Page 1 of Hart Breaker

THE GOLDEN PITCHFORK

Hudson

“The floor is nearly silent. The only sound is the bitter whispering of tournament players who didn’t make the cut?—”

I hear one of the girls whisper rather loudly, “Losers,” and can’t help but grin.

Riley Brooks, one of the owners of this fine establishment, continues over the brewery’s speaker system, voice full of teasing amusement. “Here, at the New York Knights Players Club, we’re all wondering the same thing: who will become the champions of tonight’s high-stakes game?” She pauses briefly. “It could be either of the two teams. We have no idea how this will go or who will walk away with the golden pitchfork and their bar tab for tonight wiped clean. What we do know is the tension in Brooks Barn and Brewery is mounting?—”

London Links cuts her off with a not-so-passive and mostly aggressive, “This game doesn’t end soon, I know one player whose tension will be mounting. It might be a whole week before any other mounting happens in the Links’ ho?—”

“Four,” her husband, Logan, says confidently as his eyes connect with mine from across the table.

Four? Fucking four? screams in my head as I keep my eyes locked on his.

What do I have? Shit. Jack shit, a big old steaming pile of it.

I don’t have a single face card; there’s no chance in hell that I can do anything to help get us there. The hand Jackson Brooks dealt me will indeed set us. I’m mildly pissed, too, because, for the first time all season, I had a chance at winning this thing. It won’t happen again when my regular partner, Knights running back, #21, Beau Boone, is across from me.

Just a fluke that he has his little girl for a few days during the season. Jackass bids four every chance he gets and always ends up putting us in the hole.

I had the opportunity of a lifetime, and Logan Links just blew it. Can’t tell him what an epic fuck-up he just made, though—he’s one of the owners and often runs workouts and drills with us. But I wanted that golden pitchfork just once.

Motherfucker.

Jackson’s chest rises and falls in silent laughter.

I narrow my eyes at him. “What?”

Shaking his head, he looks at Logan. “Let’s see what you got, player.”

Logan wastes no time revealing his choice of trump as he tosses the ace of clubs on the table before us.

I glance down and see that I have the three. With any luck, that could be the lowest card and gain us a point. With the ace as high and the three as low, we’d still need the jack of clubs and the highest score to get the game and win.

It’s still possible.

In the next round, he tosses out the queen of clubs. Kolby Grimes lays the nine of clubs on it. I have one ten in my hand, which will count big for the game, but?—

“Don’t be a pussy, Hart,” comes from overhead, and I glance up to the second story of the barn-style brewery and see Lauren Brooks looking down at us.

I open my mouth to say something, but Logan beats me to it. “You’re related to the opposing team; you really think he’s going to trust you?”

Lauren is Jackson’s and Riley’s sister. They co-own this place and host weekly pitch tournaments where the older men of Blue Valley come and talk shit to each other for the first half of the game and then talk about hunting, crops, and the New York Knights, which happens to be the only three things going on here in Blue Valley.

The first time I stumbled in here on a Tuesday evening and saw the dozen or so of them, I smiled, knowing one day I’d be just like them. I’d be chillin’ with my boys, talking shit and football. I dubbed them the New York Knights Players. They loved it.

Boone and I had hats and sweatshirts made at the printery down in the village for them and brought them in the following week. And that’s how we got pulled into this weekly game. It’s also how I learned Lauren and I were chill.

You see, the month before I started my professional football career with the Knights, I was here, looking at houses and staying about forty miles away at a hotel. I ended up at a bar hammered and hooked up with a chick in the bathroom.

I was so drunk that night that I may not have connected the dots, but she approached me at the stadium where she hangs with London and asked that I never mention it. She and her boyfriend had just broken up, and it was a rebound thing. I was good with that.

I have a lot of heart, passion, and love inside of me, but never once have I looked at a girl and thought, Damn, she’s sexy, funny, sweet, and sassy. She’s someone I could see myself pounding out a few kids and growing old with. The whole till-death-do-us-part thing? Nuh-uh.

With a last name like Hart, you’d think the damn thing inside my chest would skip a beat when I met the right girl.

I love women and everything about them. Hell, I love them when they’re being bitchy or acting crazy—it shows spirit. But I have never once felt that feeling people talk about, and I’ve met dozens who should have fit the bill.

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