Keeping Score

by Sara Rider

  The large room took on a surreal stillness as Martin backed away from the table and strode across the floor toward Alex. Jaime untucked herself from his embrace, keeping a tight grip on his hand.

  “I’m so sorry,” Martin said a second before pulling Alex in for a quick, emotional hug.

  “Please tell me you talked to your lawyer before coming here.”

  Martin nodded, letting a wry smile pull through his tear-stained face. “Amy’s mom had a stroke last year. They gave up fighting me. It’s the only reason I went back to baseball. And I swear, man. I’ve been clean this whole time. I’m still going to meetings and everything.”

  The camera flashes lit up once more, but Alex didn’t care. All these years, he hadn’t realized he needed the closure as much as Martin.

  Jaime rose up onto her tiptoes and cupped her hand around her mouth. “So what do you say, Carson? Are you prepared to give this man his job back?”

  Alex stiffened. The oppressive weight of secrecy had finally been lifted, but it didn’t change the fact he had ignored his professional obligations. Martin should have been drug tested, and the college’s championship should have been revoked. He knowingly allowed Martin to continue playing while using until he got him into treatment. Yeah, he would do it a million times over again, but the fact that the world would finally know the reasons why he did it wasn’t going to help his reputation.

  Chester’s face had drawn into a scowl. “Of course not! This conference is about the Falcons’ success, and I don’t appreciate having it railroaded for a man who has no compunction about breaking the rules. The Falcons are a team with integrity, and that is not how we operate.”

  Jaime’s mouth fell open in pure shock.

  “It’s okay, Jaime,” Alex whispered to her. She was at his side, and that was the only thing that mattered. The only thing that would ever matter.

  “No! It’s not okay. I’m not going to let his happen!” She spun around to face the reporters. “Alex Martinez is the best damn physiotherapist in the world. If you don’t give him his job back, then I quit!”

  Alex gripped her by the arm. “Jesus, Jaime. What are you doing?”

  “Fine,” Chester called back. “You’re one player. You’re replaceable.” Cameras flashed furiously.

  Lainey rose to her feet and stammered into the microphone, “Then I quit, too!”

  “No,” Alex gasped. Shit, this was going downhill too fast.

  “Atta girl, babe!” Gabe hollered, clapping like he was at a cockfight.

  Next to Lainey, Victor stood up. “Yeah, I’m due for retirement, anyway.”

  “Me too!” Alyssa called from their section of seats, surrounded by the rest of her teammates, who stood up. “We all do.”

  Alex scrubbed his jaw with his hand. What the hell just happened?

  Jaime stuck her hands on her hips. “Integrity doesn’t matter if you don’t have a team. You’ve got the chance to be the hero of a spectacular moment in soccer history, or the villain. What’s it going to be, Chester?”

  Chester puffed out his chest. “You’ve made your point, Chen. The Falcons have always been a team who believes in one another. It’s what makes us strong. It’s what makes us champions! Welcome back, Martinez.”

  Alex’s head spun as cheering erupted through the room.

  “He gets a five-year contract,” Jaime called out. “And a raise!”

  Chester frowned. “All right.”

  “Anything else?” She beamed at Alex.

  “Supply budget,” he whispered in a low voice.

  Her eyes lit up. “And a bigger supply budget!”

  “Done.”

  “And one last thing. Sam’s contract gets extended, too. I’m madly in love with Alex Martinez and that means he can’t treat me anymore, so you’re going to have to keep her around, too!”

  Alex didn’t even hear Chester’s response. Her words echoed in his head like the most perfect melody. “You love me?”

  “Yes, you fool. I love you.” She threw her arms around his neck. “And that means from now on, you and I are a team. No more running away. No more brooding martyr stuff. We do things together. Got it?”

