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  It took Gia two full seconds to realize she hadn’t released his hand or been able to stop staring at his face. She’d seen handsome men before. Plenty of them. But she’d never seen one like him. Round, thick lips, a mild cleft chin and deep dimples in his cheeks.

  There was something about this man Gia couldn’t quite place. Something she knew would leave her distracted if she let herself focus on it.

  “So, Mr. Pukui,” she managed, forcing a smile. “Please, have a seat and we’ll discuss this vacation.”

  He nodded, sitting straight, body relaxed, but strong as he began speaking. But Gia couldn’t focus, couldn’t quite understand what about this man had piqued so much of her attention in such a short time. He was handsome, but a lot of men are. He had a nice smile and was well spoken, but that wasn’t it either.

  “So, there is an issue, you see just for that two week period…” he went on, shifting in his seat as Gia continued to stare, continued to zone out everything but that nagging constant feeling that there was something significant she was missing.

  Pukui paused, jerking his gaze up, meeting Gia’s eyes before he leaned forward, elbows on his knees and that’s when she spotted it. The same rough leather cord. The twisted knot holding the pendant in place. The linebacker adjusted, pulling on his collar and the necklace broke free, the dark stone slipping onto his chest.

  She had seen this piece before. Once, a long time ago, Luka wore that same obsidian pendant. The same one he’d dived fifty feet from the White Sands Beach in Oahu to dig up. He’d almost died that day. His family would have never given it away.

  “Miss Jilani?” Pukui asked, smiling as he looked up at Gia. He looked to her, then down at his pendant, frowning when he spotted her staring. “This is from a…friend. An old friend.”

  “I’ve only ever seen one like it before.”

  Pukui nodded but didn’t ask her to explain. Instead he cleared his throat, acting as though he expected her to answer him. When she didn’t he lowered his shoulders. “So the vacation…”

  Gia needed answers and she wouldn’t get them with the man staring up at her. “That’s fine, Pukui, as long as you’re back in time for spring training.”

  “Of course.”

  She stood, and he mimicked her taking her hand before she offered it. “Thank you, truly. I was going a little lolo over not being back there.” Gia jerked her hand back, but hurried to cover her quick reaction with a smile.

  “We’re happy to help where we can, Mr. Pukui.”

  “Thank you.”

  The man smiled and, maybe from habit, maybe from self-consciousness, touched the pendant under his shirt before he nodded and left her office. Gia waited for him to enter the elevator before she called Cat into her office, shutting the door behind the woman as soon as she entered.

  “Ma’am?” Cat tried, going silent when Gia waved her quiet.

  “Kai Pukui,” she said, sitting on the edge of her desk. Out of habit, she grabbed the flying pig, rubbing her thumb along the smooth edge of one wing. “I need you to find out everything you can about him.”

  “Is he in trouble?” Cat asked, scribbling in her small notebook.

  “No,” Gia said, looking down at the smiling, laughing pig face in her hands. “But I may be.”

  - The End -

  ©Copyright 2018 Eden Butler

  All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the Author. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Author Publisher.

  Edited by Kiezha Ferrell at Librum Artis Editorial Services

  Proofread by Julie Deaton at Deaton Author Services

  Formatted by Elaine York, MNM, Allusion Graphics, LLC

  Cover Design by Cover Couture

  Photo (c) Depositphotos/mimagephotos

  Photo (c) Depositphotos/fxquadro

  Photo (c) Depositphotos/yekophotostudio

  Photo (c) Depositphotos/Wavebreakmedia

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the word-marks and references mentioned in this work of fiction.

  ROUGHING THE KICKER

  For Kele Moon, who brought me to this party and knew I’d want to stay.

  All my characters are alive because of you.

  Thank you for fifteen years of friendship, advice, support, and,

  as always, for WM Ron and Connor.

  I miss them both.

  SPANISH TRANSLATIONS

  Coño – damn

  Mierda - shit

  Bueno/a – good

  Cabrón- Bastard

  Pendejo – asshole

  Ay Dios – oh God

  Abuelo – Grandfather

  Vete al diablo – Go to hell.

  Dios por favor – God, please.

  Eres mi hermana – You’re my sister.

  Tu eres un pendejo – You’re an asshole.

  PLAYLIST

  Joanne, Lady Gaga

  Palace, Sam Smith

  Losin Control, Russ

  Skin, RagnBoneMan

  Irvine, Kelly Clarkson

  Come Back, Pearl Jam

  Love on the Brain, Rhiannon

  Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd

  Thinking Bout You, Frank Ocean

  Dancing On My Own, Calum Scott

  Nothing Compares 2 U, Chris Cornell

  All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.

  —Helen Keller

  1.

  REESE

  PRE-SEASON

  THE PREDATORS WERE CIRCLING.

  With every deliberate step, Reese Noble felt those weighted stares and the hot, wet breaths that came at her right alongside the flicker of lights and the shuddering noise of cameras. They wanted her blood. They craved it, but she would show no fear. This was too important.

