Page 6 of Second-Rate Superstar

Noah glides against the smooth ice surface. He reaches back with his stick and swings at the puck with a smack shot.

No. That didn’t sound right, either.

Delete. Delete. Delete.

Noah is racing to the puck. Another player tackles him to the wall, forcing the air from his lungs.

Jesus. That was even worse.

Delete. Delete. Delete.

The blinking cursor on my computer screen was taunting me. As if it knew I was a complete and total fraud.

I knew absolutely nothing about ice hockey. Yet, here I was, wasting my time on a venture doomed to fail from the start. My knowledge of the sport was derived from childhood movies. And it wasn’t like I could throw outterms like “triple deke” and “knuckle puck” without knowing what they meant or if they were even real things.

Why did I let Bristol convince me to write a hockey romance again?

Oh, that’s right. Because it was the hottest thing since sliced bread to hit the romance market, women couldn’t get enough of it, and I needed to keep the lights on.

That wasn’t to say my other books weren’t selling—they were—but I was looking for my big break. The one that would go viral and start trending, putting my pen name, D.D. Morgan, on the map.

I just didn’t get why it was so popular.

Did these women not care about the reality that professional athletes were pigs? Using their celebrity status to get laid, not caring about the collateral damage?

Apparently not.

It was all too easy to brush that aside when you wanted to relax and slip into a fantasy, leaving the real world behind and getting lost for a few hours between the pages.

I envied that they would never get a peek behind the curtain of professional sports.

Resting both elbows on the desk, I dropped my head into my hands and let out a groan.

This was a terrible idea. I was better off scrapping it and going back to what I wrote best. I could bide my time, let my readership grow organically, and maintain my integrity in the writing world. The last thing I wanted to do was throw out a half-baked hockey romance and have the readers tear me to shreds. Some of them liked the idea of a handsome, muscular athlete taking them to Pound Town more than they liked the actual sport, but my pride would take a hit if I weren’t giving them an accurate portrayal.

“How’s it going in here?” Bristol’s voice permeated through the weight of despair settling over my brain.

Peeking through my fingers, I asked, “What do you think?”

Entering my bedroom/office, she stood behind me, taking in the blank document. Sighing, she remarked, “I think you’re psyching yourself out and making this harder than it has to be.”

Spinning in my desk chair, I scowled at her. “That’s easy for you to say. I’m not the one who has been going to hockey games since she was a kid.”

Cocking a hip, she peered down at me. “And whose fault is that? I invite you to come with me to watch the Comets play all the time. My dad can’t go to every game. You know I have a free seat next to me.”

No way in hell was I attending a game with her, and she knew why.

“Why can’t you just tell me what to write?” I whined. “I’ll give you a really nice credit in the acknowledgments.”

Bristol smirked. “Aw, come on, Dakota. If I did that, it wouldn’t feel like youearnedit.”

Narrowing my eyes, I grumbled, “How do I go about ‘earning’ a new roommate?”

My beautiful redheaded friend threw her head back and laughed. “We both know you’d miss me too much.”

She was right. Bristol was my best friend. We’d met freshman year at Connecticut Central University, sitting beside each other in creative writing. She went nuts over the first piece I shared in class and had been my biggest supporter ever since. Without her, I wasn’t sure I would have fifteen novels under my belt at twenty-one. It felt nice to have someone in my corner, supporting me. Even if, right now, she was the biggest pain in my ass, demanding I write something that went against the very fabric of my being.

“If you won’t come to a game with me . . . Maybe I have a better idea,” she offered.

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