Page 6 of Playboy

“Mind? Are you crazy? I would be offended if you didn’t stay here. I’ll be gone for the next six weeks, and my place has two bedrooms. You can take mine and Oliver can have his own bed. At least while I’m gone. At your dad’s, you’d have to bunk up, wouldn’t you?”

Noah’s deep chuckle fills my bedroom. “Yeah. I still can’t believe we’re moving to Boston.”

I smile at the phone in the middle of the bed as I stuff a pair of shoes into my suitcase. “I can’t believe you’re going to be a Bolt and that I get to see Oliver all the time. It’s still wild to me that you have a kid, and he’s already four. It’s going to be incredible to have you here. It feels like forever since we got to spend this much time together.”

“You were still in high school?—”

I frown down at my suitcase. I’m an excellent packer. It’s a skill I mastered after my mother’s third divorce. More than once, I was given a half hour to fit the stuff I wanted into one suitcase before it was time to leave and start our next life. That’s how she phrased it. She’d dump her current husband and instantly moveon to the next. Every time, she was certain this new life would be better than the last.

The hardest departure was when she left Noah’s dad. The boy a couple of years older than me was everything to me back then. He was a true big brother, blood or not. He loved me for who I was, and even when he left for college, he made sure to call and text regularly. And if he wasn’t coming home to visit me, I was traveling there to spend time with him.

For the first time in my life, I felt like I was enough for someone.

I’d never been enough for my mother. It took a long time to understand that she was the problem, not me. Not a single one of her husbands was ever enough. She’s currently on her fifth. He wasn’t around for Christmas, so I can’t help but think that’s already over. Though if it was, she would have shown up on my doorstep, needing a place to stay. Since I settled in Boston—after she left stepdad number three—she comes to me between divorces.

It’s serendipitous, I suppose, that Noah will be staying here. That means mom will have to find somewhere else to go.

A smile curves my lips. “Yeah, high school. Anyway, how did Oliver take the news?”

“He’s thrilled. With Jen’s husband starting work in Boston, it couldn’t have worked out better. I’ll miss my team and building bonds with new teammates will take work, but you know Oliver comes first for me.”

He does. Every time we’re together and I witness the way Noah parents his son, my scars heal a little more. He’s the exact opposite of my mother. That four-year-old has always come first, despite the unplanned pregnancy. Jen was a one-night stand, but from the beginning, the two of them have been dedicated to putting Oliver first. They’re exceptional co-parents. Jen recently got married, and her new husband received a job offer hecouldn’t refuse. A job that happened to be in Boston. So without hesitation, Noah and his agent worked a deal with the local hockey team.

And since I work for the Bolts’ sister organization, the Boston Revs—a baseball team owned by the same family—it means I get to spend lots of time with him.

Not only that, but Noah’s dad lives in Boston as well. It’s like it was meant to be.

Lips pursed, I eye my closet. I’ve already packed shorts, T-shirts, three skirts, and seven blouses.

The blue bodycon dress I bought last week from Lulu’s grabs my attention. Will I even have time to go out? As head of PR for the Boston Revs, almost every minute of my time during spring training will be accounted for. Maybe with a more mature team, I could catch some downtime at the beach or at least hang by the pool, but with so many young guys on the roster, they’re keeping me busy and driving me absolutely batty, and the season hasn’t even begun.

Jasper Quinn is at the top of that list. That boy can’t keep himself out of trouble. Though at least some of the shit he gets into is entertaining, like the time he ended up sexting with a nun. If Channel Seven hadn’t been working on an exposé of that specific parish, he might never have gotten caught.

But he did, which meant I had to do damage control.

Spinning sexting is never easy, even if it’s between two consenting adults—why the world gets so butt hurt about sex, I’ll never understand. Sex is amazing if both people know what they’re doing, but I digress. Sexting with a nun? Yeah, that took some work.

I roll the bodycon dress neatly and put it in the suitcase. I miss sex. It’s been way too long since a man has turned me into a pretzel and fucked me sideways. While I would never touch abaseball player, there are plenty of men in Florida to keep me entertained.

And the hockey team will be in the state for at least one of those weekends.

Though I haven’t touched any of them in the four years I’ve worked for the Revs, there’s no rule against it.

“Do you know which weekend the Bolts are playing Florida?”

Noah hums. “I haven’t looked at the schedule, but I’ll text you as soon as I do.”

“Perfect.” I zip up my suitcase and yank it off the bed. “I better go. I’m meeting the girls for drinks to say goodbye.” I pout at the mere thought of being without them for so long. Before working for Langfield Corp, I never really had girlfriends. It’s always been easier to relate to men.

I like sex. Men like sex. I like sports. Men like sports. Instead of searching for other women like me, I disappeared into books. I looked for characters with similar interests there, but after I’d read more books than I can count about meek women who’d never had an orgasm until they met a billionaire who saved them from their boring existence, I decided I’d write my own. I’d create stories that featured the kind of women I wanted to be friends with.

Fierce women who had careers, aspirations, dreams…and knew their way around a vibrator. Because let’s be honest, sometimes we’re our own best orgasm.

Working in the sports industry, luckily, has led me to finally making female friends who share some of the same interests and are more like the heroines in my books.

When I met Sara, I knew instantly we were two sides of the same coin. Like me, Sara had a difficult upbringing. And she struggled to trust men. That changed, though, when she started dating Brooks Langfield, goalie for the Bolts and brother to thebigwigs at Langfield Corp, my employer. She’s loud, like me, and loves talking about sex. We’re a match made in heaven.

Then there’s Lennox, Sara’s best friend from college, who married Aiden Langfield—also of the Langfield Corp Langfields and the youngest of four brothers. She’s ridiculous in all the best ways, so we clicked instantly.

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