by Amie Knight
The First Score
Copyright © 2020 Amie Knight
All rights reserved. No part of this novel may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted without written permission from the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This Book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If you would like to share this book with others please purchase a copy for each person. This Book The First Score is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and occurrences are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, events, or locations is purely coincidental.
Editor: Emily Lawrence of Lawrence Editing
Proofreading: Julie Deaton of Deaton Author Services
Interior Design and Formatting: Stacey Blake of Champagne Book Design
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Epilogue
Sneak Peek of The Red Zone
Prologue
Chapter One
Other Books
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Like Hazel in The First Score, my papa was the man I loved most in the world and he was my best friend growing up. We spent every summer of my childhood together. We painted fences and stained decks and planted flowers and swam in the pool. He would take me to the bar with him and order me a virgin daiquiri and a bag of Fritos. He’d prop me up on a barstool and we’d hang with his friends. He never got mad at me, no matter how badly I fucked up. And trust me, I did. And then one day I met a man I learned to love as much as my papa. And it seemed like the greatest gift of all that my papa loved him, too. I’m beyond thankful for the years I got to spend with both of the men I loved most in the world.
So, this one is for my papa in Heaven. Thank you for loving me no matter what. And thank you for loving Tony, too. We miss you.
I typically wasn’t a rule breaker or a line crosser, if you will. I was as straight as an arrow. Sweet as a Georgia peach in the summer. Okay, okay, maybe that was taking it too far. But one thing I knew for sure? I was a rule follower. A people pleaser.
But my sister’s best friend, Hazel? She made me want to break all the rules. When she was around, the only person I wanted to please was myself. In so, so many ways.
She made me cross lines. She made me do stupid, stupid things. But that’s what happened when you were in love.
And I’d been in love with Hazel since I could remember.
Hell, one of my very first memories ever was of the first time I saw her. I’d heard a small knock on the door of our home and taken off to answer it before my mom could. And there she stood on our porch. A dilapidated stuffed bunny hanging from one hand and a small duffle in the other. Her worn Care Bears shirt was stained and her too small dingy jeans had a giant hole in the knee. Her mess of brown hair was piled high in a knot on her head. And her big brown eyes. Well, they were sad.
“Well, are you gonna let me in?” Her pretty pink lips had asked and I poked my head out the door, glancing behind her long enough to see an old blue beater pull out of our driveway without so much as a finger wave of a goodbye.
“Where’s your clothes?”
My head snapped back to her, the car long forgotten because all of a sudden I was feeling mighty chilly. I leaned against the doorjamb as I looked down at myself, unashamed of the fact I was only wearing a pair of tighty-whities, as my sister Scarlett liked to call them.
I gave the sad-eyed girl a smile. “I’m letting ’em breathe.”
I didn’t know what the hell I was saying. I was five. It was something my daddy said when my momma gave him a hard time when he walked around their bedroom in nothing but a towel around his waist.
Her face screwed up. “Let what breathe?”
“Oliver Knox, if you do not let that child in and go upstairs and make yourself presentable, you won’t be getting any of those chocolate chip cookies you’ve been begging for all day.” My mother shooed me out of the way and grabbed the duffle bag from the girl’s hand. “Well, come on in, Hazel. Scarlett will be so excited you’re here.”
My mom gave me a death glare over Hazel’s head that had me flying for the stairs.
“Scarlett, Hazel’s here for y’all’s sleepover!” my mom called sweetly, like she hadn’t just threatened me with her green lasers.
I passed my sister on the way up much to my dismay.
“Lord, Ollie. Put on some dang clothes. You’re so embarrassing.” She rolled her eyes as she stomped down the stairs.
“I’m letting them breathe,” I called back, almost to the top.
She turned on the bottom step to look at me, her face red. “Stop saying that!”
“What’s the big deal?” I muttered, walking across the landing to my room, but deciding instead to stop and have one more peek at Hazel over the banister that looked over the living room before I got dressed.
What I didn’t expect was for her to be looking at me, too. My momma and Scarlett were talking a mile a minute and helping Hazel put her things away, but her eyes were firmly on mine. Feeling awkward all of a sudden, I did what any five-year-old boy in their underwear would do. I did a little jig and finished it off with a waggle of my eyebrows.
And that’s when it happened. Her sad eyes lit up and her serious pink mouth tipped up at the ends in a barely there smile.
My little heart soared, so naturally I did my jig again followed by a bigger and better wag of my eyebrows before ending it with a slow twirl for effect.
A small giggle I knew belonged to Hazel made me smile before I heard the thunderous voices of my redheaded sister and mother yell, “Oliver!”
I ran like my ass was on fire to my room, a huge grin on my face, my heart beating a thousand miles a minute. At the time, I thought it was the thrill of it all that made my heart feel that way.
But through the years, I slowly realized the pounding feeling in my chest only came around when Hazel did. And God, did she come around. And, Lord, was it torture.
