Playbook (The Holland Brothers 2)

“Oh my gosh.” Paige is folded over with laughter. I sip my wine, a resigned smile tugging at my lips. Tuesday night happy hour with my best friend is exactly what I needed. I feel lighter than I have in days.

“Shut up, it’s not that funny.”

“You yelled at this guy.” She holds up her phone and aims the screen at me. A picture of Brogan in his Mavericks uniform stares back at me. He’s holding his helmet in one hand, and his brown hair is sweaty and pushed away from his face. He’s ridiculously good-looking. I’d think this photo couldn’t possibly be real if I hadn’t seen him in person.

Three days have passed and I still feel an odd mix of pride for standing up for myself and embarrassment for yelling at a local hero. Or at least that’s what Alec called him after he we left the club.

“I’m sure that he’s already forgotten about the whole interaction.” And it’s not like I’m ever going to run into him again.

“Of course he has women sending him their used panties, I mean look at the guy.”

“Oh, I’ve seen him.”

“Better or worse-looking in person?” She sets her phone in her lap and leans forward.

An image of Brogan flashes in my mind. The look on his face as I yelled at him, the way his shirt pulled across his broad shoulders, the warm brown of his eyes. He’s photogenic in pictures (I spent the night after the incident looking him up and scrolling through every picture I could find), but in person, he just has something about him that makes him larger than life, irresistible even.

“Better,” I admit finally. “Probably the hottest person I’ve ever seen in real life.”

“Oh, really?” Her voice trails off in a tone I know too well. That voice has set me up on numerous blind dates and once convinced me to sign up for a dating app.

“He’s a professional football player and underwear model,” I say. “And I yelled at him.”

“You’re hot. He’d be so lucky to let you yell at him again.”

Something only a true best friend would say.

Thankfully she drops it and asks, “What are you doing the rest of the night? Do you want to grab dinner or do a little shoe shopping?”

“I can’t. I gotta work.”

“You just left work,” she says, one brow cocked.

“Illustration jobs have picked up. I’m booked through the month.” I try to brush it off, but in true best friend fashion, she latches right onto it.

“Lo, that’s amazing. I’m so happy for you. You are so talented. I’ve told you a million times that you should be doing that full-time instead of wasting away at that stuffy news station. Have I not told you that? I framed the drawing you did of me and Pat at our wedding.”

Her excitement is the encouragement I didn’t realize I needed.

“Get your parents out of your head,” she says with a stern look. I hadn’t been thinking of them, but now I am. They don’t think my freelance work is a “real job.” They think I need a stable, steady job with benefits and a corporate ladder to climb. Part of it is just that they’re still salty I didn’t go to law school like planned. But after two years you’d think they’d be over it.

“Thanks. I need that stuffy job to pay the bills though. I don’t know if I’ll ever make enough from the side projects to do it full-time, but it feels good to be creative.”

My job at the news station is fine. I do graphic design for the website and social media pages, but there isn’t a lot of room for creativity. I have specific colors and fonts I can use so that it’s all cohesive and branded.

My freelance clients have a broad range of needs and wants. I get a lot of portrait requests, character art, and right now I’m even working on an illustration for a fantasy book cover.

“Well, I’m proud of you. And you know I will blast your information to all my clients. Do you have some business cards I can hand out during open houses? They’re all still using paper.”

Paige works for her family’s estate sale business. She organizes and hosts estate sales for clients to sell off household items to prepare for the house to be rented or sold. We met in college. She studied interior design, even though she already knew she was going to work for the family business. Her husband, Pat, works there too. He does a lot of the heavy lifting, moving furniture around to stage for the sale and then delivering it after it’s sold.

“I don’t think that’s exactly my target audience,” I tell her.

“These old people have money to spend,” she says, leaning back in her chair. “Last weekend I sold a fifty-piece basket collection for over five thousand dollars. Baskets! Who needs five grand worth of baskets?”

I snort a laugh. “What do you even do with that many baskets?”

