Page 2 of Playing the Field
He's like a stallion stalking the field, all lean muscle and almost frightening power. I have no idea if he’s as menacing in person as he looks down there, huffing angrily. Fortunately, I can do my job better from a distance, so I enter my notes quietly as the fans around me continue to go nuts.
Marching over to Hunter, the ref blows his whistle, pulls a red card from his breast pocket, and holds it high in the air. The Houston fans in the stadium cheer for justice, but the overwhelming number of Devils fans let out a loud, collective “boo!”
A guy next to me hurls his arm with a pointed finger at the field. “You suck, Ref.”
Hunter gets in the ref’s face and yells, pointing at the injured player and gesturing madly. I may not love sports, but I don’t think there’s ever been a ref in the history of sports who’s changed a call because a player copped an attitude. But all that testosterone is hard to wrangle, and apparently, Hunter has more than the average male.
He comes just shy of decking the ref, who shakes his head and points him forcefully to the sidelines. Hunter stomps off to a chorus of more loud booing, but the damage is done.
The Devils are now down a player for the rest of the game. He may have scored a goal, but he’s made it harder for his teammates to compete. If Houston scores on them, Hunter will take some of the blame for leaving the team weakened.
I watch Hunter storm to the team bench. His coach says something to him that makes him blow up again, pointing at the ref. But it doesn’t change the fact that he’s out of the game.
Two hours later,I’m stuck at the airport. My flight back to San Francisco was delayed by weather in the Pacific Northwest, leaving me with time to kill.
My brother Kyler is away on business, and I don’t know anyone else in LA, so hanging out at the airport seems like a good plan. I can always put on my headphones, catch up on work, and mull whether I can see myself moving to LA.
Not like I have much of a choice, thanks to a little meltdown in my former boss’s office at AIFund, a huge Silicon Valley tech company, which finances all the biggest artificial intelligence startups. I’d gone to bat for a qualified candidate without bothering to mention that he was my boyfriend. We’d only been dating for a couple of months, but I loved him, and I wanted to help him.
He got the job, and shortly thereafter, he ratted me out. Then he broke up with me.
Turns out the job he really wanted was mine, and now that I’m gone, he has it. That’s right. I may be the only woman in history who slept my way to the bottom.
And because I signed a non-compete agreement, I can’t work at any other Silicon Valley tech firm for two years.
I learned my lesson. Work and romance don’t mix, a hill I will die on. At least, if being the chief data analyst for a sports team is the same as death, which is how it feels.
More sports. More soccer. More hotheaded Hunter Reyes.
Ugh.
I grab a seat at the Sip ’n Fly restaurant bar, where the menu includes one of my all-time favorite dishes—stuffed potato skins. At least things are looking up on the dining front.
I order the potatoes and fish my iPad out of my overstuffed purse. I have at least a dozen unread books queued up, plus I can recalculate my analysis of Hunter Reyes with the new data from the game. New data is my happy place.
Soccer highlights play on one of the TVs over the bar, and I roll my eyes at it, not interested in seeing any more post-pubescent displays of macho behavior. I’ve had enough for one day, thank you very much.
My diet soda arrives, and I take a healthy sip while cuing up the first chapter of a new novel set in eighteenth-century Scotland. In moments, I’ll be swept off to the Highlands to lose myself in a guilty pleasure about a strapping young Scot who’s good with his hands.
I’m so single-mindedly focused that I don’t notice anyone sidle up on the stool next to mine until a gruff, rumbling voice disrupts the images of heather fields and icy lochs in my mind.
“This seat taken?”
By the time I turn to acknowledge the man next to me, he’s already seated, so I wave him on and go back to my book. I hear him order a beer, then cancel it. “Just sparkling water, actually,” he says, sounding annoyed.
I should put on my headphones and tune him out, but I’m also a people watcher, so I chance a look in his direction, wondering what bug crawled up his britches.
I’m met with a face in deep distress, forehead creased, and mouth turned down in an irritable frown. But that does nothing to dampen just how spectacularly gorgeous he is.
Dark, wavy hair. Broad shoulders under a navy hoodie. High cheekbones, hard jaw, a week’s worth of beard that barely softensthe angular beauty of his face. I’m not used to being this close to a man who looks like he belongs in a movie—a romcom in the Scottish Highlands, if I’m being specific. His eyes, a deep gray flecked with green, look stormy as they focus on the TV screen above our heads. Reflected light flickers in his eyes.
The bartender delivers his drink, and his long fingers wrap around the glass. I stare at them, mesmerized as he takes a long sip. For a moment, I fantasize about the feel of his fingers on my bare skin, and I shift my gaze, mortified at the idea he could read my thoughts. I return to my diet soda and my book.
I’m sure the odd hum of electricity I feel in the space between us is my imagination. I feel self-conscious, thinking about how a stranger must see me, sitting ramrod straight on the stool with my ankles primly crossed and my iPad on the bar.
“Must be a good book.” His growl crackles in the air between us, and I don’t need to look up to know he’s talking to me. I’m the only one anywhere nearby, which makes it all the more strange that he took the seat right next to me when there were six others.
“I like it.” I glance in his direction, not expecting to see his unfettered gaze bearing down on me. Having those gray eyes raking over my face would be frightening if it didn’t also warm me down to my toes. I swallow hard and try to calm my racing heart, hoping he can’t see the effect he has on me. Glancing up at him through my lashes, I can tell by his smirk that he can.
