by G. K. Brady
Taming Beckett
Book One in The Playmakers Series
by G.K. Brady
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by G.K. Brady. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.
Edited by Jenny Quinlan, Historical Editorial
Cover design by Jenny Quinlan, Historical Editorial
ISBN 978-1-7332763-0-6
ISBN: 978-1-7332763-1-3
ISBN: 978-1-7332763-2-0
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
1. Critical Mistakes
2. What I Want
3. Free Fallin’
4. Welcome To Your Life
5. Can’t Find My Way Home
6. Cool Change
7. Do You Know Me
8. Something I Need
9. Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight
10. Where Did Our Love Go
11. I Can Help
12. In The Air Tonight
13. Hey Nineteen
14. Rolling In The Deep
15. My Best Friend
16. Something Just Like This
17. Danger Zone
18. Dance with Me
19. Thin Ice
20. Tempted
21. Tighter, Tighter
22. (I Just) Died In your Arms
23. Up All Night
24. Snow (Hey Oh)
25. Sooner or Later
26. Ahead of Myself
27. Super Massive Black Hole
28. It Was Always You
29. I Miss You
30. Hard Habit To Break
31. Hanging By A Moment
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Coming Soon
About the Author
For Tim, Kyle, Matt, and Ryan, the best fan base a girl ever had
CHAPTER 1
Critical Mistakes
January
Beckett woke with a head ringing like a metal goal post that’d just been struck by a screaming slap shot. His tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth. Where the hell was he? He lifted his head and scanned the murky shadows around him. His eyes caught on a dim, fuzzy light. Had he suffered a concussion? Had that damn Coyotes defenseman gotten him with a lights-out upper cut? No, this place was warm, and it smelled way better than the locker room.
He lay on his back in a bed. No covers. No pillow. No clothes.
Vaguely aware of another body, he fixed his eyes on that one spot of yellow suspended in gray gauze. When his vision sharpened, the hazy light revealed itself to be a table lamp with a yellow shade covered in pink polka dots. Miniature pink pom-poms fringed the bottom of the lampshade, and a small stuffed bear clung precariously to its top. A koala? His eyesight wasn’t that clear yet.
Gingerly, he rolled over and propped himself up on his elbows, running stiff fingers over his stubbled jaw. He glanced to his side. Long, dark hair. A large butterfly floated across her bare shoulder. A different tattoo—was it a ladybug?—popped into his dusky brain, along with a different part of her anatomy.
Must have been one hell of a night. His queasy stomach agreed.
He slithered to the bottom of the mattress and sat up, his feet landing on a cold floor. He shook his head, trying to scatter the cobwebs, and regretted it instantly. Where the hell were his clothes?
Standing, he staggered to a white dresser covered by a slab of glass that held a Visa card, a hundred-dollar bill, and a few broken lines of white powder. His credit card. His hundred-dollar bill. His coke. Well, he’d paid for it. He picked up the credit card and scraped the cocaine into one thin line, rolled the bill, and snorted it clean off the glass. Pinching each nostril in turn, he sniffed hard. A zing popped his eyes open. Now I’m awake. The few grains that hadn’t gone up his nose, he picked up on his finger and licked off. Not a speck left.
His dim gaze was pulled to a heap; he crouched on the floor and rummaged through it. My shirt. My jeans. Not my bra. He held up the bra and inspected it, searching his mind’s eye for the woman it belonged to. Dropping it back on the floor, he picked out the rest of his belongings from the tangle and padded to a door that opened into a closet. The next door led to a hallway. Let’s see what’s behind Door Number Three. That door led to what he was after—the bathroom. He folded his large frame into the tiny space, rearranging himself to close the door. He flipped on the light and was momentarily blinded by harsh fluorescence bouncing off cold white tile. The pounding in his head ratcheted up.
He shaded his eyes and sang under his breath. “Blinded by the light, wrecked up like a douche in the something, something night.”
He glimpsed himself in the mirror and flinched. Fuck, he looked like shit! Like the light, the reflection was harsh, though in an entirely different way. He tugged the pouches under his eyes. Blue swimming in red stared back at him. A lot of red. He blinked a few times and brushed white powder from one nostril. Surfer-blond hair, courtesy of what-was-her-name in Chicago who bleached it a few nights back, stuck out in tufts like a rooster’s tail. Shit if he still wasn’t used to it, but it had made her oh-so-happy, and she had made him oh-so-happy. He yanked his fingers through it, but it sprang back up with mattress-coil tenacity. He stuffed his face in a miniature sink, running cold water over his head, into his mouth. He brought his head up. No towels. Who the fuck has no towels in their bathroom? Even he had towels in his bathrooms—all seven of them. But not that girl out there—what the hell was her name anyway? Tracy? Stacy? Candy? Carrie? He smoothed his hair. Where had those creases on his face come from?
Contorting himself, he pulled on boxers, jeans, T-shirt, and button-down. Something stuck out of his collar, and he pulled out a black lace thong, promptly dropping it to the floor.
He huffed as he looked himself over in the mirror. Nothing had improved. He fished four ibuprofen from his front pocket and threw them back with a cupped handful of water. One helluva night.
