Something Else Entirely

29 - Don't you have other pretty girls to be cuddling?

"Jetty, I'm so proud of you!"

While I'm usually pretty self aware and good at guessing what I've done to warrant Sadie's praise, this time I really have no idea. I'm just stretching my hamstrings out on the football oval, already glistening in sweat from my team's warm up drills and anxious for the game to get underway.

Dad, Tanner, Ryder and Jasper were standing around the goal posts, taking shots at the goal while Madden and his best friend Jordie were climbing all over the fence posts nearby, shouting commentary about our kicking actions and accuracy, or lack thereof when it came to Jasper who played full-back and couldn't kick a grain of sand through a black hole. Boy, could he take a contested mark though, and run the ball out of the backline like an agile rocket.

"What did I do?" I asked as Dad ran over to kiss her and her stomach, as he seemed to do every time she came within kissing distance nowadays. Not an exaggeration either. Every single time.

Morgan, standing next to Sadie and holding a wriggling Willow on her hip, was chuckling at him doing it as she tried desperately to extract her flaming red hair from Willow's vice-like baby grip.

"You invited her to come watch you!"

"Invited who?" I asked, knowing there was only one 'her' I wanted Sadie to answer me with.

Please be Logan.

No, wait. That means I actually need to play well to impress her.

Please don't be Logan.

No . . . yes.

Logan. Logan. Logan.

I looked around frantically trying to find her.

"Aim for the carpark, kiddo," said Dad, obviously having spied her already as she sat on the bonnet of her car, with Byron standing next to her hoisting Darcie onto his shoulders to no doubt search for Madden. Dad, his voice carrying louder and further than I ever usually want, yelled, "Fyres! Over here!" waving them over to where we were all standing a hundred metres away.

"Oh, shit," I cursed, trying to wipe the sweat off my face and sniffing under my armpits to gauge how bad I smelled already.

Sadie laughed. "You look as handsome as ever, baby; and the whole sweaty footy player thing, it's a winning combination, trust me," she smirked, reaching for the material stretched across Dad's chest, pulling him into her and kissing him before pushing him away and hitting his ass playfully as he turned and chased after the ball.

"I can definitely second that," piped in Morgan, giggling nearby. "I think that was definitely the precursor to how Willow was conceived."

"Hey! My two, too!" said Sadie, and both women burst out laughing. The deep chuckles of their other halves nearby, hearing this exchange, echoed their own perfectly.

"You know, I honestly don't think I know a family who laugh more than you guys do," said Byron, reaching us at the peak of their shared cackles.

"We're making up for lost time, By," said Sadie, clutching at her sides and still laughing, but definitely meaning what she said because it was true.

"So, what's so funny this time?" he asked, pulling Darcie from his shoulders when she saw Madden and tapped the top of his head repeatedly to put her down and go play.

Morgan answered far more honestly than I would have liked. "We were talking about the sexual appeal of sweaty men running around in short shorts, tackling and scrambling over other sweaty men for hours."

Logan tried to catch her laugh with her hands, which both now covered her mouth and her slightly pink cheeks, but we all heard it.

"Wouldn't you agree, Logan?" asked Morgan, not even trying to hide how obvious she was being.