Playing for Keeps (39 page)

She stared, stunned by the romantic pronouncement.

“Your mother was wrong,” he explained. “You belong in advertising. It’s your gift. Not sitting on the kitchen floor with a bunch of kids. That’s
one
way, but not the only way. I get that now.”

“My mother was wrong,” she agreed solemnly. “But so are you.”

“Huh?”

“Other women juggle babies and careers. Why not me?”

He was clearly baffled. “You want that?”

She smiled. “I want babies. Adorable little Spurlings. I want to sit on the kitchen floor and finger-paint. But I also want to design ad campaigns. You and Mom underestimate me. I can do both.”

“Erica . . .” He gave her a loving kiss. “You want babies? When? No pressure, obviously—”

“You’re not listening! It’s not pressure. It’s what I want. I might not do it like Beth, but I’ll have fun, and so will our kids. So will you.” She moistened her lips. “I need to work in New York. But Mr. Caldwell will give me maternity leave. And six weeks of vacation every year. Which means I can stay home during the playoffs.” She interrupted herself to remind him happily, “You won the Super Bowl, Johnny. The
Super
Bowl.”

“Yeah.” He seemed dazed. “And you met Pop? That blew my mind, Erica.”

“He’s adorable. So don’t you dare blame any of this on him.” She loved the confusion in his face. “It won’t be easy, Johnny. We’ll need to get a nanny—”

“I keep telling you, that’s why we have Murf.”

She laughed. “And my brother. He plans to live off his fantasy football winnings. So he can live in our spare room.”

“Is this actually happening?” he asked her. Reaching into the pocket of his leather jacket, he pulled out a ring box. “Stop me any time. But geezus, Erica, just say yes.”

Before he could open the box, Caldwell appeared out of nowhere, his expression solemn. “The last thing I want to do is interrupt, but . . .”

Johnny clapped him on the shoulder. “We appreciate what you did, sir. It was cool.”

Caldwell flushed. “We value Erica. And I’ve been waiting for the right time to give her some news.”

“About Lager Storm?” Johnny demanded. “How’s it doing?”

“Almost as well as you,” Caldwell said with a grin. “The tweets alone are incredible. And some social commentary is cropping up too. It’s more than we ever hoped for.”

“Great.”

Caldwell turned to Erica. “This is something different though. I spent two hours with Carlos Rorsch yesterday. Apparently, he’s the one who made you the job offer.”

“And I turned him down. So no worries.”

“Rorsch?” Johnny demanded. “Is that the tablet guy? Man, he’s persistent.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Caldwell agreed. “He wants Erica. But he’s willing to tolerate the rest of us. Meaning, he wants us to handle the Aurora account.”

Erica grabbed Johnny’s arm for support, honestly shocked. “He said he was happy with his current agency.”

“And he is. So he’ll leave the rest of his business with them. But Aurora is his baby.
His
words, not mine. And he’s sure he can justify using us to promote it without ruffling too many feathers.”

“Wow,” Erica whispered. “Can I work on it?”

“Pay attention,” Johnny said with a grin. “It’s
yours
.”

Caldwell nodded. “It’s true. And I can’t emphasize enough what it means for the agency. It’s the biggest thing we’ve ever handled. Beyond my wildest aspirations, actually. No offense, John.”

Johnny arched a teasing eyebrow. “As long as she still works on Lager Storm.”

To Erica’s surprise, Caldwell winced. “That’s up to her. There’s a wrinkle to this. I’m guessing you’ll like it, but these days, I’m cautious.” He sent Erica a tentative smile. “Rorsch wants you to work out of Portland.”

She sent a nervous glance toward Johnny. To his credit, he didn’t openly react, although his eyes widened slightly.

“What did you tell him?” she asked Caldwell.

“I told him you were still learning. You need to be on-site with us, but not full-time. So I was fine with your having a Portland office to supplement the one in New York.”

“That’s exactly right. There’s so much I don’t know.”

“I haven’t discussed it with Steve yet, but there shouldn’t be a problem. Especially since Rorsch will supply office space for him too, along with any necessary transportation and accommodations.”

Erica grasped Caldwell by both hands, mostly to steady herself. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

“I agree. But since I clearly interrupted something, and my plane is waiting, let’s just say good night.” A grin spread across his face. “I assume you won’t be in tomorrow? Or Tuesday? So shall we say Wednesday morning? My office?”

She nodded, too numb to respond.

As soon as he was out of range, Johnny asked, “Am I getting this right? You can work in Portland? At least occasionally?”

She nodded again, then reminded him, “Was it my imagination? Or was there a ring?”

He laughed and pulled out the box again, then opened it to reveal a dazzling diamond. “If you don’t like it—”

“Be serious. I love it.”

“And?”

She smiled. “And I love
you
. I’ve felt this way for so long it’s embarrassing. I’m so sorry I didn’t say it before this weekend.”

He slipped the ring on her finger, then kept her hand in his own for a moment before pulling her against his chest. Then he gazed down at her, his Lancer-blue eyes sparkling. “Finally.”

She choked on an unexpected sob. “I know. I didn’t dare hope.”

“Did you really think you could dump me?”

She smiled through her tears. “Your sister-in-law won’t be happy about this.”

He grinned. “She said, and I quote: anyone but the Sasquatch.”

“You talked to her? About me? Oh . . .” She sighed. “That makes sense. She needs to cancel the blind date.”

“It’s still on. She’s just making a substitution. Deck for me.”

