Steady: Band Nerd, #1

Dedication

As always, I have a whole host of people to thank for getting me through yet another book, but it isn’t just people who’ve helped to make this book possible. You see, I am a band nerd. I spent ten years in band, eight of which were spent with a sousaphone slung over my shoulder. This series is about those of us who march together, to the beat of a different drummer. So thank you to every band director I ever had, every band nerd who marched next to me through every band camp, every parade and halftime show, who sat next to me through concerts and practices that leave you crying for mercy.

Band nerds rock!

Now for the usual suspects:

First and foremost, my mom for nodding politely when I tell her a whacked out storyline. You might think they’re weird, but you always encourage me to go for it. I think that’s because you’re a little weird too.

My girls who have helped me through thick and thin. Lea, I can’t thank you enough for being one of my best cheerleaders and the best friend-by-mistake I’ve ever made. Griffin because I wouldn’t make it through a week without laughing at something you say. Side-ponytail and all. Anya who doesn’t seem to mind fixing the many errors and even encourages me to make more. Amy who’s always willing to share her knowledge and an inappropriate meme just when need it.

Thank you, Jaycee for the friggin’ awesome cover! I’m still squealing with delight.

Finally, thank you to my readers. I hope you enjoy Shaun and Katie’s story!

Chapter One

Kate

Chicago

Love really is a many splendored thing. I’d waited thirty-five years before allowing myself to even open up to the possibility of it, and I’m so glad I did. The birds sang louder, the sun shone brighter and food tasted better—although that wasn’t a bonus for me, since I could stand to lose a few pounds. Still, I wouldn’t change a thing about me or Adam Croft, my lover, friend and man for the last three years—we’re too old to go by boyfriend and girlfriend.

Humming the arrangement I’ve been working on for St. Joseph’s Music Academy, I peruse the steaks. Adam is finally coming home tonight after a week-long absence. I hate that his work takes him on the road all the time. Having him in three or four day bursts was better than nothing though, and when he did come home...

I know I’m smiling at the sirloins like an idiot, but I can’t help myself. He’s exactly what I’ve been waiting all my life for. Even Mom agrees he’s a keeper and she’s the most cynical woman I know. He’s polite, sweet, romantic, understanding of the pressures I put on myself when it comes to my job, and the sex is phenomenal. Out of this world even.

When he comes home tonight I hope to talk him into working closer to home instead of doing all sales calls himself. At forty-two, he’s a successful businessman who’d opened his own safety training company. He employed twenty-five trainers and a handful of sales people, but still does most of the out-of-town work on his own, continuously building up his clientele, who call him all hours of the day and night to ask questions. My friend Helen thinks it’s bullshit how he jumps up to answer his phone no matter what, but I kind of like his dedication. It shows he has staying power.

In more ways than one.

I laugh at the ribald thought and grab a couple of beautiful rib eyes, putting them in my basket. I know it’ll shock him to see I cooked. I’m not exactly the gourmet type, but my man likes to eat and I have plans to knock his socks off. The lingerie I bought yesterday is already laid out, ready for me when I got out of the shower. All I have to do is find his favorite foods.

Stopping at the Whole Foods on East Grand had been a spur of the moment thing. I hate shopping in Near North Side, but I was in the area after meeting up with a friend from college who was in town for the weekend. I was far more comfortable in Bucktown, but it just seemed more convenient to pick up something here, since I was only a few blocks away. Shaking my head at some of the prices, I leisurely stroll along the aisles.

Katherine, what a surprise to see you here, someone says nearby.

Looking up, I see Dorothy Henshaw, one of the other teachers at St. Joseph’s. I bite back a groan of pain. I love working at St. Joseph’s, consider myself fortunate to teach music at one of the most prestigious private schools in the state, but I can’t stand Dorothy. St. Joseph’s is very conservative, although it’s slowly moving into a more contemporary mindset. With the exception of Dorothy, who acted like the morality police of campus.

