Game Winning Catch: (Secret Baby Sports Romance (Pass To Win #5)

by Roxy Sinclaire

  “As a matter of fact, Ms. Agnes, I am headed out with Monique tonight,” I tell her with a grin while shuffling around some notes from today’s visits. My very best friend has been trying to get me to go out with her for the last month. In the past, work has gotten in the way.

  “Well, is she going to help you get a man, finally?” Miss Agnes says without remorse, plopping a hand on her hip.

  One of the reasons that I enjoy working with people of a certain age is that they cut straight through the nonsense and get to the heart of the matter.

  “Girl, when I was your age, you couldn’t tell me nothing about the nighttime that I couldn’t tell you a book about,” she says, shaking her hips a little.

  “No ma’am, Ms. Agnes. I’m scared of you.” I giggle. “There’s nothing in those streets for me. I like being here. I like what I do.”

  “Get someone to do you and then tell me what you like more,” she smarts before turning to leave.

  “See you in the morning,” I respond, shaking my head. She is something else.

  I don’t know what I would have done without her and the circle of older women who frequented the community center when my grandmother passed away last year. My grandmother, Sheryl, had been the one who helped me become the person that I am today. Had she not cleaned houses and hotels and office buildings day and night, I wouldn’t have been able to finish college without a single loan, or buy a car in cash, or start my own business. What I know about life came from her and sitting on the living room floor listening to her and the quilters talk about the world as it was and could be.

  I pick up the picture of my grandmother and smile before putting my things away for the night. I know she would want me to live life, get out there and have fun. Ms. Agnes is right, I haven’t done the “do” in a few, and it’s made for some very frustrating nights.

  “I have never met a man in a nightclub worth my words, not to mention a date,” I explain to Monique, disappointed in her selection of venue for our one night out in ages. There is a cable movie and a marathon of “A Different World” calling my name right now.

  “When’s the last time that you even went to a club, Sticky?” she asks.

  I had been extremely thin as a kid, but my later years growing up with my Southern-born granny and her grits in the morning and greens with cornbread at night put some meat on my bones real quick. Now, when Monique calls me Sticky, it’s because she thinks I’m being a stick in the mud or stubborn.

  “I can’t help who I am, Mo,” I tell her, taking a sip of my drink. “There has to be some kind of connection, some kind of chivalry, and these dudes in here all think this bump and grind music is romantic. Please.”

  “How old are you, Ayron, really? I feel like you and Ms. Agnes went to school together instead of me and you,” she says, but I can barely hear her over the sound of my breathing and trumpets in my head announcing the arrival of the sexiest man I’ve ever had the blessing to set my eyes on.

  “Damn,” I say in a whisper. His body was like something out of an Armani advertisement. His cheek bones were prominent with a very masculine, square jawline.

  “See, I told you there are some quality men in this spot,” she says, bobbing her head to the music. “You have to have faith in your girl. I know what I am doing.”

  It is true. Monique always has a man and usually whatever kind she’s seeking. If she were looking for someone to ring her bell, pay her bills, or carry on her arm, she’d find him. I prefer not to be bothered with the hassle of it all. There’s no reason to fall in love with someone if that someone can fall out of love with you.

  The man with mesmerizing caramel eyes makes me close mine. His cologne, which smelled of musk, lingers as he walks past with several scantily dressed women conspicuously trailing behind him.

  I sigh. Men like that don’t pick girls like me. The girls with manufactured and sculpted-to-perfection body parts and accessories usually win out over my kind. The normal girl. The sensible one.

  I look back at the caramel-eyed guy and the hulky friend he had met with at a table.

  When he smiles in my direction, I quickly turn away.

  “Come dance with me, Mo,” I insist, downing the last of my drink and dropping the empty glass on a table. I’m glad I let her talk me into wearing her body-hugging purple dress and strappy heels.

  I can feel his eyes on me as Monique and I move shoulder-to-shoulder across the dance floor.

  “He’s watching you,” my friend whispers.

  I nod, but I don’t look back, just dance a little slower, push my lips out and roll my hips to the music like I’m in a bed—his bed.

  2

  Devlin

  I lick my lips with the hope of tasting the beauty with the thick thighs and perfect bubbly ass dancing in the purple dress. Her golden brown skin radiates under the pulsing lights, illuminating her like a work of art. Her unique copper-colored curled hair moves across her shoulders as she shifts her body like she has a reason to. At thirty, I’ve seen my share of females in the club, and had it not been for my best friend Kevin having a pre-celebration for his birthday, I wouldn’t have even bothered to come in. I like my women sexy and powerful. A woman who can wear six-inch heels and broker six-figure deals makes me want to turn her upside down and lick her until she screams. Those kind of women don’t frequent clubs. Taking on an executive role in the business that my father started has given me the opportunity to test my theory on several occasions.

  “I see ya, partner,” Kevin says, slapping his hand against my back with a laugh. For the son of a billionaire, he is substantially down-to-earth. What I like most about him.

