Page 1 of The Trouble with Players

CHAPTER ONE

I climbed the stairs to the second floor of our Cape Cod beach house, tugging my suitcase behind me and making quite a racket. It was a wonder no one came out to help me—or greet me for that matter.

The only thing that gave me any comfort returning to this house was sitting on my balcony overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and our own private beach. Since my father was drafted to Boston when I was one, we lived on the Cape from May to August—almost the entire baseball season. And I’d loved it. That is until last summer when I swore never to return.

I stepped inside my room, finding everything the way I’d left it last summer. My white walls were filled with paintings of different ocean views, but the view I loved most was just beyond the French doors. I released my suitcase and moved to the doors, opening them so I could step out onto my balcony and breathe in the ocean air.

I gasped.

A naked girl straddled a naked guy in the Adirondack chair on my balcony.

“What the hell?!” I screeched.

The girl jumped up, grabbing a beach towel and wrapping it around herself. The guy didn’t move, staring out at the ocean and not bothering to look to me—or cover up for that matter.

“Get out of my room!” I screamed at both of them.

Her eyes jumped to his. “I thought this was your room?”

“It is,” he said.

I pointed my index finger in the direction of my door. “Get out!”

“Your father wouldn’t appreciate you talking to me that way,” he said, slow and menacing.

“He knows there’s a strange guy in my room?” I asked dubiously.

“Been here for almost a month.” He finally stood. He was nearly a foot taller than me, and I did what I could to meet his blue gaze under a ruffled head of dirty blond hair. “Get used to it. I’m here all summer.”

I kept my eyes focused on his since he was still naked, and there was no way I’d give him the satisfaction of looking down. “This is my room.”

“Gonna have to talk to Daddy then because he said it was mine.”

“Over my dead body,” I growled.

His eyes moved down my body in a slow appraisal. “Won’t be a loss.” He stepped around me and finally grabbed a towel. He wrapped it around his hips then grabbed a ball cap and lowered it over his messy hair, walking out of my room with the girl and slamming the door behind them.

Dammit!

I should’ve known my father, a retired professional baseball player, would’ve taken in a college baseball player. Especially, since I was supposed to be backpacking around Europe all summer. I guess no one thought my trip would be cut short since I’d been saving up to go all year—working my ass off at the school bookstore so I wouldn’t have to ask my parents for a penny.

Seething, I stepped out onto my balcony. I couldn’t help looking to the chair. Anger gnawed at my insides. I bent down and grasped the chair with both hands, somehow lifting the heavy thing and launching it over the deck railing. The wood planks splintered and shattered all over the patio below.

“You better replace my chair,” the guy called as he and the girl stepped around the mess and walked by the pool, past the pool house, and through the path to my beach.

“Wouldn’t sit in that trash if you paid me!” I yelled before spinning around and slamming my French doors shut.

For the first time in my life, I closed the white curtains to keep out the normally breathtaking view. He could have the beach for now. But he couldn’t have my room.

I stormed into the kitchen and found my father seated at a stool at the center island. “Who is he?”

“Peyton!” My father jumped up and hugged me. “You’re home?”

“Clearly,” I said not bothering to return his hug.

“Where’s Mom?”

A strange look flittered across his face.

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