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Only Between Us: A Novel (Volume 2) (Oakwood Bay) - Softcover

Buch 2 von 3: Oakwood Bay

Wilde, Ellie K

 
9781668093832: Only Between Us: A Novel (Volume 2) (Oakwood Bay)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1668093839 ISBN 13: 9781668093832
Verlag: Atria Books, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

The highly anticipated sequel to the “achingly tender and deliciously sexy” (Jillian Meadows, author of Give Me Butterflies) Only in Your Dreams is a steamy, whip-smart sports romance about a former pro football star who agrees to fake date the fan-favorite ex of another high-profile NFL player so they can both save what’s most dear to them while fighting their growing feelings for each other.

After a death-defying injury sidelined him for two seasons, Brooks Attwood’s pro football comeback has hit a major snag. Naughty photos from a post-break-up bender have leaked, and they’re killing his chances with the Rebels—his old team, and the only one he wants to play on.

As he trains with the hope of being signed before the first kickoff of the season, Brooks’s plans to keep a low profile are suddenly upended when his selfie with a fiery fan goes viral, and tabloids mistake them as the football world’s newest It couple.

Turns out, Siena Pippen is the ex-girlfriend of the “face” of the League. And she wants nothing more to do with that world after being with her nightmare ex. While she and Brooks are busy blaming each other for the media circus surrounding them, NFL teams are suddenly scrambling to sign a housebroken Brooks. Meanwhile, Siena realizes that all this buzz could be the Hail Mary her family’s struggling business needs.

Together, Brooks and Siena hatch a plan: ignore the will to kill each other and pretend to be madly in love—at least, until Brooks signs with a team. But the longer they pretend, the less fake their fauxmance begins to feel…and Brooks becomes as determined to convince Siena they’re truly meant to be as he is to land a spot on the Rebels’ roster.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ellie K. Wilde dreams up love stories with a lot of heart and the kind of spice that makes your knees shake. She writes male leads with big personalities and sweet, cinnamon roll insides, and women who discover they’re just as tough as they wish they were. Happily-ever-afters only. Visit EllieKWilde.com and follow her on Instagram and TikTok @EllieKWildeAuthor.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1: Brooks Chapter 1 Brooks
“I ever tell you how much I hate you?”

With a sinister-as-hell smile curling the corners of his mouth, Parker drops the five-pound plate he’d been in the process of adding to my squat.

He picks up a ten and feeds it onto the bar instead. Adds one more to the other end while I stand here like a chump, unable to do a thing about it because the bar’s already loaded with another too-many-fucking-pounds across my shoulders.

“Despise.” I grind my teeth as he assumes his position behind me, arms outstretched to spot me. “Have I ever told you how much I despise you?”

“Multiple times a day.” My best friend seems to pride himself on it. He smirks real hard at my reflection in the wall of mirrors in front of us. “Squat the damn bar, Brooks. We’ve got to be out on the field for drills in thirty.”

From an alternate universe somewhere out there, a very different Brooks Attwood shakes his head at my sweaty form in abject disgust.

Look at you. You call yourself a big-shot NFL starting wide receiver?

I do not, in fact, call myself that. Nor has anyone else since a miserable spring day, two years ago.

Alternate Brooks, who’s currently nine years into his pro football career, could squat this bar no problem. He’d scored three touchdowns in the second half of his last Super Bowl game to bring his team as close as they’d come to a championship in over two decades.

Unlike me, that Brooks didn’t leave that game limp and unconscious on a stretcher, six minutes and eleven seconds after his last touchdown. He didn’t spend months recovering from a crippling concussion, thinking he’d never make it out of a dark room again let alone survive another tackle from men twice his width. And he didn’t retire from the league while at the very top of his game.

The lucky bastard’s probably sitting pretty on some beach during his off season. Maybe with a wife and a kid on the way.

He’s certainly not here.

In the gym at the University of Oakwood Bay, deserted but for me and Parker as the school year winds down.

“Two more reps and then thirty seconds of rest.” In the mirror, I find Parker frowning at my form. He taps my left thigh as I lower into a squat, and I adjust the bend in my knee.