Back in the girly bedroom, he stashed the credit card and the hundred and glanced over his shoulder at the brunette. What the hell’s her name? Man, she was out.
With a self-satisfied smirk, he left the room in search of the rest of his stuff. He was so bad with names. And how had he hooked up with her? He was bad with those details too.
His hunt took him to a futon, where he found his discarded shoes and socks. Memories came streaking back in flashes, like the crazy strobes from that dance floor where he’d shaken his tail trying to get some tail. No, wait. That was Chicago. Or was it Detroit? What city was he in now? Minneapolis? Shit.
Balanced on the edge of the futon, he pulled on a sock. He’d met this girl in a bar. Where else? A table of giggly women had asked for autographs. Pretty young women doing tequila shots. He’d given them his premium smile—the one that required sunglasses. After he’d signed whatever they’d shoved at him, they’d asked him to sit down. Consummate gentleman that he was, he’d accepted. Just Beckett and four very pretty, friendly girls who smelled really good and seemed to multiply as more joined their table. Screw team curfew, he’d thought; that bullshit was for the rookies, not him.
A couple of rounds later—on his dime, with extras thrown in so he could catch up, of course—he joined the ladies in toasting something. An engagement? A bachelorett
e party? Maybe the brunette was the bachelorette.
Whatever the occasion, the girls got friendlier as the alcohol did its job, and they asked for more autographs … in very interesting places. Sure, I can sign your T-shirt. Right over your heart. Unless you want to take it off. Where’s the Sharpie? Oh, you want an autograph across your belly button? The belly button ring will have to go, but I can take care of that. With my tongue. Oh yeah, I can do that. I’m sorry, where? Absolutely. I aim to please. But I’ll have to squeeze under the table.
Ah. That’s when he’d spotted the ladybug. And the black lace thong. Now his signature was next to the bug, like a brand, and the thong was lying on the bathroom floor. One helluva night. He’d thought a blond was going to join them, but she disappeared at the last minute. Disappointing, but he’d consoled himself with the brunette. He preferred them anyway.
Beckett searched for paper and pen to leave a note (“Hey, let’s do this again real soon” or “Do I get a wedding invitation?”) and found a tablet with a name across the top. Karen Gruber. He jotted a lame message that didn’t include his phone number. Those messages never did—no point in inviting someone to put the touch on him; he’d learned that lesson the hard way a long time ago.
As he hunted for someplace to put the note where she would find it, he patted his jeans pockets and mentally ticked off his possessions. Money clip, check. Money, check. Four condoms—he’d started with six, but he’d been ambitious, hopeful, both—check. Wallet, check. Phone … uh-oh.
Beckett crept back into the bedroom, his eyes drawn to the white rump on the bed. He found his phone on the nightstand and swapped it for the note, glimpsing the used condoms on a tissue. At least he hadn’t been so wasted he hadn’t used double protection—even he never got that wasted.
He was gathering up the tissue when a shapely bare leg called to him. An image of lines of cocaine on pert breasts floated through his brain. The breasts had jiggled delightfully. “You’re tickling me!” The cocaine was gone, but maybe he could make those tits wobble again. Practice wasn’t for another few hours, and he’d already blown curfew. It’d be a shame not to use the extra rubbers, and Coach was always on them about working out off the ice.
A picture of sassy dancing breasts in his head, Beckett laid his hand on her shoulder, covering the butterfly. She was surprisingly cold.
“Hey. Hey, sweetheart.” What the fuck was her name? Karen something. “Karen, sweetheart, I had a great time celebrating with you and your friends last night—especially since it led me here.” Smooth, Beck.
He shook her shoulder and rolled her over. Panic shot through him like liquid nitrogen.
Oh no, oh no, oh no!
No, no, no!
CHAPTER 2
What I Want
Paige bustled around her home office, stacking papers into a few straight piles so they appeared organized, which in truth, they weren’t.
“Have to make a good impression,” she mumbled to herself.
The muffled first bars of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” sounded from her purse, and she snatched it up, rifling through it until she grasped her phone.
Chants of “a-weema-weh” repeated as an unfamiliar number glowed on her screen. Putting a smile in her voice, she answered.
“Anderson Homes. This is Paige Paulson.”
“Hey, I’m glad I caught you, boss lady,” came her general contractor’s voice.
“Hi, Norm. Whose phone are you using?”
“The electrician’s. Left mine in my truck. Listen, something’s come up on your latest remodel.”
Sucking in a breath, she steeled her spine for what surely would be bad news.
“Okay. Let’s have it.”
“So you know the wall between the living room and hallway?”
Images of scurrying cockroaches leapt to her mind. Or is it mice this time? How soon can I get an exterminator in there? “What about it?”
“I was wondering what you thought of taking it down to a half wall?”
“Can we get away with it structurally?”
“Oh yeah.”
“So this isn’t about pests creating their own megalopolis in the walls?”
“That was so ten houses ago,” he joked.
“But it still gives me the creeps.” She shuddered involuntarily. “About the wall, you know me. Take it down. The more open, the better.”
