As soon as Olivia is within reach, Brian grabs her hand, pulling her in and wrapping an arm around her waist, bending to kiss her. “I don’t know about that, but I’m definitely having feelings about you in that dress right now. Whatcha doing here, Liv?”

  She laughs and kisses him again. “I have a meeting with one of your players.”

  “Which one?”

  “Cameron Lowry. He called me last week to see if I had room in my schedule to do meals for him this season. Apparently, his regular chef quit suddenly, and there was something about his thirteen-year-old deciding to try out for the school play and his ten-year-old declaring that he can’t live without hockey. He sounded desperate. I remember what it was like to have a ten- and thirteen-year-old, and doing it alone would have been impossible, so here I am.”

  I flip through the names that I’ve spent the last two weeks committing to memory. In retrospect, it probably would have been helpful to be a football fan before taking a big important job with the team. Or have looked at pictures instead of just stats. Cameron Lowry, veteran offensive lineman and single dad of two who lost his wife when his youngest, now ten, was a baby.

  “Thanks, Liv,” Brian says. “I know he can use the help.”

  She waves that away like it’s nothing, and for her, it probably is. Liv is a caterer and private chef whose client roster reads as a veritable who’s who of the Pittsburgh business and sports world. “I’m happy to do it. And it gives me an excuse to come see our girl on her first day.” Turning to me, she grins again and wraps me in a hug. “How are you feeling, Dr. Wright? Ready to face the gauntlet that is digging inside the minds of professional athletes?”

  I hug her tightly. When Liv first moved to Pittsburgh to live closer to her brother, Sophie’s dad, Gabe, she was my babysitter for a year or so before she started her business. She married Brian when I was fourteen, so technically she’s my aunt, but she’s always been more of a big sister to me. “I’m so ready. I wish I could have started earlier—gotten my bearings before pre-season—but one of the professors on my dissertation committee had a death in her family and it delayed my defense.”

  “I told you that you could have started before your defense,” Brian says, wrapping an arm around Olivia’s shoulders.

  I narrow my eyes at him. “Would you say that to any other psychologist who was about to come in here and head the department?”

  He shrugs, looking unbothered. “You’re not any other psychologist.”

  “No,” I say, pointing at him. “That’s exactly what we’re not going to do here. We are not going to pretend like I’m special just because I’m related to you or because my dad is a former hockey star and my brother is a current one. Or because one of my pseudo-uncles is Asher Hansley who still holds passing records for this very football team. Or because his son, who is currently in the process of breaking all of Asher’s records, is one of my best friends. No one will take me seriously if they think I got the job because of who I know, instead of who I am.”

  “She’s right, Bry,” Olivia says, elbowing him.

  I give her a grateful smile. Her older brother, Gabe, who raised her from the time she was eight after their parents died, is a billionaire tech genius. He invented the smartphone that most of the world’s population has carried for almost the last three decades, so Liv knows a thing or ten about people assuming you got where you are because of your famous relatives.

  “Fine,” he says, holding up his hands and giving me a wink. “Can I at least walk you to your office, or is that too much nepotism for you?”

  I shrug. “Considering I have no clue where I’m going in this maze of a building, I think that’s the perfect amount of nepotism.”

  He laughs and leans down to kiss Liv again. “Where are you meeting Cam?”

  “Right here actually,” she says, just as the lobby door opens.

  All three of us turn in unison, and suddenly I’m not standing in the lobby of the Renegades practice facility anymore. My brain is once again a movie reel of images of the fancy suite on the top floor of the Fairmont hotel. The room is dim, lit only by the glow of a single bedside lamp. And the man with the bluest eyes hovers over me, looking at me like he sees straight to the core of me. He’s over me, under me, everywhere, mapping my body with lips and teeth and tongue and hands, over and over again until all I could see was him. He didn’t know me, but it was like he knew me. What I wanted. What I needed.

  Oh my fucking god.

  He was a stranger.

  It was supposed to be just for one night.

  He doesn’t live here.

  Except I think maybe he does, because my one night just walked through the door of my brand-new workplace, and it’s definitely not nighttime anymore.

  “You must be Cameron,” Liv says, holding out a hand.

  “Just Cam,” he says, sliding his hand into hers to shake. His deep, rumbly voice has the hairs on the back of my neck standing straight up. “Everyone calls me C⁠—”

  The rest of his name is cut off when his gaze lands squarely on me. His eyes widen slightly, and then they heat, his lips tipping up in a smile I feel everywhere.

  Then in a flash, that feeling turns to dread when the implications of this moment sink in.

  My one-night stand and the best sex of my life was Cameron Lowry. Just Cam. Football player. Renegades veteran. One of the fifty-three players whose mental health I am now solely responsible for.

  Holy fucking fuck.

  I am so screwed.

  CHAPTER TWO

  CAM

  “Okay, so nothing that comes from the sea, and no peas. Anything else on your kids’ absolute no list?”

  I snap back into the conversation, only hearing the tail end of Olivia’s question as I try to shake off the image of the beautiful redhead from the lobby. The redhead I haven’t been able to get out of my mind since I woke up to an empty bed at six this morning with nothing but memories and the smell of vanilla and lavender on my sheets.

