The Game of Love: (BWWM Romance)

Dedication

For Jessica.

Thank you for giving me
the chance to see a twenty-year dream come to fruition. You are going to do amazing things, and you have changed this industry for the better.

For Allen.

This is the only time that I’ll ever root for your Cowboys. It is a day that will live in infamy.

To my readers:

Thank you, with everything that I have, for being here as I begin my writing journey. There are just no words to fully express the gratitude that I have for you, and how much I appreciation I have just for the fact that you chiseled even a small amount of time out of your day to read something that I’ve put my heart into.

I hope that you enjoy reading Austin and
Sommer’s story as much as I loved telling it.

Visit me at kalexwalker.com to send me a message, read some of my crazy thoughts, or learn more about the characters from my books and the history of the town of Yearwood.

I look forward to hearing from you…

All my love,

-Alex

“Love is a game…so beat the odds.”

Jessica N. Watkins Presents

The Game of Love

by
K. Alex Walker

Copyright @2014 by K. Alex Walker.
Publisher: Jessica Watkins Presents. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except by reviewer, who may quote brief passages to be printing online, in a newspaper, or magazine.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be assumed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Prologue

“I’m sorry, but there’ll never be anything between us, Kyle.”

Sommer
ducked as a lamp base sailed over her head. Seconds later, a heavy textbook from the nightstand followed it, striking her in the shoulder. She’d never before seen him like this: enraged to the point that his face had uncontrollably become misshapen with anger, mangling his usually attractive features.

“Kyle, please,” she begged, moving out of the way as he violently detached her laptop from its charging cord and hurled it across the room towards her. She heard
the loud pop before actually looking up and seeing the jagged line ending in a sunburst of cracks across the dark screen.

“
It’s been way too long,” Kyle panted with a vase in his large left hand. His brown skin was actually red with rage.

“Way too long for what?” s
he demanded, preparing to shield her head.

“For you to still
even be thinking about Austin Riley!” He threw the vase into the wall. “Get over him!”

“Kyle,” she began, her eyes following him around the
room, “It’s not like I have a chance with him. He’s in Texas. I’m in New York. Plus, Austin’s not even thinking about me.”

Kyle charged across the
room, and she balled her fists in preparation for his attack, not that she could do much damage to a six-foot-three, two-hundred-and-thirty-pound professional football safety.

“Do you even know who he really is?” Kyle asked, his large size
making her feel even smaller than her five-foot-six frame. “I mean,
anything
about him? I swear, you women will spread your legs for anything that comes along.”

“What the hell are you talking about?
!” Sommer shot back. “When did I sleep with Austin? Tell me that?”

Kyle grumbled a response that she couldn’t make out
, and then grabbed her by the underarms and forced her into the wall behind them. Although terrified of what he could do in this state, Sommer didn’t let it show, having always been taught to never let a dog sense her fear.

“But you would if you got the chance,” he accused, moving closer until their noses were mere inches apart. “I’m warning you,
Sommer. There will never be a relationship between you and Austin. I guarantee it.”

“And why is that?”
she challenged.

“I don’t have to explain myself.”

“I think you do.”

His face softened slightly, and he released her from his grip so that she could land safely to her feet on the floor. He then moved across the room and sat on the bed.

“You don’t know the things I know about him,” Kyle explained. “A relationship between a woman like you and a man like him would never work. There are things about him that you don’t know about. Things from his past.”

She folded her arms. “
Kyle, you have been hinting at some hidden secret in Austin’s past since our freshman year in college. If this secret is so big, why don’t you just tell me?”

He looked up at her
. “No.”

“Then, get out.”

“You can’t kick me out of my own place.”

“You own the property. You don’t live here.”

“You don’t pay rent.”

“You won’t take the checks that I keep trying to give you.”

He ran his hand over his face. “Just promise me that you’ll stay away from him. If you two, for whatever reason, ever cross paths again, stay away from him.”

She uncrossed her arms and locked her gaze with his.
“And what if I don’t?”

His face once again began to deform with anger. “Try it and see what happens.”

“Is that a threat?”

As his face again softened,
Sommer began to realize that something had to definitely be wrong in Kyle’s head. She’d never before seen anyone go through the range of emotions that he’d experienced in the last few minutes, and she’d been living in New York City, the central hub of the world’s craziness, for a few years now. Even when she’d woken up with him in the bed beside her and his looming silhouette had formed a terrifying outline in the dark bedroom, she wasn’t as afraid of him as she was now.

His shoulders
slumped, and he rolled off the edge of the mattress to his knees. Still bent, he moved over to her and every muscle in Sommer’s body tightened as he wrapped his arms around her midsection and pressed his face into her stomach.

“I’m sorry,” came his muffled apology. “I don’t know who this person is. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Cautiously, she touched his shoulder. “It’s okay, Kyle. We all have our moments like this.”