“You got it. Hey, have you called the guy down the street who wants to sell his piece-of-shit house yet?”
“Not yet. I’ve been too busy drowning in paperwork.”
“You’re still interviewing for your assistant today, right?”
Paige checked her watch. “Yeah, in like six minutes, so I’d better go. I need to get back to cleaning up the office so she doesn’t run as soon as she sets foot in here.”
“Go get ’em, Miss Paige.”
“Thanks, Norm.” God, she loved that guy. When she’d hired him a year ago, her files had been stuffed with the remnants of flaky contractors. All she’d wanted, all she’d needed, was one good general and a few crews who didn’t show up drunk, do drugs, or spend all their time and money in strip joints and come groveling to her for advances. She’d struck gold with Norm, and he’d helped her take her business to the next level, and then some—which was why she was about to interview a candidate for her first-ever assistant position.
Right on cue, a car pulled up to the curb, and a tall young woman with dark, curly hair strode up the walkway. Paige pivoted, her eyes surveying the partially tidied office. With a sigh, she straightened her sweater and jeans and hurried to the front door. Katie Denning blinked huge brown eyes from behind red-rimmed glasses. Her red-glossed lips curled up to reveal straight white teeth.
She stuck out her hand. “I’m Katie. I’m so glad to meet you, Ms. …”
“Just call me Paige,” Paige laughed, accepting her hand. No limp-wristed buttercup was Katie Denning. “Come on in. The office is right through here.” Paige motioned to a set of glass double doors on her right. “I hope you don’t mind that I run my business out of my home.”
Katie smiled. “I don’t mind a bit. It’s refreshing after working in corporate offices.”
An hour later, Paige had hired a new assistant ready to start in a week.
As she did a little happy dance down the hallway, her phone sang out another “a-weema-weh.” Checking the screen, she hesitated a beat before answering. I need to give her a distinct ringtone. “Hi, Mom.” Just get it over with.
“Hi, Paige, honey.”
“Where are you?”
“Still in Florida.”
“But I thought … Aren’t you coming for Grandma’s birthday?”
“I changed my mind.” Her mother pulled in sucking, stuttering breaths.
“Mom, are you smoking pot?”
“No,” Mom squeaked, sounding as though she were holding her breath. A large exhale, and then, “It’s just a cigarette.”
Yeah, right. “So you’re calling to tell me you’re not coming?” Just like every other year.
“I don’t understand why you traipse to her grave with flowers and balloons anyway. It’s not like she can see you or anything, and it’s so damn morbid.”
Paige dropped her forehead into her hand and rubbed. Hard. It never changes. “So what came up?” This time?
“A last-minute business trip came up.”
“Business? You work at Circle K.”
Another long drag. “Don’t be snotty, Paige. I’m looking into some new opportunities, and this is the only time I can get away.”
I wonder what his name is? Not.
“What about your man? He’ll go with you,” Mom harped.
“His name is Adrian, Mom, and he’s my husband, not ‘my man.’” Paige let out a resigned sigh. “He can’t go with me because he’s in Europe on business.” Real business.
“I don’t know how you do it, with him gone all the time.”
“He’s not gone all the time, Mom.” Only mos
t of the time. “Besides, it’s his job. It’s what international developers do.” Paige rolled her eyes. Why do I feel like I have to defend him, to her of all people? It’s not like she raised me. “Look, Mom, I’ve got to get going. Good luck with your … ah, opportunities.”
“Huh? Oh. You too.”
Paige plopped into a chair, her limbs too leaden to continue her happy dance. For not the first time, she was thankful she was nothing like her mother except for a physical resemblance, sharing her auburn hair, green eyes, and petite stature. But where her mother had treated bed-hopping like an Olympic sport—to the point where she claimed not to know who’d fathered Paige—Paige had fallen for a solid, dependable, mature man. Sometimes she still puzzled over why Adrian Paulson had married her, unworldly small-town Paige Anderson, but she counted her blessings that he had. He was serious, bordering on starchy, but only because he was a man of integrity who took responsibility earnestly; he suffered no fools. Adrian was everything she’d expected from someone twelve years her senior.
Her mind jumped to her father. What did he look like? Did Paige get her dimple from him? What would it be like to call someone “Dad”? She played her name-guessing game. Was he a Mike? Ian? Fernando? She pictured a devilishly handsome rogue. Does he even know I exist?
“Girls Just Want to Have Fun” snapped her from her reverie, and she swiped her phone, her heart a few ounces lighter. “Gwenn!”
“Hey, hey, girlfriend. You ready? I’m a block away.”
“God, yes. I am so ready,” Paige laughed, grabbing her purse and coat. Several minutes later, she was crawling into Gwenn’s passenger seat and hugging her neck.
After she’d settled in, she glanced at her best friend’s profile. Gwenn had changed little in the twelve years Paige had known her. Short, curly blond hair formed a soft halo around Gwenn’s impish face, setting off her glittering dark blue eyes. They’d first met freshman year at the University of Denver when they’d shared a dorm room, and though their personalities were at opposite ends of the spectrum—Gwenn the exuberant extrovert to Paige’s quiet introvert—they’d been inseparable since.