Mac might not know what that means, but I sure do, and it had me smiling to myself the whole way to the airport.
After an uneventful flight spent cuddling with Mac while he shifted uncomfortably in his too-small seat, we got a cab back into Manhattan where I quickly changed at my apartment and got my ass over to Warbey.
It took Athena all of two minutes to welcome me back into the fold, telling me she never even filed my letter because she knew I’d be back.
But now I’ve got some serious work to do. I thought on it all last night and today and decided I need to take a page out of Mac’s book and be who I am with zero apologies. Mac may rub people the wrong way or get himself into uncomfortable positions, but he doesn’t ever apologize for who he is. So, why should I?
I stop when I reach the middle of the room and bring my hand to my mouth where I release a loud whistle I’m sure you can hear from the executive floor. Everybody’s heads whip my way.
“Attention, everybody! Attention!”
I notice Jenna exchange a glance with another designer but I block them out.
“First, I want to thank everyone for your hard work at turning things around with this last update to our premier issue. I see a lot of talent in this room, and I love the flow of ideas. Please, keep it comin’. I know from experience that it’s the ideas that drive the product—make it a success. All the rest comes second. If you have great ideas, you’ll go far in this department, no matter if you’re the director or the newest design intern. I’ve built my career on this, and I’ll stake it on it.
“Second, if you see something that could be better, by all means, I urge you to figure out a way to make it better and bring that to the next up in the chain of command. Regardless of the outcome, it’s always welcome. Maybe they’ll run with it or maybe it won’t be quite right for reasons they know and you might not. But, take this advice seriously: complaining about something without putting your time into divising a solution is the best way to lose the respect of your colleagues. This is a universal truth. And, as a side note, where I come from, nobody ever gets far playing leapfrog and making a ruckus for no reason. Frankly, it’s not only bad form but it makes you look petty.”
I can see Jenna crossing her arms and looking all offended, but I don’t give two good goddamns.
“Finally, I want us to be a family. No, I’m not crashing your holiday dinner, but it’s my belief that people work better, are more creative and productive, when their work environment is a positive one where they can breathe easy. So, I’m instituting a sweet tea break every afternoon. We’re gonna lay our work aside for twenty minutes and chat, meditate, listen to music, whatever you like to do to relax—heck, you can even dance if you want. You don’t like sweet tea, that’s fine. More for me. But I’ll bring the lavender shortbread. I promise you’re gonna love it.”
I take a breath and look around. A few people look excited, probably more than a few look skeptical, and some just look plain confused.
But that’s okay. I’m trying something out that feels true to me. And you can’t win everybody over. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth giving it your best.
“Let’s work as a team and kick this new WHL into gear!”
Two or three people start clapping, but when they realize nobody else is joining in, it fades into an awkward silence. I kind of want to laugh, but it’s okay to keep some of my crazy to myself. I’ll tell Mac about it later and enjoy one of his devastating laughs, because I know it’ll be him laughing with me, not at me.
I stride toward my office to get down to work when I hear someone ask in a loud whisper, “What happened to her accent?”
And I smile, knowing I just added one more thing to recount that’ll have Mac smiling back at me.
Epilogue
“All it takes is one.”
– Angus McKinley, Sr.
MAC
She’s in my kitchen, her gorgeous ass swinging in a slow slide to the rhythm of her favorite song. She says it’s about me and I can’t say she’s wrong.
“One Man Band” by Old Dominion drifts from my speakers, telling the story of a man who doesn’t want to go it alone anymore. Once he finds the girl who can finish his song, that’s all he needs from there on out. And that’s Poppy James for me.
My girl loves to dance, and I make sure to give her every opportunity to do so. She can make any surface her dance floor and I love nothing better than to watch her body move, that fiery hair flying around her face, me knowing that later that night she’ll be moving under me in just the same way.
“Kate called and said they’re in for Sunday dinner, so I’m just waiting on Naveed and Jonathan,” she calls over the music as she looks over her shoulder with her smile that can never hide any fucking thing she’s thinking. Her face is an open book, which is how I know she’s even happier today than she was two months ago when her magazine launched to impressive reviews and circulation numbers that surprised even the heads of that publishing company.
Personally, my opinion of the place ranks just above a condom factory, but I’ve been told I have a chip on my shoulder about these things.
Business has picked up since the articles published in the magazine. I know my girl felt awkward as shit participating in something I dreaded so much, but sometimes the chips just fall where they do and you have to roll with it. Her friend, Naveed, took a light hand, and the interest in my mother’s arrest skewed the article away from anything my pops did wrong, something I’m more than grateful for.
The extra income is funding the expansion of the youth program and is getting the blacksmithing program back in line. So, even though the attention is more than a little discomfiting, I can’t complain.
I’m partnering with Bastion Forge again and Paul and I are working on some new ideas to engage the kids. I’m not the best teacher, but I’m working on it. And Poppy says my face is probably enough to scare some of the kids straight.