If she thought something shady was going on she ran straight to Father Morris, the school’s head administrator, with it. So far she’d reported that I was a loose woman because I wasn’t married to Adam, whom they’d all met at an informal barbecue a year ago. She’d immediately started in on how it was a bad influence on the impressionable minds I teach and, while he is understanding of modern dating, I sometimes worry Father Morris will have enough of her bitching and can me.

Dorothy, I say through my fake smile. How nice to see you.

Her beady glance flicks over my off-duty clothes. It’s February in Chicago. When I have to wear layers outside of the classroom I go with comfort, so I’d pulled on some ripped jeans over leggings and paired them with a baggy Band Nerds Do It Together sweatshirt and a beanie. Obviously not to her taste, because she sniffs with disdain.

Yes, well, I was having coffee with Susan Tweedle from the Archdiocese and needed a few things before I went home. She looks at my basket, sees the steaks, and her thin lips just about disappear. Cooking tonight?

Yes, I murmur, my gaze darting over her shoulder, as I try to think of some way to avoid talking to her for long.

Maybe it’s the way the man sort of jumps, or maybe it’s women’s intuition, but I focus on the familiar face standing at the end of the aisle and feel my entire body light up.

Adam, I exclaim and hurry forward, prepared to throw myself into his arms and kiss that handsome face. Dorothy could suck it, although I’m sure she’ll report me to Father Morris for PDA’s.

But, rather than the excitement I expect to see from him, he averts his gaze, his face closes down, and he begins to turn away from me.

Shocked, a little embarrassed, I slow my stride. Maybe it wasn’t him but someone who looked just like him? But no, that’s impossible unless he has a twin, and I know he’s an only child. There’s no mistaking the salt and pepper hair cropped just so around his gently carved face or the sizzling dark eyes I fell in love with on our first date, the smooth shaven cheeks, the elegant swimmer’s frame he keeps with dedicated workouts. I know every inch of him, had even bought that eggplant-colored polo he’s wearing.

Adam, do you want roasted broccoli or that arugula salad you love so much with your steak? a woman at the end of the aisle asks.

She’s...gorgeous. Long, dark hair. Perfectly made up face. Cheekbones that look like they belong on a runway. Lithe body with a small bump at the front. She’s chic, sexy, and obviously pregnant. And wearing a wedding band nestled next to a massive diamond engagement ring. She looks up at Adam... Because it had to be Adam, right? She walks up to him and rests her hand on his chest in a move that looks completely relaxed and loving.

I want broccoli, a young voice pipes up, seconds before a child runs into the perfect picture of familial bliss I’m an unwilling witness to. Daddy, I want broccoli, not angular salad.

Daddy? I feel as though someone just punched me in the stomach.

The woman laughs. Arugula, sweetie, and how about I make the salad for your daddy and broccoli for you?

Adam doesn’t say anything, stands unmoving with his back to me, but when the little boy grabs his hand to pull him after the gorgeous, pregnant woman, I notice the scar on his left arm. It’s distinctively star-shaped. I’ve kissed the scar, had run my fingers over it countless times. I follow the line of his arm down to his hand, which sports a wedding band.

The basket falls out of my hands, spilling the contents on the floor. The clatter attracts the attention of those around me, but I’m completely focused on watching the man I love, who’d professed to love me, walk out of sight with his son.

Such is my shock, I forget all about my personal hell until she comes to stand next to me, a smug, judgmental expression on her face. "He’s married?"

GIVE ME A CHANCE TO explain, Adam pleads with me over the phone later that night.

I shouldn’t have answered. I almost didn’t, but apparently I’d lost all common sense when I fell in love with a liar and a cheat. I let out a watery laugh at the irony of that. I’d protected myself so carefully, terrified of being cheated on... I never expected to be the woman a man cheated on his wife with.

Oh god, I’m the other woman, I whimper.

Baby, no, no it isn’t like that. I don’t love her, I love you. His voice is all husky sincerity, and if I hadn’t seen him with his family I fall for it again. She and I don’t even share a bed anymore.

That dries my tears, and I stare at my reflection in the microwave in complete disbelief. Then how the fuck is she pregnant, Adam?