  My family hadn’t always had the type of money that could last for generations. As a child, my father and mother had done well for us, distributing their African-American targeted beauty products from their barber and beauty salons and local hair care stores. The extraordinary money started rolling in when I was seven, and their products became marketed nationally.

  Kevin had followed my line of vision to the woman in purple on the dance floor.

  “I thought about you when I saw her,” he says. “The cool, quiet ones got you every time when we were younger.”

  “You are definitely right.” I grin. “I gathered a few for you on the way in here,” I say, eyeing the women that trickled in with me when I arrived and walked through the club.

  Before I started taming the tigresses, I couldn’t get enough of a quiet girl; the ones with a cool disposition but fire in their eyes. Once alone in the dark, the lioness would jump out as I jumped in. A challenge.

  “I tried to get the friend to bring her up to the VIP, but Lady Purple was having none of that,” Kevin comments.

  “Good looking out,” I let him know, peering at the long and shapely woman in purple. “I got it from here.”

  The people in the room seem to separate like oil from water as I fulfill my mission to reach Lady Purple.

  The woman dancing behind her slides away without hesitation, as though she knows that I need to be near her friend.

  With eyes closed, Lady Purple, her trim waist holding up bountiful breasts, sways her thick hips from side to side to the pounding club music.

  Lowering my body next to hers, I round my arms across her beckoning shape and follow her movements succinctly.

  My body’s instant reaction to her surprises both of us.

  With a sharp intake of breath, she turns quickly in my arms to face me.

  “Wow,” she says over the music, a bashful smile covering her face, but her body doesn’t stop. A roll of her hip against me ignites a hunger for more.

  “Hello,” I respond, leaning forward to whisper in her ear, all the while holding on to her. “You’re beautiful.”

  Her widening smile overshadowed by the deepening move of her hips, I am drawn to the cradle of her graceful neck as her arms rest against mine.

  Without a thought, I press kisses into the sweet-scented curve right above her collarbone. />
  The intense swelling that I feel at the taste of her is not normal. I am usually able to control myself. Women are like air, everywhere, but this one seems to have the power to remove it. I swallow hard, feeling as though the air has been thinned by the copper-haired sorceress in the purple dress. People, music, and time all cease to exist as I fall under the spell of her.

  Her faint but audible pant and the methodical crush of her body against mine let me know that the feeling of my mouth against her skin is pleasurable.

  “I want you,” I whisper to the glistening spot that I left on her butter-pecan colored skin before I take a fresh piece.

  Tonight, I am going to show her what bump and grind is all about.

  “Devlin!” I hear from somewhere in the distance. “Let’s go!”

  The sorceress steps from my embrace, leaving an instant emptiness.

  “Somebody is looking for you,” she says over the music.

  Her downcast eyes worry me.

  “Are you all right?” I ask, taking her face into my hand.

  Her eyes take hold of mine and the beauty of her transfixes me.

  “I…you are—” she sputters.

  “Devlin, let’s roll out.” I look to my left and notice Kevin standing next to me, flanked by leggy, scantily clad women.

  “I’m good, man,” I say, slapping his palm. “I’m just going to hang back.”

  I look to my right and the enchanting woman is gone, lost to me for now. But hopefully not forever.

  “Why are you here on a Saturday, son?” my father questions, walking into my office. “And why did you drag in your staff?”

  “Going global is important. If you work for me, then you know that work comes first,” I repeat to him sternly.

  In my head, I knew that one day my father would be old, but it didn’t occur to me how it would happen. How he would change in pieces. With cracks around his eyes, graying hair, rounding belly. He seems smaller, and now he’s getting softer, too. I remember him working day and night to keep this business bountiful.

  “People have families, Devlin,” he scolds. “Many of your employees are starting to miss those families.”

  I stop shifting the paper that I had been working on to explain to my father what I had explained to him before, and to every person that I’ve given the privilege to walk through my door as an employee.

  “This job, this family, what they do here for us—provides for those that they are rushing home to be with. I bet whoever is complaining, and their families, like to be able to turn on lights when they are in their home. And I bet they like to have food to put on their tables,” I say with certainty. “I want to make sure that everything is in order for us to take this family, the one that matters to me, to a higher playing field. And I want to make sure I have everything set up before I head out with Kevin tonight,” I explain. “Who knows where we’ll end up? The last time he took the entire party from his house to Cancun on private jets.”

  My father laughs sturdily from the gut.

  “That Kevin. Can’t ever say that he doesn’t know how to have a good time,” my father acknowledges. “Unlike you.”

  He takes a seat as his words become serious.

  “I have fun,” I say, thinking about a few of my night exploits over the years.

  “Not the women,” he says. “Do you do anything meaningful that brings you joy? Gives you a real smile, not that fake shit you push off on these other people,” he comments.

  “I’m happy,” I say, signing a piece of paper and adding it to a folder.

  “If you really were, then you wouldn’t be here,” he says slowly. “You’d be spending time with the people you care about.”