“No idea, but I’d bet they’re also looking for portraits of cats and dogs, maybe the grandkids.”

“Perhaps cats and dogs in baskets?” I tease.

“Definitely.” She laughs. “I am happy to pimp you out as the official Stephenson Family Estate Sale company artist.”

“And I love you for that, but I’m okay. Truly. A few of my clients have already booked more projects with me later in the year. I know there will be slow months with only word of mouth marketing, but I don’t have enough hours to spare anyway. Slow and steady is just fine with me.”

“All right, but just say the word.” She eyes me closely like she wants to make sure I’m not pushing her away when I really need a life raft.

Maybe I’m being stubborn, but I want to do it on my own with clients that I connect with. It’s all been mostly referral so far and that’s allowed me to build slowly. Cats in baskets isn’t a bad fallback plan though.

“All right, well, I am going to do some shopping for Pat and my’s vacation.”

I groan. “Don’t go.”

She’ll be gone the weekend of Sierra’s engagement party, and I really wish Paige could be my plus one. Maybe it wouldn’t be so awful with her to help me suffer through.

“You should just come with us. Tell your family that as my maid of honor, you’re required to be there for the honeymoon. Besides, this is just Sierra’s first wedding. I’m sure there will be others.”

I laugh, something loosening in my chest at everything she just said. Even if I know it’s not true. Or I hope it’s not.

“I am not going on your honeymoon with you. I love you, but I draw the line at a threesome.”

She snorts. “It’s hardly a honeymoon when our wedding was almost three months ago. We’ve banged a lot of the newlywedded-ness out of our systems.”

I seriously doubt that. I’ve seen how handsy they are even after being together for three years before getting married earlier this spring.

“Speaking of…” I slink down in my seat. “I may have let sex Saturday slip to Alec.”

She laughs instead of shooting daggers at me, but still I feel bad.

“I’m sorry. I was drunk and spiraling…”

“It’s fine. Everyone should schedule sex. I like to guarantee an orgasm once a week.”

I can hardly argue with that.

“So you’re not coming to the beach with us?” she asks, knowing the answer.

“I have to be at the engagement party. She’s my sister,” I say. And as worried as I am about it all happening so fast, I wouldn’t miss it. “Plus, I’m not letting Chris get off that easily. He’d think I was hiding from him because I’m still obsessed with him or something.”

“I don’t know. Not showing up could be a real power move.”

“He’s too egotistical to see it that way.”

“Fuck him,” she says, and I arch a brow. Paige rarely cusses. “Seriously,” she continues. “He was lucky your standards were so low in college. You deserve so much better.”

I laugh again and nod my head in agreement, but my throat tightens. It isn’t that I think she’s wrong. I’ve accepted that Chris is an asshole and not the amazing guy I believed him to be during our relationship. I was young and in love. Stupid love.

Paige stands. “All right. I’m gonna go.”

She pushes the strap of her purse over her shoulder and steps toward me. “Love you, Lo. Text me later and let’s hang out this weekend. Should we hit the club?”

I glare at her, then wrap my arms around my friend. “I’m never going back there again.”

On the way home from happy hour, I stop to get my mail. I brace myself as I turn the key but when I open the small, metal box it’s empty, or nearly empty. I pull out the two envelopes – both perfume and lipstick-free. I double-check because it feels too good to be true, but yep, both are for me.

Today must be a slow mail day for Brogan’s harem. And then my eye catches on the sender’s name written in the upper left-hand corner on one of the envelopes. Brogan Six.

I glance around, half-expecting him to jump out at me, but I’m alone. I close and lock my mailbox and then carefully open the letter. His handwriting is small and neat and fills only about a quarter of the page.

Dear London,

Nice to meet you Saturday night. I’m sorry about the mail mix-up. It should be taken care of now, and your box should be free of my panty kink. If you run into any more problems, let me know.

I really am sorry, and I think you got the wrong idea about me. Can I make it up to you?

Brogan