He’s silent a moment. It was one night. We went out to celebrate our anniversary and I drank a little too much...

"Are you fucking kidding me right now? I demand, unable to take any more of his lies and excuses. None of that even matters. You’re married with a child and another on the way, yet you... Now I hiccup, because the hurt is beyond anything I’ve ever felt before. I thought I understood betrayal when my father divorced my mom to marry his mistress and left without looking back. You lied to me, Adam. You know how I feel about cheating and cheaters! We talked about it several times and you—you made me into a cheater!"

I’m screaming and Benjamin, my neighbor, probably has his ear pressed to the wall to listen, but I don’t care. Gone is the logical, collected person I usually am and in her place is a woman scorned. No, not scorned. I’m angry, yes, but more devastated than anything else.

You said you didn’t want to end up with someone who would cheat on you with your best friend like what happened to your mom, he protests. You don’t even know Lisa. You exist in completely different worlds. She stays in Old Town, never leaves it if she doesn’t have to, so it isn’t like you’ll have to see her. He takes a deep breath. Nothing has to change, baby, he croons, usually a sound I associated with sex. Let me come over and we can work this out. You, me, Verdi playing in the background. It’ll be the same as always, Kit-Kat, you’ll see. Lisa won’t even care; she prefers it if I’m out of the house.

I sway in place because he’s justifying lying to me, to his wife, because he figured we would never run into each other. He honestly thinks I’ll be okay with being his piece on the side while he goes about his married life. I’d seen firsthand what a cheating husband had done to Mom. I’d been the child who couldn’t understand what all the fighting was about, who’d been replaced by Dad’s new family when he married Mom’s former best friend.

Adam is still talking and I press END on the phone before unplugging the base from the wall. I also turn off my cell. I don’t want to talk to him, don’t want to hear any more of his lies.

My legs give out and I sort of fold to the floor. What am I going to do? There’s more at stake here than just my heartbreak. Forcing myself to think logically—which is hard to do because my brain can’t seem to focus on one thing at a time—I know I need to change the locks on my doors. I’ll have to call Mr. Filmore first thing in the morning. Adam has a key. I’ll also change my number because I don’t want him calling me all the time. If he even bothers.

God, what am I going to do?

I want to call someone, tell them everything, but I won’t. I have friends. Not many, but I have a few good friends and I know I can count on them to provide a sympathetic shoulder. Except this shame is on me. All on me. I was the one who’d ignored the warning signs. The phone calls he had to take out of my range of hearing. The trips out of town... Or rather to the other side of town. The way he never really wanted us to go anywhere, just stay at my apartment. Come to think of it, the few times I’d been to his place, it hadn’t felt like a home at all.

I frown, then realize it must have been a corporate apartment for clients. God, how stupid could I be?

I thump my head on the cabinet behind me, closing my eyes as more tears trickle down my cheeks. I’d trusted him, gave him a part of myself I’ve never given to anyone before, and he’d shit all over it. No wonder he never talked about marriage or the future, had always seemed so starved for sex. Maybe he and his wife really didn’t have a healthy sex life but it didn’t give him the right to string me along, let me think we were building something meaningful.

Think about something else, I mutter under my breath, because if I dwell on it I’ll never stop crying.

An image of Dorothy’s condemning face comes to mind and my eyes pop open, as the horror of it all comes crashing down. Shit, shit, shit, I chant, fumbling to turn my phone back on. I need to talk to Father Morris before she does. I need to figure out some way to spin this.

I have no doubt that while they’ve let me slide on the whole sex outside of marriage thing, sex outside of marriage to a married man would not go down well at all. I don’t know how strict they’d be if they knew I’d been lied to, but I couldn’t lose my job. Not on top of everything else.

I dial Father Morris’ personal cell, biting my cuticles as I wait for him to answer. He has to listen to my side of the story, right? They won’t fire me for being a victim of a handsome face and a smooth line, right?

As it turns out, I was wrong.

Shaun

MEANWHILE IN LAS VEGAS...

