Kane (Face-Off Series Book 2) Read online

  Chapter Three

  KENNEDY

  Sydney hovers over me as I add the final touch to our latest blog post and hit publish, her sweet perfume filling my nostrils as she flips her long, black curls over her shoulder. She showed up at my apartment this morning, dressed in the tight skirt and top she wore last night, to bring me breakfast on her way home from some random dude’s house. Instead of preparing for my big interviews this afternoon, we ended up working on our weekly feature together.

  Tilting her head back, she laughs so loud it pierces my eardrum. “This is a good one, K. It might even be one of your best articles. What do you think? Should I read this one live for our Facebook fans?”

  I shrug against my chair. “Up to you. We could get a lot of hits, but you know I’m not getting in front of the camera.”

  Her eyes and mouth widen at the same time. “Ooh, how about this…what if we did a reenactment of what happened to our follower?”

  “That would look more like a porno than anything. Plus, who would do the reenacting? I’m broke, remember? I can’t go shelling out money to hire actors.”

  She lifts the coffee mug on the desk in front of me and chugs the rest of the liquid before slamming it back down with a thud. “No, silly. We would get one of our local followers to do it.”

  I swivel in my chair, and Sydney takes a few steps back and into the living room. My apartment is so small that my office and living room occupy the same space, but I have a fabulous bedroom closet.

  “Yeah, right,” I shoot back. “Try finding a man who will get on camera and pretend he has a baby dick. Good luck with that.”

  “But,” she counters, holding her finger out in front of her, something she often does when she’s thinking of her next move. “What if the guy didn’t know what we were planning to do with the video? I could go outside now and grab a hottie off the street, flash some cleavage and a smile, and get him to come up here and stand in front of me while I open my mouth in shock. That’s all it would take. You could film the entire thing.”

  “Why don’t we just stick to you reading the article live on Facebook for right now and call it a day? I have to get in the shower and get ready to meet Tyler Kane for that charity event I told you about.”

  “Fine.” She sticks her tongue out at me and grabs the handwritten article from my desk, before plopping down on my couch with her cell phone in hand. “You’re no fun anymore. All business and no pleasure.”

  “My business is business, and your business is also your pleasure. There’s a huge difference between our work. Just be quiet over there and tape your video.”

  Sydney nestles against the couch pillows and gets comfortable in the corner of the sofa, clearing her throat as she holds her phone in front of her. I turn around to close out the apps on my computer as she begins her introduction.

  “Morning, Puck Bunnies!” She beams, her skin radiant even after a long night of drunken sex, a natural beauty who shines in front of the camera. I am a bumbling, awkward idiot in comparison to Sydney. There’s a reason I write sports articles instead of attempting sportscasting.

  Sydney glances over at me with a wide grin as she looks into her camera.

  I give her the thumbs up.

  She continues, and I watch in awe of her ability to connect with our readers. I need more readership for my paper to keep it alive. And I could use her skills to do it.

  Today, Kennedy and I have another edition of Measuring Sticks, a recurring feature on Long Sticks and Hard Shots where we ask our readers the age old question: Does size really matter?

  You bet your ass it does. The evil grin on Sydney’s face as she says the words makes me laugh, forced to hold my hand over my mouth, so I don’t disrupt her reading.

  One of our puck bunnies, Amanda from Michigan, sent us an email about a recent incident with a guy. After a few dates, Amanda decided to score with her man candy, only to find out his stick wasn’t all that. Her reaction to his stick is the reason for this post.

  With that being said, how do you react when his stick ain’t all that? In our experience, seeing his stick for the first time is like unwrapping a Christmas present. You know that nervous anticipation that creeps up as people watch as you open the gift, secretly hoping Aunt Mary didn’t get you some hideous sweater you will have to pretend to like and hide in the back of your closet?

  Well, the same goes for undressing your man. Whether you realize or not, your man is reading your facial expressions when he takes off his pants. He needs that thumbs up or a pat on the back he would get from his teammates to let him know the puck is in play and you’re fair game.

  If you do what Amanda did and cover her mouth and laugh, which Kennedy and I think is hilarious, then your relationship with your man will end up offside. And who likes a stoppage of play? Definitely not your man. If he’s ready to tape his stick and you give him the slightest indication his equipment isn’t the shit, you will end up with a limp puck, and let’s face it, ladies, this isn’t football where balls deflate, and we like our pucks the way we like our men—hard.

  Sydney finishes up and sets the paper on the coffee table, saying her good-byes. Eying up her screen, her mouth opens wide before she makes eye contact with me.

  “Guess what, babe? We got over four hundred hits on this video already.”

  Shocked, I get up from my chair and walk over to the couch, plopping down next to Sydney so I can see for myself. “I don’t believe it.”

  She shows me the number of views and likes on the Facebook video, both of us surprised by how well it has done in such a short amount of time. “But how? We have over thirty thousand likes on our page, and we’re lucky if one hundred of them clicks like on the post.”

