by Alexa Martin
Titles by Alexa Martin
INTERCEPTED
FUMBLED
BLITZED
A JOVE BOOK
Published by Berkley
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
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Copyright © 2019 by Alexa Martin
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Martin, Alexa, author.
Title: Blitzed / Alexa Martin.
Description: First Edition. | New York : Jove, 2019. | Series: The Playbook
Identifiers: LCCN 2019011707 | ISBN 9780451491992 (pbk.) | ISBN 9780451492005 (ebook)
Subjects: | GSAFD: Love stories.
Classification: LCC PS3613.A77776 B65 2019 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019011707
First Edition: December 2019
Cover design and illustration by Colleen Reinhart
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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To my agent, Jessica. Three down, many to go.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing the Playbook Series has been one of the greatest experiences of my life and there are so many people to thank for that.
Kristine Swartz, my amazing, badass editor. Thank you for your support and guidance, and for ensuring that my books weren’t completely overrun with profanity. I couldn’t have done this without you. To the rest of the Berkley team: Jessica Mangicaro, Jessica Brock, Cindy Hwang, Erin Galloway, and Jin Yu, thank you. You all have welcomed me with open arms and changed my entire world. I am forever grateful.
Jess . . . because you deserve two shout-outs for dealing with my craziness. Thank you for scheduling that call and still deciding to take me on after I rambled on and on the entire time. Brynn is for you!
To the wonderful bloggers who never cease to amaze me with their creativeness and thoughtful words. You are the best and thank you for all that you do.
The employees at the Starbucks in Saddle Rock Village, you didn’t know it, but your friendly conversation and quiet support got me through some of my biggest slumps. Thank you for remembering my order and only making one Amazon Alexa joke.
Maxym, Tricia, Shannon, Gwynne, and Lindsay. You ladies are so beyond brilliant and I’m so grateful to be able to call you friends. Even though I never show my face, our Zoom calls are always one of the highlights of my month. Thank you for always having my back and being willing to take a stand.
Derrick, thank you for all the date nights and never rolling your eyes when I reach for the cocktail menu to try something new. All the expertise I gained worked perfectly for Brynn.
Of course, my four children. You all are wild and insane and the absolute loves of my life.
And last, but certainly not least, the readers. Thank you, thank you, thank you. For buying this book or checking it out from the library or recommending it to your friends. You all have made this entire experience one I will never forget. Thank you for the emails and messages, and even tagging me on social media. It means more to me than you will ever know.
CONTENTS
Titles by Alexa Martin
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Epilogue
About the Author
Prologue
Four years ago
Maxwell
Beautiful.
I normally hate when the guys drag me out to bars; they just aren’t my scene. But Gavin is back in town and I couldn’t say no without looking like an asshole, so I gave in.
Then I saw her and my entire outlook changed. I wanted to beeline straight over to her and ask for her name and number, but I couldn’t. Talking a little trash on the field I can do, but even just the thought of walking up to a woman and asking for her number makes my palms sweat. So I did the next best thing: I sat at the bar, knowing she’d at least have to take my order.
“Maxwell, right?” Brynn slides my old-fashioned in front of me. She tucks in the piece of hair that fell from the bun on top of her head and smiles.
And that smile? I almost forget how to answer her question. Her smile is so bright and genuine, it takes her already beautiful face and transforms it to stunning.
“Yeah, and you’re Brynn, Gavin has told me all about you.” Well, he told me about HERS and how she’s been there for Marlee, but he left out the part where she could put any model to shame, even in the sneakers and ripped jeans she’s wearing.
“Don’t listen to anything he says,” she jokes. “Marlee drank that tequila of her own accord, and I had nothing to do with it.”
“I haven’t heard anything about tequila, but that sounds like a story I need to hear more of,” I say and shock myself. I’m not a small talk kind of guy. Usually, I just order whiskey and find a spot in the corner to occupy until I have fulfilled my time. But for some reason, Brynn has me sitting at the bar, wanting to talk until she has to kick me out.
“Oh, I might have to keep you around forever for that.” Pink instantly colors her cheeks. “I mean, I won’t keep you forever, that’d be creepy and maybe even illegal. I just have a lot of stories to tell. N
ot that I’m a gossip, I just like to talk.” She squeezes her eyes shut, and fuck if she isn’t cute on top of being drop-dead gorgeous. How is it even possible for her to get flustered? “Let’s just pretend that word vomit didn’t happen.”
