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  Little Hondo Press

  Contact: [email protected]

  Huddle Up

  Copyright © 2014 Elizabeth Matis

  Kindle Edition

  Digital ISBN: 978-0-9840098-6-2

  Print ISBN: 978-0-9840098-8-6

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, scanning, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without permission in writing from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Also by Liz Matis

  Playing For Keeps – print, eBook, and audio book

  Love By Design – print, eBook, and audio book

  Going For It – print, eBook and audio book

  Real Men Don’t Drink Appletinis – eBook

  Praise for Liz Matis

  Love By Design

  RT Book Review: Readers will get a kick out of these characters as they walk through a world of fashion and celebrities and soak up all the glitz and glam that a wild child and a bad boy could possibly provide.

  Love on the Book Shelf: Don’t hold this book too tight-you-you’ll burn your fingers. Recommendation: It’s also the perfect just-before-bedtime reading, if you’d like some nice, sultry dreams.

  ReRead: Totally worth it.

  Playing For Keeps – Fantasy Football – Season 1

  RT Book Reviews: Playing For Keeps is entertaining … an engaging storyline will keep readers turning the pages … readers will enjoy the unfolding relationship and anticipate the sequel featuring the secondary characters

  Book Junkie: In Liz Matis’ latest from Little Hondo Press, Playing For Keeps you will get a wildly sexy romance with depth and laughs. A page turner, bring on the sequel.

  Going For It – Fantasy Football – Season 2

  RT Book Reviews: Readers will wholeheartedly enjoy the cat-and-mouse game the main couple plays. Expect a large dose of spice, surprises, and a story that’s perfect for the front page of a tabloid. The sequel to Playing For Keeps is a touchdown!

  Book Junkie: I loved GOING FOR IT because falling hard and fast for two witty, feisty and completely honest characters that do nothing if not capture your heart and take you on the wild ride that is their love story.

  Huddle Up

  Fantasy Football – Season 3

  By Liz Matis

  To Angel, Love Billy – August 2007

  Angels arrive on a

  ray of light

  they say

  My Angel arrived on a

  moonbeam

  one hot summer night

  and remained

  earthbound

  once upon my mortal kiss

  Chapter 1

  Less than twenty-four hours ago Billy Burner discovered he’d fathered a child. Maybe. Now he stood outside O’Malley’s Pub clutching the demand for a court-ordered DNA test in his hand.

  His playbook didn’t have a section on fatherhood. The chapter on greedy, conniving women he knew by heart. So why hadn’t Angel sued him for child support after he signed his first pro contract two years ago? And why had she waited until now, six years after he’d last seen her, to spring a kid on him? It must be a lie. Only the date of birth nagged at his conscious. Had their teenage summer romance produced a love child? He wanted answers and wanted them in person. Face to face.

  Or did you just need the excuse to see her again? No way.

  His agent, Carlos, had advised him not to come to the small Ohio town where he once attended football camp, warning him it was a ploy for his money or at the very least for attention. Carlos was probably right. God, Billy hoped so. With the final preseason game only days away, he needed the matter settled so he could have a clear head. The head coach of the NY Cougars gave him forty-eight hours to be back on the field. And that was twelve hours ago.

  Opening the door, he shut his watering eyes against the reek of stale tobacco, spilled beer, and another scent he couldn’t quite place. God, it smelled worse than the locker room. With his manicured fingers, he pinched the bridge of his nose to ward off the stench. He stepped into the bar area, his Italian shoes crunching peanut shells with every footfall. The custom-made suit fit him like armor, strong enough to block any female tactics Angel might employ.

  The bartender, who was big and bad enough to step in and play on any defensive line, hadn’t changed a bit. Hoss even wore the same battered leather biker vest. “Well look who has the balls to show up here.”

  “Huge ones.” In enemy territory Billy knew when to go on the offensive. “Where’s Angel?”

  Hoss hurdled over the bar and planted himself in front of him. The attempt at intimidation almost made him roll his eyes. As a tight end Billy faced off every Sunday against a line of men who wanted to break his legs.