I lucked out, having two physical therapists-slash-trainers for best friends. Parker and our friend Summer have been whipping my body into athletic submission since January, when I quit my only season as wide receiver coach for the UOB Huskies football team to focus on an unlikely comeback to the NFL. They’ve been helping me build enough endurance to sprint the length of a football field as fast as I did when I played, without vomiting violently on the sideline. Reminding my feet what it’s like to twinkle-toe through a course of intricately laid orange cones without wiping out and breaking my neck. And building enough strength not to crumble under the weight of the godforsaken bar currently perched on my back.

It’s a long shot, no doubt about it. A player pushing thirty, attempting to come back to the league as a free agent, after a bad concussion and two-year retirement? It’s unheard of.

Laughable, depending on which sports pundit you ask. Since the day my agent leaked the news that I’ve been working on a comeback, you’d be hard-pressed to find a media outlet that hasn’t run at least one segment a day about it. Either talking up my audacity or mocking my delusion. And all of them chalking it up to my being yet another athlete who can’t bear to let the game go. To see the end of his glory days.

I’ll take those assumptions any day, if it means they never catch wind of the humiliating truth: that my obsession with this comeback is fueled by neither audacity nor delusion, but by the cold sweats waking me up in the middle of the night. The tossing and turning until I give up on sleep and drag my ass out of the house for a long, exhausting run, bringing along my poor German shepherd simply for the sake of his company.

I squat the final two reps, sweat absolutely pouring down my temples, and rack the bar. Parker hands me the towel I’d slung on the black workout bench in front of us.

“Your knee keeps turning inward on the descent. Does it feel tight?”

I run the towel over my face. “It’s been locking up on and off since yesterday’s drills.”

Parker swears under his breath. “You’re supposed to tell me these things. How do you expect me to help when you’re out here pretending everything’s fine?”

“Everything is fine. That knee just squatted my body weight on a bar.”

Parker’s eyes close. He sucks in a long breath as though willing away all his problems in life. Which, I suspect, mainly consist of me at the moment.

He points at the workout bench. “Sit down.”

“The knee’s fine. Let’s keep going.”

“Sit the fuck down, Brooks.”

I sigh like he’s my biggest problem and drop onto the bench, leg extended. Parker crouches and gets to work digging his thumbs into the muscles around the joint. I think making it hurt on purpose, just to prove a point.

The doors at the opposite end of the facility bounce open, smashing into the walls, and we look around to find Summer striding into the otherwise empty space. She’s been in the adjoining athletic rehabilitation center with a client all morning, and I wonder whether the session went to shit, considering the look of murder on her face.

“Look who I found trolling the rehab center.” She widens her eyes at us. And then I spot Josh, the agent who’s been in charge of my career since my rookie season, following several feet behind.

“Heard that,” Josh tells her.

“Meant you to.” Summer runs a frustrated hand through her shoulder-length brown hair.

I don’t blame her. Josh is an ass on his best day.

But he’s an ass that got me nearly everything I’d dreamed of as a kid hoping to one day go pro. Drafted second overall by the Los Angeles Rebels, during my junior year here at UOB. A lucrative six-year contract extension that bought two homes for me and one for my parents. Multiple cars I really didn’t need, outrageous holidays my ex-girlfriend enthusiastically bragged about on social media.

He and his five-percent cut had jumped at the opportunity when I’d called about this comeback.

Josh rounds Summer to set a laptop on my workout bench, looking ridiculously out of place in his crisp pinstripe dress shirt and slacks. His hair is neatly pushed back in a way that would take my unruly waves a good forty-five minutes of styling to accomplish. Not that I’d ever waste a second attempting it.

He does a double take when he sees Parker working on my knee. “What happened?”

Summer, too, looks concerned by the sight. She assesses the movement of Parker’s fingers around the joint. Seems to sigh inwardly when she connects the dots.

“Nothing happened. Just resting before the next set.” I stand despite Parker’s obvious disapproval, and the now outward sigh from Summer. But these two are my ride-or-dies. They know how easy it is to set off Josh at the mere mention of a papercut on my multimillion-dollar hands, let alone a tight knee. So they keep their mouths shut as I line up at the squat rack. Simultaneously, they move to either side of the bar and remove fifty pounds off the ends.
...

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Verlag
Atria Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2025
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1668093839
ISBN 13 
9781668093832
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
416
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
Utrecht
3584 AA
Niederlande