Playing The Field: Texas Outlaws Series

By Erika Reed

It had always been a dream of Jessica Katz to someday cheerlead for a national football league. While holding down two jobs, trying to provide for, and keep an eye on her younger brother, she does her best to avoid any and all relationships. That is, until the sexy quarterback for the Texas Outlaws keeps crossing her path, changing how she feels about meeting the man of her dreams, and someday falling in love.

            Keaton Treggs has spent his entire life waiting for his chance to play professional football. And then finally three years ago his prayers were answered as the Texas Outlaws recruited him for the team. His main goal in life is to take his teammates all the way to the Super Bowl, proving to everyone he is good at what he’s worked for all his life. What Keaton doesn’t need is another meaningless relationship. But after a few encounters with the petite blond cheerleader, he knows Jessica is special and can’t wait to teach her a few of his quarterback moves.

Could Jessica be willing to give up everything she has worked so hard for in life, just to be with a man that could just possibly break her heart like all others?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Erika Reed
• Release date: Apr 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781533762160

Book preview

Playing The Field

It had always been a dream of Jessica Katz to someday cheerlead for a national football league. While holding down two jobs, trying to provide for, and keep an eye on her younger brother, she does her best to avoid any and all relationships. That is, until the sexy quarterback for the Texas Outlaws keeps crossing her path, changing how she feels about meeting the man of her dreams, and someday falling in love.

Keaton Treggs has spent his entire life waiting for his chance to play professional football. And then finally three years ago his prayers were answered as the Texas Outlaws recruited him for the team. His main goal in life is to take his teammates all the way to the Super Bowl, proving to everyone he is good at what he’s worked for all his life. What Keaton doesn’t need is another meaningless relationship. But after a few encounters with the petite blond cheerleader, he knows Jessica is special and can’t wait to teach her a few of his quarterback moves.

Could Jessica be willing to give up everything she has worked so hard for in life, just to be with a man that could just possibly break her heart like all others?

Chapter One

Lucy is going to kill me for sure this time, Jessica said to herself as she tried to remember everything she needed for today’s practice. With her big workout bag slung over her shoulder, she raced through the parking lot towards the locker room, praying she could just sneak in without being detected by any coaches. Lucy, the head coach for her cheerleading squad, wouldn’t allow any further excuses for her tardiness, even though it wasn’t her fault this time.  

Running out of gas on the way to work was her brother’s fault this time. Jessica had warned her little brother a million times when borrowing her car that the gas gauge hadn’t worked in years and to keep an eye on it. She made him promise to fill the tank up with the twenty bucks she’d given him before he left to pick his girlfriend up for the movies. She asked him to look at the odometer, being aware of how many miles she could go before running out herself. It was her only estimation of how much gas she had so she wouldn’t run out, like today.

I’m going to kill Brian when I get home, she huffed to herself, racing through the parking lot of the Texas Outlaws Stadium. One would think an intellectual eighteen-year-old with a 4.3 grade point average would put his brains to good use. Times like these she felt whatever she said to him went in one ear and out the other.

Thankfully, a Good Samaritan, an older man by the name of Michael, had stopped to help her when she was on the side of the road. He offered to get gas for her at the nearby gas station and she had given him ten bucks. Normally Jessica wasn’t so trusting with money, especially when she only had ten bucks in her wallet until payday on Friday. But she was desperate to trust the kind man who stopped to help her out.

Thank goodness there are still kindhearted people in this world that can still be trusted, she thought on her way to the stadium. She didn’t want to screw it up, being her last and final chance to be a national cheerleader. Cheerleading had always been her life, even as a little girl.