“I’m not sure I could ever forget anything you do.” I take a sip of my old-fashioned, holding eye contact with Brynn as I do.
This woman.
I can’t put my finger on one thing, but I know in my bones that she’s going to turn my world upside down.
One
Present day
Brynn
How did I get here?
I look around my little bar. When I found this building, I had hoped HERS would bring in a moderate crowd and not put me in bankruptcy court. Now it’s packed to the brim with reality stars and professional athletes. I never imagined that hiring Marlee would get me here, but holy shit am I glad it did.
“Hey, Brynn,” Maxwell Lewis—with his brown eyes that I swear can see to my soul, and full lips that always look so soft and sweet—says, sliding into the barstool across from me. “Wild night.”
I smile my brightest lipstickless smile at him and try to not let his overall sexiness cause me to forget how to speak. “Yeah, it’s a little crowded.”
Understatement of the century.
Tonight is the premiere of Love the Player, the newest reality show on TV following the lives of a handful of Denver Mustangs WAGS—wives and girlfriends of sports players, if you’ve been living under the same rock I was. I assumed the viewing party would be in LA or Miami or someplace super glamorous, but the producers thought since so much of the drama happens at HERS, this was the perfect place to host the party.
Knowing how much publicity I’m going to get from this show sends a thrill up my spine.
Being a “female-centered bar” is a concept not a ton of people understand, but now it won’t need to be explained, it will be seen, nationwide.
Fucking amazing.
I never thought I’d love Aviana and her flair for the dramatic so much. I’ve practically been floating in my Vans all day long. When photographers from a major magazine came to take behind-the-scenes photos and started snapping shots of the bar I spent blood, sweat, tears, and my entire life savings on, I almost wept.
And now, as the cherry on top of the already decadent sundae that’s becoming my life, I get to talk to Maxwell Lewis, defensive back extraordinaire, whom I’ve been crushing on since he walked into HERS all those years ago, despite the fact that getting him to talk in a group setting is like pulling teeth.
If you know me, you know I don’t do boyfriends and I most certainly do not do crushes.
I’m too old and jaded to act like a twelve-year-old girl anymore. But there’s always an exception to the rule. And Maxwell is my four-years-and-counting exception. Plus, I’m always listening to my friends and their stories with entirely too much information. Now I can’t look at Maxwell without thinking he probably really knows how to lay down the D. I’m also totally on board for a friends-with-benefits situation, something I assume a professional athlete is very familiar with.
“How’d you get talked into coming to this tonight?” I ask, doing my best flirty eyes and trying to squeeze together my barely there cleavage. “You don’t seem like the typical reality show fan.”
Ever since our first encounter, whenever he comes to HERS, I try my hardest to get him to flirt with me. And I think maybe, in his quiet Maxwell style, him sitting at the bar is him flirting.
He watches me through thick, dark lashes that I know women pay for, and his throaty chuckle, which I’ve come to the conclusion is so raspy because he never does it, washes over me. “I’m not. But I promised Crosby I’d swing by, he wanted this to be perfect for Aviana and thought a big showing of his teammates would help out.”
“That’s nice of you.” I pull out the lowball glasses I bought just for this event. “Being around the Lady Mustangs without all the extras of tonight can be draining. I feel like Crosby might owe you one.” I place an old-fashioned he didn’t order in front of him. I know it’s not exactly playing it coy, memorizing his drink order and all, but I’m not ashamed to let him know I see him and I’m interested.
“Well, if I get to spend the night talking to you, I think I’ll owe him,” he says, his light brown eyes never leaving mine.
My stomach does backflips like I climbed onto a roller coaster and just went spiraling toward the ground.
In a room filled with women who have literally been cover girls, Maxwell’s attention is on me. And even more than that, he’s not the kind of guy who says things he doesn’t mean. In all the years I’ve known him, he’s never been this forward. I don’t know what changed, but I’m not mad at it.
Maybe a friends-with-benefits situation is actually in the cards. My stomach muscles tense in anticipation.
“So I obviously have to see this through tonight, but maybe—” I start, but the shrill sound of his phone cuts me off.
He cringes. “Shit, I meant to put this on silent. Sorry,” he apologizes.
He grabs his phone from his pocket, hitting Answer before even looking at the screen.