  He threaded his fingers into her hair, oblivious to everything but the glittering conviction in her eyes, and kissed the hell out of the woman he loved.

  epilogue

  THE SOUND OF THE zipper tugging at the heavy canvas ripped through the quiet morning air. Jaime gave a quick glance backward. Alex lay still against the blue foam sleeping mat, eyes closed with sleep. The rising sun hit her with the full force of its rays as she crawled silently out of the tent and slipped her feet into her favorite black flip-flops. She zipped her hoodie all the way up to her chin to ward off the slight mid-October chill.

  She wasn’t exactly sure where she was, somewhere in Southern California was all she knew, but it was beautiful. Lush green and brown hills filled the landscape. It was better for both of them to let Alex do all the navigating. Not to mention the planning, packing, open-fire cooking, and driving, too. She figured she was doing her part by making sure they had an excellent array of mixed tapes for the long drive.

  Her body protested as she walked a few dozen feet to a relative flat patch of land at the edge of the campground and pulled her arms and legs wide into a warrior pose. All the yoga fanatics swore up and down that it would calm her mind and give her some inner peace. After six weeks, she still hated every second of it. Same with the whole no-sugar, no-red-meat, anti-inflammation diet she had started. But it worked, so she stuck with it. Her joints were still as creaky as a wooden staircase, but she was managing.

  Self-discipline was never her strong suit, but with Alex, nothing seemed impossible. It wasn’t the only change she’d had to make over the last few months. Two weeks ago, she’d packed up every last one of her possessions into a few boxes and loaded them into the back of Alex’s truck. Since he had signed the papers for the loan to his brother before her harebrained scheme had rerouted him back to the Falcons, his cash flow had gotten a little tight. He’d ended up becoming a silent partner in his brother’s clinic, which probably wasn’t easy for a man used to being in control of everything. But so far, he seemed okay with how things turned out, and as long as Ricky didn’t screw up, Alex might even make some money off the investment in the long run.

  For now, canceling her lease and moving in with him to offset his mortgage seemed like the right thing to do. They had acted like it was a pragmatic, financial decision, but the truth was, her heart had led the charge on that one. And she didn’t regret it for a moment.

  She bent her left knee outward, tucking her foot into her calf, and reached her arms up, stretching the tight muscles in her back.

  “Hey,” Alex said behind her a minute later, his only warning before wrapping his arms around her waist and tucking his chin on her shoulder.

  “Hey, yourself.” She melted into his embrace. “Did you sleep all right?”

  “Well, there was this pesky problem of a beautiful woman who couldn’t seem to get enough of my—”

  “You didn’t seem to mind last night,” she admonished while he pulled back her hair and kissed the sensitive part of her neck. “I’m asking if you feel like you can make the rest of the drive by tonight, or if you would rather stop at a hotel somewhere to give yourself a break?”

  “I promised I’d get to Disneyland today, and I meant it.”

  She turned in his arms and cupped his stubble-coated jaw. “Thank you.” He was the one who came up with the idea to make the drive down for the anniversary of Chelsea’s death. The timing worked out well, since she was between training camps and his off-season schedule mainly involved assessing next year’s potential draft picks and working with the players who needed some fitness upkeep, meaning his work hours were super flexible. It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for her.

&nb
sp; “You know, there’s an important question that we never really talked about.” She tried to keep her voice solemn, but her lips fought against her, pulling into a grin.

  “What’s that?”

  “Do you even like roller coasters? Because as much as I love you, we might have a problem if we spend the next three days in those little spinning teacups.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Where you go, I go.”

  Of all the things in the world to make her cry, she never thought magical teacups would be it. But there was no way to hold back the deluge in her eyes when he looked at her that way. “Always?”

  “Yeah, querida. Always.”

  Will Jaime’s agent Jillian Nichols ever let her guard down long enough to let someone in? Or will the NHL’s bad boy Nick “the Punisher” Salinger have to fight harder than ever for a chance to win her heart?

  Keep reading for a sneak peek at

  Jillian and Nick’s story in

  GOING FOR THE GOAL

  Coming Spring 2017!

