beautiful mistake - joe burrow

87

The evening at the Cosgrays' was really nice. Nick had talked excitedly with Harry and Zac, Joe had been engrossed in his conversation with Easton and Eric, and Tammy, Leila, and Lauren had chatted loudly with Sarah and Lisa, Nick's wife.

Only Elle had withdrawn from the adults and had entertained all the children. Although she had had her hands full with 6 of them, aged from 2 to 12, the children loved her, which had made everything much easier.

Still, she had been glad when she had finally put the last child, Sophie, Nick's 12-year-old daughter, to bed and could spend the rest of the evening at the table with the others.

By the time she was back home with Joe and the others, she felt the exhaustion from running around with the kids, and no sooner had she changed clothes and was lying on the mattress in the gaming room than she had fallen asleep.

When the alarm clock jolted her out of sleep in the morning, she just groaned as she turned it off. Her shoulder hurt. Probably because one of the kids had jumped on it a little too hyper yesterday, plus the mattress on the floor wasn't exactly the most comfortable thing either.

"You sound like an old woman. Did you age overnight?" Joe asked, amused, as he watched Elle have trouble getting up from the mattress.

"Well, the kids yesterday would certainly call me old" Elle stood up and carefully rotated her shoulder to find the exact location of her pain and therefore perhaps the cause.

"It was really cute the way you played with them yesterday, by the way. You can tell you have a way with kids" Joe smiled sweetly at her while Elle was still circling her shoulder.

"Well, I do have experience. Got a kindergarten every day at work" she winked amusedly at Joe, who laughed. "Unfortunately, I have to agree with you. We really are like a bunch of kids" he agreed with her.

"Worse" Elle added. "You guys are worse than kids"

Her pain only got worse while working, especially typing on the computer hurt, which is why she made an appointment to see Nick and get her shoulder checked out after her shift today.

She would only work the morning today and would spend the rest of the day with her family. Since it would be a home game tomorrow, most of the players were only there for walk-through practice and their own toned-down workouts anyway, which meant the ATs didn't have as much to do either.

Nick, unfortunately, couldn't find anything really wrong with her shoulder either, just warned her to be a little careful the next few days and not to put too much stress on it and gave her some simple painkillers so she wouldn't be too limited before wishing her a nice lunch and letting Elle go.

She met her family at her apartment, from where they drove to a nearby diner and had lunch and then headed to the park.

Despite the cold November days, there was quite a bit going on, especially on the playground where Eric was frolicking with Ian after Elle tended to hold back because of her shoulder. Normally she was always the first to sit on the swing with Ian or slide down the slide, but today she had to pass on it to the visible disappointment of Ian.

The little one had forgotten about it pretty quickly, though, as he ran around the playground with his big uncle, swinging and sliding, while the others relaxed, spread out on two park benches, watching the two of them while talking.

Leila used the time to go over a few details with Elle for the campaign as well as her PR. She asked a few questions to find out what Elle's goals were and how she wanted to present herself online, and together the girls established gos and no gos for Elle's marketing.

when Ian, visibly exhausted and with a few new scrapes, came back to the others on Eric's arm, they decided to find some café and all warm up with a warm drink.

Ian fell asleep on Tammy's lap while they were in the café and the others were also pretty exhausted by the late nights of the last days, so they decided to go back to Elle's apartment and let the evening end quietly there.

While Elle's apartment was far too small for the amount of people, she didn't want to easily occupy Joe's house with her family. As far as she knew, he was going to have a nice dinner with his parents tonight and she definitely didn't want to interrupt that.

They put Ian, who was still sound asleep, in Elle's bed while Easton and Harry got pizza for everyone and the whole family squeezed on and around Elle's sofa.

They ate their pizzas with relish and chatted about the last few days, how nice Cincinnati was and that they should definitely do something together again more often. In addition, all were looking forward to tomorrow to see Elle and Joe live, but also a little melancholy before returning home could be heard.

At a little after eleven, Eric, Leila, Elle and their parents said goodbye to Easton and Tammy and drove back to Joe's house. Once there, they found Robin and Jimmy on the couch watching television.

"Where's Joe?" Elle asked in surprise when she didn't find her boyfriend with his parents.

"oh, he's already gone to bed and wants to sleep well for tomorrow" Robin explained as Elle's parents joined them on the couch.

Elle was surprised. Of course Joe tried to be as well-rested as possible on game days, but it was news to her that he was going to sleep so early. She had a nasty hunch, however, that he wasn't really asleep.

With a few words, she apologized to her and Joe's parents, as well as Eric and Leila, wished everyone a good night, and declared that she too would leave.

With quick steps she went up the stairs and ran into the gaming room. Without knocking, she jerked the door open. Joe, who as Elle had suspected was not asleep but sitting on the bed with his head set on, almost dropped the controller in shock.

"I knew it" Elle grinned triumphantly. "I knew you weren't already asleep" Joe looked down at the floor, caught, while Elle grabbed some clothes and went into the bathroom to get ready.

When she returned, Joe was fully focused on his game again. Shaking her head but grinning, she sat down next to him and watched him shoot down a few opponents while he kept giving short commands through the head set.

Elle didn't understand how anyone could have fun doing this, but Joe and whoever he was playing with were enthusiastic about the game. When Elle got bored, she nudged Joe slightly and pointed at the head set.

"Can I try?" she asked, wide-eyed and pouty. Joe grinned, nodded, and took off the head set before handing it to Elle. "But tell me everything the others command" Elle nodded with a grin and put on her head set.

"Watch it Joey B, on your left" she heard Joe Mixon's voice. "Babe, on your left" Elle passed to Joe who immediately carried out the order.

"Wait, Elle, is that you?" Ja'Marr voice echoed through the headphones in amusement. "Yeah, its Elle, bitch" Elle replied grinning and earning a confused look from Joe.

"What...what are you and Joe doing again that you have his headphones? Can...can he talk? Is he okay or....is he busy?" Ja'Marr asked.

Elle sighed. "Ja'Marr, don't worry. Joe is fine. He's playing, I'm calling your shots. Nothing sexual."

"Thank goodness. Your moaning last time was enough" Ja'Marr sighed in relief.

"Jealousy. Pure jealousy" Elle replied laughing. 

Hey guys, im back again!! Im so sorry for not posting for a loooooong time but I was super busy. My exams for this semester are next week and Im struggling with a lot of personal and mental stuff rn so I just could find the time and motivation to continue writing. Im not a 100% satisfied how the new chapter turned up but I couldn't keep you waiting any longer so I hope you still like it!!!

Thanks for checking in on me and not giving up the story!!! I earned quite a lot new readers and likes while I was gone and im really thankful for that.

By the way if anyone wants to help me as a co writer, maybe cause youre just not confident enough to post your own story or you would just love helping me, DM me. I could use a little help!!

WHO-DEY 🧡