  “It’s all the shares.” She points at the screen with her long, manicured nail, painted hot pink to match her shirt. “We had over a hundred shares already, and the numbers keep going up by the minute. “I guess I was meant to be a star after all,” she jokes, laughing.

  “The last feature of Measuring Sticks had about half those numbers in forty-eight hours. This is crazy.” I tug at her shirt. “You have to record more videos.”

  “I do them all the time for my books, and I get way more likes and shares than this, but for our blog…this could be huge. We need to think of our next topic right now.”

  She grabs her coffee mug from the table and raises the ceramic to her lips to take a sip, staring into the bottom once she realizes she has emptied the last drop.

  “Would you be a doll and get me another one?” Sydney hands me the mug with a pouty face, the same one she always gives me when she wants something and is too lazy to do it herself.

  “Sure,” I mutter and take it from her hand, “but only because I need a refill.”

  We have been inseparable since we were in middle school and she saved me from getting bullied by Ava Prince, heir to Prince Cosmetics and an all around bitch that tried to make my life miserable while I went the prep school my father had forced my sister and me to attend. But Sydney saved me from hell at the school, and we bonded over our mutual hatred of the nasty bitches who had made Regina George from Mean Girls look like a saint.

  After I pour two cups of coffee and take my seat next to Sydney, we curl up together and go over our next blog post ideas.

  She bites down on the bottom of her lip, mulling things over and staring up at the ceiling. “What if…” Her attention shifts back to me before she takes a sip from her mug. “What if we do a feature about running into your ex boyfriend?”

  Her idea reminds me of a funny incident one of our readers had mentioned in the past, and the light bulb in my head goes off. “I have a better one,” I announce with pride. “Running into a one-night stand in public. Do you remember when Carrie from New York told us about her run in with that guy in a Starbucks?”

  “Oh right.” She lifts one leg over the other, sitting cross-legged and shifting her weight to get comfortable. “We could start it off like this.” Taking one more
sip from her cup, she readies herself and begins, “You know the joke that starts with a priest walks into a bar, and the punch line is something stupid but still funny? Well, how about a romance writer walks into a coffee shop and runs into her one-night stand? What do you—“

  I hold out my hand to silence her and interrupt her train of thought. “You’re pretending this happened to you for the article?”

  “Don’t act so surprised, K. It’s not like I haven’t had enough awkward encounters with men I had sex with. I just didn’t have the misfortune of sharing the same morning coffee shop with them.”

  “Carrie had to change Starbucks to get away from him. How she hadn’t seen him before they got it on is beyond me. I mean, seriously. How do you both get your morning coffee at the exact same time every day and not run into each other at least once until a week after they had sex?”

  “He forgot to call,” I snort. “More like he had never planned to call. Guys almost never call after you sleep with them on the first date.”

  “Not true,” Sydney interjects. “I’ve had plenty of guys call me the next day or at least within three days of hooking up.”

  “But you’ve also had your fair share that,” I say this part in air quotes, “lost your number.”

  “Maybe I didn’t give it.” She turns her head away from me, her tone defensive. “If you ever put yourself out there, you would see for yourself how hard it is to find a decent man in this city.”

  Sydney is the kind of pretty you stop on the street to take a second glance. And she’s one of those lucky girls who’s curvy and thin with big boobs and the whole package. If we weren’t friends, I would probably want to add food dye to her shampoo or do something to make her less amazing. But I bet she’d still be pretty even with rainbow colored hair and food stuck to her face. As if her looks weren’t enough to sell you, she has the kind of personality that fills an entire room, captivating everyone in it, her presence felt by everyone around her.

  I always feel as though I am the weird friend because I’d rather stay in on the weekend and marathon Harry Potter movies and read a book than going to a club. With Sydney in the same room, it’s not easy to stand out, especially when men are around. They flock to her, enamored by her witty, funny banter, and she flirts with anyone who will talk to her—women included.

  As another light bulb goes off in my head, I turn to face Sydney. “What if we did a little experiment for our followers?”

  She arches an eyebrow at me. “What kind? Like a dating experiment?”

  “Yeah. You’re a knockout but what if you were less appealing? Would you have a harder time finding a man?”

  Laughing, she brushes her curls over her shoulder, perfection in every way. “I am not a knockout. You just don’t let men see you. You’re always hiding behind a notepad or a computer screen because you had no idea how pretty and desired you are to men.”

  I roll my eyes and blow out a puff of air. “That’s a complete lie, and you know it. If a man saw the two of us walking down the street together, they would come over to me first to test the waters with you. Trust me. I have been there more times than I can even count. Guys always act like they like me when they’re trying to get to you.”

  She shakes her head, frowning. “That’s a lie. Do you remember Justin Marks from high school? He talked to you because he liked you, but you wouldn’t even give him the time of day.”

  “He was trying to steal my chem notes and find out info on you.” My tone is more defensive.

  “Nope. He wasn’t sure how to approach you, so he thought using school would work and—”

  “But you dated Justin for six months, which proves he was using me to get to you.”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “You wish. We had gotten together because you blew Justin off so many times. I had no idea he was into you at first, not until right before we broke up. After he had told me, I felt like I was breaking our girl code and dumped his sorry ass.”

