Game Face Read online

  Extremely hot coach alert. Real-life situation. Do not approach. Abort! Abort!

  Remy ducked out of the coach’s peripheral vision, she hoped. She made a beeline for the bleachers with her little cooler of snacks to sit a spell and shore up her resolve. She didn’t know why a hot bod would suddenly make her not want to stand up for herself, but she did know that was not what she had pictured in her head. She pictured someone…shorter…older…paunchier. But why?

  Sitting on the bleachers was not helping her focus on what to say. She had a full-on view of Troy’s batting skills, rippling shoulders and the nice curve of his butt in those jeans.

  Pull yourself together, Remy. This was just a dude trying to throw his weight around.

  Hmm. How about you let him throw some of that weight on you?

  Her inner voice had a Corny Mom sense of humor.

  But she could handle this. She could assert herself. For all she knew he was probably a complete troll up close and face to face.

  And then he turned around. He was headed straight for her.

  It was all over for Remy. Anything she had thought to say to him tonight was out the window. All she could fit in her brain at the moment was processing a pair of smoldering blue eyes trained on her from under that curved-brim tattered Cubs cap. Then there was the broad chest and no-doubt narrow waist somewhere under that baseball shirt. And the slow swagger. He looked annoyed, and he was locked on her eyes, dead on. She could not help her brain from turning into absolute mush.

  He probably has terrible breath.

  Coach Troy approached and she held out her hand and licked her lips. Why did she instinctively lick her lips? Why?

  She didn’t even care that he rudely did not take her hand to shake it, because she registered not a single word he said. She could hear nothing but her own pulse quickening. Up close, she knew he did not, in fact, have bad breath. He smelled like an intoxicating combination of leather and soap and grass, and also that sexy rugged smell that guys get when they’ve been exerting themselves outdoors. She didn’t know what that was called, but if she bottled it, she would be filthy rich.

  Right now, watching the coach’s deep dimples appear and disappear as he spoke to her, she would settle for just plain filthy.

  As she watched his full lips say some words at her, her sex woke up with a flutter.

  Where in the world had the league found this guy? From the cologne ads on the pages of Vogue? What the hell was this person doing in Middleburg, Iowa, and how had she never noticed him at the grocery store? Or gas station? Or the diner? Or anywhere of the ten places to see in this town?

  She nodded and smiled dumbly at whatever he was saying. Anything you say, Coach, just keep talking. I’ll get my brain back later and email you as soon as I remember what I was going to say.

  4

  Troy

  That’s it, he thought. I’m going to have to lay down some ground rules about parents attending practice. And she had better abide by his rules, or else.

  “Keep it going,” he told the players as he dropped his bat and turned toward the stands to deal with this hovering parent.

  Yes, it was indeed a woman, and he could tell by the deep brown eyes and dark hair that resembled Elliot’s that it was, in fact, Remy Dawson.

  Oh shit.

  She stood up and stared as he approached. She was smiling some kind of smile meant to throw him off balance, but he was having none of it. He steeled himself by locking eyes with her to let her know he meant business, and only hoped she hadn’t noticed him glancing at her breasts, and other areas.

  She had met him halfway and he swallowed. He gathered his thoughts and tried to remember. What had he come over here to say again? Oh yes, he had meant to lay down the ground rules about parents hanging around at baseball practice.

  She was holding out her hand to shake. He hesitated like a fool and she withdrew it.

  Instead of laying down the law, Troy toned down his speech to let her know he normally did not allow parents to attend practice, but he would allow it this one time since he was a new coach and wanted to build trust between himself and the kids and the parents.

  What? Where did that come from?

  She had a beauty mark by her right eye that bewitched him. That’s where his dumb speech had come from. He was under a thrall.

  When she stared up at him and licked her lips, he knew this was a tactical move by her to further disarm him. It worked. The “little Troy” in his pants responded as expected to being this close to a beautiful female with some serious attitude.

  He didn’t know what else was said. His brain was a fog. Her lips, her black eyelashes, the tiny hoops in her juicy little earlobes that peeked out from the stray hairs that had escaped a messy ponytail, her oversized white tee-shirt that, up close, revealed the outline of a lace bra. Tight workout shorts over tanned thighs.

  How had he never noticed this woman around town before today? This was not what he expected a baseball mom to look like. What had he expected? Either a super-tomboy mom with baggy jeans and no makeup, or an over-done, over-dressed Barbie doll with fake boobs and a Volvo. Hell, the only thing he knew about parents was from Real Housewives. Which he officially had never watched. Nope, never. He was wrong about his first encounter with a baseball mom, on all counts. She was natural, feminine, simple yet exotically beautiful. For the life of him, he did not know why any baseball dads weren’t hanging around to flirt with her. Or other baseball moms, for that matter.

  “Well, nice to meet you,” she said, ending the foggy conversation with a sparkling smile and a voice like honey. Then she turned and walked back to the stands, accenting the most unfair thing about herself: a round, thick ass that had to be the result of about a million squats.

