Page 1

ONE

TRENT

I walked onto the field, toeing a thin piece of concrete separating the dugout from the diamond. My new teammates were spread across the field, a few wearing matching t-shirts with their team name, The Foul Boules, plastered on the back.

I breathed in, first-day-of-school nerves gripping my stomach despite the fact I hadn’t stepped into a classroom in five years.

But kickball wasn’t my sport. My sport was astroturf and pigskin, not dirt and rubber.

“Are you Trent?” A tall guy with a broccoli haircut turned away from the action on the field, doffing his sunglasses. His welcoming smile immediately put me at ease.

I nodded, straightening my spine and plastering on a charming smile. “Yeah.”

“Nice to meet you, man.” He threw out a hand. “Derek. I’m the captain.”

I nodded, taking his hand. “Nice to meet you. Glad you had a spot for me.”

I’d been a top NFL draft pick, but somehow getting on the roster of the Norwalk kickball recreation league required a slew of favors. The bulk of the teams formed through work or friendship: local sawmill workers, Connected Financial employees, the Upper Deckers drinking club. I’d pitched my case to the latter but lost out to a member’s girlfriend.

I ended up on a list of free agents, and the Foul Boules were the only takers.

“You lucked out. Our chocolatier broke his ankle.”

“Chocolatier?”

He tapped the logo on his pocket that read “Rise and Shine Bakery.”

“So, coworkers?” I asked, hitching my head toward the gaggle of people chasing after a ball screaming into the outfield.

“Friends, but also coworkers.”

“I guess that explains the name. The Foul Boules, I didn’t get it at first.”

Derek grinned. “That was Kit’s idea. Let me introduce you to your new team.”

I set my bag on a metal bench in the dugout and walked onto the field, pasting a winning smile on my face and wiping my sweaty palms onto my shorts.

Derek pressed two fingers into his mouth, releasing an ear-piercing whistle. “Get over here, guys!”

The team, all curious smiles and covered in dirt, walked to the dugout.

“Hey, y’all,” I drawled, leaning into my Texan accent. “I’m Trent.”

“I’m Gavin.” A bald guy around my age walked up and shook my hand. “Trent Vogt, right? From the Breakers?”

My lips hitched, and I nodded at the impressed oohs emanating from my new teammates. Four years in the NFL and enough press to paper the entire stadium, I’d grown used to being recognized, but normally in post-game interviews and in clubs, late at night and buzzed. Not mid-day, stone-cold sober on a baseball field.

I scanned the crowd, gauging the individual reactions, finding mostly smiles and a couple of whispered comments, no doubt reporting the latest gossip in Breaking the Breakers. A mousy woman in the back seemed to be the only person unimpressed with that information drop. Her honey brown eyes darted over to Derek with a frown. He gave her a sharp shake of his head.

“We thought the name was a joke. Or a weird coincidence,” Derek said.

“Nope.” My nerves faded. “The one and only.”

“What are you doing playing for a rec league?” An older woman with gray-streaked hair asked.

It was a good question. One I’d asked myself as I pawed through my workout gear, changing for the third time, because what kind of asshole shows up in their own branded sportswear line? Me. But really, the better question was what was a record-breaking running back doing playing in the local kickball league?

“I thought I’d keep myself busy this off season.” I chuckled, a self-deprecating laugh meant for the people who followed the gossip columns.

Based on the shared looks, more than a few of them had. They’d seen the pictures of me red-faced and glassy-eyed as I stumbled out of the clubs at four A.M. The photos of my coach screaming at me on the sidelines when I bumbled a hand off the next morning. The thinly veiled blind items about my exes and my partying and my possibly failed drug tests.

“Well, we’re glad to have you,” Derek pounded my back with an easy, vacant smile. The type of smile of a man who barely knew my name and definitely hadn’t heard about my reputation. But even with raised eyebrows, he wanted to be my friend, anyway.

But the mousy woman in the back of the crowd just didn’t like me. She pursed her lips, eyes flitting back to the empty field. Annoyed.

“So, how much experience are we working with?” Derek asked.

“Athletically? A lot.” I flexed an arm, muscles still bulging from a barely completed season on the gridiron. “But, in the sport of kickball? Nothing.”

“Well, let’s get you on the mound and check if you’re a pitcher,” Derek said enthusiastically. “Kit, give him the ball.”

The surly woman frowned, a red ball tucked under her arm. “He’s not a pitcher.”