  1

  NINE YEARS AGO

  JILLIAN NICHOLS HAD FACED a lot of adversity in her quest to become a professional sports agent, but this was the first time her own bra was actively sabotaging her. She’d been in the middle of an impassioned speech, trying to convince a drunken college basketball player to sign with Pantheon Sports Management, when her underwire popped out and impaled her tender skin. She pushed her way through the throngs of partygoers crowding the small apartment to find the nearest exit and ended up in a cold, dark stairwell. Clear of prying eyes, she wasted no time digging her hand into the front of her black sheath dress to adjust the rogue underwire.

  The concrete floor was icy cold beneath her tights-clad feet. She should have grabbed her boots before storming out, but she’d been in too much of a hurry to free herself from the push-up of death to think straight. She regretted that hasty decision the second her left foot sank into a wet puddle on the landing. Dear god, please let that be water.

  She hissed as the thin strip of metal popped right back out of the fabric, jabbing into her chest. Maybe this was a sign she wasn’t cut out for this job after all.

  Just when she thought things couldn’t get worse, “The Imperial March” from Star Wars sounded from her purse—the ringtone she’d set for her boss. She rummaged awkwardly for the phone and answered. “Hi, Mr. Parsons.”

  She winced as his loud voice boomed through her cell, demanding to know how her “networking session,” as he euphemistically called it, was going. Jillian tended to think of it as “trotting out the young, female intern to get the attention of an obnoxious, hormone-driven young athlete.” This was all part of a scheme to aggressively court Matt Turner, a University of Minnesota basketball player who still had another year of college eligibility left, but had more than one NBA team interested in drafting him early. He’d taken a liking to her when they met in the office a few months ago, and Parsons hadn’t wasted any time using her youth and gender to bend the NCAA’s rules about agent recruitment practices.

  Landing an internship with a prestigious agency was the only way to make it in this cutthroat business, and Pantheon was the biggest agency on two coasts, but this wasn’t exactly the learning opportunity she’d signed up for. It was bad enough that she’d been shipped out to the wilds of Minnesota for the last three months instead of working out of the New York or LA offices like she’d expected. Even when she did manage to convince some young, hotshot athlete that Pantheon was the best agency out there, Parsons never gave her any credit. After four months, she was sick of it.

  One day she was going to open her own agency and do things her way. No underhanded recruitment tactics, no flouting the regulations governing the profession—she was going to earn her success through hard work and honesty. Then again, that wasn’t going to happen if she didn’t get a solid letter of recommendation from Parsons and a passing grade for this internship.

  “It’s fine. Great. I think Turner’s interested,” she said. No need to tell him that interest was geared more toward getting her into his bed than signing with Pantheon.

  She wedged the phone between her ear and shoulder so she could quickly strip off her wet tights and keep working on the stubborn underwire while Parsons prattled on, painfully unaware of his own ignorance. He claimed to have been impressed with her grades during her interview—she was at the top of her class—but after four months, she was pretty sure she could’ve handed him a Playboy Magazine in lieu of her transcript and he still would’ve hired her. He didn’t care about her brains or talent, only that she was young and attractive enough to get the attention of young male athletes.

  “Good job, Nichols. Now get back in there and see if you can charm him a little more. We’re on a tight time line. I want you to land Turner by any means necessary. Whatever it takes. Do you understand me?”

  “I’m not sure I do,” she said slowly.

  “I hired you for a reason, Nichols. Guys like Turner think with their dicks at this age, not their brains. Anyone can promise to make him millions of dollars, but you have assets none of the male interns at Pantheon have. Assets that can easily sway Turner. Use them if you have to.”

  Revulsion battered her stomach like a rockslide. Parsons had dropped some lewd hints over the past few months but this was the first time he’d outright suggested she sleep her way to success. Her entire body shook with anger. “Actually, Mr. Parsons, I qui—”

  The phone slipped off her shoulder. She managed to catch it before it crashed into the gray concrete floor and scrambled gracelessly to bring the phone back to her ear.

