Her Game Plan (In Her League #2)

1. Charlotte

Charlotte

“I love fucking with pro athletes.”

“I’m pretty sure you mean you love fucking pro athletes,” my college roommate says, her face splitting into a grin on my phone screen.

Shaking my head, I walk across the lawn to the Fourth of July party I’m only attending because I heard rumors my friend and hockey coach extraordinaire was going to be here.

“Nope. They are always depressingly underwhelming. Give me a brooding musician any day. Did I tell you the baseball player I slept with last month touched my clit exactly zero times?”

“Char!” Addie’s face flames bright red, a few shades off her strawberry-blonde locks.

“The southern-belle act does not become you, Adeline Grace,” I chastise. “Don’t forget I woke up to the sounds of you giving a guy a blowie in senior year.”

She peeks at me between the fingers of the hand she’s hiding behind. “I maintain the sucking noise was a plumbing issue.”

I step into the backyard. “Well, someone was getting their plumbing worked on,” I joke.

The tall, bearded man next to me does a double take when he hears me.

“Hey, Nate.” I offer my fist for a bump.

“Charlotte.” He grins. “Causing trouble again?”

“Never,” I lie. I definitely haven’t been scheming with my friend on how to best annoy the party’s host.

“Always!” Addie yells. “Let me talk to him, Charlotte. He needs to know the truth.” I refuse to turn the phone for her to see the blond lumberjack and starting forward for Colorado’s professional basketball team. I will not have those two ganging up on me.

Barely able to hear her now that I finally made it to the party, I say goodbye to Addie, begging her to come visit me next time she has a break in her refereeing schedule. Why must all my friends like sports?

I scan the crowd, not seeing the long dark hair of my friend or the hulking form of her boyfriend.

“Nate-the-Great, have you seen Finley?” I finally ask, swiveling around to make eye contact with him.

“And why do you insist on looking like you’ve been living off-grid, competing in Alone for the last ninety days? ”

He runs his fingers through the thick beard he sports, even during the basketball season. “I like it.”

“You look like you have small animals living in your facial hair. Likely from sleeping in the woods.”

“No need. I have the cabin I built by hand on day fourteen.”

I reach out slowly, using one finger to touch his wiry beard. My whole body shakes at the contact. “It’s repulsive.”

Nate takes a large bite of the hot dog he’s been holding. “It’s good luck,” he mumbles around the mouthful.

“I’ll take my chances with fate over having a dead chipmunk on my face.”

“You’re fighting a losing battle,” a feminine voice says behind me.

“Sage!” I whirl around, pulling the blonde into a hug. “Tell this man he needs to shave his face. And cut his hair. What is this?” I point at the mop of hair falling almost to Nate’s shoulders.

Nate looks between Sage and me. “Nope. I’m out. Sage, good to see you.”

“Word on the street is that he’s the most superstitious athlete in all of Colorado,” Sage confides as he walks away.

As his tall, muscular frame moves through the crowd, I sigh. “It’s too bad I like him as a friend. That man is cute beneath all that hair.”

Sage and I wander into the kitchen, grabbing a couple of hard seltzers to drink while we catch up. As the GM for Colorado’s baseball team, the Denver Miners, Sage is right in the middle of her busy season, so I take any chance I can get for some quality time with her.

Not that my schedule running the entertainment arm of my dad’s company is any less busy. Luckily, I love my job more than anything else in the world, so constantly working is a benefit, not a weakness.

“So, has Big Daddy Langford announced his retirement yet?” Sage’s question isn’t a surprise.

Her dad gave her control of the Miners for her thirtieth birthday, and she is well aware how desperately I’m ready to take control of the entertainment arm of the business.

My dad and I agree on a lot of things, but having him constantly overseeing everything I do, butting in with unsolicited advice, is starting to grate.

“Not yet,” I bemoan. “But I don’t think it’s going to be long.

My mom mentioned something the other day about getting to travel a lot more soon.

I can’t imagine she’d be doing that if my dad wasn’t going with her.

Though it might be wishful thinking on her part.

She’s been trying to get him to retire for longer than I have. ”

“Are you so excited?”

“Eh, more like exasperated,” I reply. “We all know I’m fully capable of leading that arm of the organization. Just give it to me already.”

“You sound so needy,” Sage teases.

I laugh. “Enough about my drama. What’s new with you?”

Sage tells me about the Miners’ continuing struggles with finding a pitcher, and I regale her with stories of the recent artists we’ve hosted. I’m in the middle of telling her about a folk act I’m bringing in when we’re interrupted.

“Sage, Charlotte,” Callan Devine says as he passes us on his way to the refrigerator.