Jessica had been surprised the day she received the call from Lucy Prescott telling her that she had heard about her years of cheerleading and her experience. Jessica had been surprised one day at receiving a call from Lucy Prescott, who said Jessica had been referred by a friend. The Outlaws were holding auditions for their cheerleading squad and Lucy personally invited her to show up for the tryouts. Jessica had heard of the tryouts and planned on attending them when she saw the post on the internet. But to have the head coach of the team call her, personally asking her to show up for the tryouts—that made her heart skip a beat. She didn’t think life could get any better. Until a week later when she got the call after her audition letting her know she was in. Becoming an Outlaw Cheerleader was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

She looked up to see her friend, Bianca, holding the locker room door open for her. "Jessica, boy are you lucky Lucy had to go pick up the uniforms today or else she would write your butt up for being late, again. You know her golden rule—‘If you can’t make it on time, there are many others that would love to have your spot on a national cheerleading team. You’re all replaceable, you know.’"

Jessica had become close with Bianca ever since they met in cheer camp. Bianca Drake was an ex pageant queen for Miss Texas. She was tall and leggy with long brown hair. The woman was all natural, not a flaw in sight. She was very outspoken and was kind to everyone. Bianca was wearing her usual attire for practice, consisting of black spandex shorts and their practice Outlaws T-shirt, and her long hair pulled back into a ponytail. She was a natural beauty.

Yes, Jessica was remarkably lucky, and thanked her lucky stars every day because she needed this job. Jessica couldn’t afford to screw this up. When she was younger, she’d lived and breathed nothing but cheerleading, with long, strenuous practices three days a week, and numerous competitions every weekend.

Has anyone asked for me? she asked, rushing past Bianca. She heard the door slam behind her.

Nope. You’re good. I’ll meet you out on the field. Everyone is making their way there now so they won’t notice you’re late. Lucy asked that we meet her on the field, along with the other coaches, when we’re all dressed.

Today was supposed to be the dress rehearsal for all the girls on the field as they sat in the stands, watching the football team play on the field. Their practices had all been separate, until today. There was never a need for the cheerleaders to practice at the same time as the players. Less distraction, the coaches told them.

The Texas Outlaws was a newly formed team. The Outlaws were playing their third year of professional football this season, and by the looks of them during practice, they looked pretty good this year. The first year they’d played, fans and other teams didn’t quite take them seriously, and that caused the team to bomb eighty percent of their games, losing the momentum to play. Jessica had followed the new team from the beginning. She had always loved football, especially while watching TV on the couch next to her father every Sunday.

Until her mother died in a tragic car wreck, leaving her father to support her and her brother. And as if things couldn’t get much worse for Jessica, a police officer showed up at their house one day, letting them know that their father’s car was found at the bottom of the canyon. In that one year, everything had been taken away. The bill collectors were calling, and her parents didn’t have any life insurance. Jessica was forced to raise her brother on her own, only providing for them on a waitressing job.

Jessica was forced out of the home she was raised in, and had to move into an apartment with Brian. Money was tight at times, but she worked as much as she could to pay the rent and make sure they had food on the table. Brian was important to her. She wanted to make sure he finished school and got the education he deserved. Jessica was hard on him at times, but only because she wanted him to succeed in life and become something. That’s why she put all responsibilities first, leaving herself to be the responsible parent. She had no social life. Work and Brian came first, which left little time for extra curricular activities. Jessica couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone out on a date. Or had sex, for that matter. Work came first.

Jessica walked into the brightly-lit locker room, passing the bank of red metal lockers that lined the walls until she came across hers. She quickly unlocked the combination and stuffed her things inside before removing her sweat pants and zip-up. Her hands still smelled like gas so she walked into the bathroom and washed them in the sink. Jessica admired the glass countertops with the gold and red chips of glass sparkling all the way down the counter. On all the walls was the Outlaws logo, a big cowboy hat with a lasso resting on the side. The designers that had created the new stadium didn’t hold back on any of the embellishments. The architects knew exactly what they were doing when they built the Texas Outlaws Stadium—nothing but the best for their home team.

Jessica grabbed her bottle of water, hand towel, and red and white practice pom-poms and left the locker room. As she made her way to the field,