  “They want you to fail.” Gia Jilani had been right. The beautiful woman had given Reese that warning the night before, gaze focused, her mouth pinched as she spoke.

  “They expect it.” Then her new general manager—the first woman with the job in the NFL—leaned forward, steel in her dark eyes, a glint of something Reese took for unyielding resolve. “Prove those bastards wrong.”

  It was a burden Reese wasn’t sure she wanted, but here she was, walking down the dim hallway, decked out in her New Orleans Steamers’ practice jersey, concrete walls painted with a silhouette of the city skyline and the names of players she admired: Jackson. Baker. Wilson. Pukui. Pérez. Then, one name that had played on her tongue for years—each syllable coming out with a sweet hum of want and heat and regret.

  Glenn.

  Would she step out of that hallway, look beyond the fans and flashing cameras, and spot him? Kickers and punters didn’t practice long and rarely with the rest of the team. It was the norm of the industry, but each step brought the noise of the crowd and told her the norm wasn’t the make of the day. They wanted to see the circus freak. Her New Orleans Steamers teammates, the coaching staff, the hordes of media, the wild, curious fans—they all wanted to see Reese Noble, first female kicker in the NFL, step onto the practice field and prove her mettle.

  But would he show? Ryder Glenn; the quarterback. He was team captain, the hundred-million-dollar man. He was the example setter and the only person in the auditorium with reason to hate her.

  “Suck it up,” she told herself, forcing back the flash of Ryder’s face when it came to her. It was handsome, GQ-worthy, an All-American sort that tempted and tried and did all that with just a hint of a grin. That face had always been sweet to Reese—like home. If she had to guess, that face and the fit, athletic bod
y that went with it had guest-starred in every red-blooded New Orleans woman’s nighttime fantasies. Probably a few of the male dancers frequenting Oz on Bourbon, too.

  Reese allowed herself a swift inhale, clearing away the dizzy feeling that came over her. She felt sick, sure she’d throw up, and she leaned against the concrete wall, right under the painted likeness of the head coach Malcolm Ricks, cheek against the cold wall as she pushed down the bile. The breath came clear, it calmed her, and Reese reminded herself why she stood behind the closed door, watching the crowd in the narrow windows—she had a job to do.

  No need to postpone the inevitable. There would be hisses and boos. There would be muttered name calling and insults. Reese was kicking in glass ceilings. She’d take what they gave her.

  “Here we go.”

  The hallway behind her flooded with light when she hit the handle, and the windows she’d seen the crowd through disappeared as Reese walked onto that field, gaze searching, shoulders back, as faces and bodies and their loud noise all came at her.

  Five feet from the door, some redneck with a confederate flag on his ball cap called her a whore. Twenty feet later came the graveled rasp of “spic” from a woman who sounded as though she’d chained smoke her way into her sixties.

  Reese didn’t care.

  She was a player, an athlete who’d trained for this for as long as she could remember. Her father had been her guide, providing her with her direction, pointing her as sure as a compass. It was his face she sought among the howling crowd. A hundred feet from the door, she found him, pale “gringo skin”—her mother had coined the phrase—pinking under the sun, sweat covering his wide brow as he hung back, behind the coaching staff and trainers.

  Neil Noble was an imposing figure despite his age. He’d sent more than a half-dozen players into the draft, three of them Heisman winners. But Reese had not been among them. She’d been the anomaly—the walk-on oddity who managed to land attention, and with that attention, a spot on the team.

  Her father was tall enough that she spotted him over the special-teams coach’s head, with his arms crossed and a clear frown as he watched her. One look told her what she needed to hear.

  Ignore the bullshit and do your job.

  She planned to.

  “Noble,” Coach Ricks greeted, glancing at her as though he’d only just realized she’d joined his practice. His face, like the rest of him, was squat and gave the impression of a man with a severe Napoleon complex. He wasn’t nearly as tall as his staff or remotely close to his players’ heights, but the man was loud and deadly serious about the game. That squat face could be scary, but his bright eyes were warm, and his smile took up most of his pink face.

  Most days.

  Not now, though...now there was practice and a job to do, none of which required Ricks to make her feel welcomed. The coach was no-nonsense, all business. He didn’t care about gender or what kind of impact signing Reese would mean for his team. He cared about yardage. He cared about percentages. He cared about winning. She could accommodate.

  “Mills is gonna put you and Wilkens through some drills.” Ricks didn’t look up from his clipboard, head tilted to one side as one of his coaches muttered into his ear. Two nods, then Ricks squinted, glaring at his players as they stopped to watch Michael Wilkens greet Reese. “You having a break?” he shouted to the team, getting a few head shakes. “Then get on your drills, you bastards!”

  Ricks dismissed her, and Reese followed Wilkens to the 25-yard line. She’d met the punter during her tryout. He was nice. A little suspect of her, but then everyone was. Reese understood the reason for caution. It didn’t matter that her father had a reputation for coaching the best athletes in the league. No matter that Reese’s tryout had been covered by every media channel in the country, and anyone with a Wi-Fi connection could look up her landing kick after kick through the uprights. She was still an anomaly. There might have been women before her in the NFL, relegated to holding the ball and nothing else during a game, but Reese was the first fully contracted placekicker in the league. That meant inclusion. That meant a contract and a nice pile of money to go with it. That meant she wasn’t going anywhere. But none of that meant her teammates or coaches had to like her stepping in to shake up the NFL’s “good ole boys” standard.