It’d been a while since I played a new sport. I joined a flag football team as soon as I could walk and played tackle before I hit puberty. My academic life consisted of football in the fall and track in the spring until the Norwalk Breakers drafted me in the first round.

Still, I didn’t like the way she assumed I couldn’t pitch. Like I wasn’t capable. Not enough.

Derek laughed, unfazed. “He’s not anything, yet. We need to try him out and see where he slots in best.”

She rested a fist on her hip. “Send him to the outfield. Isn’t he a wide receiver? Let him chase kicks.”

“I thought you didn’t want to coach?” Derek countered. For the first time since I met him, the humor dropped away from his voice, his face stern.

The look shared between my newest teammates assured me that their bickering wasn’t a one-time occurrence. A guy with facial tattoos threw up his hands. “I’m getting water while mom and dad fight.”

Kit’s eyes didn’t stray from Derek. “I don’t want to coach, but this is a waste of time.”

“Well, you’re not a coach. I am. And I say, he tries out as a pitcher,” he countered.

I stayed frozen in the field as more people peeled off toward the benches. Amused and only slightly concerned that this argument would end in me getting kicked off the team. “Should I hang out while you hash this out or…”

Derek winced, cheeks turning pink as he ripped his gaze away from Kit, realizing most of the team had wandered off. “No, you’re good, man. Kit used to be my co-captain. We’re just going through some growing pains.”

“You make it sound like I got fired,” she shot back.

“Keep second guessing me and I might tell everyone you got fired,” he snapped and then turned to me. “She’s too busy to captain and now she’s pissy that I get to decide who plays where.”

Kit pursed her lips, chest heaving with an inhalation that she blew out. “Fine. You’re wrong, but we’ll do it your way.”

I held out my hand. She withdrew the ball from under her arm, eyes hardening before setting it on the mound.

“Seriously, Kit?” Derek blustered.

“Got any tips for me?” I asked with an affable grin.

Her eyes narrowed. “No.”

Maybe I’d dated one of her friends. She didn’t look like the type to frequent the clubs and bars of Norwalk, but based on how much she didn’t really give a shit about making a good first impression on the kickball team, maybe she already had a bunch of friends.

“Alright, get your water and stop loafing. Pastry is on the field, bread is kicking,” Derek yelled toward the benches before turning to me. “Just roll it over the plate. The umps aren’t picky.”

The pastry team took their places on the field. The bald bread maker, Gavin, squared up behind home plate.

I didn’t get paid to throw a ball at my day job, but “in the vicinity”? I could handle that.

The rubber ball felt clunky in my hand, too big and bulky. Instinctively, I wanted to pull my arms up over my shoulder and pitch it like a football rather than roll it. The ball bobbled as I pulled my arm back, and I released it a fraction of a second too early. Rather than roll, it bounced, veering off toward first base rather than home plate.

Ignoring the low snicker of laughter from second base, I jogged after the ball. “My bad. I’ll get it this time.”

My second attempt was more successful than my first. Still nowhere near Gavin, but he chased after it, kicking it with the side of his foot and lobbing it into the outfield.

“Nice try,” he said, lazily taking first base.

A familiar tug of frustration built up in my chest, a feeling that normally only surfaced during football games, but apparently could pop up in other places, like a dumb game of kickball.

Derek kicked a clump of dirt off home plate, squaring up to the plate. “Not bad. Try again.”

I released an exasperated snort. My attempts were shit, but I’d get it this time. I pulled the ball back like a bowling ball, shooting my arm forward. Red rubber zoomed over dirt, hitting a rock halfway between the pitcher’s mound and home plate. It bounced up, hitting Derek in the chest.

“You want to help him out, Kit?” Derek caught the ball, throwing it back at me.

I turned back toward second base. Kit frowned. “Yeah. Fine.”

She trudged over to me, taking the ball from my hands and slowing her voice as if instructing a kid. “You’re throwing too hard. You have to start with accuracy and work up to speed.”

“But then everyone’s just going to kick it into the outfield,” I argued.

She snorted. “Yeah, because you’ve never pitched before. You can’t just come out here and crush it on the first try.”

“You know I play sports for a living, right?”

“Did you just ‘do you know who I am’ me?” She snorted, and her brown eyes sparkled, darting around the diamond in absolute mirth. Hell, at least that was better than annoyance, even if I was the joke.

“No. I just meant?—”

“Right, you’re a Greek god of athletics, so obviously you should immediately crush playing a kid’s game.”

I bristled. “I never said that.”