  “If you hurt her, you’ll be answering to me,” Hoss warned.

  Hurt Angel? Billy held in a laugh at the absurdity of it. It was he who needed protection from her cutting words that had stabbed his once tender teenage heart. Now women claimed he didn’t have one.

  Billy weaved his way through the Tuesday night crowd to the back room where four regulation-sized pool tables sat. Various framed billiard posters graced the walls. His favorite, a group of dogs shooting pool still hung in the same spot above the jukebox. Cigarette smoke swirled in the air, hazing the bright lights hanging above the tables. The ‘no smoking’ laws didn’t apply to an illegal pool hall like O’Malley’s.

  Her laughter filled the air. Memories of those hot summer nights in her arms reeled through his mind like a highlight film. Drawn to the sound, his gaze searched for the girl he once loved. Glued to the spot in the doorway, he was fairly certain it wasn’t from the gum stuck on the sole of his shoe.

  Angel O’Malley leaned across the pool table, her breasts nearly grazing the green felt. Her blouse gaped, exposing the porcelain sheen of her skin. It was perhaps the only angelic thing about her. Then again wasn’t porcelain glazed at very high temperatures? Her raven hair tumbled over one shoulder, a black as sin waterfall cascading into the river Styx.

  He suspected he wasn’t the only man more interested in how she filled out those tight jeans than in the game in progress. With her bewitching green eyes fixed upon the nine ball and her slender fingers cradling the cue stick, she stretched across the table and lined up a nearly impossible shot. He held his breath in anticipation as she slowly drew back the stick. She hit the cue ball with a driving force that sent the nine ball on its planned trajectory. It spun for the side pocket like a perfect spiral hurled by a quarterback. When the ball sank, high-fives and money were exchanged.

  “Who’s next?” she shouted. She lifted a beer to the first lips he’d ever kissed.

  “I am,” he bellowed.

  The buzz of the bar fell silent, until only Kid Rock’s All Summer Long blared from the jukebox.

  He gained a small satisfaction from seeing the bottle halt midway to her mouth. A moment later she faced him with a smile that could seduce the devil. Or him. No, he told himself, that was a teenage boy’s memories trying to worm their way back to the surface. He buried the foolish feelings. Billy wasn’t that naïve kid anymore.

  “What’s your game, stranger?” she asked.

  The muscle in his jaw twitched. And Hoss thought Billy had balls? Angel not only played games, she stacked the rules in her favor. Six years of silence and now out of the blue a paternity suit. She hadn’t bothered to answer the two letters he mailed. He figured she taken off to Vegas the first chance she got and jo
ined the women’s pro pool circuit. It was her dream. And he held her back or so she said when she cut him loose. His ego still stung from her parting words, ‘Oh, and I faked it.’

  There she stood, still playing pool in her father’s dive of a bar and drinking beer. For a moment it felt like he’d stepped back in time. Nothing had changed, except she had a child. His child. Maybe, he reminded himself.

  “I don’t play games.” He strode forward and tossed the court papers onto the pool table. “Why is the mother of my child hustling pool?”

  A fleeting moment of hurt etched her beautiful face and Billy regretted his words but then her brows furrowed.

  “Everyone out,” ordered Angel.

  Maybe she didn’t want any witnesses, which was fine with him. The paparazzi would crawl up his ass and take pictures of the event if they knew. After the fiasco with fashion’s new it girl, his coach had read him the riot act. Billy’s job was to play football and his ugly mug belonged on the sports pages not in celebrity rag magazines. But if Angel’s angle wasn’t to attract media attention, then she wanted money. Why now?

  And why after all these years did his heart still race at the mere sight of her. Carlos had been right, Billy should’ve stayed away and let the lawyers handle it. God, and he’d been worried about female hysterics when he should’ve been worried about his own state of mind.