  “I care about our business. Our family—you, David Jr., and Dana,” I tell him, as though he doesn’t already know. Sometimes, I feel like both my father and I remix the same conversation every time that we see each other. Same words, just arranged a little differently.

  My father sighs and then stands.

  “I sent your staff home, son,” my father says. “To put it in terms that you understand, there is no need for them to be in on overtime for a third week in a row,” he adds before leaving.

  I continue working as though my father had never entered with his holier-than-thou attitude. As a child, I remember seeing him no more than once a week. It was Sheryl, my cook and nanny, who taught me the ropes and filled the hole that not having either one of my parents dug.

  Both David Jr. and Dana—being twelve and ten years older than me—had long left the house when my mother Gladys passed. They may as well have stuck me in a closet with sunlight to grow alone.

  I back my family beyond measure, but sometimes it seems as though they are all against me.

  3

  Ayron

  I ask the city’s new Director of Community Outreach and Development to repeat what she said. I couldn’t have heard her right.

  The day had started off pleasantly enough. Norma’s home had passed inspection and was now considered habitable to live in. There was no traffic on the freeway back to the office. And Dr. Tirash was going to actually work his weekend shift, leaving me prime opportunity to enjoy my bed and a good book.

  Everything had been going well until this thin woman with the sprouting weave pranced into my office with her short skirt suit. This turned the day from good to bad.

  “This community center, along with several others, will be vacated within the month and demolished,” she says, with a stare in her eyes that dared for me to ask her again.

  “Why now? Why so sudden?” I ask, anger filling my voice. The community center had become a home for me.

  “The city is bleeding money trying to keep these places open, for people to what— abuse them? To forget about them? We have to focus on vital city services,” she huffs.

  “Oh, ‘vital’, like paying you?” I snap.

  She places a hand on her sliver of a hip.

  “Yes. They pay me well to tie the tourniquet and try to squeeze out resources so that the city can survive. So you and your little social experiment are on a time clock,” she says, turning on her heels and exiting.

  “And they say dragons don’t exist,” Ms. Agnes chimes in. “She’s a fire breather if I ever did see one.”

  “She doesn’t scare me,” I let Ms. Agnes know. “She messed with the wrong girl.”

  “Do you think that she may have been just a little upset that she had to stomp those expensive heels through our slum because you requested a face-to-face discussion through her supervisor?” she asks.

  “The woman didn’t reply to my letter, voicemails, or emails. What was a girl to do?” I say innocently. My grandmother and I used to clean houses for some very important people with influence in the city. If she wanted a fight, I would give her one. “Please believe me when I say I will not be bullied or ignored.”

  Ms. Agnes stands up and walks over to me. She places her hand on my shoulder.

  “Honestly Ayron, baby girl, I think this is the push that you need to get your own place,” she says sincerely.

  “I love the community center,” I gasp, trying to fight back tears.

  “But you are better than this. You should have some swanky office uptown, getting paid way more to do way less.”

  “This is my home. This is where I started. Where I began,” I justify.

  “And do you still wear your first bra, too?” she mocks. “You of all people know that change happens whether you like it or not, and it’s not always for the worse.”

  I hug my employee who at some point had become more to me.

  “I’m so glad to have you,” I tell her. “I’ll start looking for some options this week.”

  “Good, now let me start hiding all the good stuff. That klepto girl you work with will be here in a little bit.”

  I laugh at Ms. Agnes all the way back to my office to lock up my tablet and purse.

  The thud that explodes from the front halts my laughter.

&n
bsp; The five steps from my office to the front door where Ms. Agnes lies on the floor don’t take long, but I know that I’ll remember them forever.

  I immediately whip out my phone and call 9-1-1 in a panic. It is one of the most terrifying nights of my life.

  “Monique, can you come to the hospital? I am here,” I tell her over the phone early in the morning.

  “Huh, is everything okay?” she asks, sounding worried.

  “Just come as soon as you can. I need someone,” I say, crying.

  “Okay, girl, hang tight! I will be there soon,” she reassures me.

  “Yes, honey, I am feeling this spot and the men that come along with it,” Monique comments as we walk through a third floor office rental space. “And the floor-to-ceiling window gives you the perfect view of who is coming and going,” she adds. “Hopefully you will be on the receiving end of all the cumming, but –"

  “Nasty,” I say, popping Monique on the hand.

  “I’m just saying.” She laughs. “There were some nice pieces in the lobby. One could slip right on into your office, and then slip right on into your space, without you having to be bothered with all the formalities of dating and dinner.”

  “Why are you so concerned with who’s sleeping in my space?” I ask half-jokingly.

  “Why am I concerned with your breathing?” she responds. “You’re my friend and I care about you. I haven’t seen you remotely happy since Lance.”

  I let my eyes roll all the way around in my head before speaking to my friend.

  “That was a year ago. I am over that. Over everything about him,” I reply with certainty.

  “It’s almost been three years, Ayron,” Monique corrects, “and you haven’t dated anyone since.”