  The redhead I now know is Dr. Maddy Wright, niece to the woman sitting across from me and her husband, the general manager of the team that pays me to make sure the quarterback can throw the football and who can absolutely fuck up my career if he feels like it.

  Participant in the hottest night I’ve had in years.

  A night I would like to repeat as soon as humanly possible.

  A memory of the way she moaned in my ear, clawed at my back, flickers through my brain, and suddenly things like my place on the team and a paycheck seem insignificant in comparison to the way it felt to have her wrapped around me.

  And she’s in this building. Somewhere. I have to physically grip the arms of the chair I’m sitting in to restrain myself from running through the halls yelling her name until I find her.

  Jesus motherfucking Christ, I need to get a grip.

  “Sorry, can you say that again?”

  Olivia gives me an amused smile, like she knows exactly where my brain went, and it’s entirely possible she does. When I saw Maddy in the lobby, I was stunned almost completely silent as Brian introduced us. He didn’t seem to notice anything, but I saw the way Olivia’s gaze bounced from Maddy to me. The way she saw how Maddy avoided eye contact with me so aggressively it almost made me laugh before she followed Brian down to her new office. I’m pretty sure Olivia could see straight into my head as my eyes followed Maddy until she disappeared from view.

  It was like as long as she was close, I couldn’t look anywhere but at her. And that’s a feeling I haven’t had in years. Ten years, to be exact.

  “No fish and no peas. Anything else?”

  I huff out a laugh, shifting my whole focus back to Olivia. She’s doing me a huge favor. The very least I can do is keep my attention on her and not on thoughts of gorgeous redheads and unforgettable nights. “That’s it. Anytime fish is on the table, both kids look at it like they’re personally offended, and I may be a thirty-four year old man, but I hate peas like a toddler.”

  Olivia laughs. “Honestly, same. So, are you sure I can’t do more than just dinners? I’m happy to toss in lunch stuff, too, or even breakfast.”

  I lean back in my seat, feeling some of the weight I carry every day drain out at the competence in her tone. “Honestly, just dinners are so helpful. Between Ethan’s hockey practices and Riley’s upcoming high school schedule, we’re about to be in a million different directions in the evenings, so not having to worry about dinner is huge. I usually do lunch here, and my kids think bagged lunches are practically offensive, so they buy lunch at school. The three of us eat breakfast together every morning unless I’m traveling, and on those days my mom holds down the fort.”

  I take a deep breath and blow it out slowly. “Sorry, that was a really complicated way of saying just dinners are perfect. It feels weird to outsource something I’m perfectly capable of doing myself but…”

  Olivia smiles in a kind of solidarity. “Give yourself a break, Cam. You’re a single dad to two busy kids and you have a really demanding career. Let me do my job so you can do yours.”

  I open my mouth to respond, but I’m stopped by the beep of my phone. Flipping it over, I unlock it and see a string of texts from my oldest.

  Riley

  DAD

  DAD DAD DAD DAD DAD

  I GOT THE PART OH MY GODDDDDDDD

  I grin down at the phone, typing out a response.

  Me

  You go, girl.

  Riley

  Ew, Dad, no one says you go, girl anymore.

  Me

  Is congratulations better?

  Riley

  Marginally.

  Me

  How about, I know how hard you worked for this and I’m so proud of you and after Ethan’s game tonight, we’re going out for dinner. You get to pick the restaurant.

  Riley:

  Throw in ice cream after dinner and I’d say you nailed it.

  Me

  Done.

  “Sorry,” I say to Olivia, setting my phone face down on the conference table. “My daughter has been in tryouts for her high school play for the last week and that was her, texting me to tell me she got the lead.”

  Olivia grins at me, leaning back in her chair. “That’s amazing. What’s the play?”

  “Mamma Mia. She’s Sophie. Apparently, it’s unheard of for an incoming freshman to get the lead, so we now must all bow to her brilliance.”

  Olivia laughs, taking a sip of the coffee she brought with her. “My youngest, Zoe, is starting her freshman year too, so I feel that deep in my soul.”

  “Where is she going?”

  “Fieldston.”

  “No way, that’s where Riley is. Maybe they’ll meet when classes start next week. You know, if Riley can see her way out of the theater.”

  “If she wants to meet Zoe, she won’t have to. Zoe is a theater kid through and through, but in the behind-the-scenes kind of way. Costumes, sets, stage crew, all of it. They may have met already. Zoe spent all day yesterday at the theater, and she’s there again today even though classes don’t start until next week.”

  I breathe a little sigh of relief at the thought that Riley could have already made a friend. Most of her friends from middle school went to a school in our neighborhood, but Riley had her heart set on a visual and performing arts school, and she went without knowing anyone. She has seemed happy enough in the week that she’s been at the theater, but having a kid in high school is new for me, and doing it alone makes me feel like I’m tiptoeing around a bomb just trying to keep it from detonating.”

  “It’s hard.”