Because there was only one thing I wanted to do, despite myself. I just wanted to make Hazel’s eyes smile. I wanted to make her happy and it was no easy feat.
I didn’t know then what all of that meant, me wanting her to be happy. Me wanting to be around her all the time. But I did now. Boy, did I. And like I said, it made me want to do foolish things to be close to her. Stupid, crazy things.
Anything.
Everything.
And being a grown man, now, didn’t stop me from doing the dumbest thing yet.
Yeah, I’d crossed plenty of lines when it had come to Hazel. But nothing, and I mean nothing, compared to the day I logged onto a gaming server I knew Hazel liked to play on.
It was a hell of a bold move on my part and required more than a few rum and Cokes
and the desperation of a lifetime of love unrequited.
I then crossed even more lines. Lines that couldn’t be uncrossed.
I made a fake name.
I lied about my age.
I pretended I wasn’t a naïve virgin.
And I catfished the hell out of the love of my life, my sister’s best friend.
I was going to kill him. And not in the sweet way. No, I wasn’t going to be calling old Scarlett up and meeting her for lunch so I could shoulder nudge her and tell her how cute this shit was. Because it wasn’t. And I was actually going to kill him.
Well, not really. But I wanted to. Because it was three o’clock in the damn morning and he still wasn’t home. And there was no telling what the man was up to because usually it was no darn good.
I pushed the accelerator down on my old Cadillac Eldorado and it stuttered a bit. “Come on, baby. Don’t let me down tonight,” I cooed to the old engine and gave the dashboard a couple of light taps. If I broke down out here in the middle of nowhere that would be the icing on my shit cake.
I followed the familiar wooded road right outside of my hometown of Summerville, Alabama, I’d traversed too many times to count. I was about twenty miles outside of town and it was country. Like serious country. I was keeping my eyes peeled for deer when I heard the familiar ding of the texting app on my phone. I grinned a bit. There was only one person who would message me this late and I really wanted to talk to him, but I couldn’t do that. Because I was too busy hunting down the man in my life.
I pulled into the parking lot of a rundown white building in the middle of nowhere, loose gravel kicking up under my tires. Taking a deep breath, I gave myself a good pep talk about how I wasn’t going to actually kill anyone. And I reminded myself of how much I loved the man in that dilapidated building.
The big door to the Eldorado creaked as I opened it. My Sketchers hit the parking lot and I pulled down my oversized black hoodie to cover the ass of my skinny jeans. As I was walking in, I used the scrunchie on my wrist to tie my thick, long brown hair in a knot at the top of my head. After all, I was going to war. I usually wore it there all the time, but I’d let it down thinking I was headed to bed earlier. I was wrong. Dead wrong.
As I opened the door the familiar smell of stale beer and peanuts invaded my nose, but I just kept on trucking. Past the bar in the front and directly to the illegal machines they kept in the little room in the back.
“Incoming, Jack!” the bartender yelled toward the back room and I felt my eyes roll into the top of my head. God, this song and dance was getting old.
“I’ve been busted, buddies. The Warden has caught up to me.” I could hear his growly old voice over the raucous laughter of his pals before I entered the back room and took in the row of poker machines lining the walls. Another row of old men were parked on stools in front of them. I eyed them all one by one, shooting daggers until my eyes landed on my old man.
“Pops,” I ground out, standing up straighter. Because tonight I meant business.
His mouth hitched up on one side and his blue eyes danced back at me from a round face full of wrinkles and life. So much life.
Damn him, I wasn’t smiling back. This wasn’t funny. He wasn’t an adorably cute old man. I would not fall for it this time.
“Warden,” he growled at me as he stood up and pulled up the waistband of his old worn jeans or dungarees as he liked to call them.
There we stood. In what looked like some kind of showdown when we all knew who was going to win. “Pops,” I said back, tightening the knot at the top of my head. “Time to go home.”
Scratching the white scruff on his chin, he replied nonchalantly as he motioned to the bar. “Let’s have a drink, Hazel. It’s still early.”
I shook my head, confounded. I really was going to kill him. “No.”
He threw his hand to his chest dramatically and let out a shocked, “No?”
All of his friends snickered and I took a deep breath trying to rein in my sleep-deprived crazy. I didn’t need a mirror to know the extent of the dark circles under my brown eyes.
“Pops, if you don’t walk out of here and get in that damn car, I swear to God.”
His face scrunched up and his finger flew out. “Hey, you know I don’t like when you swear to God.”
I felt my eyes narrow. “Are you for real? Like, are you serious, Pops? You wanna argue morality with me in the middle of the damn night in an illegal gambling hall and I have to work tomorrow?”
He diverted his gaze, choosing to glance at the floor instead of my angry eyes. Tucking his hands into his pants pockets, he said, “Well, you go on home, Hazel. Jeb will bring me home when we are done.”
