She glares at me as I trail along. “Stop following me.”

Pfft. “I’m not. I have to grab something from my car.” The lie would be more plausible if I had a set of keys in my hand or pocket, which I do not.

“Whatever.” The wind kicks up, lifting the hem of her pretty, floral dress, tan legs exposed. Smooth. Lean. Great legs. “Stop checking me out, creep.”

Creep? What the…

We both walk past the security booth, and I nod to Karl, the guard, slowing my gait on the way to my car since I can’t actually get into it. I need her to get to her car first and drive off so she doesn’t know I’m a liar.

Her gait is confident, her gaze trained on the horizon, not on her phone, as she scans the parking lot, key fob for a luxury SUV in hand. Nice wheels. Nice legs. Smart mouth.

With a glance over her shoulder, she meets my eyes before she grasps a pair of sunglasses and slides them on, opening her door and climbing inside. She spares me no second glances after that—not a single damn one.

Rude!

Shuffling my feet like a loser, I meander my way back from pretending to get something from my car, nodding again at Karl, who has his head sticking out the side of the guard booth.

“You sweet on Ms. Westbrooke?”

“Who?”

“The young lady you were just with—that’s Thomas Westbrooke’s youngest. Don’t see her around here too often, but Ms. Hollis sure is a nice young woman.”

My eyes stray to the departing vehicle, its blinker on to take a right-hand turn out of the parking lot, apparently carrying the general manager’s daughter. Which makes her the team owner’s granddaughter which makes me look like a giant asshole.

Jesus H. Christ, I just hit on the GM’s daughter.

Thank god she doesn’t know who I am or I’d be a dead man…

2

Hollis

“You sure the guy hitting on you at the stadium was Buzz Wallace?” My best friend Madison reaches across the counter and nabs a French fry, digs around in the brown paper bag, and stuffs three in her mouth at once.

She was scrolling through her phone on my front porch when I got home, waiting for me to feed her dinner like a stray cat, wanting to have a quick chat—mostly to mooch off me, since she always seems to be broke—utterly bored. As usual. I’ve known Madison since college and she’s always been the girl who has to be entertained, has to be busy. Never settling, forever restless.

She’s restless now, leaning over my kitchen counter, stealing the food I was too lazy to make. I grab a fry too and chew. Suck the salt off my fingers and crook an eyebrow.

“Yup, I’m sure it was Buzz Wallace.” Trace Wallace, his biography online said. “I got curious, so I looked up the roster online. He’s such a douche.”

“But he’s so hot,” she argues, filching my cheeseburger to take a bite, the melted cheese oozing out the side. I scowl, grabbing it back out of her hand.

“Get your own! If I knew you were going to be here when I got home, I would have gotten you one.” The burger isn’t big enough to share when I’m this hungry. “Go make a frozen pizza,” I snip.

“I don’t like the loaded pizzas you buy.” She sniffs, sneaking more of my dinner. Madison isn’t a meat lovers, all the veggies, and extra cheese kind of girl like I am; she’s more of a Margherita type. Thing is, if I make a frozen pizza, she’ll eat that too—regardless of her protests.

“So, back to this guy—he was hitting on you?”

“Probably not on purpose. I feel like a guy like that cannot help himself. It’s like word vomit to him. He would have hit on me if I had a paper bag over my head, was hunched over, and walked sideways.”

Madison rolls her brown eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic. Why wouldn’t he have hit on you? You’re gorgeous, happy—practically oozing with charisma.”

Oozing? “That’s the cheese from this burger.”

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I. He didn’t even know my name, and here he is asking me on a date.” So there.

My bestie isn’t buying that argument. “Um, hello—if some guy hits on you in a club, the chances that he knows your name beforehand are slim to none. Cut the guy some slack.”

I rest a hand on the counter. “Madison, you know what I went through with Marlon—I am not dating a player. Or a player.” Ha!

I hate calling Marlon Daymon my ex “boyfriend”. We dated for scarcely three months last spring, but I had thought he was fantastic. Tall. Athletic. Funny. So, so funny he charmed the pants off of me the minute I was introduced after a Chicago Steam game I attended. He came up to the stadium suite to schmooze with my father and I believed every word he spoke when he opened those pouty lips of his.