  Buddy Mills, the special-teams coach, moved behind them, and Reese felt his presence. Both Mills and Wilkens were large, but not the largest among the crowd. Around them, as Reese and Wilkens stretched and listened to the game plan Mills had in store for their half hour drills, Reese tried to ignore the sensation that came over her.

  The stares were still focused on her, though they now seemed somewhat diverted by Ricks’ yelling. There were still low calls and insults, but Reese blocked the noise of them. The goal loomed large and impressive in front of her. No matter how many times she stood in front of it or how many balls she kicked through the uprights, it never failed to impress her and neither did the assembled crowd.

  There were coaches, all too busy to do more than glance in her direction before they returned to barking commands and instructions at their players. There were her teammates, offense and defense, running respective drills, playing to the crowd and the reporters, neither of which technically should have been at Reese’s first official practice. The woman suspected Gia had something to do with that and she glanced at her team manager, standing next to Ricks, dark glasses over her heart shaped face as she kept her attention on Wilkens and Reese. Gia was taller than some of the squat, once-muscled coaches, but she stuck out among the gold and black jerseys and visor-wearing men. She was on the young side, likely in her late thirties, though she looked much younger and dressed professionally in her tan, tailored slacks and white wrap shirt. Her diamond earrings shined in the sunlight and her rose gold Rolex caught the same light when she smoothed back her shoulder length hair. For someone out of place among all these men, Gia was controlled, calm, as though she knew her job and dared anyone to keep her from it.

  She also knew Reese’s job, and like her father, Gia saw fit to tighten her features as she watched her, like she wanted no emotion on her face to encourage. She wanted Reese focused, alert.

  “We’ll start close,” Mills said, his tone light, not condescending as much as flippant. But Reese caught the smirk on his face, some disbelieving expression that told her the special-teams coach didn’t expect a lot from her. “Wilkens?” Mills nodded, tossing Michael the ball as Reese stepped into position, and her teammate knelt, holding the ball to the field.

  “Try to breathe,” Wilkens said, grinning as he watched her.

  Breathe. Yeah. That was all there was to it.

  But Reese did just breathe, letting her eyes slip closed as she inhaled, moving three large paces back and two paces to the left of the ball as she prepared to run. She blotted out the hush that came over the crowd. She ignored the whirl of the cherry picker overhead, filming all the drills and player movements as they practiced. She muted the sound of the laughing crowd and her snickering teammates laying bets that she wouldn’t even make a kick from the 25-yard line. All that noise and distraction went out of her head as Reese opened her eyes, ran for the ball, and kicked.

  The ball spun, shooting through the air like a top, and all of Reese’s attention went to that brown blur flying free from her kick. She could hear nothing but the crickets chirping around her and the thudding of her own heart as she held her breath, waiting and watching. The ball sailed through the uprights dead center—a perfect kick.

  The assembly of onlookers didn’t react. Not immediately. The hush was deafening in its own way, and Reese repressed the smile she could feel bubbling against her lips. The silence went on around her, keeping everything from her but the low, amused whistle Wilkens released, and the barked “Shit, yes!” she heard her father swear from across the field.

  That quiet lasted all of ten seconds, as if what the team—and Mills especially—had seen was some glitch of reality. There had been no way a
woman could land that kick. And, by how Mills grunted, nodding his head back toward the 35-yard line, Reese figured he was out to prove her performance had been lucky.

  “Wilkens. Thirty-five. Let’s see if she…”

  “She,” Reese interrupted, grabbing the coach’s attention with a sharp bite in her tone, “has a name and is on this team. Got a shiny new contract and everything.” She caught the ball when Mills threw it to Wilkens and tucked it under her elbow, shooting a look to the sidelines and right at the general manager and head coach before she returned her attention to Mills. “Why do thirty-five? Why not forty? Goal is ten yards past the uprights, si? So, from the forty and that would be a 50-yard kick.”

  Mills’ grin came slow, sliding across his mouth like the Grinch plotting to rob Whoville blind. It was a reaction Reese expected, but it never failed to piss her off.

  Let him doubt me, she thought, tossing the ball back to Wilkens as she walked past the thirty-five, then 40-yard line. Let them all doubt me.

  “You don’t have anything to prove,” Wilkens said, running next to her, and Reese laughed, unable to repress her humor as the tall man stood at her side.

  “I have everything to prove,” she told him, nodding for him to take a knee on the field.

  On the sidelines and in the bleachers, the crowd and her teammates continued with their bustle of conversation, most becoming loud promises that Reese would embarrass herself. Gia watched, arms folded, as Reese stopped at the 40-yard line.

  Wilkens hesitated, looking like he thought she might change her mind, but she shook her head, a silent command for him to trust her.