He squeezed her tighter. “Do you think you could ever forgive me?”

“I forgive you, Kyle. It’s okay.”

He looked up, his eyes showing a picture of pure innocence; f
alse innocence.

“Do you mind if I come back tomorrow and help you clean this stuff up? I’ll even get you a new laptop. Furniture. Whatever you need.”

She nodded, now stroking his shoulder with the same caution. “We can do that. We can talk it over tomorrow.”

He exhaled
into her stomach and remained kneeling for what seemed like an eternity. Then, with another sigh, he popped to his feet and touched a kiss to her forehead.

“Tomorrow,” was all he said before walking towards the door, kicking aside the chaotic rubble that he’d
created. When he finally slammed the door behind him, Sommer released a jagged breath of relief, slid to the floor, and prayed that he forgot about his promise to return the next day.

Her wish
was only partially granted.

             
After one of the hardest days of work that she’d ever experienced, she stepped off the elevator and squinted at a pink piece of paper that had been scotch taped to the front door. As she got closer and noticed the words “Eviction Notice” scribbled across the top, her stomach tightened into knots:

Sommer, I can no longer allow you to stay at my place. I was wrong about our friendship and your loyalty. I had a moving service take your stuff to a storage facility not too far from here. I left their card attached to this note so you’ll know where you can pick up your things. I paid for just one month of storage, so you’ll only have that long to find somewhere else to live. I also left a check that should cover the expenses for your laptop and whatever else got broken.

-Kyle

Sommer reread the note to make sure she’d correctly understood that she’d just inadvertently become homeless. She then tried her key in the lock only to find that it had already been changed. It was also late in the evening. Without a car, which she figured that she wouldn’t have needed living in the city, it was going to be hectic trying to find somewhere to sleep that night. Not to mention that, according to the card, the storage place was already closed, so she’d have to find somewhere to buy clothes and toiletries.

There were special places in hell for men like Kyle…

Her phone vibrated in her purse, and she snatched it, hoping that it was him calling to say that it had all been a joke. After all, they’d built over twenty years’ worth of friendship, and she didn’t want to think that he was capable of something as callous and uncaring as this.

Instead
of Kyle’s, her uncle’s name was displayed on the screen.

“Uncle Reese, hi,” she answered, considering whether or not to tell him about her current situation. The feminine voice that came
through, however, was not her uncle’s.

“
Sommer, it’s me,” it answered.

“Mom? Why are you calling from Uncle Reese’s phone? Is everything okay?”

Her mother paused before responding, something she always did when she was about to deliver bad news.

“We’re at the emergency room, baby,” her mother answered. “I’m no longer in remission. My breast cancer…it’s back.”

Chapter One

She was standing beneath a blue and white striped awning, her head was bobbing to the music coming through the Farmer’s Market stereo, and Austin once again found himself mesmerized by Sommer Hayes as he watched her from across the pavement. He could only imagine how much she would loathe hearing that little piece of news—that her longtime nemesis Austin Riley couldn’t take his eyes off her at that very moment. They’d been rivals ever since the first grade when he’d accidentally puked chocolate milk and pineapple chunks on her new white blouse, and had been too embarrassed to apologize. Their rivalry only increased when in middle school, they almost came to blows when his blatant cheating on her test paper nearly landed them both F’s in science class.

However, although
Sommer hadn’t been very fond of him, Austin hadn’t felt quite the same way about her. With caramel skin so decadent that it looked as though it should be poured over a festival apple, his teasing had only been a cover up for just how sweet he’d been on her. The summer before their senior class left for college, he’d come close to telling her exactly how he felt.

It was a Saturday afternoon in
July, and a raging heat wave had swept the East Coast, effectively canceling the annual Fourth of July parade and postponing any further summer events until temperatures returned to the mid-eighties. Determined not to let the heat ruin their summer, people still lined the sidewalks with portable fans, umbrellas, foldout chairs, and spray bottles, forming a crowd outside of the Hayes Family Bakery Café, where Sommer had worked every summer since she was fourteen.

It was the first day of the café’s annual summer ice cream
sale, and Austin had been a part of the crowd outside the café when five-year-old Abbie Bailey had suddenly burst into tears, casting a hush over the gathering. Everyone turned and followed her gaze downward where they saw that her generous scoop of ice cream had fallen clean off her cone, and had already started to melt against the scorching pavement.

S
ommer’s head had come poking out of the door to see what the girl had been crying about, and when she noticed the fallen ice cream, she immediately placed another scoop of the strawberry swirled confection onto a cone and packed it down firmly. Bounding out of the shop, she crouched in front of Abbie with a smile on her face, and spoke a few reassuring words. Abbie solemnly nodded, and then Sommer handed over the cone, pulled a tissue from her pocket, and wiped the girl’s tear-smudged cheeks. Abbie’s mother mouthed a “thank you,” and Sommer had watched them walk away before she went back inside the café.