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“Ma!” Liliana banged her small fists against the edges of her car seat in frustration. “Mama!”

“I know, baby.” Kayla cooed. “Mommy is going to let you out right now.”

Kayla fiddled with the buckles on the car seat and finally lifted her daughter out of the vehicle. She placed her gently on the ground and breathed a sigh of relief as Liliana stopped shrieking. Kayla reached for her daughter’s hand, and Liliana curled her small fingers around hers. The two of them began making their way impossibly slowly along the interlocking path that ran from the driveway to the front door; Liliana’s brand new Mary Jane’s clicking softly on the bricks.

The late-November wind whipped around them as they walked and Kayla wanted nothing more than to scoop her young daughter into her arms and carry her to the door. But Kayla knew from previous meltdowns that Liliana had reached the stage where she was determined to walk wherever she went. The last thing that Kayla wanted was for Liliana to explode into a full-blown temper tantrum before they even made it through the door. After what seemed like an eternity, they finally reached the front porch and Kayla pressed the bell with one half-frozen finger.

“You made it.” Brian offered them a genuine smile as he pulled open the door and motioned for them to step inside.

Kayla helped Liliana navigate the step and immediately bent down to remove her daughter’s coat. For some reason, her kid went absolutely mental the moment that she became even the slightest bit too warm. Kayla quickly pulled Liliana’s arms out of her miniature pea coat and smoothed the wrinkles out of the purple, polka-dotted dress that she had bought especially for the occasion.

“Here.” Brian offered. He held out his hand as Kayla stood up and shrugged out of her own jacket.

Kayla smiled gratefully at Brian and handed him their jackets, taking one last look at Liliana to make sure that she looked presentable. “Thanks again for inviting us.”

“It’s no problem.” Brian deposited their jackets on top of the pile that had already formed on the bench in the foyer. He turned back to Kayla and instinctively pulled her into a warm hug. “I’m glad you came.”

Kayla hadn’t been expecting Brian’s sudden show of affection, but she managed to recover and return the hug. Her heart was beating wildly in her chest, and she was acutely aware of every square inch of her body that was touching his. His charcoal gray sweater was soft under her chin and everything about him was intoxicating; his smell, his arms, the way their bodies fit together, everything. Shocked, Kayla quickly stepped back and ended the embrace. The tips of Brian’s fingers lingered on Kayla’s waist as they stared at each other, and Kayla could feel the heat flooding her face.

Brian’s cheeks were also flushed with embarrassment and he hastily dropped his eyes to Liliana. “You must be Liliana.” He opened his mouth into a wide smile and crouched down to her level. “I’m Brian. Can you say ‘Brian’?”

Thankful for the distraction, Kayla gave her daughter an encouraging smile. “Say ‘hi’, Liliana. Say ‘hi’ to Brian.”

Liliana looked at her mother before turning to Brian. Her eyes grew wide and she clapped her hands together in excitement. “Hi, Ba!” She squealed. “Hi, Ba!”

“That’s right.” Brian grinned. “You’re a smart girl, aren’t you, Lily?” He picked her up off of the floor with one fluid motion and propped her on his hip as he stood up.

Kayla smiled at the exchange, touched that Brian had immediately felt comfortable enough to give her daughter a nickname. She tried waving at Liliana to get her attention, but she was currently enamoured with Brian; her gaze firmly locked on his face as he straightened her dress and smoothed her hair.

“Can I introduce her to everyone?” Brian asked. “Or do you want to do it?”

Kayla shook her head. “Go for it.” She encouraged.

Brian led the way down the hallway to the family room and the kitchen. As they approached the back of the house, Kayla was overcome by the smell of turkey and the sounds of football. She could distinctly make out Nick and Kevin’s voices above the general hum of the conversation. Clearly, the Cowboys were in the middle of a very important drive.

“Look who’s here!” Brian announced as the three of them entered the kitchen. He grabbed Liliana’s arm and waved at his mom and Kristin who were both sitting at the table.

Leigh and Rochelle, who were standing at the counter peeling potatoes, also turned at his announcement. Rochelle immediately wiped her hands on a dish towel and swooped down on Liliana to admire her dress.

“Her outfit is just too precious!” Rochelle claimed. She turned her attention away from Liliana and enveloped Kayla in a welcoming hug. “Where did you get her dress? And the tights?”

