The Game of Love: (BWWM Romance) (2 page)

Austin remembered staring at her that day as he was now, captivated by her even back then.

When it was his turn to be served at the counter, he’d eagerly taken his ice cream as she handed it to him and thought about all the different things that he’d planned to say to her for years. How sorry he was for his elementary school projectile. How beautiful she’d been at prom. What his playful teasing and ribbing had really meant. But instead, when he got to the cash register, all he did was smile with a nearly inaudible “thanks,” pay for his ice cream, and leave.

Two days later, he left North Carolina to play football at Florida State University. After four years, he’d then been drafted
in the first-round to play quarterback in Dallas.

That sweltering day downtown was the last time that he’d seen
Sommer up until now, but as he looked at her, it was as though no time at all had passed.

“Austin,” a voice called from somewhere down near his waist. A few seconds later, a huge yellow squash was shoved into his face.

“Ma,” he groaned. “Squash looks like a penis, so don’t put it anywhere near my face.”

Si
xty-two-year-old Emma Riley snickered. She was beginning to question her insistence that her son stay with her during his off-season, which made it the first time he’d been home in nearly a decade. It was almost like having the teenage version of himself living at home again. Somehow, in the span of a couple of weeks, he’d forgotten how to cook for himself and do laundry, and she immediately regretted ever suggesting he hire housekeepers for his luxury high-rise condo in Texas. However, with a rigorous practice schedule, football game each Sunday, and an ex-girlfriend who thought that Windex was the name of a prescription cream for psoriasis, it was the only way to prevent the place from becoming a pigsty.

“I should have done that to Jessica then, huh?” Emma goaded, going right in for the kill. Although Austin groaned once again, he felt the familiar pang of deceit radiate throughout his ribcage. After eight
months, it was still there, waiting to attack the minute anyone said Jessica’s name.

“That’s low, Ma.”

“I’m four feet eleven inches, Austin. I have to go low.”

He playfully nudged her in the
side, and they continued to walk.

Jessica Costa was the Brazilian model that had stolen his heart and then, after eleven months, stamped it with a “return to sender” sticker. He’d met her at a birthday
party that one of the team’s wide receivers, Trent Holloway, had thrown for his fiancée, Alexandrina. Alexandrina was Jessica’s cousin and had apparently been trying to introduce him to Jessica for a very long time, so when Jessica had finally been able to chisel some time out of her busy schedule to attend the party, Alexandrina isolated the pair on a private balcony. Much to her delight, he and Jessica had hit it off, spending most of the night talking about the places that she’d traveled to during her modeling career.

With her dark hair
, sparkling brown eyes, and svelte, hourglass figure, Austin had made the mistake of falling in love with Jessica’s beauty and completely ignored the way she never seemed interested in conversation unless she was the topic. He’d turned a blind eye when she would frivolously spend her money and then borrow from him to pay her bills, while his suggestion to invest fell upon deaf ears. He’d assumed that the last straw was when he’d found cocaine in her purse, and she’d openly admitted to using it to remain thin. Yet, he’d remained with her for three more months, just in time for the paparazzi to snap pictures of her sailing on a yacht with an older man later identified as billionaire investor Walter Remos.

Austin had tried calling her to get an explanation, but
was greeted by a recorded saying that the number was no longer in service. He’d even tried sending messages through Alexandrina, but Jessica never responded. The last that he’d heard was that she was pregnant and marrying the billionaire in the yacht photos. The lack of closure only acted as the closed fist that further drove the knife deeper whenever someone mentioned her name.

“Austin,” his mother called again. “Do you still eat beets, sweetie?”

He pointed to a row of vegetables. “No, but I eat eggplants, though. Please, Ma, can you make some of your famous Ciambotta while I’m home? It’s not often that your baby boy comes to visit.”

Emma rolled her
eyes and then picked up a couple of eggplants.

“Austin Riley?” a velvety voice behind them
spoke. Austin turned to find Sommer standing only a few feet away from him, and he distractedly shoved the squash into his mother’s chest. Emma shook her head before she grabbed it, placed it in her basket, and continued on.

“
Sommer?”

“Yes,
Sommer Hayes,” she replied. “We went to school together.”

It was crazy that she thought he could forget who she was.

“Of course I remember you, Sommer.” He pointed to her blouse. “Nice top.”

She took a few steps backwards. “It’s brand new, so let me back up here a little before I get sprayed with chocolate milk and pineapple chunks again.”

“I’m surprised you remember that,” he admitted with a laugh.

She grinned. “I could never forget that. My mother cursed you out the entire time she scrubbed that stain out of my shirt. She was upset at you for a while after that. You never noticed that she always cut you an extra small slice of cake whenever you stopped by the café?”

Austin had told his mother years ago that he thought Mrs. Hayes had it out for him, but she’d laughed so hard that she’d ended up having to take aspirin to quell a budding headache. Then one day when he was sixteen, he, his mother, and his older sister Arielle had gone to the café. His mother had ordered three slices of crème brulee cheesecake, and when Mrs. Hayes cut the slices, his mother had reached for the smallest of the three. Mrs. Hayes had then gently tapped her on the wrist and said that the smallest piece had actually belonged to Austin, which had made him assume that at that moment, he’d been vindicated. But his sister and mother had remained in denial. To this day, they still teased him about what he’d referred to as the mini-cake conspiracy.

“I knew it,” he replied. “Now tell that to Ma and Arielle. How is she by the way? Your mother?”

The smile slowly faded from Sommer’s face. “Not too good. Her cancer came back so Uncle Reese and I have been taking turns driving her to chemo. The doctor said that it’s more aggressive this time, so right now we’re at the
wait and see
stage.”