“It’s what you’re implying. Do you want my help or not?”

“Derek seems to think I need it.”

“Everyone on this field thinks you need it,” she snapped. Around us, our teammates polite chatter grew louder, more annoyed. Clocking the shift around us, she sighed. “We all want to get home sometime tonight.”

“Got a hot date?”

“A hot date with some books. Now, pull the ball back to waist height and bend a little when you come back down. Once it bounces, it’s liable to go anywhere.” She gripped the ball in one hand and crouched into a lunge as she pretended to pitch it. “And follow through with your hand in the direction you want it to go.”

“I did follow through.”

“Really? That’s not what I saw.” She lifted an eyebrow as she placed the ball back in my hands. “Now, make me look like I know what I’m doing.” She strode back to her base without a glance back.

An effective dismissal. The woman had all the makings of a pro coach: short, crisp instruction coupled with a mild disdain for the players.

Still, the instruction was sound. I hadn’t been following through and I’d been more focused on speed than accuracy. Even “in the vicinity” accuracy. So, despite her obvious annoyance with me, thanks to some girl who I probably didn’t remember, I took the advice, rolling a ball straight over home plate.

And sure, Derek punted it into the outfield, well outside the grasp of the guy with face tattoos skulking around Kit. Face-tattoo made a mad dash to the ball. But I was already on my way. I sprinted past him, scooping up the ball with practiced ease and slinging it toward second.

Kit’s look of surprise cleared as the ball sling-shotted toward her. She held out the ball with both hands and turned in time to smack Derek straight in the gut.

“Out!” she called, face breaking into the first sincere smile I’d seen since I met her.

Derek held out a finger, fist clenched to his stomach as he attempted to catch his breath. “Alright, pitching isn’t it. You’re an outfielder.”

She gave him a smug smile. “I told you.”

“But I put it over home plate,” I argued, unnecessarily possessive over a position I’d played for all of twenty minutes.

Derek straightened, shooting Kit an amused smile. “Yeah, but I can’t have the pitcher take off into the field. Besides, you’re so fast, I won’t need two people in the outfield. Sorry, but you’re outfield for sure.”

His assessment made sense, but just like the time my junior coach told me I was too fast to just play quarterback, I griped. “I’m fast enough for both positions.”

Derek clapped my shoulder, wrapping an arm around me and pulling me back toward the benches to our teammates and a white cooler filled with juice boxes and a container of orange slices. “Yeah, I bet you could. Good first practice. We’re glad to have you on the team.”

“Thanks, that was fun.”

I hadn’t spent any time with someone under fifty since Frankie Vigil, my best friend, left last weekend. I’d abandoned my normal off-season jet-setting for a quiet few months at home: weekday restorative yoga and weekend pottery classes. No clubs, no bars, no fun. I was bored out of my mind.

“We get together for a drink at a bar down the street, if you want to join us.” Derek swiped a slice of orange.

I dug around in the cooler until I found a water bottle and considered the offer. My knee-jerk response was a “hell yes.” Company and booze? Absolutely. I’d emptied my house of anything harder than a light beer and purged the phone numbers of every person I’d ever met while out past midnight in a bid to get my drinking under control and my reputation back from the brink of infamy.

One drink wouldn’t hurt, though. Especially not with a bunch of bakers.

“I can’t stay long.”

“Hey, I’ve gotta get out of here. See you at home?” Kit interrupted us, clinging to a backpack in one hand and pushing back a lock of light brown hair with the other.

“You can’t stay for one drink?” Derek asked, his eyebrows raising and eyes flitting toward me and back.

She shook her head, jaw set. “Nope. Have fun. Trent.”

Not a “good to have you on the team.” Not a “nice to meet you.” Just “Trent.”

“I think your girlfriend hates me,” I said with a nonchalant shrug once Kit was out of earshot.

Derek laughed. “Not my girlfriend. Best friend since grade school. I’m gay. And don’t let her bother you. She’s got a lot on her plate. It makes her a little more prickly than usual. But that’s just how she acts. It’s not directed at you.”

I let out a breath. “That’s good to know. I was sort of afraid I’d slept with one of her friends or something.”

Derek raised an eyebrow, body language shifting slightly. “Oh. That’s…telling.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “Yeah, I’m trying to clean up my act. Be on my best behavior. All that shit.”

“And you started with kickball?”

“I started with yoga and not boarding a plane to Mykonos.”

“Yeah.” Derek nodded. “You definitely need a beer.”