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The sex didn’t make me any less nervous to meet her parents.

If anything, it added to the pressure. Now I’ll have the image of my seed dripping out of her cunt in my brain as I’m shaking her father’s hand.

Or something like that. Maybe not so dramatic.

I spend the day packing to distract myself, but it doesn’t seem to help. I drop Harper at Evan’s place to hang with Bella for a few hours, and then I swing by Mandy’s place to pick Victoria up.

I wave to Mandy, who—regrettably—is sitting on the couch. I would not have been opposed to a quick romp with my girl before we head out to, you know, alleviate the stress .

And now we’re on our way to do something I have never actually done before. You need to be in a relationship to meet the parents, and I’ve managed to avoid those up to this point.

“You’re quiet,” she says as she slips into the Mercedes. Yes, I went with the more sensible car to meet her parents—mostly because I dropped Harper off on my way over, and I didn’t mention to her where I was going or what I was doing.

I don’t like keeping things from her, but she’s ten. I don’t want to get her hopes up too high before we know what this is—until we’re a little more certain about the direction of things and whether we’re just messing around or if there’s an actual future here.

I want there to be an actual future here.

It’s a scary thought to have, which is why I need to keep it to myself.

“Shit,” Victoria curses as I pull to a stop in front of her parents’ house.

“The only time you ever curse is when I’m fucking you and you’re about to come, so what’s got your panties twisted?”

She narrows her eyes and purses her lips at me for a beat, and then she inclines her head toward a car in the driveway. “Owen is here.”

“The ex?”

She nods and blows out a breath. “It’s a trap, Trav. I could freaking murder my sister right now.”

“You want to skip it?” I ask.

“Hell no,” she says adamantly. She grabs my hand in hers. “Ready to act like you love me?”

I can’t help the way my eyes land on her. Act?

It’s not going to be much of an act.

I clear my throat. “Yeah. Sure.”

We head toward the door, and an older woman with Victoria’s dark hair streaked with gray answers it.

“I’m so sorry, honey,” her mom says as she pulls her into an embrace. “This was all Vanessa’s idea.”

“I’m gonna kill her,” Victoria says, and I chuckle behind her.

As if I wasn’t nervous enough.

“You must be Victoria’s sister,” I say to her mom, and she gets all flustered as she giggles girlishly. Why does that line work on every woman who has an adult daughter?

“I’m her mother, but nice line,” she says after she seems to collect herself. “You can call me Lori.”

“Nice to meet you, Lori.” I chuckle and stick my hand out to shake hers. “I’m Travis.”

She bats my hand out of the way and pulls me in for a hug. “Nice to meet you, too,” she says. “I’m the nicest out of the whole family. You need anything, you come straight to me.”

I raise my brows at Victoria, who’s glaring at me again.

Lori laughs. “Come on in,” she says, and we move toward the voices we hear coming from the next room. “Victoria and Travis are here,” Lori announces ahead of our entrance, and the voices get quiet for a beat as we make our grand entrance.

Everybody is staring when we walk in. It’s not uncommon, I suppose, for people to stop and stare when I walk in the room. I’m not a small guy at six-foot-three and two hundred five pounds of muscle, but apart from that, people tend to recognize me either from my time on the field or from the different endorsements I’ve taken part in during my time in the off-season—more of which have recently popped up, as advertised by my girl Ellie.

“So it’s true?” a girl who looks a lot like Victoria asks, her jaw slackened as she stares between the two of us. She’s holding a baby and standing next to a man I assume is her fiancé.

I toss an arm around Victoria’s shoulder. “It’s true,” I confirm. I press a kiss to her temple to rub a little salt in the ex’s wound, and when Victoria’s eyes dart over to mine, she looks…grateful.

“When did you meet?” the sister asks.

“Can I introduce him before you start grilling us?” Victoria asks with a roll of her eyes. “You met my mom. This is my dad, Ken.” She points to the only older man in the room. He wears a brace on his wrist from that fall off the ladder she told me about. “My sister Vanessa, my future brother-in-law Jake, and my nephews Mav and Colt.” She points everyone out, and chances are not great I’ll remember a single name she just said to me.

The ex clears his throat, and Victoria rolls her eyes again.

“And you’ve met my ex, Owen. I’m not quite sure why he’s here since it’s a family dinner night.” She makes it a little awkward by announcing that in front of the entire room, and I sort of love that about her.

“I’m Travis,” I say with a grin and a wave to the room in general, breaking up the awkwardness as I realize we make a pretty good team. She makes it awkward, and I smooth it over, like our own superpowers or something. “We first met about six weeks ago. I saw her picking up food at the bar I frequent and I couldn’t stop myself from going over to say hello.”

Six weeks and three days ago, if I’m being exact. A day I’ll never forget.

“Translation, he hit on me,” Victoria says, and I laugh.

“And she rejected me. Told me she was dating some loser.” I glance over at Owen. “Oh, wait. Was that you? Sorry.” I make a face at him. “Anyway, we ran into each other again, and suddenly she was single.” I shrug as I skip over the part about Harper for now. I don’t know what she’s told them or what she wants the ex to know.

“I mean, there’s a little more to it than that, but basically, yeah, that’s the story.” She tightens her hold around my waist, and I squeeze her into me a little.

It’s quiet for a beat, and then Lori says, “Well I think you two make a lovely couple.”

Her words from earlier were true. She really is the nicest of the bunch.

Vanessa and Jake hammer me with questions, Owen mostly just glares at us as he tries to spot the cracks, and Victoria keeps finding reasons to touch me.

While we eat the delicious meatloaf Lori made, her dad asks me all sorts of questions about what it’s like to play in the NFL. To be honest, I think he might be just a tad starstruck, and I think I’m winning him over. Lori, too.

But the sister?

Not so much. She doesn’t seem convinced.

She seems like she still wants her sister with the stupid ex.

But that’s never going to happen.

Not with me in her life…hopefully permanently.