by Timms, Lexy
Troubled Nate Thomas
T.N.T. Series
Book 1
By Lexy Timms
Copyright 2016 by Lexy Timms
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to an actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
All rights reserved.
Copyright 2016 by Lexy Timms
T.N.T Series
Part 1
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MSRXX9G
Part 2
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Part 3
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COMING DEC 2016
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Description
Bestselling romance author, Lexy Timms, brings you a new sport romance series that'll blow your mind—it’s dynamite!
“TNT” – Troubled Nate Thomas…
Dubbed so by the media because Nate’s always getting into trouble. Talented, handsome, and halfway out the door, Nate Thomas is on his last chance with the Denver Broncos. No one will deny he’s got skills—on the field and in the bedroom. However, his taste for the party lifestyle, his drinking, and his anger issues are putting his career in jeopardy.
Coach Johnson wants his starting quarterback to actually play the way his big-money contract states he can. He needs to find a way to get Nate’s head back in the game. Threats, fines, and tickets don’t seem to even slow Nate down.
With no choice but to try and risk the impossible, Coach Johnson hires a babysitter to look after Nate.
Amanda Jones is desperate for a job to help pay for her final year of her Master’s. She’s got a thesis to write and thinks being an au pair is the easiest way to get her work done, while making good money. She’s stunned when she finds out she’ll be taking care the infamous troublemaker, Nate Thomas, aka TNT.
The money’s too good to say no to, but can she somehow convince this train-wreck of an athlete to get his crap together before they both destroy the one thing they’re good at?
Contents
T.N.T Series
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Description
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
T.N.T. #2 Description
T.N.T. Book 2 – Chapter 1
T.N.T. Book 2 – Chapter 2
T.N.T Series
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Chapter 1
A random “WHOOP” sounded every thirty seconds. Someone, somewhere, started it and it ran through the bar like the mating call of a wild frat brother. It was the only sound Amanda could hear over the blasting tech “music” that shook the walls and rattled the bottles behind the bar. They clapped together and danced, threatening to jump.
After half an hour of sitting here, she was starting to think jumping wouldn’t be that bad of an idea. It was too bad the bar was on the ground floor.
The revelers danced, though to Amanda it looked like a coordinated seizure, trying not to hit each other. A couple was exploring each other’s tonsils in the raised area behind the dance floor. Others were furiously dancing with themselves and randomly trying to relocate their partner. Amanda considered waiting for a break in the music, but she’d been waiting for a break in the music for over an hour. It was one continuous drumbeat that graciously allowed the occasional screaming guitar a moment or two in the sun.
“I SAID, WHAT. ARE. WE. DOING. HERE?” she screamed to be heard over the cacophony of music and conversation.
“We’re having fun!” Amanda’s roommate shot back, and slammed her beer down so fast it ran down her cheeks, split at her chin, and watered each breast separately through her thin t-shirt.
I had no idea, Amanda thought sarcastically. So this is fun. “Why…” she tried again. “WHY. AM. I. HERE?” She had to scream to be heard over the music.
“Because I’m too drunk to drive, silly!” Jennifer flashed her a smile before she leapt onto the dancefloor and began writhing to the pulsing music, her shirt clinging tightly across her chest. Two of the young men closest to her twisted and nearly tangled up in each other’s legs as they tried to get to her. They both hit the floor. One turned the collision into a dance move while the other attempted to turn it into a fight.
Oh, now I get it. Designated driver is my fun. “I HAVE A JOB INTERVIEW IN THE MORNING!” Amanda screamed, but Jennifer wasn’t listening. Amanda’s protests were buried under the assault on her senses. I cannot believe I let her talk me into this! She mentally kicked herself. She had a fleeting thought where she wondered if it were possible to actually kick one’s own ass and if so, how would it be arranged?
Jennifer was boy-crazy. No. That didn’t begin to define it. She was a sex addict, in Amanda’s opinion. How nice that she wanted to share it with Amanda tonight.
Amanda, on the other hand, was smart. Book smart, boring smart, all the kinds of things that went with a studious student. She figured that since she didn’t have Jennifer’s metamorphosed interest in boys, she tended to do things her roommate liked. Besides, Amanda never again planned to take Jennifer to a museum after the embarrassing recreation of Nude Descending Staircase. Amanda was still on probation.
There was a shift in the melee they called dancing, even the insufferable music stopped suddenly, and Amanda had to work her jaw to get her ears to pop in the sudden silence. For a moment she was relieved. Time stood still, for one glorious minute where people actually turned away from the dancefloor and moved back toward their tables or the bar. Conversation went down to normal speaking tones.