I might be offended if she didn’t follow that up with pushing her tits into my chest and letting me make her come. There’s nothing better than the sight of her unravelling for me—except maybe her smile.
No, scratch that. The coming is infinitely better.
And I know she’s just joking about my face. Probably.
But, yeah, my girl has been happy and I hope it has at least a little something to do with me.
She wanders over in her short sleep shorts and a sweatshirt that hangs off her shoulder. I set down my notebook and draw her onto my lap, kissing her collarbone as she settles. My dick is immediately hard like it always is when I get a taste or feel of her warm, sweet body.
“Mmm,” I murmur into her skin. “Delicious.”
She squirms and laughs, doing nothing to calm the situation in my pants. “You like that, just wait till you taste what I’m making for Sunday dinner.”
Poppy has made it a rule that her New York family—as she likes to put it—comes for Sunday dinner at least twice a month. She goes all out, making a complete fucking disaster of my kitchen and leaving all her guests with full bellies and a new story or two to tell. There’s more laughing and talking in one Sunday than I’m accustomed to in a year of Sundays, but that’s okay.
It’s more than okay. It’s fucking perfect.
Not only has my girl brought me all the goodness of her, she’s trying to make me a family like the one I lost. I wasn’t lying when I told her my pops would have loved her like his own.
“Have you asked Dan yet?” Her voice is quiet and my mouth stills on her skin.
I give my head a single shake and lean it back into the cushions.
She’s been gently prodding me to reunite with my grandfather. He’s extended an olive branch, but there’s an awful lot of water to shove under that bridge before I can invite the man into my home. He covered up the actions of my mother—the ones that resulted in my pops’s death—and even though he’s paid for them with a reduced sentence for cooperation, it doesn’t change the fact that he knew w
hat happened and let the bitch live free for four years.
Thank God it looks like she’ll finally be paying with a good portion of the remaining years of her life spent behind bars. Her asshole husband is already sharing a similar address, a fact which makes me feel a small sense of satisfaction. Even Elle is paying for her transgressions, although hers doesn’t involve any jail time.
But none of that brings my pops back, something I know Poppy is thinking about in those moments when she watches me and doesn’t think I see her.
I’ll probably give Dan a chance eventually, if only for her. I’d do just about anything for her. And if she wants me to have family, I’ll let her bring me that however she sees fit.
But the fact of it is she’s all the family I need. From the moment she ground that high heel into the cement floor of my hallway, I was done.
I watch her and she’s biting her lip. Damn, that always makes me want to bite it right back. I groan and reposition her on my lap so she’s straddling me and I know she feels my rock-hard cock against her.
“Next time. I promise.”
She sighs and then moves her hips forward. She loves it when I start out letting her run the show. But she’s told me more than once that her favorite part is when I take over and make her mine every which way I can.
“And what kind of payment do I get if you slack off and don’t follow through?”
“Anything you want, honey,” I tell her, even though she knows she can always have anything she wants from me.
The song switches to another Old Dominion tune. This one is “Stars in the City” and when she starts to sing along I don’t tell her I know it by heart too.
“I love this one,” she tells me in her soft Georgia drawl as she smiles again. She says that about every one of their songs as well as dozens of other ones by bands ranging from country to that strange zydeco shit her family made me listen to when we were in Savannah last month.
“Even more than ‘Cherry Pie’?” I ask, running my hands down to her ass as she absently grinds into me a little.
“Well, that’s special. It’s always special when there’s a memory attached.”
I hate to tell her, but if that’s the case then every damn song she ever dances to will be deemed special in my book.
The chorus of “Stars in the City” kicks in and she starts singing along again as I lean in to lick a path up her neck. She tastes like sweet orange and vanilla.
She doesn’t know it, but she’s singing about herself—about how I see her. She’s my breath of fresh air, reminding me to stop and find the beauty wherever I am, whether it be in her quaint hometown or walking down the crowded city streets of Manhattan with her hand in mine.
Not that I ever have to look far.
She wraps her arms around my neck and threads her fingers through my hair, something that lets me know we’ll be moving things to the bedroom in about thirty seconds.
I bite her neck and she stops singing along only long enough to mutter, “Beast.”
I feel myself smile against her soft skin.
No, I don’t ever have to search far when I’m looking for beauty. Because I get it every time she’s near me.
And for a man who gave up on having something good and special and right a long time ago, it’s all the sweeter now that I can call it my own.
We hope you enjoyed Poppy and Mac’s story!
Want another funny, swoon-worthy read from Sylvie Stewart? Try The Fix and start the addictive Carolina Connections Series now!
Stay tuned for an excerpt.
Want a BONUS SCENE with Poppy, Mac, and the whole gang? Yeah, I thought so… just sign up for my newsletter bit.ly/gamechangernl
What about Athena and Katelyn? You can find Athena’s story in Rule Breaker by Phoebe Alexander and Kate’s story in Team Player by M.E. Montgomery (coming soon)!
