s good because I wanted to make sure before I did this.”

“Did what?”

June lowered her hand and her amusement morphed to surprise as I slid to one knee, fishing the box from my pocket. Leo tried to take it from me.

“Papa, what is…? Papa?—”

I looped an arm around him and set him on my knee for June to look at too. “June Moreau-Basil, we made a pact, and I wrote it down. We’d go to Las Vegas and get Elvis to marry us.”

“Aww, Bear…”

“You’re my greatest love. My family. You’ve given me more than I ever could’ve asked for.” I glanced over. “Flint, what do I look like?”

“You look like a thumb!”

“Now that I look like a thumb, you kind of have to marry me beyond looks.” I popped open the box for the ring Willow helped me pick out. “Want to get drunk and get our vows renewed?”

June sniffled. “I love you, baby. Eyebrows or no eyebrows.”

“Trip, Papa? Plane?” Leo asked eagerly.

I stood up and snaked an arm around my wife’s waist, giving her another kiss, smiling against her lips. “Nope, buddy, you’re not coming. This is a Mama and Papa trip to make you a sibling. No Leos invited.”