“Hey, Carson.” I shoot him a finger gun and a wink, pretending to be confident I got his name right this time.

“Callan,” he sputters.

This is what life is all about. Fucking with the egos of pro athletes. And for some reason, Callan Devine is the most fun to mess with.

“Right! Kicker for the Stallions,” I agree, name dropping my dad’s team. “That three-pointer last week.” I touch my fingertips to my lips in a chef’s kiss.

Sage snickers next to me but quickly turns it into a cough.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Callan manages to get out, “Quarterback. No three-pointers in football. And our season finished months ago.”

I give him my best innocent expression. “Are you sure?”

More coughing from Sage.

He blinks twice. “Okay. Well, I was trying to get a game of cornhole started. Do either of you want to play?”

Sage meets my gaze, and I lift my right shoulder.

“Sure,” she answers. “We’re in.”

When we follow Callan into the yard, I spot Finley’s boyfriend, Beckett. “Hey!” I give him a quick hug. “It’s so good to see you!”

We chat for a moment about his recent trip before I realize I’ve abandoned Sage. I invite him to play with us as well, and soon we’re all standing by the cornhole boards, waiting for Callan to get back from wherever he got lost.

“Can we play without him?” I ask. “Make Finely be our fourth.”

Beckett cups his hands around his mouth and yells, “Fin! Come play!”

She waves to let us know she’s coming before saying goodbye to the Stallions’ actual kicker.

I catch myself smirking, remembering the repulsion on Callan’s face.

When your dad owns a football team, you either have to be the biggest fan or pretend you know nothing.

While my knowledge of most sports is similar to that of the average thirty-four-year-old woman, I do pay attention to the Stallions.

It’s just easier to make everyone think I don’t.

Then players don’t try to use me to sweeten their contracts, and fans don’t hit me up for tickets or insider information.

When my father finally retires, I have every intention of being named his successor for the entertainment arm of the company.

Fortunately, I was blessed with a twin brother who loves sports to take over the Stallions.

Now if my dad would retire so we can fully take the reins of our respective entities.

“I call being on Charlotte’s team,” Finley shouts when she sees me. “She’s way too competitive for me.”

I flip her the bird good-naturedly. It is true, after all. If I’m going to play, I’m going to win, even if I don’t have an athletic bone in my body… unless you count Pilates. I dominate a reformer class.

“Oo, I’m out, then,” Sage Sinclair says, giving me a quick hug. “You know I love you, but tonight is my only night off this week. I do not need competitive cornhole in my life.”

I almost promise to tone it down for her but catch myself. It’s not actually a switch I can turn off. Finley and I are about to crush Beckett and whoever ends up as his unlucky partner.

“I’ll play against Princess.” Callan takes a long drink from his beer as he comes to stand beside me.

This guy.

“Don’t call me Princess, Ball Boy,” I snap.

“If the pearls fit.” He gestures to my necklace with his beer bottle.

I cross my arms. “Are you sure you want to do this? Kickers aren’t known for their throwing ability.”

The way his right eye narrows makes me think he might be catching on to the fact that I do know who he is. Unwilling to give up the game, I try to distract him. “Do you think Beckett is going to take it easy on Finley?”

He turns to look at the couple currently laughing together, as they stand holding the beanbags. “He’s a pro hockey player: he’s not going to let her win.”

“I’m not sure that’s true. They’re new. She’s competitive. He might want her in a good mood for a little hanky-panky tonight.”

Callan chuckles. “Hanky-panky? Have you been hanging out with my ninety-year-old grandma or something?”

“Your grandma is ninety?! That’s so cool!

” As someone who was never able to meet any of her grandparents, at least not that I remember, I have always been fascinated by the idea of sitting on a porch with someone who’s lived through so much and asking them a million questions.

“What did she think of the Great Depression?”

“I… What?” Callan looks like I asked him to translate War and Peace into Latin.

“You know, the period in history where—”

Callan cuts me off, “I know what the Great Depression is! Jesus, how dumb do you think I am?”

I wait for him to continue, but after an awkward beat of silence, I realize it wasn’t a hypothetical question.

“Oh, I don’t think you’re dumb, I guess.”

Callan shakes his head. “Super convincing. Just because I haven’t asked my grandma about the Great Depression doesn’t mean I don’t know what it is. I just… Would she have even been born?”

I start to mentally calculate it, but give up when Finley starts to play, her red bag hitting the board between us before sliding through the hole.

“Yes!” I shout, doing a little dance. “We are going to crush you two.”

Callan smiles. “Don’t be so certain, Princess. I am a quarterback after all.”