“They’re actually from Marshalls.” Kayla confessed as she returned Rochelle’s hug. “Nowhere fancy.”

“Ava has to have them both!” Rochelle insisted as she moved over to allow Leigh and Kayla to hug. “Where is the nearest Marshalls?”

“I think they’re closed today, Ro.” Kristin shook her head and stood up from the table to greet Kayla. “It’s good to see you.”

Kayla laughed along with Kristin as they hugged. Aside from the initial inspection, Kayla had only met the other women on two other occasions; once when she had been watching the guys during rehearsal and the other time when Nick had invited her to a group dinner at Kevin’s house in Louisville. Kayla had initially been concerned about the way in which she would be perceived by the Backstreet wives. She was terrified that the other women would want nothing to do with her because of her connection to C.P.S. To her surprise, Kayla couldn’t have been more wrong. Rochelle, Leigh, and Kristin had welcomed her into their group with open arms, providing her with an immediate sense of belonging.

“Fuck you, Romo! You’re a useless piece of shit!” Nick’s angry voice drifted into the kitchen.

“Nickolas!” Jackie berated Nick over his outburst, raising her voice in order to be heard above the chaos in the family room. “Watch your language!”

“Sorry.” Nick’s voice lost its edge and dropped about ten octaves. “Romo just threw a pick.”

Kayla disentangled herself from Kristin and poked her head into the family room just in time to see Nick handing Howie a fifty dollar bill. AJ was smirking at the exchange and Kevin and Harold were both staring at the television in dismay.

“Dallas better get their act together.” Kevin muttered. “I need their defence to get me into the playoffs.”

“You ain’t getting into the playoffs.” Nick scoffed. “I may have just lost fifty bucks to Howie, but I’m gonna get it all back tenfold when Team Chaos takes the Dirty Brows to the cleaners.”

Kayla looked helplessly at Brian, who had followed her into the family room. “What the hell are they talking about?”

“Fantasy football.” Brian laughed as he gently placed Liliana on the ground next to Ava and Holden. “They’re in a fantasy league with a bunch of the guys from our stage crew.”

“Is that so?” Kayla smiled as Nick pushed himself off of the couch and came over to greet her. “It seems pretty serious.”

“It is serious.” Nick deadpanned. He looped his long arms around Kayla’s waist and planted a quick kiss on her forehead. “If I lose I have to pay Kevin five hundred bucks.”

“You mean WHEN you lose.” Kevin corrected, his eyes still firmly glued to the screen. Max was sleeping soundly in his lap, dressed in a Dallas Cowboys onesie.

Nick shot the older man a dirty look before dropping down to greet Liliana. “Hey, Liliana. Do you remember me?”

Liliana raised her eyes to Nick and cracked a smile. “Hi!”

Kayla winced at the level of her daughter’s voice. ‘Hi’ was one of the few words that Liliana knew how to say, and she was quite proud of it. Consequently, she tended to greet everyone at top volume.

Ava and Holden immediately turned their attention to Liliana; abandoning their respective plastic toys. Ava’s eyes opened as wide as they would go and she reached out one of her pudgy hands to touch Liliana’s shoe. Liliana smiled back and reached out her own hand to grab one of Ava’s shoes. The two girls stared at each other in fascination; their friendship cemented. Holden, on the other hand, quickly lost interest and returned his attention to slobbering all over his plastic hippopotamus.

“Oh my God!” Rochelle gushed as she walked into the room and saw the girls smiling at one another. She quickly pulled her iPhone from her back pocket and bent down to take a picture. “How cute is this?”

“So cute!” AJ confirmed. He had already leapt off of the couch and was crouched on the ground, jamming his own iPhone in the babies’ faces. “Lil, Ava, look over here!”

“Holden!” Howie snapped his fingers in an effort to get his son’s attention. He also had his iPhone camera at the ready and was eagerly waiting for Holden to look interested. “Come on, buddy. You’re supposed to want to look at the pretty girls.”

Holden merely stared back at his father in confusion. He slowly lowered the red plastic animal from his mouth and extended his drool-covered toy in Howie’s direction.

“No, Holden, I don’t want your toy.” Howie sighed. “I want you to turn around and look at Ava and Liliana.”

“Now, they’re holding hands!” Rochelle made the announcement with so much enthusiasm that one would have thought that the two babies had just discovered a cure for cancer.