I’m sorry, Shaun, but no one is willing to sign you on, Corey tells me quietly. Your injury...lack of productivity three seasons in a row. He shakes his head and takes a sip of his whiskey neat. It’s time we start looking at alternative careers for you.

I just stare at him. Corey Mattenburg and I have worked together for years. Fifteen to be exact. He’d started his agency only a few months before the league started sniffing around me, making me one of his first clients. We had the kind of relationship I know other athletes envied. I’ve been best man at his weddings, three of them at last count, was godfather to two of his kids, and we went fishing every year. Yet the more I stare at his sincere face, the more inclined I am to punch the fuck out of him.

I’m not ready to retire, I grate out, conscious of the other diners. Of course he’s chosen one of the most exclusive restaurants in Las Vegas to break this kind of news to me. He knew I’d lose my shit. "I’m definitely not fucking ready to retire because of this."

This being my left knee. The one I’ve had three surgeries on in the past five years. The one that won’t allow me to be the only thing I’ve ever known how to be: a tight end in the NFL. Football isn’t just a game or a job for me. It is life. I love everything about it, from the complex plays to the high of winning and the lows of losing. It was all I’d ever wanted, the only goal I had when I was a kid.

From the first moment my dad put a pigskin into my hands, I was hooked. I played Pee-Wee, recreational and flag football before I went to junior high and then played all the way through college. I was drafted in the third round and never looked back. The world was my oyster. The records set by some of the best had been waiting for me to break, and I broke them. Over and over again.

I know I can’t play forever. Unfortunately not even the best trainers can keep an aging body free from injury and the ravages of time, especially in such a high-impact sport, but I’m only thirty-eight. I know I have at least one more good season in me, then I can think about retirement. At least, that’s what I’ve always thought.

But after one hard tackle that shredded the ligaments in my knee, reconstructive surgery, a broken leg on the same side and more surgery, I’ve been spending more time on the bench than on the field. I had more experience than the punks the Timbers had drafted over the last four years, but for two seasons I’ve sat watching the game and coaching the little bastards to take my place because I’m a team-fucking-player.

And now my agent, my best friend, is telling me it’s all over. Fuck that. I hadn’t been named Rookie of the Year and a five time MVP by giving up when things got tough.

What about the European or Canadian leagues?

Corey sighs heavily and shakes his head. Shaun, you’re going to be thirty-nine years old. Most tight ends retire at thirty-four. No one is going to take you with the injuries, not to mention your age. It just isn’t going to happen. He sits forward. A few networks have expressed interest in having you announce and you’ve had at least two dozen offers from the teams to join the coaching staff. I even had a call from Buddy Nielson at Sauvage State University asking if you’d want to take an assistant offensive coaching job. He holds his hands up with a smile. It’s the perfect time to look at other avenues that will keep you in football.

My hand tightens around the glass of water in front of me. I wish I’d ordered something harder, but I’ve been holding hard to the belief I’ll get an offer with another team. But some habits are hard to break, and drinking is one of mine. The first few years after going pro I partied hard. It’s how I met my wife Denise. Drinking, laughing, causing messes, until I got stopped with a DUI, nearly throwing away everything I’d worked so hard for.

Since then I always drank water. Unlike the other players, I learned from my mistakes and made sure I followed the rules to a T. After that near miss eight years ago, the only parties I went to were either tame affairs thrown by the team or teammates, or something my wife absolutely had to go to. I didn’t drink then either, just acted the DD when needed and was happy with it.

There was no way I would jeopardize my career for alcohol. Football is all I need. Sure, once in a while I still imbibed, but I limit myself to a few beers here and there. Right at this moment though I would give my left nut for a bottle of Crown.

Because I can see it in Corey’s eyes. This is it. I’d never step on the field again as anything other than a coach or because I was having my number retired somewhere. Football—my life—is over.

Just like fucking that.

My phone chooses that moment to buzz. Breaking eye contact with Corey, I open it to see one of my teammates has sent me a text. Brewer is on the offensive line. A big, soft-hearted mountain of muscle and unfortunate looks, he’s probably