  Justin was our star quarterback and one of the hottest guys in our class. Shock doesn’t even cover the emotions I feel over Sydney’s revelation. I never gave him a chance to utter more than a few words because I thought he was trying to get in her pants. “How come you didn’t tell me?”

  She shrugs and sinks deeper into the couch cushions. “I don’t know. I was afraid you would think I was a man stealer even though I had no clue that he liked you. He would joke around with you, but he did that with everyone, and I guess I never read much into it until he confessed. He said he was glad that liking you led him to me. That didn’t sit well with me, ya know? I don’t mean that in a negative way. It’s just our relationship, and his feelings for me all of a sudden didn’t seem real to me anymore.”

  “I still don’t get why he liked me over you.”

  “Are you that oblivious?” She flashes a wicked smile in my direction. “You were the super smart girl who knew the answer in every class, but you were also on varsity field hockey and softball. Whether you realize it or not, most guys, especially those that play a sport, would rather hook up with the sexy, sporty girl than the airhead. With you, they can have an actual conversation and not want to blow their brains out.”

  “But you’re smart, Syd, and you’re a famous romance author with millions of fans. You didn’t get there because you’re a dipshit.”

  “I love it when you talk dirty to me,” she says, laughing. Everything is always a joke with her even her success. She still thinks someone is punking her and that all her literary appeal will disappear over night. “I guess my brand of smut is just right.”

  “Anyway,” I say, changing the subject, “what do you think about the experiment idea? Our fans would eat that shit up.”

  “It’s a brilliant idea, but I think we should use you as the test subject. What if we tested out whether men are more attracted to inner beauty over outer beauty?”

  I sit up straight on the couch, interested in what she has in mind. “Keep going. This I have to hear.”

  She scoots closer to me and leans back so that our shoulders are touching and locks onto me with her bright green eyes. “Okay, what if we made you an ugly duckling?”

  I glance down at the frumpy sweatshirt I have on and the baby blue pajama pants with yellow ducks on them and laugh. “Yeah, I don’t think we’ll have a problem there.”

  Smacking me hard on the arm, she scalds, “Stop that! I hate when you get down on yourself.” Then she regains her composure. “Just let me finish, and then you can interrupt all you want. “You are beautiful, the kind of beauty you don’t even realize you have, and that beauty has power over men. Here’s my proposition. For the next week, I want you to dress as if you don’t own a closet full of designer clothes and shoes. We need to find you some mom jeans and loafers.”

  I gasp, holding my hand over my mouth, my eyes open wide in mock surprise. “Mom jeans! How dare you?”

  “Ha! Whatever, bitch, you’re wearing those mom jeans, and you’ll like them.”

  We both laugh uncontrollably.

  “I have a few pairs somewhere in my room,” I confess.

  “Say it ain’t so.” She winks at me and continues, “I guess it won’t be too hard to find you an ugly sweater or two. What are you going to wear today?”

  “Shit!” I hop off the couch, shaking Sydney in the process. “I almost forgot about the event. See what happens when you distract me.”

  I walk away from her and into my bedroom and Sydney follows behind, making a beeline to my closet. One nice thing about the walk-in closet is the built in wooden shelves and cedar drawers for my sweaters, which is where she goes first.

  She plops down on the carpet and digs through each drawer, handing me the few choices she finds before moving around hats and tees on my shelves.

  I stand over her as she hums to herself and tears apart my closet. “These are all great, Syd, but I need something a little more professional to wear to the event today, and I don’t think to start this project when I need profe
ssional athletes to talk to me is going to help my paper.”

  She stops what she’s doing and looks up at me, dumfounded. “You’re crazy! This is the perfect time to do it. Pro athletes are not like other men. They’re like gods among men, making them a perfect test case to start with. If you tried to this on Bob the IT guy, he will think you’re nerdy cute and be interested in you right away because he would see how much you guys have in common, but a guy like Dante West is looking for tits and ass. You can give him that just in a different package.”

  “Dante will never want to do an interview with me if you have me dressed up like some old lady.”

  “You won’t be complete road kill, babe. Just let me do my magic. Get in the shower. I’ll have everything ready for you by the time you’re all cleaned up.”

  “Fine,” I grunt, “but you better be right about this. I cannot afford to ruin my career over our experiment.”

  “Give men more credit. Not all men are shallow pigs.”

  I chuckle. “Yeah, right. We’ll see about that.”

  Once I’m inside the bathroom, I peek into the mirror, still not seeing what Sydney sees or even what Justin saw in me years ago. I guess it’s time to put this theory to the test. Nerds for the win!

  Chapter Four

  TYLER

  I had fallen asleep after my shower, only to wake up right before the Philly Clean Skills Clinic because Donovan had called me to see if I was on the way. I should have been here an hour ago to discuss the specifics with Parker and Donovan, but after last night and a rough morning, I had trouble keeping my eyes open. So, I rolled off the bed, kissed Roxie, my German shepherd puppy, good-bye, and hopped into my car with a few minutes to spare.