Free Head Games by Cassandra Carr Page A

“I’ve got to get to practice. You want a ride?”
    “Nah. I’m not seeing the doc ’til later, and it always pisses me off when you guys are practicing and all I can do is watch.”
    “Suit yourself.”

    * * * *

    Kelly smoothed down the skirt of her dress for the billionth time as she seriously considered downing a quick shot before the guys arrived. Leo had called that day to confirm their plans and to tell her he’d been cleared to practice, and ever since then she’d been a jumble of nerves. Today had to be the least productive day off she’d had in months. Every time she tried to start something, her mind would wander back to her date that night and what might happen afterward. She had admitted to herself that there was no way she was going to stop wanting both Scott and Leo and that trying to was just driving her crazy. That didn’t mean she was just going to fall into bed with them whenever they wanted, but if she did, she had vowed to stop beating herself up over it.
    The doorbell rang and she forced herself to walk with slow, measured steps to answer it. Both of her men—her men!—were standing outside in suits, looking so yummy she wanted to eat them with a spoon. Her body heated in a flash.
    The two of them should come with a warning label.
    Before they got carried away again, she grabbed her purse from the small table by the door. Scott took her hand and helped her into the Range Rover and then went around to the backseat. Conversation on the way to the restaurant chiefly consisted of their play lately, along with a brief story Kelly told them about a funny incident at the bistro. Soon they were pulling into the lot of the restaurant.
    Once inside, they were shown to a corner table. “Perfect,” Leo said, beaming at the hostess, who was all but drooling on the floor at the sight of the two gorgeous men. Scott pulled out her chair and she murmured her thanks, sinking into it with as much grace as she could. While she and Leo looked at the menu, Scott perused the wine list and ordered a Shiraz-Cabernet blend. They placed their orders, all three choosing the filet mignon with a cracked-pepper coating and Caesar salads to start.
    “So tell us how you got into the restaurant business,” Scott said as they dug into their salads.
    “Well, I started working in restaurants in high school as a hostess. When I turned eighteen, I became a server and then moved into bartending and cocktail waitressing when I was in community college, trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Funny thing was, here I was trying out all these different courses, looking for one that fit me, when all along I’d already found it. I had just never considered working in restaurants to be a career.”
    “Were you always a good cook? How did you move from waitressing to cooking?”
    Kelly laughed. “By default, actually, and no, I haven’t always been a good cook. When I started in the restaurant in high school, I could hardly boil water. But I was moved from waitressing into pseudo-management at the restaurant, and figured out how much I liked working with the guys in the kitchen and how much I was coming to hate serving customers. So I started spending more time in the back of the house, talking to the cooks and learning how to prepare the food, and the bug bit me. I was hooked.” She smiled, remembering the day it had finally hit her that she wanted to do this work full-time.
    “I graduated from the community college in May of that year and entered the Niagara Culinary Institute in June. It wasn’t easygoing, I can tell you that much. Luckily I had a kind of a mentor at the restaurant I was working in at the time, and he helped me so much. The program I was in is called Chef Training. You don’t specialize in one thing, like you might at a Culinary Institute of America school. So I spent a year there, plus an apprenticeship, and learned all the ins and outs of being a chef and running a restaurant.”
    “And