  Chapter 2

  As the crowd filed out of the back room, Angel took a long pull on the first beer she’d had in months. Wasn’t it just like the universe’s twisted sense of humor to have Billy Burner return on the same night she allows herself to have some adult fun? There he stood, indignant in his misconception, accusing her of hustling pool and child abandonment. Well, you were hustling. But Billy would know all about child abandonment. She wouldn’t even be hustling if she hadn’t needed the money to buy groceries.

  Grabbing a cue stick, she chalked the tip with practiced seductive strokes designed specifically to throw off the men she played against. Using her long bangs as a shield, she covertly examined Billy and compared the man in front of her to the memory of the teenage boy she once loved. Six years roughened the boy band cuteness that high school girls once wrote about in their diaries. He’d grown an inch or two, which now meant he had a clear foot over her 5’5” self. She couldn’t see the muscles, but thanks to his near naked TV ads for a men’s cologne, she knew exactly what lay beneath the suit that would’ve hung off his seventeen-year-old frame.

  His face was devoid of the easy smile with dimples deep enough to get lost in. Instead he wore a determined frown. Only the shaggy blond hair that had come to be his trademark remained. And, of course, the eyes, such a striking cobalt blue that she’d only known one other human to possess. Her daughter. With that thought her weakening knees straightened and so did her backbone.

  “You too, Hoss. Out.” The bartender was more of a family friend than an employee, but this was between her and Billy.

  “I’m not leaving you alone with him,” he said as he folded his arms.

  “Damn Hoss, you really think I could hurt Angel?”

  The unmistakable catch in Billy’s voice surprised her. Perhaps some part of him still cared. She mentally shook off that silly schoolgirl fantasy. Look where it got her the last time, a candidate for MTV’s 16 and pregnant.

  “Who knows, deadbeat? Too many hits to your head? Steroids? You wouldn’t be the first football player to shoot his girlfriend,” Hoss challenged.

  “Fine.” Billy flashed opened his suit jacket to prove he wasn’t carrying, but that didn’t seem to satisfy Hoss who frisked him like he made his living as a cop and not a bartender. Billy glared at Angel and she glared right back even though she’d give anything to see that smile again.

  What did he have to be mad about? So boo-hoo she’d sued him for child support. She wouldn’t have asked for even a penny if she weren’t about to be evicted. When the news aired videos showing Billy raining money on strippers and on his supermodel girlfriend who had joined them up on stage, Angel had enough of scraping by. The paternity suit she filed days later had nothing to do with jealously, she convinced herself, and was done in the name of fairness. Damn it, she was only doing what was right, only doing what Billy should’ve been man enough to do.

  Hoss straightened and without taking his eyes off of Billy said, “I’ll be right outside.”

  The door shut. Billy held her gaze until the song on the jukebox ended. Silence filled the space where Gabriela was conceived. Not the most auspicious of beginnings for her little girl, but Angel swore she’d provide a better life for the both of them.

  “Is it true?” He nodded to the rolled up papers on the pool table.

  Stunned, she blinked before narrowing her eyes. “Excuse me?”

  “Is it true?”

  “What? True that I’ve been raising our daughter alone? That five years ago you denied you were the father?” Her grip on the cue stick tightened until she thought it would pulverize into sawdust.

  “I can’t deny something I never knew about.”

  “Never knew about?” Angel flung the stick to the side and got up in his face. The smell of the cologne he hawked surrounded her like an ocean breeze. The stink of the bar intruded making it easy to ignore the pangs of want. The money he made and wasted from that endorsement deal alone could have paid off Angel’s student loans. “Are you claiming my father didn’t travel eight hours to tell you I had a baby? That you didn’t laugh in his face and call me a whore?”

  “No!” Billy gripped her arms. “I would never do that.”

  His fingers pressed into her flesh. Being this close to him made her weak when she needed to be strong. She yanked away. “Don’t touch me.”

  “I didn’t know anything until the court papers showed up. I swear it. Go ask him. Where is O’Malley, anyway? Surprised he’s not down here beating me over the head with a pool stick.”