  “What was that, Nichols?”

  She tilted her head back and sighed, feeling like all the air had just been pulled out of her lungs. Interning for Pantheon was the most degrading experience of her life, but quitting now would mean giving up on her dream completely. One in the morning wasn’t the time to make rash life decisions. “Yes, sir.”

  She ended the call and leaned against the cold gray wall to catch her breath. What she wouldn’t give to take back these last few hours.

  She cast a quick glance around to make sure there were no hallway cameras, then took advantage of the isolation to unzip her dress, pull the front down to her waist, and finally yank the damn underwire right out of her bra.

  “Need some help with that?”

  She yelped and jumped backward, stumbling and dropping her phone as a guy with a six-pack in his left hand climbed the stairs. He stopped halfway to her landing and caught her phone as it tumbled toward him.

  “No thanks,” she said, throat dry with embarrassment as she quickly pulled her dress back up to cover her lace-covered breasts.

  She crossed her arms as she watched him bound up the remaining steps. How did a guy of that size move so quietly? He was well over six feet with shoulders so broad he nearly filled the stairwell. She assumed he was an athlete with that body, but with his stubble, worn jeans, and utilitarian brown jacket, he looked more like a sexy lumberjack.

  There was something strangely familiar about his rugged face. Midnight-blue eyes, strong jaw, and a slightly crooked nose that only added to his handsomeness. The kind of face she would want to grab hold of with two hands and pull into hers until every memory of this disastrous evening was burned out of her brain if she weren’t so mortified.

  “My phone?” Thankfully, her voice had regained most of its normal composure. She kept one arm tightly pressed across her chest to hide the fact her breasts were now lopsided, and held the other out expectantly.

  Instead of handing it over, he made a show of inspecting the phone. “Looks like I caught it before the screen cracked.”

  “So? Are you expecting a reward or something?” she snapped, letting her frustration get the better of her. She just wanted to go back to her tiny rental apartment, wipe off all her carefully applied makeup, and sleep until the entire night was a
distant memory.

  He gave her a wicked smile that made her knees go weak. “Pretty sure I already got one.”

  She swallowed. Everything about this guy, from his cocky swagger to his enormous size, screamed “bad boy.” What was wrong with her that she actually found his whole “tall, dark, and fresh from hewing lumber” vibe so attractive? Maybe it was the fact he looked like a man—unlike all the overly entitled, immature frat boys at the party—that was so refreshing to her senses. Or maybe it was because this guy was so hot he could probably make a woman melt in the middle of Antarctica.

  Not that any of that mattered. She was here to sign Matt Turner, not to get distracted by some random guy who happened to check every one of her “yes please” boxes.

  He chuckled and held the phone out and she immediately snatched it from his hand, then spun on her heel to push open the fire exit door.

  “Oomph!” The heavy metal door didn’t budge.

  “Needs a key card,” the guy said, gesturing to the black panel along the wall.

  “I don’t suppose you have one?” She’d forgotten about the security in the building. Someone from the party had come down to escort her up because the elevator was key-card enabled. She should’ve realized the stairwell would be locked as well.

  “Nope, but I’ll call my buddy to let us in.” He pulled out his own phone and dialed. After a few seconds, he hung up and shrugged. “No answer.”

  “That’s fine. We can walk down and sneak into the elevator with someone who lives here.” She could handle walking down the seven flights to the lobby, despite her bare feet, but considering it was the dead of winter, she needed to get her boots and favorite navy peacoat she’d left inside the apartment.

  “Elevator’s malfunctioning. That’s why I took the stairs.”

  She stared at him with eyes so wide, it felt like they were bulging out of her head. She looked for some kind of a sign that he was joking, but it didn’t come. Defeat hammered into her shoulders, killing off the last bits of her adrenaline and forcing her to feel just how tired she really was. She hung her head and groaned.