Then it got worse.
A whole lot worse.
As if the volume hadn’t already been enough to keep half of Denver awake, a general scream rose from the crowd as a large good-looking man walked through the room, arms upraised, looking like he was not only reveling in the attention, but was directing it.
What was an assault on her senses became a tidal wave of noise and movement and flashing lights. And it was all direc
ted around this newcomer. That alone was reason enough to dislike him. He gave off a wave of arrogance and self-importance. That was another.
Amanda found herself collecting reasons to not like the guy. She had no idea why she did. With his thick sandy hair, piercing blue eyes, and large ripped body, he surely belonged in the other column. The one marked “Reasons to make Amanda drool.”
“TNT!” someone yelled. “TNT!”
Amanda prayed that the second time was an echo, but it was picked up as a chant across the room, out the door, across the street, and most likely into the next state. The light crowd suddenly doubled and tripled. It grew heavy enough that the chair Jennifer had been sitting in vanished, and the press of bodies was so thick Amanda was almost forced out of her chair as well.
The man pumped his fists up with each chant as he walked. No, he paraded up the room next to her and threw them down dramatically, ending the chant in wordless cheer and indecently overturning Amanda’s table, which crashed into her arm, sending ice and diet Pepsi into an arc worthy of the Bellagio fountains that culminated on her blouse.
Oh, yes, right there. THAT’S the reason you don’t like him.
“WET T-SHIRT!” The man, presumably TNT, yelled, then whooped and repeated it until it, too, became a chant. This one didn’t end. His eyes, and for that matter, most of the others were fixed on her. Just a little south of her face.
“Come on, girl!” Amanda’s roommate yelled and helpfully threw her beer on Amanda’s chest. In her inebriated state, the glass slipped from her hand and flew into Amanda’s face, sending her glasses into the midst of the gyrating crowd.
“JENNIFER!” Amanda screamed and dove for her glasses while trying to hold the fabric away from her breasts, thanking her mother and a conservative upbringing for the bra she wore under it. She scrambled under the table, spotting the glasses thankfully, though just out of reach. She lunged, just grabbing hold of one of whatever those plastic parts were that stuck out from the frame, when a pair of spiked heels crunched through the left lens. She pulled, but the heel was still in the middle of the frame. She reached out and swatted the ankle; the girl in the spike stilettos squealed and tripped. Amanda pulled her glasses free just in time to see the girl in question caught in the arms of the infamous TNT.
Her roommate screamed and Amanda half-turned, ready to calm her, to tell her that she was alright, that her glasses could be fixed, the frames were saved, but it wasn’t Amanda’s fate that had caused the scream. Jennifer had whipped off her shirt. She’d clearly had a very different upbringing, and was not wearing a bra. The blonde Amanda had tripped was similarly shirtless, but that was not entirely due to her own actions. The TNT person was waving her shirt around his head like a victory flag.
“BRONCOS! BRONCOS!” The chant had changed and several people pumped their fists and smashed cans on their foreheads. Some of the more Neanderthal-types body-slammed each other into walls. Somewhere a table crunched into kindling.
“I can’t drive!” she told Jennifer. It might have been Jennifer; her vision was too blurry to be sure. The right lens was still intact, but with the other eye closed she still couldn’t be sure. She was trying to stand while holding her shirt away from her body, and she only got so far before someone bumped into her and she went to her knees. Her face collided with TNT’s crotch. When she pulled back, all she could see was a naked breast next to him and she had no idea who it belonged to.
Apparently, Mr. TNT did not necessarily care who was who, as one meaty hand descended and covered the naked breast, pulling it and the girl with it. He whooped again and grabbed both topless girls and pulled them to him. One of them had to be Jennifer, of course.
Amanda crawled to the edge of the dancefloor to find that her chair was gone, the table was gone, and the dancefloor had now expanded. She stood and pushed her way through the crowd which was increasingly topless, men and women both.
She pulled her cell phone from her purse while she fought her way out of the bar. It took longer than she would have expected given the size of the building. By the time she made it outside she needed the chill October air. It would help cool her temper. Or should have. It didn’t work.
She made two calls, the first to a taxi, the second was to Jennifer’s voice mail. In the first call she gave her name, current location, and destination. In Jennifer’s voice mail she calmly said “Fuck you” and hung up. She didn’t need this shit. Nobody did.
Chapter 2
“According to police reports, ‘Troubled’ Nate Thomas, known as TNT to his fans, proceeded to escort two naked women to a waiting limousine and from there moved to a house party in Lakewood hosted at the house of a teammate, Bronco’s Center Nick Page.”