  I look up at Olivia, and when I see understanding all over her face, my breath gusts out of my lungs. I barely know her, but between seeing the woman I can’t get out of my head in the lobby just now and thinking of my daughter suddenly being a teenager, I can’t hold it all in anymore. “She’s my baby. Five minutes ago, she was curling up on my lap and begging for just one more bedtime story, and now she’s a teenager going to high school and begging me for trips to the mall. I can’t get my head around it. The guys on the team are my brothers, but no one has kids as old as mine, so I don’t really have anyone to talk to about it. Sorry,” I say with a grimace at the way the reminder of how alone I sometimes feel parenting two kids on my own comes slipping out. “I didn’t mean you need to be the person I talk to about it. I usually have more of a filter than this. It’s a weird day.”

  The understatement of the century.

  Olivia gives me a warm, friendly smile. “I’m right there with you. Brian, too. Our oldest is a senior, so this should feel familiar to us, but somehow, it feels like the first time all over again. I’m a pretty good listener if you ever feel like spilling your guts to me again. Want to come over for dinner next week? We can have a barbeque before the season really gets going, and the girls can meet if they haven’t yet. It’s hard to make friends as a parent to teenagers. My sister and brother and pretty much all my friends have kids in their twenties, so their lives look a whole lot different than mine and yours. We can be your compatriots in the trenches of parenting teenage girls.”

  I hesitate, because as good as that sounds, thirteen years in the league has taught me a lot about how close to get with the people who hold your career in their hands. Also, this is Maddy’s family, and I’m not sure how she would feel about me befriending them like this. I’ve only known her for twelve hours—only known her name for about forty-five minutes—and how she feels has suddenly risen to the very top of my important things list.

  But that is definitely an inside thought.

  “I appreciate it Olivia, but your husband is my literal boss. Maybe dinner isn’t such a good idea.”

  Olivia snorts, waving that away. “Maybe if you were ten years younger I could see where you’re coming from, but let’s be real, Cam. You’re going to retire a Renegade. This is your place and your team. Having dinner with Brian and me isn’t going to change that.”

  I feel a shot of warmth at the thought of finishing out my career with the only team I’ve ever been a part of. “You calling me old, Liv?”

  She shrugs. “I’m, like, eight years older than you, and Bry is ten years older than I am. If you’re old, we’re practically ancient. Or, at least he is,” she says with a smirk. “And yet, we’re going to be bonded by the moods and whims of freshman girls. So, what do you say, Cam? It’ll be the week before the home opener, so you guys will still have the time. Brian will grill steaks, I have a new cookie recipe I’ve been dying to try, and my oldest can talk all the hockey Ethan wants.

  Without any reason to say no, I shrug. “Okay, I guess we’re coming to dinner.”

  A brilliant smile spreads over Olivia’s face. “Amazing. Now that we’ve taken care of all our business, we can switch to personal, and you can tell me why you were staring at my sister Maddy earlier like she was the last woman on earth, and why she was looking at you like she had seen a ghost until she tried her absolute hardest to not look at you at all.”

  I swallow hard because, okay, I guess we’re doing this.

  “Your sister? Isn’t she your niece?” I ask, partly out of curiosity and partly as a way to stall for time to figure out what the hell to say because I fucked her all night last night and now I think she’s a part of my soul isn’t going to cut it.

  Olivia shrugs. “I mean, I guess yeah, in the technical sense that I married her dad’s brother, but she’s always been more like a little sister to me. My brother’s wife and Maddy’s mom have been best friends for like thirty years and are more like sisters themselves, too. It’s all kind of complicated, but sufficed to say, our family doesn’t care much about who’s related to whom by blood or whatever. It’s what’s inside that matters, and inside, Maddy is my sister. What’s she to you?”

  I wince inwardly because I walked right into that one, but I try for casual anyway. “I thought I recognized her from somewhere, but I was wrong.”

  Olivia smirks at me. “That might work on someone, but it definitely won’t work on me. No way in hell was forty-five minutes ago in the lobby the first time you’ve met her.” She studies me for a second and the back of my neck prickles, like she’s seeing far more than I want her to. “Your secret is safe with me. But I’ll just say this. If you wanted to get in her way a little, I would be on your side. Maddy deserves a good man. I’m an excellent judge of character, and I think you are a very, very good man.”

  I feel a shot of adrenaline at Olivia’s words because all I want to do is get in Maddy’s way and have her get in mine, but that’s also an inside thought. “I try to be. Anyway, it’s nothing. She has a really important job to do, and I have a season to prep for. And Ethan’s hockey game. And I promised Riley a celebration dinner afterwards. So, my plate is pretty full.”

  Olivia smiles like she knows something I don’t and pushes up from her seat. “It’s been great talking to you, Cam. Your meals will start next week, and, in the meantime, I have your number, so I’ll text you about dinner at our place. I’m going to go make my husband take me to breakfast, and since you’re already here, why don’t you head down to the training floor and have someone look at that hip of yours. I know it was giving you trouble at the end of last season. Can’t be too careful with the regular season starting soon.”

  I stare at her for a second, wondering why she’s talking to me about the hip I rehabbed all summer. The hip that’s been perfectly fine through two preseason games already. It’s only when she winks at me and sails out of the room that it hits me.

  Training floor.