Jeb jumped right in before I could say anything. “That’s right, Hazey. You go on and get some rest and I’ll drop your pops by in a bit.”
I snapped my head to old Jeb who had been friends with my pops as long as I could remember. “Don’t you Hazey me, Jeb Donalds.” I crossed my arms over my chest and popped out my hip. “I take that you’re to blame for my pops being out here in the middle of the night. Does Rita know you’re out gallivanting? Or should I go by there and let her know?”
There was a bunch of “Ooooohs” from the peanut gallery seated on the stools next to Jeb and I made sure to give them all a good glare.
It wasn’t the first time Jeb waited until his wife Rita took out her hearing aids and went to sleep for him to sneak off and pick up my pops and head here.
Throwing his hands out in front of him, Jeb pleaded, “Come on, Hazey. Don’t do that. She’s still mad about me mowing over her lilies last week.”
I nodded slowly. “Well, then I guess you better head on home, too.” And then I looked around the room at all of the sweet old faces I’d grown up loving. “All of y’all should head home. Over here illegal gambling like you’re children, and not grown men.”
Groans from little, old, wrinkly faces filled the room, but they all started paying their tabs.
I let out a long sigh before addressing Pops. “Come on, let’s head home.” I slid my arm around his shoulders. He was almost half a foot shorter than me, so it was easy. I pulled him along with me toward the front door. My pops was a pain in the ass, but he was my pain in the ass and God I loved him. He was the only man I’d ever really loved.
“Damn, Hazel, you’re such spoil sport sometimes.” His grumpy face almost made me giggle.
I hugged him closer and pulled him into my side as we walked through the parking lot toward my car. “You know I only come and get you because I worry. And you know if I worry, I can’t sleep.”
“I know,” he grumped back.
I opened his car door and stood back, sweeping my arm out for him to enter. “Could be worse, you know? I could have called Amor.”
His head jerked back, his eyes horrified. “You wouldn’t.”
I shrugged. “You never know. Maybe next time.” I shut the door and walked around my side, holding in a laugh and smile. God, I loved to tease him.
I slipped inside my car and put my seat belt on before cranking the car. I was about to pull out when I noticed he wasn’t strapped in.
“Seat belt, Pops.”
He harrumphed at me and crossed his arms. “In my day, we didn’t wear no seat belts.” He wouldn’t even look at me.
“Well,” I said, taking my hand off the gearshift and settling back in my seat like we had all night, “it’s a good thing this isn’t your day. It’s mine. Put the damn seat belt on, you stubborn old man. Click it or ticket!”
After giving me a hard look, he finally acquiesced but not without a little more attitude. “Don’t you ever threaten to call Amor again,” he grumped, putting his seat belt on. “That’s wrong. Do you know what that woman will do to me if she finds out I’m out late at night?”
I grinned as I pulled out of the parking lot. Amor Caro. My grandad’s girlfriend of ten years. She was almost always on my side and she didn’t put up with anyone’s shit. She was a s
picy Hispanic seventy-five-year-old lady who bought used women’s underwear and slips from Goodwill and washed them and made them look brand new before sewing beautiful lace trim and embellishments on them. She would then sell them on eBay to men she called “her guys.” Her guys loved her pretties and often sent her pics of them in those pretties they were so happy with their purchases. When she wasn’t sewing slips for her guys and giving Pops a hard time, she was deep into a romance novel. And not the trendy romance novels of today. No, all of the books she read had huge, hulking men in pirate costumes or kilts on the worn-out, beaten-up covers, holding a pristinely dressed woman in distress. I had a feeling she grabbed those at the Goodwill along with her slips and underwear.
I loved Amor almost as much as I loved Pops. She was batshit crazy, but she was one of the most charismatic and sweet people I knew. She’d never moved in with us and I had a feeling it was because she could only take so much of Pops’s shit. And if she knew my pops was out this late she would kill him.
“Fine. Calm down.”
Halfway home he huffed in the seat next to me. “You gotta loosen up, Hazel. Any other girl your age would be out partying and having a good time. Maybe trying to meet a nice man.”
I clenched my teeth together and squeezed the steering wheel hard. It always came to this. Hazel, the warden. Hazel, the bummer. “I’m not most girls.” And I had the wounds to show for it. Inside and out.
After a few quiet minutes I felt a warm, heavy hand on my shoulder as I navigated the country roads home. “I know. You’re better than most girls. My Hazey.” His fingers gave a little squeeze before pulling away. “You’re the best.”
A little ball of emotion sat in the back of my throat and I swallowed it down into the pit of my stomach where it belonged. Where no one could see it. Where no one could sense it. And I covered it up with all the sarcasm and wit I could muster. “Damn right, I am. Who the hell else would come out here in the middle of the night to rescue your old ass?”
“Hah.” I couldn’t see him roll his eyes, but I knew he had. “I didn’t need no rescuing.”