“That’s not true!” Nate objected. “They were NOT naked! They were only topless.” He thought a moment. “And that’s legal…I think.”
“Shut up.” The coach smacked him over the head with the newspaper he’d been reading. “The police were called sometime later when neighbors complained of a goat roasting in Mr. Page’s driveway. According to the report, the goat was an entry in a 4H project by the neighbor’s daughter who was subsequently found in Mr. Thomas’s car, passed out drunk. She, too, was naked.”
Coach Johnson tucked the paper under his arm. “You fucked a girl from 4H?” His face was purpling. It wasn’t a good color on him. Nate had been seeing a lot of purple lately.
Nate shuffled his feet a touch uneasily. “No, no, that’s all wrong, Coach. I swear. She was 19. The goat belonged to her little sister.” He looked up.
No. Still purple.
“You ate her sister’s goat?!”
“And the big sister.” Nate grinned.
Coach Johnson hit him with the paper again. They stared at each other. Coach hit him again. “We do not need this! We do NOT need to keep bailing your sorry ass out of jail at three in the morning because you were caught skinny dipping in the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial.”
“We won that game, Coach.”
“We didn’t win the game in Minnesota when you lined up five naked cheerleaders for your own ski jump practice in your hotel room!”
“Bobsled,” Nate corrected, smiling. Damn, that was a good story.
Coach hit him again. “How do you justify what happened in Los Angeles?”
Nate held up his hands, palms out. “Ok, that’s not fair, that question is not fair. You know I don’t remember anything after I dropped my pants on the Walk of Fame. I do remember that Fred Astaire had tiny feet, though.”
Coach Johnson raised the newspaper again and held it over Nate’s head, who closed his eyes and waited for the blow. Instead the coach tossed the paper onto the floor in disgust.
Nate opened one eye to see if the coast was clear. Satisfied that no more attempts were going to be made on him with a rolled-up newspaper, he opened the other one.
The floor was still wet from the showers. Wet towels piled up around the lockers and the paper soaked up the water and the words bled and blurred and water mixed with ink to create a brown soup. For a moment he saw his own face, grinning. Girls with the good bits greyed out. Then the image dissolved. Gone.
“The press had dubbed you ‘Troubled’, and instead of learning from it, correcting it, you embrace it like a friggin’ badge of honor.”
Nate blinked. Was his coach joking? “It is!”
“No, it ISN’T!” Coach Johnson ran a hand down his face and made a fist. “You’re an embarrassment to this team. You’re a bomb waiting to go off! And you are a disgrace to the game of football! You’re supposed to be professional! This frat boy shit has got to go.”
“Coach, I show up for practice and for each game sober and ready to give it everything I’ve got. You know that. We don’t win every game, but we win most of the them, and I’m the reason we win most of them.” Nate grinned. “Well. Mostly.”
That didn’t seem to be the right answer either. Coach just looked…sad. Frustrated. He shook his head, and for a moment Nate
felt a twinge of uneasiness.
It was better when Coach was purple. He knew what to do with that.
This…This was a lot more complicated.
“You’re a good player, Nate. One of the best. You could be great, one of those who becomes a legend, but all you’re gonna leave behind is a legend of stupid shit mistakes that’ll make you the laughingstock of professional football. You do good work on the field, hell, I put you as the starter because you put everything you have on the field every day. But you don’t have much, Nate. You spend it all on girls and booze, and there’s nothing left for the game.”
“I’m the best quarterback in the league.” Nate shot back, going from uneasy to angry in an instant.
Coach Johnson gave him a look that was usually reserved for the last quarter of the game when the score was down. All fire. “Don’t use that quote on me, son; it was created by the owner of this team to get more people to the games.”
Nate crossed his arms. “If I’m such a lost cause, why isn’t he reaming me out?”
It could have been meant as a slight, a dig, but Johnson knew it for what it was, an honest question. “You’re a monkey, Nate. You’re a trained monkey with a tin cup and when the owner plays his organ grinder, you dance in front of the crowds with your hat and cup and people laugh at you and put dimes in your cup. They come to laugh at you, Nate. But they come, they fill the seats, and that’s all any owner wants.”
“I AM NOT A LAUGHINGSTOCK!” Nate bellowed as he jumped to his feet. “I’m the best quarterback in the league!”
Coach Johnson said nothing. The gaze he gave his player was hard and full of…sadness? Again?
That uneasy feeling came back. Nate looked at him long and hard. Swallowed hard before asking, as if that would get rid of the sudden lump in his throat. “I’m not?”