Game Changer (Game Changers #1)

Chapter One

He hadn’t meant to drink so much last night, but Chuck and Jimmy had been in town and he hadn’t seen those guys in months.

It wasn’t like he’d gotten wrecked. He had been aware that he needed to be at work at six the next morning, but he’d still managed to drink just enough to make the high-powered blenders his mortal enemy.

But he had a job to do. And that job was to make the best damn smoothie he could for the busy-looking woman waiting at the counter.

“Here you are, ma’am.” He tried not to wince as he handed the customer her order. “One Green Warrior smoothie with a wheatgrass shot.”

He glanced at the clock. Six-thirty. Jesus Christ.

There was no time to rest his head on the inviting pile of oranges that sat on the counter.

The weekday morning rush at Straw+Berry tended to be steady right up until nine.

Maria was working with him this morning, and that was cool.

They worked well together because, while neither of them was particularly invested in this job, they took it seriously and did everything they were supposed to. Plus, she was funny.

“Which of these damn smoothies cures a hangover?” Kip moaned when the shop was briefly empty.

“Um, none. But allegedly the watermelon one.”

“Okay. I’m going to make myself a giant watermelon one with, like, five Advils in it.”

“I think you mean five ‘wellness boosts.’”

Kip did make himself a giant watermelon smoothie, and he did feel slightly better after drinking it. He took two Advil.

“So what were you up to last night, anyway?” Maria asked.

“Oh, just hanging out with some college friends.”

“Yeah? Are they cute?”

“Nah. I don’t know. Not my type.” Chuck was big, burly, and bearded. Jimmy was the complete opposite: short, slim, and looked about seven years younger than he actually was.

“Are they super-successful juice-bar baristas too?”

“They got jobs in their field. They’re both working in Boston. Business something? Insurance? Finance? I don’t know. They wear suits to work.”

“You wear an apron. That’s pretty great.”

“Yeah, I’m super proud.”

“And a ball cap with a little strawberry embroidered on it. Come on!”

Kip threw a chunk of frozen pineapple at her.

“Tell you what, Kipper. I’m going to be nice and do all the prep work in the back this morning so you can just rest your pretty head when the rush is over.”

“Yeah?”

“Yup!”

“You are the best and I love you,” he sighed happily.

“I know. Now look alive! We’ve got businesswomen coming in and they want liquefied kale!”

It was another hour of steady rush before Kip was finally able to enjoy the quiet that Maria had promised him. She went to the back room to chop fruit and vegetables, and he slumped onto a chair he had dragged behind the counter and pressed his face against the wall. It was a nice, cool wall.

He hadn’t even realized he had closed his eyes until he was startled by someone clearing their throat. Not aggressively. Just enough to let him know they were there.

He opened his eyes and stood quickly. “Sorry, sir,” he stammered. “What can I—?”

Kip’s mouth may have dropped open like a cartoon character’s. Possibly his jaw was on the floor, and his tongue may have rolled out of his mouth like a carpet. It just so happened that the hottest man he had ever seen was standing in front of him.

“Um, what can I get for you?” Kip managed.

The man was tall, blond, and, well, ripped. And Kip knew he was ripped because he was wearing a ridiculously tight Under Armour zip-up jacket thing and sweatpants. He must have just finished a run, the way his damp hair clung to his forehead and his skin glistened with sweat.

“Good morning,” the sweaty man said cheerfully. “Sorry to wake you.”

Kip’s cheeks flushed. He dipped his head a bit so the brim of the stupid baseball cap would conceal it. God, the hottest man in the world is standing in front of me and I am wearing an apron and a strawberry baseball cap.

“You didn’t… I wasn’t…” Kip took a breath. Pull it together! “Sorry. Had a bit too much fun last night.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “On a Monday night?”

“Yeah, well, you know the life of a smoothie maker…live fast, die young, right?”

The man laughed. Kip nearly fell over.

“So what’s good here?” the man asked, squinting at the menu.

“Um, there’s one with blueberries and pineapple and kale—but you can’t taste the kale, I swear! It’s good. I like it.”

“That would be the… Blue Moon Over Brooklyn?”

“Yeah. All the names here are kinda dumb.”

The man pointed a long finger at Kip’s name tag. “I like your name.”

Kip glanced at his own name on the tag, as if he didn’t know what it said. Like an idiot.

“It’s, like, a nickname,” he said, as if the hot guy had asked him for further information.

Which he had not. But Kip kept talking because that’s what he always did.

“I mean, everyone calls me Kip. So it is my name. But not, like, my real name. It’s, um…

Anyway. You want one of those blueberry smoothies? ”

“Sounds good,” the man said, politely ignoring how fucking dumb Kip was being.

