Page 9 of Fashionista's Playbook

The videos of him in football pants—what do they call them?—stole my breath.

Unlike most of the players mentioned on the podcast, Travis didn’t have a line of jersey chasers he was linked to. He seemed to be a decent guy, with a past that haunted me. Losing his parents, his brother going to prison, foster care.

“Where’d you get that?” Rumer Eaton’s compact, muscular form leaned over the second-floor balcony and peered down at me.

I stepped from the Range and tossed the restored designer bag over my shoulder—I hadn’t been able to afford a Louis Vuitton, so I’d patched together a relic. “My new boss loaned it to me.”

With a dancer’s grace, Rumer gripped the rail and arched backwards, laughing hysterically, curls dancing around her face. “That’s about the most on-brand Moriah thing I have ever heard.” Then she winced. “Repossessed?”

I gave a half shrug. What could I say? At this point my life was a wrinkled piece of fabric stained sporadically by disaster. But things were looking up.

I did a little shimmy in the altered Donna Karen suit I’d worn for my interview. “But I got the job!”

“Are we going for a ride?” Rumer twisted her curls tightly to the back of her head and shouted through the hair tie she held between her teeth.

“Maybe tomorrow. Tonight, we celebrate.”

It wasn’t a surprise when Rumer met me at the door to our apartment with two glasses of champagne. “If this isn’t cause for the bubbly, I don’t know what is.” She passed me a glass. “And tell me all about this new job.”

Taking a sip with one hand, I hung my purse on the hook by the door with the other. Rumer’s sat on the floor near the kitchen, haphazardly tossed there and forgotten. “I’m the new personal assistant to one Travis Madera—”

“Whoa.” Rumer swallowed and looked slightly shocked. “Doesn’t he play football for the Outlaws?”

“And he’s cute. The Range Rover isn’t the only perk of the job.”

The smaller woman shut the door behind herself and climbed onto the couch, tucking her legs beneath her in an impossible yoga like move that I could never accomplish.

I met Rumer in college and we’d been friends ever since. She’d let me move in when I couldn’t afford my lease. If only I’d had Rumerway back when—. Just thinking about high school, my sister Elise—something caught in my throat.

All the bravado I’d tossed around in Travis Madera’s kitchen shot straight out of me, and I turned away from Rumer before she saw it and asked questions, I didn’t have the stomach to answer.

I saw him in my mind, that easy smile as he tossed the small green ball into the air and caught it in a rhythmic one-handed game of catch. “Not just hot, he was really—nice.”

“I made pasta, we have champagne, let’s put on pajamas, get drunk and eat.” Rumer’s eyes twinkled with mirth, their bright blue impossibly vibrant. “And you tell meeverything.”

Less than an hour later, I was curled in the overstuffed chair watching Rumer massage her calves. “If I take on one more dance class, I think my body may revolt.”

“So don’t.” I said. “Audition instead.”

“I tried that, remember?”

I didn’t push the issue. But Rumer was talented enough to be famous.

The smaller woman saluted me with her champagne flute. “I’ll audition again when you sell your own designs.”

That was a thought. “You know, maybe I will.” I tipped my glass to Rumer and briefly wondered how much the two bottles of cheap champagne had contributed to my enthusiastic outlook.

And as soon as I’d thought about it, a self-sabotaging dark cloud hovered over me. Travis and Steven Holt both played football. My brother-in-law, even in high school, had expected everyone to do as he said—he was king of the entire school. Travis was built with that sort of confidence. And Vincent, he might not play, but he was probably cut from the same pattern as Steven. Thinking about it made me a little nervous. I’d spent too long avoiding guys like that.

But I had this unexplainable feeling that Travis was very different. It helped that he wasn’t preppy white bread, like mybrother-in-law (former high school quarterback turned used car salesman). Travis Madera was copper skinned, tattooed, and larger than life. All things my sister’s husband had never been.

“He’s not what I expected out of a professional football player.” I mused.

“I bet he’s cocky.” Rumer offered when I trailed off.

And attractive, kind, and funny.“Yeah.”

“Let’s not forget smoking ass hot.” My friend whipped out her phone and flipped through images. “Have you seen these shirtless photos of the man? Holy crap.”

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