  He couldn’t. Troy could not tell her off. At least, not face to face.

  Maybe later, when he could get his brain out of his dick. Yep, that would definitely be a better time to assert himself.

  5

  Remy

  She could not believe it.

  When she and had Elliot pulled the Toyota into the driveway, she had received an email alert. She parked the car and pulled her phone from her bag and saw it was yet another missive from Troy Mattis. Except now, instead of annoyance, she felt a slight giddiness.

  She read it and her giddiness disappeared. It was a good thing Elliot had already piled out and was headed inside the house to shower, because what happened next was not something she would have wanted her son to witness.

  She sat behind the wheel and read it. It said, “I noticed Elliot’s arm seemed fatigued at practice today, and also he was having trouble with over-throwing to first. So I just wanted you to know that I’m playing him at right field until he gets short-range base throwing down. Consider this email a courtesy.”

  Remy went through the roof.

  “Where in the actual fuck does he get off?” she said aloud to the empty car.

  She growled in frustration, hit “reply” and typed furiously.

  “Excuse me? No. Just, no. You need to play Elliot at the mound. He’s the best pitcher you have, and he might be the best in the league. You know this. You’re not going to get to the championships again without him pitching.”

  Send.

  She went into the house to make some tea and make sure Elliot was getting ready for bed. Some tea would surely clear her mind of this truly unpleasant man.

  Yes, he was totally unpleasant, despite being easy to look at. Extremely easy to look at.

  But Remy would take 100 seasons with elderly, kindly, and paunchy auto-sales retirees like Coach Adams over this presumptuous punk Coach Mattis.

  Just who the hell does he think he is? And just how many times in one day can this guy make me ask myself that?

  She heard the shower running and saw Elliot’s filthy uniform strewn all down the stairs. At the very least, this coach knew how to play them hard.

  After spraying down the uniform with pre-wash stain remover, she set
herself to making some tea. And then there was another email alert.

  Well, she was not going to rush off to grab her phone before she made herself some tea. No sir, no way.

  Moments later, while the kettle was barely on the boil, Remy herself was boiling over. She had given in and read the email.

  Coach Mattis had responded.

  “We might get another title, we might not. I’m not thinking about championships at this point. I think I made my philosophy pretty clear in the first email. I teach baseball because I love the sport and I like kids. That’s it.”

  The kettle was boiling, so she typed quickly and hit send with: ”That’s very sweet. You get a sticker for righteousness.”

  The reply a few moments later: ”Is a trophy the only thing that matters to you?”

  What an ego on this guy, she thought. He thinks he knows me? Well, we are going to settle this once and for all.

  She took a gamble. “Go ahead and have the league re-assign us. Clearly you are not a good fit for Elliot.”

  The reply came seconds later: “Do it yourself.”

  Later that night, after tucking Elliot into bed, squaring away the day’s laundry, paying bills and washing dishes, she cuddled up in bed alone with her striped athletic socks pulled all the way up to the knee, oversized baseball-style nightshirt, hair up in a messy bun and Conan on the TV. She didn’t get people all day long, but she loved that Conan.

  Still, she couldn’t just relax and fall asleep to her favorite TV redhead. She needed to send one more email.

  “I heard you teach at the high school. Let’s discuss this tomorrow during your free period? I think we’re not accomplishing anything over email tonight.” Send.

  Actually, she had not “heard” about him teaching anything. She had straight up Googled him.

  And with that, she set her phone on Do Not Disturb indefinitely.

  6

  Troy

  Tomorrow? No. Oh, hell no. Who does she think she is that she thinks he’s going to take a meeting with a baseball parent while he’s at school?

  Free periods were for work and meeting with, oh yeah, parents of students who were actually his high school English students. Not psycho baseball moms. And he told her as much.

  Well, not in so many words. In his exhausted state that night he simply stated, “Busy, talk to me AFTER practice tomorrow.”

  As he drifted off to sleep, he wondered just where this woman got off treating coaches like this. How had she not gotten herself and her kid kicked out of the league yet? He was certain other coaches didn’t have to put up with half this shit. Did they?

  Still, when he closed his eyes, he saw those brown eyes, those paintbrush-long eyelashes, those tanned thighs, and whoa, that ass.

  Troy’s half-asleep and half-awake state had him imagining his pillow was her ample breasts and the blankets were her legs idly curled around his body. His brain somehow was soothed by this thought, though it made no sense.

  Maybe the idle dreams of her being in his bed would make more sense if he took away her phone first.

  7

  Remy

  “Woman, you have crossed a line.”

  Remy stared into the coach’s eyes, which smoldered back at her in something beyond annoyance now. It felt to her like white-hot anger.

  “I do whatever I have to do to win.”

  “This is my job. You can’t come to my job and harass me. I’m sure this isn’t even allowed. You need to leave.”

  Remy smiled, remaining calm. “If that were true, the office never would have told me when your free period is.”

  “Don’t you work during the school day?” asked Coach Mattis.

  “I do, I work from home so I can be there for Elliot whenever possible. And this is a situation in which Elliot needs me. Because you are the one who has crossed a line.”