Kip got to work loading the blender with various frozen fruits and fresh kale.

Fortunately it required focus, and then the machine was loud enough that he couldn’t talk over it.

He glanced over it at the man, who was now standing with his hands on his hips, studying the uninspired photos of fruit that decorated the small space.

Kip’s eyes didn’t know where to land, rapidly jumping from broad shoulders to ridiculously huge arms to a muscled back tapering into a trim waist to an ass that was frankly just—

Kip shook his head and turned off the blender. He fumbled for a plastic cup and filled it with blue smoothie. “Here you are, sir.”

The man turned, nodded, and handed Kip a folded, slightly damp twenty-dollar bill from the pocket of his sweatpants. He waved his hand when Kip tried to hand him his change. “Keep it.”

“Seriously?” Kip asked, watching him take his first sip. Watching his pink lips fit around the straw.

“Yeah.” The man smiled. “We’ll call it a finder’s fee. This is delicious.”

Kip smiled back. “Glad you like it. Have a nice day.”

The man toasted him with his smoothie cup. “You too, Kip.”

Kip felt a little giddy at the sound of his name coming from this man’s mouth. As his dream man exited, another man who was not nearly as attractive walked into the shop.

“Holy shit!” the new customer said, jerking a thumb toward the door. “That was Scott Hunter!”

“Huh?”

The man looked at Kip like he was very dumb. “Scott Hunter.”

“You mean, like, the hockey player guy?” Kip said.

“What?” came a voice from behind him. Maria stood in the doorway to the back room. “Did I seriously miss Scott Hunter?”

“I don’t think… Do you really think that was him?” Kip asked.

The customer nodded. “Oh yeah. Definitely. Surprised he shows his face around town, the way he’s been stinking up the ice lately.”

“He’s not doing well?” Kip did have some awareness of who Scott Hunter was, of course—everyone did, sports fan or not.

He was the star center and team captain of the New York Admirals.

Three years ago he had led Team USA to Olympic gold.

But Kip mostly knew him for his Hugo Boss ads. He was a big fan of those ads.

Kip liked hockey just fine, but he hadn’t been following the NHL too closely. Scott Hunter had always been, to his knowledge, celebrated and beloved in this town. The King of New York, really. But apparently Kip had missed something.

“Yeah, he’s been terrible this season,” the customer continued. “Hasn’t scored a goal since November! Don’t know what they’re paying him all that money for. They should trade the bum.”

“Well…” Kip said, not sure how to finish. It was ridiculous, but he felt personally offended by this guy’s criticisms, and was compelled to defend Scott Hunter. “Maybe he’s just going through some stuff.”

The customer snorted. “He can go through it in the summer. We’re not gonna make the playoffs this year if he keeps this shit up.”

Kip still felt inexplicably angry, but shrugged it off and gave the guy his smoothie so he would leave.

When they were alone again, Maria said, “Was Scott Hunter really in here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I mean, now that that guy mentioned it, I think it had to be. I was kind of distracted by how hot he was, but, yeah, he definitely looked like Hunter. And, uh, he gave me a huge tip.”

“How huge? We have to split it, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. It was like a thirteen-dollar tip!”

“What?”

“Well, if it was Hunter, that’s probably, like, nothing, right? He probably doesn’t care about money at all.”

“Must be nice.”

“Yeah.”

“Soooo,” Maria said, leaning over into Kip’s personal space, “he was hot?”

“Oh my god.” Kip grinned. “He was volcanic. He didn’t look real.”

“What was he wearing?”

“Workout clothes. He’d just been running, I think. Really tight workout clothes.”

“Oh my god.”

“Yup.”

“I can’t believe I missed it. If he comes back, you have to tell me. Even if I’m in the bathroom, just get me!”

“Sure, that won’t be weird.”

Maria started loading the freshly chopped fruit and vegetables into the fridges. Kip helped. They worked quietly for a few minutes.

“Hey,” Kip said, “he said my name.”

“Who? Hunter? He actually said the word ‘Kip’?”

“Yeah,” Kip said dreamily.

“God, I’ll bet when he says it, it doesn’t even sound dumb.”

Kip threw a strawberry at her.

* * *

Kip saw the headline the next morning on the train: Night of the Hunter!

He leaned forward a little to read the front page of the paper of the passenger sitting opposite him.

Apparently Hunter had scored a hat trick last night and got two assists in a 7–1 trouncing of Washington. Kip smiled. He felt oddly proud of him.

Yeah, so nice that millionaire superstar had a good night. Sheesh.