Total pages in book: 26
Estimated words: 24428 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 122(@200wpm)___ 98(@250wpm)___ 81(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 24428 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 122(@200wpm)___ 98(@250wpm)___ 81(@300wpm)
Rory hadn’t expected to come face-to-face with her favorite professional football player on the first day of her internship for the New York Nighthawks. Or to discover he was the gamer she’d fallen for. As her two worlds collide, she just has to hope the coincidence doesn’t cause problems for her at work.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
PROLOGUE
GAGE
Igrinned as the miniature Gage Ledger on my gaming system ran into the end zone.
“Fuck yeah!” I shouted, throwing my hands into the air like a ref calling a touchdown.
“Calm down, slugger. That only puts you six points ahead,” a dry female voice said into my ear.
I chuckled as I sat down and adjusted my headset. “First of all, nerd, slugger is baseball. And second, don’t be bitter because I drafted Gage before you could get your grubby little hands on him.”
AllAboutTheStats gasped overdramatically. “Luck of the coin toss, geek. If this were real life, Gage would definitely have signed with me.”
I held back a belly laugh at her statement. She had no idea she was playing a football video game with the real Gage Ledger, starting running back for the New York Nighthawks. However, even if I could tell her my real identity, I was having too much fun being just another gamer with this chick.
My boss, Lennox Madison, had decided that he wanted to create a new multiplayer football game. One that incorporated requests his team had been gathering from all the fan sites and social media sites for other popular NFL games.
AllAboutTheStats was one of the gamers who’d been offered a chance to beta the game before Lennox’s designers made the final changes. Everyone on my team had been given a copy of the game as well because it helped to have feedback from actual players. But we had to agree not to reveal our real identities.
“You just might be right, stats chick,” I teased.
After playing head-to-head with her in Beaumont Football—named after our head coach, who was a legend in the sport—for the past several weeks, I’d come to crave our time together. She was a complete nerd, which I respected since underneath the big, tough football player, I was one too. She was sharp as hell and really talented. One of the major changes Lennox’s team made was allowing the gamers to play offense or defense. I knew football as well as I knew myself, but to be fair, my instincts tended to lean toward offense—hazard of the job. AllAboutTheStats had given me a run for my moment…if we’d been betting any…when playing defense. Which was why, until a few minutes ago, we’d been tied.
“You know, SpreadOffense…”
She trailed off, but since we were both gearing up for the next play, I figured she’d just lost track of what she was saying.
Then she shocked the shit out of me when she quipped, “You might want to rethink your gaming handle.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s just that people might not take you too seriously.”
“What’s wrong with SpreadOffense?” I asked curiously. It had been my own little inside joke since I was a running back.
“It sounds kind of dirty.” Her voice was low and sultry. It always sounded that way, so it was to my utter disbelief that my body sat up and took notice. What the fuck?
I hadn’t met a woman in a very long time who had sparked enough interest in me to even ask them out for coffee. But after hearing this chick I’d never met say the word “dirty” in that sexy voice, all of a sudden, I was hard.
I opened my mouth to reply, but nothing came out.
“Sorry, was that inappropriate?” she blurted after the silence had turned awkward.
I tried again to reply, but this time, laughter erupted from my chest. This girl…she was fucking adorable, and a part of me wanted to ask if we could meet. But Lennox would probably bench me for the season if I broke the rules he’d laid down for testing out the game.
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” I lied when I finally caught my breath.
“But…you didn’t do that on purpose?”
“No,” I muttered, another small chuckle slipping out.
“But you’re a guy—I mean—you are a guy, right? Not some girl with a really masculine voice and the mouth of a trucker?”
I almost fell over laughing again, and when I heard her giggle across the line, I went rock hard, making my amusement fade. “Most definitely a guy, nerd,” I responded as flippantly as possible. Then I bit back a very filthy comment that popped into my head. I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable, and I also didn’t want her to pick up on my level of interest. Not when this relationship would never go beyond a virtual friendship. “I guess my mind just wasn’t in the gutter the day I picked my handle.” I grinned. “That sounded dirtier than I meant it.”
“Hmm,” she said.
I smirked and changed the subject. “Ready for me to keep kicking your ass?”
“You won’t get anywhere near my ass, geek.”
I had no idea what she looked like, but something told me that was a real fucking shame.
“Did you see the new update?” I asked, smiling as I picked up my controller and began to sift through my draft options.