Scored(4)

Intrigued, I play smart. “Yeah, but what about that time he—”

“Prank. A couple of teammates sent strippers to his hotel room for his birthday. There’s no actual evidence that he slept with all three of them.”

My eyes do that rapid blinky thing… because three in one night sounds like something my sister has complained to me about in the past. “How do you know this?”

Nolan flushes. “Because Dallas is Sarah’s number-one hall pass.”

“Her what?”

“You know—the three people you can sleep with if you ever have the chance because there’s no chance of ever meeting them.”

“But the Renegades are here. Your wife could actually meet Dallas,” I point out.

“Not if you date him.”

I make a noise of disbelief. “You want me to go out with him so Sarah takes him off her list, don’t you?”

“Sarah loves you, so any men you date would automatically be stricken from her list.”

“I can’t.”

Nolan gives me a pleading look. “Think about our children, Paige.”

“Y’all have dogs.”

“They’re our four-legged children.”

I shake my head and hold up my hands, palms facing out. “You’re insane, and this conversation is over. He’s off-limits and based on the crap you just shared, there’s no way I’d go out with him. Athletes are players and attention-seekers.” And a lot of other adjectives Finley uses to describe them when she has to clean up their images. Adjectives that aren’t nice at all. In fact, I’d call them pejoratives.

Nolan raises his brows. “All of them?”

He has me there. “Quite a few of them or my sister wouldn’t stay so busy putting out their fires.”

“Excuse me,” Dallas says, and my blood rushes from my face and then back to it.

Oh, no. Had he overheard our conversation? Should I apologize? Play it off or—

Nolan starts to sputter, and I start to wonder if in fact Nolan is the one with the crush, not Sarah. “Dallas Drake… how’s it hanging, man?” His voice breaks on the last word.

“Real good,” Dallas replies. Is that resignation in his tone? “Thanks for asking.”

Ever so slowly, I start to inch away.

“So, Paige, about that date—”

The main phone rings.

I freeze, then my brain kicks into gear. “Have to answer that. Nolan will take such good care of you,” I say in a rush as I power walk to the phone, answering it with a cheery hello.

No one replies, but I stay on the phone while Nolan and Dallas talk, feeling guilty but confident in my first response to his invitation. Finley would kill me if I went out with Dallas. Since I was thirteen, she’s been drilling it into my head that athletes—football players in particular—are a pain in the rear. Since she was the older and wiser, twenty and a college student, I took her advice to heart and avoided them at all cost. Easy enough to do as I was the nerdy girl, instead of the cheerleader, and I spent all my time studying rather than dating. That was something Finley would fuss at me for, too.

She still does, even though I’m twenty-six now and she’s thirty-three… and single herself. I love her anyway.

Dallas looks over Nolan’s head, his eyes roaming over me. My body heats in response. It sucks to be so attracted to a man who’s an automatic pass.

Worse, it’s going to suck even more when I ask Finley about him and learn that Mr. Charming is really Mr. Douche. Then again, maybe that will make it better.

I grip the phone tighter, mouthing the lyrics to Sam Hunt’s latest.

Nolan slaps Dallas on the shoulder, then walks away to help Barney collect his things.

Suddenly, Dallas’s eyes crinkle as the corner of his mouth lifts. Raising his brows, he silently sings along to the chorus.

Busted.

My cheeks heat, and I shrug apologetically. “I’m on hold.”

“Sure you are.” Dallas nods a little, but he knows I’m full of it. Then he strides to me, and my heart flips again. He’s like poetry in motion. Fluid and full of grace that no man his size should command. At the last second, he stoops down and picks up something off the floor.

“You dropped something.” Straightening, he holds out a piece of paper. Automatically, I take it from him.

My gaze drops. On the scrap of paper is a number. His number. “When did you write this?”

He gives me a cocky grin. “Barney isn’t the only one with magic hands.” Then he walks away, humming the song that’s now stuck in my head.





CHAPTER 2




Dallas


I don’t know a man alive who can resist the sexy librarian fantasy, but I have to at the moment. I don’t have the luxury of thinking about Paige and her blue eyes, honey-colored hair, and luscious lips.

All right, so I do have the luxury, but it’s because I need to focus.

“Thirty seconds,” Kelly, the team’s trainer, announces. He stands there with a clipboard and a stopwatch. He likes to think of himself as old school. I like to think of him on vacation because it means I get one, too. “Move it, Drake.”

With a growl, I bang the sledgehammer against the tire harder and faster, my arms burning with each subsequent swing.