  He sneered. “Must be nice.”

  She squared her shoulders. “It’s not nice at all. I don’t make all that much money and it’s hard. I need a new car, but I can’t deal with a car payment at the moment. I would love to eat out, but we don’t eat out. Everything I make goes to pay rent, gas, the light bill, feed Elliot and pay athletic fees. Should I go on? I am not who you think I am.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think anything. Other than I think, again, that you should leave.”

  Remy put her hand up in surrender. ”I will leave, just hear me out. Two minutes of your time and then I’ll leave and I’ll never do this again.”

  God, he looked sexy in that button-down Oxford shirt, the top button undone, the light blue accenting his tanned skin and blue eyes.

  He sighed. “I cannot believe I’m agreeing to this, but go ahead.”

  He folded his arms across his chest and his forearms were exposed by his rolled-up sleeves. He had long, conditioned arms. Sinews like his were such a turn-on for her, especially when those arms were connected to big hands, with long capable fingers.

  Focus, Remy.

  “A little tin trophy is not the only thing that matters to me.”

  “Well, it sure seems that way,” he interrupted.

  “It’s not that, I just want Elliot to be the best he can be. I want him to know that I fought as hard as I could so he could achieve his dreams. Nobody ever gave me the push I needed to succeed. And being here at this high school again is only reminding me of all my mistakes. Believe me when I say I have no desire to be here in these halls any more than you want me here. But I need you to understand something about Elliot. He needs to stay focused. If he loses focus, he will lose interest, and then he’ll start getting interested in other things. Girls, drugs, who knows what.”

  Troy blinked at her. “Wow. This is not about him at all. This is about you and your problems.”

  “My only problem right now? Is you.”

  “Then take him off the team. You made it pretty clear in your email you might do that. What’s stopping you?”

  Uh oh. She should backtrack, but that would be a sign of weakness. “You understand that if I pull him from the team, you lose. That’s it.”

  He took a step closer to her. “And you understand that I don’t care all that much about winning. These kids are in middle school. People like you are going to teach him to hate the game. It’s toxic.”

  “Did you just call me toxic?”

  “No, I called your attitude toxic.”

  She took a step closer to him. She was not going to be talked to that way. “So you’re just calling me a bad parent.”

  “No, I’m not. But clearly open communication is not your thing, so if you’re done here…”

  “He doesn’t hate the game. He loves baseball. He loves pitching.”

  “I can see that. But his concentration on pitching is costing him his ability to fire the ball anywhere else. He can’t throw to first base.”

  “Well, I guess it’s your job to teach him.”

  He uncrossed his arms and furrowed his brow at her. “Are you done telling me how to coach?”

  “Not even close.”

  “Why are you arguing with me if you clearly don’t agree with my methods? Why can’t you just quietly go away?”

  “You really want to do that to Elliot? He’s been in youth league since he was playing tee ball at 3. These kids have all been on the same team together since the age of 9. It would break his heart.”

  Troy leaned in and smirked. She could smell his aftershave. It wasn’t the obnoxiously strong kind. A subtle scent of sandalwood. “You said last night we weren’t a good fit and you wanted him assigned to a new team. Would it break his heart? Or would it break your heart?”

  Coach Troy was leaning in too close now. He was definitely in her personal space.

  “I’m not living vicariously through my kid, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  His voice dropped lower and quieter and sent a shiver across the back of her neck. “Then why did you try to bluff me? What’s your angle? Because it sure doesn’t seem like you’re livi
ng for yourself.”

  She swallowed. Was he coming on to her? Was she reading this right? “What does it matter to you?”

  “Because you’re in my face. Because one minute you try to bluff me, then the next minute you’re trying to reason with me. Because I think you’re full of yourself and you’re all talk and no substance.”

  “I’m going to file a complaint to the league about you.”

  “I have this feeling you won’t.”

  “I won’t if you do right by my son.”

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “It seems like you could use a little fun.”

  Why does everyone keep saying that?

  “Oh yeah? Well, if you ever become a single dad, feel free to tell me how much Live-Your-Best-Life Me Time you get every day,” she said.

  “Don’t preach at me, I don’t like it. And if you don’t like the way I coach, you are free to leave. If you don’t leave, then feel free to stay and suck it up. Watch what happens when you interfere. I’ll bar you from the game.”

  “Oh, you’ll bar me from the games?” Now he was out of line.

  “Practices, games, everything. I can’t have you acting all crazy in the stands at my kids’ games. You’re unhinged.”

  “Try it,” she challenged.

  “Watch me,” he said, a rumble of warning in his voice, his eyes narrowing at her.

  “What makes you think you can talk to me like that?” she said, swallowing. He was very close now. Too close.

  “Because you’re still here and you aren’t backing away.”

  When there wasn’t any possible way to get closer and misinterpret the closeness, Troy leaned in and made sure of it.

  8

  Troy

  All of the alarm bells. All of them clanged in his head like he was about to make the biggest mistake of his life.