Game Changer Playlist
As I’m sure you can tell, a lot of this book was inspired by music (as usual). If you haven’t listened to Old Dominion, you must go do so right this minute—I’ll hold your beer. At the very least, give “One Man Band” a listen. It will always be Mac’s song to me. Enjoy!
Listen to the Game Changer playlist on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2XIkhzY
One Man Band - Old Dominion
The Feels - Maren Morris
All on Me - Devin Dawson
Beautiful - Akon, Colby O’Donis, Cardinal Offishall
Shut Me Up - Old Dominion
Something Beautiful - The Noms
Dance with Me Tonight - Olly Murs
Hotel Key - Old Dominion
Southern Girl - Tim McGraw
Seeing Blind - Niall Horan
Bad Liar - Imagine Dragons
Cherry Pie - Warrant
Better When I’m Dancing’ - Meghan Trainor
Southern Nights - Glen Campbell
Georgia on My Mind - Ray Charles, Willie Nelson
Hammer to Fall - Queen
Written in the Sand - Old Dominion
Trust Me - The Fray
This Road - The Noms
Stars in the City - Old Dominion
Company You Keep - Maren Morris
Also by Sylvie Stewart
The Carolina Connection Series:
The Fix (Carolina Connections, Book 1)
The Spark (Carolina Connections Book 2)
The Lucky One (Carolina Connections Book 3)
The Game (Carolina Connections Book 4)
The Way You Are (Carolina Connections Book 5)
Carolina Connections Box Set
* * *
The Nerd Next Door (Carolina Kisses, Book 1)
Then Again
Happy New You
About That
Full-On Clinger (FREE for a limited time!)
* * *
Between a Rock and a Royal (Kings of Carolina, Book 1)
Blue Bloods and Backroads (Kings of Carolina, Book 2)
Kings of Carolina Box Set
Thanks and Keep in Touch
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Excerpt from The Fix
Chapter One: Pants? Who Needs Pants?
LANEY
I awoke to a foot in my mouth.
No, not the old feeling of having said something horribly inappropriate that you immediately wish you could un-say, but an actual foot. In my mouth.
“Ung guh!” I spat. To say this was a disturbing way to begin one’s day would be a gross understatement—emphasis on the gross. “What in the … ugh.” My head dropped back to the pillow as comprehension dawned. Rocco’s size twelve with those cute little toes lay on the pillow next to my face, along with a small puddle of drool. I took in his sleeping form, passed out upside down in nothing but his Ninja Turtle underwear.
“We can’t keep doing this, dude,” I whispered to myself. My little exhibitionist, having contorted himself into some kind of inverted nocturnal backbend, had spent the night in my bed—yet again. Being awakened by small naked body parts was starting to mess with my head. Not to mention, who knew where those little feet had been? Oh, wait, I did. Blech.
Completely unprepared to get up for the day, I snuggled back into my soft sheets and stared up at the ceiling. I was discovering that moving to a strange new house was rough on a kid. Hell, it was rough on me and I wa
s twenty years older than him. All things considered though, Rocco had been a real trouper since leaving the only house he’d known at my parents’ and moving into the cute fixer-upper we now call home. But there were obviously still some kinks to work out—case in point, my rude wake-up call.
Even so, there is something remarkably satisfying about holding ownership of the place where you lay your head at night, and our new house was adorable. It had bright white siding—after a power-washing from my dad—and black shutters that were mostly on straight. And it was topped off by a cheery bright red front door. The house was a ranch and it was a bit older, but it had three bedrooms, two baths, and a fenced-in backyard for Rocco and the dog I was sure we would eventually get. It was close (but not too close) to the stores and restaurants, and the street was nice and quiet. I loved it and I was proud of our new home, even if it did have some drawbacks—leaky faucets, a few uneven floors, and maybe a few more major problems. But that was okay. All of that could be fixed with time and a little help from my idiot younger brother. I hoped.
On the condition that he would help with the repairs and renovating, I had agreed to let him stay with Rocco and me. It was a win-win—my faucets wouldn’t drip, and my brother wouldn’t be homeless, considering that his previous residence had also been my parents’ house. Even he had to admit that, at twenty-two, following your parents to a new state in order to live in their basement was borderline Jay and Silent Bob. And besides, all his drinking buddies were here in Greensboro so there was that …
It was past time to get out of bed so I laid my hand on Rocco’s bare foot and pressed a soft kiss to his head. I inhaled the unique “boy” scent of sweat and the outdoors, trying not to wake him. The floor squeaked under my feet, and out in the hall I tried in vain to avoid the cockeyed floorboard that’s entire existence was centered around mocking my lack of coordination. One stubbed toe and several curses later I reached the kitchen and went straight to the vintage avocado-colored fridge for my morning coffee. Okay, what I actually mean is Diet Coke. Don’t look at me like that. There are plenty of people who don’t like coffee. And some of them are even over the age of thirteen.
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