“Hello?” he greets, a goofy smile aimed my way.
Then it’s gone and the happy-go-lucky, painfully shy man I’ve come to know disappears right along with it. His shoulders square like he’s preparing for a fight, and shutters fall across his kind eyes.
“What?” he growls, his grip so tight on his phone that his knuckles go white. “No,” he says after a long pause.
His eyes glaze over as he stares right through me. I know I should walk away, let him have this moment without a witness, but my feet are frozen in place as a ripple of unease flows through my veins. Even my eyes are glued to him, focusing on the twitching of his jaw and grinding of his teeth.
“Don’t you fucking dare.” He whispers it into his phone so quietly that if I wasn’t staring at his mouth so intently, I would’ve never known what he said.
Then, without any warning, he leaps out of his seat, his phone flying through the air so close to my head that it blows the strand of hair in my face out of my eyes. The glass screen explodes in time with the top-shelf tequila it hit. Then, before I can react, his whiskey in my brand-new glass sails past me, hitting my shelves with the power of a bowling ball and—unfortunately for me—getting a strike. Bottles shatter around me, the bar that I prided myself on for so many years crumbling to the floor in a mess of dangerous shards doused in amber and clear liquids.
Blood roars between my ears. Shock prevents me from lashing out the way I always assumed I would if something so unbelievable happened in my beloved HERS.
I turn wide eyes to Max, hoping that at least a look of remorse would be written across his face, but when I see him, there’s nothing except the blind rage of a man who only moments prior I was preparing to ask to go home with me.
I open my mouth to say something or maybe just emit the bloodcurdling scream that’s trapped in my throat, but before I can get there, TK is yanking Maxwell out of his seat and dragging him out of HERS.
Through the red veil that has fallen over my vision, I see my friends rushing toward me. But I can’t. I can’t take their calming words or worried glances.
Not right now.
So I move as fast as my long legs will take me until I’m in the quiet comfort of my office, slamming the door shut and locking it behind me.
And then, only then, do I let the tears fall and my hand-muffled scream escape.
Two
Some people call me a workaholic.
And they’re right.
But considering I own a bar, it’s the best kind of “holic” I could be. Plus, my job consists of listening to other people’s dramas and hanging out with my girls damn near every day.
“Oh my god! Brynn!” Vonnie’s eyes scrunch and her entire face twists into
an abstract painting. “Did you put anything besides vodka in there?”
“Gin.” I wink and write the latest failed martini recipe down in my notebook.
“Why are we taste testing again?” Charli asks as she leans across the bar and grabs the martini from Vonnie. Vonnie narrows her eyes, probably ready to scold her for her table manners . . . but when Charli gives it a sniff, takes a deep sip, shrugs, and then finishes it, Vonnie’s eyes grow wide and her jaw drops.
“Damn, Charli!” I don’t know if I’m impressed or disturbed. “I didn’t know you had that in you!”
“Don’t worry.” Poppy snatches the glass away from Charli and walks it around the bar like she still works here even though she quit months ago to go to school and better herself like a selfish jerk. “Shawn’s on standby. Final roster cuts come in tomorrow and he’s been bracing Charli for bad news . . .” She leans in closer as she passes behind me. “Something she’s clearly not handling well.”
Reason 8,634 why I could never date a football player.
Basketball? Maybe. At least their contracts are guaranteed and they’re gone so often I’d barely have to see them. Baseball? Possibly. I do love sitting outside and eating pretzels and drinking beer. Hockey? Nope, it’s basically football on skates—with more broken noses and less teeth.
Luckily for all these athletes I’d have to let down ever so gently, none of them know who I am.
“Your crazy ass better drink some water,” Vonnie, always the mom of the group, tells her. “Besides, I think Aviana is coming, and who knows if she’s still filming.”
“Oh, fucking fuck me,” Charli moans. “That damn show is going to be the death of me and I’m not even on it.”
I can see Charli is clearly in a fragile state of mind, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love everything about Love the Player. I kinda feel like, even though I’m not a cast member, I manifested the shit out of that show. I mean, the concept for HERS came to life as I was sitting on a shitty-ass date, watching a shitty-ass game, sipping shitty beer. All I wanted was to be out with my girls, drinking a fantastic specialty cocktail, and watching the latest Bravo reality show with a roomful of strangers.