Free Christmas Break by Boroughs Publishing Group

 
    Chapter 1
Game Plan
Braxton
    First and foremost, I am a football player.
Football has defined me since I first held a ball in my chubby
toddler hands. It defines me today, and it’ll define me tomorrow.
Life without football is simply not possible.
    My dad says my game plan is shortsighted,
that the average length of an NFL career is three and a half
years—if I make it to the NFL. But I’m making it. Not only am I
making it; I’m going to do better than make it. I don’t believe in
aiming low. Mom and Dad should know that. After all, they’ve
drummed those very words into my head all of my life. Aim
high.
    On the outside looking in, you’d think my
family is too perfect. There has to be a fatal flaw, some big hole
in our Brady Bunch–lifestyle. I can tell you right now: There
isn’t. Truly. As the baby of the clan, I’m following behind a
sister who’s in med school and a brother who does cancer research
at Fred Hutchinson, and regardless of my choice of a less daunting
academic path—I’m a communications major—my parents have always
supported me, even in sports, though it isn’t their thing. Did I
mention that my dad is a cardiologist at the University of
Washington hospital? And my mom is a family practitioner for a GMO.
You can see where I might have a little issue with not being viewed
as being as smart as the rest of them.
    My problem, not theirs. I chose my path.
    That’s why I wasn’t going home for Christmas
this year, though. I couldn’t take listening to them talk about
medicine ad nauseam with me as the odd man out. I was staying here
in this small college town in Eastern Washington near the Idaho
border. I had a good reason, sorta. My team was playing in a bowl
game that weekend and we had practices all week. Coach gave us
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off with our next practice starting
about two p.m. on the twenty-sixth. Plenty of time for me to make
it home, but my parents didn’t know that.
    When I walked out of practice on the evening
of the twenty-third after saying goodbye to my teammates, an odd
melancholy mood descended over me. My frat was deserted except for
me, and no food service was available. I had the munchies worse
than a pot-smoker at two a.m. I don’t smoke the stuff, by the way,
my body being a temple and all that crap, even though it’s legal
now in the state of Washington.
    Maybe I should’ve accepted Mike’s offer to
go home to Spokane with him, but I just didn’t feel like hanging
with any family, even my own. I’d broken up with my cheerleader
girlfriend around Thanksgiving, and I was still getting over her.
We’d been together since last year. I’d had a few one-nighters but
not much since, and I was lonely for company that didn’t reek of
testosterone and beer.
    My feet carried me to the Grizzly Den, a
local watering hole I’d been to a couple times since I turned
twenty-one a few months ago. I sat down at the counter in the
nearly deserted bar and opened a menu, scanning the hamburger
choices. A curvy waitress with tattoos peeking out from the long
sleeves of her black shirt sauntered over. My eyes travelled the
tourist route to get to her face, starting at a pair of short biker
boots with wicked heels, moving up a nice pair of thighs, rounded
hips, and a bit of tattooed skin with a navel ring exposed between
her low-slung jeans and her tight black, long-sleeved shirt.
    My gaze stalled at her tits. They were
incredible. I’ve always been a tits man. She wasn’t the tall,
willowy type I usually go for, but her compact little body packed a
lot of feminine muscle and plenty of curves, which I definitely
liked. Maybe a change of pace was in order.
    She cleared her throat and tapped her pencil
on my arm. Embarrassed but scrambling to hide it, I shot her my
signature babe-melting grin.
    She didn’t melt, swoon, or even crack a
smile. Tough, this one. She was going to make me work for it. I
liked that.
    Damn, but she was beautiful—in a
street-smart