Erica drew back, offended without really knowing why. “He needs to find his own girl, Johnny,” she said finally.

“Except he keeps finding
other
guys’ girls.”

“True.” She relaxed. “Okay, I approve.” She leaned happily against his chest. “Tomorrow’s Monday. And you said you made plans for us. But all I want to do is watch the game again. With you. Naked.”

“That was always the Monday plan,” he assured her with a cocky smile. “Then we fly to Vegas—”

“Be serious! I need my parents there.”

“Murf can fly them in. This is happening, Erica.”

“It’s happening,” she agreed, kissing him warmly. “As long as my family is there. And Sean and Bannerman. And my friends from work. And Caldwell and Steve and Josh. And
you
r family, of course.”

“Sounds like Tuesday,” he agreed cheerfully.

She wanted to object, but remembered what he had said: they’d get married now, confident in their love, and work out the details later.

If it were anyone but the Super Bowl MVP, she might have argued with his game plan. But honestly? She couldn’t have dreamed up a better one herself.

In case you missed it,

here’s an excerpt from

the first book in the series,

Play by Play
.

Former college football star Jake Dublin’s wildly popular sports blog also details his personal life. And lately it’s all about Sophie, the pretty young woman who just moved into his apartment building. His readers know her only as “Elevator Girl,” and they’re all rooting for Jake to score.

The blog posts and banter with his followers is all in good fun, and he fully intends to come clean with the woman he’s wooing and wowing. That is, until she confides that she grew up in a house full of jocks and even dated a few. Her verdict? Never again!

Jake knows he needs to confess. But somewhere along the line he fell in love with Sophie and can’t stand the thought of losing her. So he procrastinates, and blogs, and digs himself deeper into a hole, until it all leads to a showdown that’s so nail-biting, not even the best play-by-play guy could ever have seen it coming.

Chapter One

Jake Dublin: THE OPINIONATED SPORTS GUY

July 14, a.k.a. three weeks before the official NFL preseason begins

Yep, we’re getting close, folks. For my preseason predictions, scroll down a few paragraphs, because today I’m opening with an ode to women. If you visit this blog often, you know that’s not something I normally do. Sure, I have opinions on (nearly) everything and I’m not afraid to embarrass myself by expressing them publicly. Dogs on the couch? Smoking in bars? Hybrid vehicles? Check, check and check, and the list goes on.

But girls/women/humans-of-the-female-persuasion? I try to avoid that topic. For one thing, my experience is limited since I married my junior high girlfriend. I never did the traditional dating thing before marriage, and truth be told, we got married
way
too young, stayed married way too long, and broke up way too painfully. Oh, and I didn’t cheat during the marriage, so no dating there either. After the divorce, I wasn’t interested in another committed relationship (to put it mildly), and I had the good fortune to meet a nice assortment of open-minded women who weren’t looking for romance, just a good time.

Once again, no need to date.

That worked great until yesterday, when I stepped into the elevator at my condo building and saw a girl. Something about her activated the long-dormant dating instinct. I gotta admit, I did
not
see this coming.

So there we were. She was carrying a big box of DVDs, and since I hadn’t seen her around before, I figured she was moving in. Since words are my business, you’d think I then said something witty, but it went something like this:

Me
: Just moving in?

Elevator Girl
: Yes, this seems like a nice place.

Me
: Do you need some help?

EG
: That’s sweet of you, but I’ve got it under control.

Okay, so that phrase—“that’s sweet of you”—kind of threw me. Any guy worth his salt knows it has tons of different meanings. Sometimes it’s out-and-out flirting, right? Sort of like when they marvel at how strong you are when all you did was pick up a twelve-pack of beer. But sometimes it’s a put-down, like “that’s so sweet of you to think you can score with a hot babe like me.” And then there’s the patronizing, mom-ish meaning: “That’s so sweet to try and carve the turkey at age 3, but let’s let daddy wield the big knife, shall we?”

I couldn’t get a handle on what the elevator girl was trying to say. It didn’t seem like a put-down, but not exactly flirting either. And to complicate things further, I actually
am
a very sweet guy (not that the ex would agree with me on that).

So we got to the 3rd floor, she said good-bye and walked down the hall, and I continued up to my place on the 5th. Which leads to my opinionated rant of the day—how can a seemingly normal girl turn an articulate bullshitter like me into a tongue-tied idiot? Why do we put up with it? Oh, and what do I do now? Because trust me, I’m going to date her or die trying.

Now on to the reason you stopped by—my pre-analysis of this year’s NFL battles. Everyone else is focusing on the potential Super Bowl contenders, but I’m hung up on the new expansion teams. Particularly the Rustlers . . .

Click
here
for more sports from Jake Dublin . . .

COMMENTS:

Anonymous from SD
:

Give it up, man. She’s not into you.

Tweetie Burred
:

Leave her alone.

Ed the first
:

Where are the stats, man? Tall, short? Blonde, brunette? Give us facts, or at least the closest Bond girl.

The Opinionated Sports Guy
:

She’s not the Bond-girl type. Maybe Christina Applegate in
Anchorman
. Except less ballsy. Or Naomi Watts in that horror film about the creepy kid stuck in a well.

Ed the first
:

Hot.

Tweetie Burred
:

Naomi Watts again? U really R hopeless.

Anon 2
:

What DVDs were in the box? Chick flicks? Better run, dude.

The Opinionated Sports Guy
: