Page 73 of Ignite

Ethan:??

Rylee:Saw you strolling through the golf course.

Ethan:Don’t you mean jogging?

Rylee:You can call it whatever you want, but that guy in a zimmer frame almost passed you?

Ethan:No one passed me.

When the team went jogging, I set the pace. There was no way anyone passed me on the golf course—wait. I’d jogged on the beach the past two days, not the golf course.

Ethan:You got me confused with some other guy. I wasn’t on the golf course.

Rylee:Hmm.

Rylee:I saw a hot ass, legs I’d love to wrap around my face and arms that could pin me to any surface.

Holy fuck. Now, we were getting somewhere. But before I could adjust my sudden erection and respond, Rylee beat me to it.

Rylee:My mistake.

Rylee:The guy was wearing an RFS tee.

Ethan:Are you still hung up on that?

Rylee:Nothing looks hotter than a man in uniform.

Ethan:I’ll play dress-ups any time you want.

Rylee:I prefer real men.

Ethan:I’m not gonna change my mind. I’m not joining up.

Rylee:Then we have nothing to discuss. Have a good day.

Ethan:When am I getting my ute back?

Rylee:When I say it’s ready.

The rest of the team had started ribbing me about missing out on pole bunnies. Even the women who used to try and flirt their way into my training schedule or bed had started asking me when they’d see me in the yellow uniform. Not that I wanted their interest, but when I lost it because of my pride, it started to mess with my head.

Perhaps, I thought. Perhaps, once I got my ute back, I’d check out the whole RFS thing and see whether I could dip my toe in without diving headfirst into a shit storm. I refused to make the same mistakes as my old man, but perhaps Meringa wouldn’t chew me up and spit me out.

At least, not unless I hurt the town’s sweetheart, Ophelia Rylee Mettner.

Chapter 19

Crazy Little Thing

“Forthosewhoarestill reeling at the canceled RFS dinner, it was all for a good cause. Our brave volunteers headed to the Royal National Park, south of Sydney to help out when a hazard burn got out of control. But don’t pack your dancing shoes away. Meringa will come together to celebrate the next season of our very own Hawks. Get your tickets today and watch as the club presents Ethan Cooper with his new Hawks jersey. Word has it the Hawks are already looking good with the new Captain-Coach setting a hard pace at training. In other news …”

Ethan

Rylee might be avoiding me in person, but the rest of the community were dragging me into their clutches. Old-timers stopped me in the street to offer their advice onsmashing those Bay Tiger asswipes.Every team had a nemesis and there was no love lost between Hawks and Tigers.

Ryan had called me down to face his principal when parents from Beringi complained about a drawing Ryan had submitted to the school newspaper. Apparently, redrawing the Hawks’ emblem to magnify the talons and wrap them around a tiger’s throat had not been in keeping with the school spirit. I’d managed to talk her out of suspending Ryan and borrowed one of the frames I’d intended for Rylee’s shop to hang Ryan’s picture in the Hawks’ change room. It only added extra inspiration for off-season training, knowing that a school student faced suspension because of the team rivalry.

Old Man Hobbs was threatened to bring on a self-induced heart attack with the amount of organizing and publicity he insisted were necessary for the trial season launch—three months before most clubs even thought about a launch.

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