This was all it took for Kayla to get in on the action. She whipped her own iPhone out of her pocket and knelt down in-between AJ and Rochelle. Her finger flew across the screen as she feverishly tried to capture the catalogue worthy moment.

In the midst of all the commotion, Holden once again lost interest and fell over onto his back. He grabbed at his own toes, lifting his diaper clad butt into the air and gurgled loudly.

Howie rolled his eyes as he watched his youngest son roll around on the floor. “Maybe I should try again for a girl.”

“Is this normal?” Nick had scooted out of AJ’s way, and he was now sitting cross-legged on the floor watching the parent paparazzi descend on Liliana and Ava. “They haven’t even done anything.”

“It’s best if you just pretend not to notice.” Harold advised. “Trust me, son.”

“Are you feeling left out?” Kayla turned her phone in Nick’s direction. “I can take your picture too, if it will make you feel better about yourself.”

Nick gave her a massive smile and Kayla quickly snapped the photo before returning to a standing position. Nick immediately hoisted himself off of the floor and peered over Kayla’s shoulder to look at the screen. He wrapped his arms around her waist and gently pulled her back against his chest as he leaned his face down next to hers.

“I’m way cuter than any baby.” Nick joked.

“It’s good to know that you don’t think too highly of yourself.” Kayla shot back.

She flipped her eyes upwards just in time to see Brian pull his gaze away from the two of them. There was a strange look on his face, one that she couldn’t quite place. After she watched Brian drop down on the couch next to Kevin, Kayla’s eyes travelled to Harold. The older man had obviously been watching the three of them out of the corner of his eye, and he offered her a barely noticeable smile before turning his full attention back to the television.

Kayla hurriedly pressed the hold button on her phone and the picture of Nick instantly faded to black. She stepped out of Nick’s grasp and slipped her phone back into her pocket. “I should go help with dinner.”

“You can help with the potatoes.” Rochelle informed Kayla as she stood up from her position on the floor.

“You two can FINISH peeling the potatoes!” Leigh’s voice drifted from the kitchen. “I’m up to my eyeballs in potato skins in here!”

“We’re coooommmminggggg!” Rochelle sang. She linked arms with Kayla and began tugging her in the direction of the kitchen. “The boys can watch football and take care of the kids at the same time.”

“I dunno if you can trust us.” Kevin joked. “It seems as though we’ve already lost three.”

“The boys are in the back.” Brian reminded him, referring to Baylee, Mason, and James. “At least I THINK that’s where they are.”

Rochelle and Kayla rolled their eyes in unison as they rejoined the rest of the women in the kitchen. Kayla picked up a potato peeler from the counter and began to help Leigh with the daunting task of peeling more than a whole sack of potatoes. Despite the friendly chatter that was circling around her, Kayla’s thoughts drifted to Nick as she watched the curled peelings land on the counter.

Kayla was attracted to Nick; of that she was sure. Then again, what girl in her right mind wasn’t attracted to the blonde haired, blue eyed, well-toned celebrity? Despite her earlier reservations, Kayla was now convinced that Nick was attracted to her as well. She had seen the desire in his eyes and felt the longing in his touch the last few times that they had been in close proximity to each other. No, Kayla decided with certainty, the problem didn’t lie with Nick. The problem lied with her. No matter how much she wanted to feel that heart-pounding, tongue-twisting sense of excitement that she was pretty sure that Nick was feeling every time that he looked at her, it just wasn’t there.

“What are you thinking about?”

Kayla blinked at Leigh’s words. “What’s that?”

“I’m pretty sure that she’s thinking about a certain someone with blonde hair and blue eyes.” Kristin’s eyes sparkled with amusement as she cut the freshly peeled potatoes into cubes. “Am I right?”

“Who’s thinking about me?” Brian strolled into the kitchen and pulled open the fridge. He began loading his arms with cans of soda and bottles of water. “I’m pretty irresistible if I do say so myself.”

“We’re talking about the other blue-eyed narcissist.” Kristin quipped. “The one that has Kayla so distracted that she’s peeled the same potato three times.”

Kayla looked down at the potato in her hands; it did look an awful lot smaller than it had in the beginning and the skin was defiantly long gone. Colour crept into Kayla’s cheeks as she hastily dropped the potato onto the cutting board and reached for a new one to occupy her hands.

“Right.” Brian gave Kayla a small wink as he kicked the fridge door closed with the side of his foot. “My mistake.”