Austin started to touch her hand, but then realized that they hadn’t seen each other in ten
years, and he had no idea if she still held the same ill feelings towards him that she had back then.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he offered instead. “It must be
really hard on you right now to go through something like that.”

She
half-smiled. “I’m managing. But enough about me. Tell me about your exciting career as one of the top quarterbacks in the league.”

He was surprised to find that he was
actually embarrassed. “It’s really not all that. I mean, I’m doing what I love and that’s the best part of it.”

“No championship this year, though?”

He slowly shook his head. “Close, but no cigar. But we’ve made the postseason for the past three years, so I feel like we have a sure shot at the championship this year. I can taste it.”

Sommer’s
brows mischievously came together. “I don’t think I’ve ever tasted Championship before. What does it taste like?”

He smacked his lips a few times. “A little like blueberries…with a hint of vanilla.”

“But no pineapples?”

His eyes briefly went to the floor. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”

“Never. It’s actually my fondest memory of you. Tears streaming down your face and that shocked and slightly embarrassed look in your eyes. I mean, at that age, all I could remember was that you ruined my shirt. But, as I got older, the main thing I began to remember was the sadness in those freakish golden eyes of yours. You, your mother, and your sister still have the only true amber eyes I’ve ever seen.”

Again, Austin surprised himself by blushing. It had been years since he last had a reason to be embarrassed and in a couple of minutes,
Sommer had managed to turn his olive skin to red in the face twice.

“You know, I never did apologize for that,” he told her. “So, I just want to say that I’m sorry that I blew chunks on you.”

She giggled and lowered her eyes. “Austin, even if your stay is just a short one, I’m glad you took some time out to come back home.”

He paused before responding, waiting until she looked up at him.

“You’re the first person to officially welcome me, Sommer, and I’m glad that it was you. We haven’t seen each other in ages, and I’m glad that we can finally have a conversation without getting into fisticuffs.”

She lowered her eyes
again, and they both stood in a few moments of silence. Then, her head popped up, and a breeze gently played with her black, thick, naturally curly hair before her eyes landed on him once more. “I hope to see you around, Austin. It was nice running into you. Tell Ms. Emma that I said hello.”

With that, she spun around and walked off in the opposite direction, her stride just as lively and bouncy as her personality. Austin’s eyes then traveled down over her curvy hips and lingered on the way her legs filled out the black leggings that she wore.

“Sommer’s looking good these days,” his mother mumbled, surprising him. She handed him the basket now filled to capacity with an assortment of fresh fruits and vegetables. “You know, ever since Caroline’s cancer returned, she’s been on her own a lot and more sad than usual. Think maybe an old friend could help to cheer her up?”

He looked down at his
mother, and she winked at him before hooking her elbow through his and pulling him the direction of a sign that read “Home Grown Tomatoes.”

Chapter Two

“Mom, sit down,” Sommer pleaded as her mother flitted around the kitchen with a bright pink cotton bandana wrapped around her head.

“
Sommer,” Caroline Hayes groaned, searching around for her missing frosting bag. Spotting its metal tip sticking out from behind a breadbasket, she grabbed it and returned to finishing the coconut cake Dawn Robins had requested to celebrate Eleanor Talbot’s retirement from the town’s Parks and Recreation Department.

“You’re doing too much,”
Sommer continued, following her mother around the bakery’s kitchen and backroom. She reached for the frosting bag. “I can do that.”

Caroline moved the bag out of
Sommer’s reach. “Sommer, please let me do my job.”

“I am, Mom, but you’re doing your job and then some. I finished the chocolate chip cookies for the kindergarten recital over at Oak Park, even the gluten free ones, and I just put the focaccia bread in the oven. The lunch rush won’t be here for another couple of hours. I can handle more than you can right now.”

Caroline paused, closed her eyes, and said a small prayer under her breath. Sommer was driving her crazy. And it wasn’t only Sommer, but also her brother Reese and his fiancée Marcie, who both worked with them in the bakery. If they weren’t trying to take things out of her hands, they were offering to take over every single task that she attempted to complete. What they didn’t seem to understand, however, was that the café was her life. It was going to take more than her cancer coming out of remission to knock her on her ass, lazing away the days until she either beat it again or died.

The café had been there to see her through her marriage to
Sommer’s father at the age of seventeen, the deaths of both sets of their parents, her initial cancer diagnosis, and her subsequent divorce a few years after that. Forty years of her life had gone to the café. Working helped her feel normal. Other than her daughter, that sense of normalcy was the only thing that kept her going each day.

“I’m upsetting you, aren’t I?”
Sommer asked, noticing her mother’s change in demeanor.

“Yes, you are,” Caroline honestly answered. “I don’t ask you for much,
Sommer, but please let me do this. You, Reese, and Marcie tripping over yourselves to make things easier on me is appreciated, but I love working. And doing what I love is helpful.”

Her gaze
met her daughter’s concerned brown eyes.

“Is that okay?”

Sommer let her shoulders drop. “Okay, Mom, but promise me that if you need anything, you’ll ask.”

Caroline reached for
Sommer’s hand and hooked their pinkies. “You have my word.”

Defeated,
Sommer walked to the front of the shop where Marcie was handing a small, white pastry box to Trudy McMillan. Without opening the box, Sommer could guess that the woman had ordered a banana nut muffin for herself, and a crème-filled vanilla cupcake for her granddaughter, Elise. It was the same thing she always ordered the first weekend of the month when Elise came to visit from Durham.