  Her heart clenched at the sincerity in his voice. It couldn’t be true. But what if Billy was telling the truth? What if everything her father had said was a lie? It certainly wouldn’t be the first time. But it was one thing to lie about where the bar’s profits had disappeared to and quite another to lie about Billy. Where did he go that weekend if not to Billy’s hometown? The answer was so simple, so obvious. The casino. Angel turned away from Billy so he couldn’t see the tears welling up in her eyes. How could her father do this to her? To Gabby?

  She didn’t know which truth was worse, Billy denying paternity or that her father lied about it. Wasn’t it enough that she broke it off with Billy when O’Malley said if she really loved Billy she’d let him go. And why did a flicker of the burning love they once shared start to flame. Tired of being the strong one, the tears she’d been unable to shed at the funeral spilled down her cheeks. Sobs began to rack her body and Billy wrapped her up in a hug.

  “Angel,” he whispered into her hair. “What’s going on?”

  She turned in his arms burying her face in his chest, surely ruining his jacket with her salty tears. Without looking up she said, “He’s dead.”

  Chapter 3

  Billy struggled to process the warring emotions raging inside him. Anger. Bitterness. Confusion. Tenderness. The feeling of Angel in his arms won out against all the other long held beliefs. He stroked her hair as he mumbled comforting words. Barging into O’Malleys searching for answers had led to more questions. But only one needed answering at the moment. “Where is Gabriela?”

  His daughter’s name felt foreign on his lips. According to the paternity suit Angel chose not to use his last name. Why would she when she believed he’d denied parentage? Was he a heartless bastard to be glad O’Malley was dead? He didn’t think so, otherwise he never would’ve learned of Gabriela. Or had the chance to embrace Angel again. For a precious moment time held no meaning.

  After one last sniffle, Angel backed away and said, “She’s at a princess sleepover.”

  He could only guess at what that entailed. Though he itch
ed to meet his daughter perhaps it was for the best that it wouldn’t be right away. He and Angel needed to figure out the next step.

  “Can we talk somewhere more private?” He nodded towards the door where he knew Hoss waited for a chance to kick his ass. If O’Malley had told him the same lie then Billy couldn’t blame him.

  “Upstairs.” She pointed to the exit leading to the apartments before letting the crowd back in from the main bar area.

  Smoking hot memories of sneaking up to her bedroom nearly made him forget the court papers on the pool table. A flurry of whispers from those funneling back inside drowned out Angel’s voice, but he heard Hoss’ deep baritone call. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “I’m not a hormonal teenager anymore,” she shouted back before shutting and bolting the back door that connected to the hallway of the residential part of the building.

  Angel might not be hormonal, but with his gaze transfixed on her shapely ass as she climbed the stairs, his testosterone shot up to caveman levels. It wasn’t the first time he replayed the last night they made love. That night he had shed the fumbling boy who took her virginity, along with his own, in the backseat of his car. Instead he had made love to her long and slow until they both broke out in a glistening sweat.

  Entering the apartment, he took note of the same yellow couch standing in the same spot and he half-expected to see O’Malley snoring away in the shabby recliner. Hard to believe the old man was dead. If it weren’t for the toys strewn about and a new wall full of photos he would have thought Angel lived in a time capsule of her youth.

  Angel broke the silence, “I’ll get you a beer.”

  He could use something stronger, but he nodded. When she left the room, he walked over to the wall displaying his daughter’s life. His hand drew up to touch the newborn photo before moving on to a picture of Angel looking young and scared, and holding Gabriela in the hospital. Anger at O’Malley surged up inside him. Billy should have been there.

  Witnessing each milestone in 2D nearly brought him to tears. With each photo his daughter grew more beautiful and Angel more confident, both of them, happy, without him. Though Gabriela wore her hair in long curls, the ebony color matched her mother’s. Billy didn’t need a DNA test to tell him he was the sperm donor to the unique colored eyes staring back at him. There was no maybe about it; Billy was Gabriela’s father.