Offside: A Bad Boy Sports Romance

By Abbey Foxx

I can't get that enormous prick out of my head.

Penny -
Jasper Stone is massive in every respect.
He's a beast on the field, an animal off it, and just what we need to turn our season around.
Medal winner, star athlete, one hundred percent alpha male at the top of his game.
The trouble is, it's the wrong one.
That's not the only thing either.
He's cocky, arrogant and constantly in trouble, and that's when he manages to keep that thing in his pants. 
I can't stand him, but unfortunately that doesn't matter right now, because apparently we don't have a choice. If we want to survive for another year, we need Jasper Stone to help us do it.
It's a risk, but the potential reward is absolutely huge. After all, staying up isn't something Jasper Stone seems to have any trouble with. 
Nor is being big and strong. 
Bad boy Brit, banned athlete, and bigger all over than I've ever seen before, if there's one thing that Jasper knows how to do, it's win.
He'll stop at nothing to get what he wants. Girls, medals, millions of dollars - there's very little that can get in his way.
With him on our team, there's no way that we can lose, and right now Jasper Stone is a free agent.
I just didn't realize I was too.

Jasper -
Banned.
No rugby for a whole f*cking year.
I wouldn't be here if I had the choice, but apparently, I don't.
The owners want me out of the way, and if I want to continue getting paid, I've got to play ball.
Literally.
I don't even know how to play this game, but that doesn't seem to bother anyone.
The Tigers get me for free, Corsham get rid of their trouble maker and I keep earning money. 
Everyone wins. 
All I've got to do is keep my head down, survive for a year and get the hell out of there when I'm finally done. 
Simple, right?
It is until I meet Penny.

*Offside is a 75,000+ word bad boy sports romance heavy on the steam and light on the sports!*

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abbey Foxx
• Release date: May 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781386777069

Book preview

Prologue

London, England.

Headquarters of the Rugby League Disciplinary Board.

An hour behind schedule.

Jasper

I guess arriving over an hour late to a disciplinary hearing isn’t an ideal way to make a good impression, but at least this time I’ve got a valid excuse. Three valid excuses actually.

I mean, as lucky as I always seem to be in that respect anyway, it isn’t every day I get to wake up stark bollock naked, handcuffed to a bed, with three incredibly beautiful girls alongside me, so what was I meant to do? I couldn’t exactly leave without saying goodbye, you know, a few times at the very least.

If this panel were a little less robotic and a little more human, and this environment wasn’t even more hostile than it usually is, they might understand. As it is, I know nothing I say will work in my favor anyway, so I apologize for my tardiness, take a seat alongside my manager, Dougie, and wait for them to get on with what they need to do.

I’ve been here a dozen times before so I know the process inside out. They tell me I’m a bad boy, slap my wrists and give me a fine. After that I get back out on the field and do what I do best.

The middle of the three men in front of us, a jobsworth called Hendrix who has always hated me, finally stops jabbing his pen against the table and leans forward, the sound of the chair creaking awkwardly under his weight echoing around the otherwise silent room.

None of these people are ex-players, so I have no idea how they think they are qualified to comment on what goes on either on or off the field, but, whatever, I’ve been telling the world that for a while and nobody's ever done anything about it, so I suppose there’s no reason why they should start listening now.

You do realize the importance of this meeting, Jasper?

Come on, it’s not like I haven’t been here before. Give me my fine and I can get back to training.

Hendrix lets out a long sigh, looks down at the table and then back up to me.

I think it’s a little more complicated than that.

I look at each of the other panel members in turn, neither of whom have the balls to look me in the eye and then back up to Hendrix. Whatever’s happening here it’s not how it usually goes down.

Complicated, like, how exactly?

Look, shall we just get this over with?

Dougie’s voice is as gruff as one of the rocky outcrops in the highland mountains he comes from, and he looks like he’s had even less sleep than I have. I guess having his best player constantly in trouble can’t be easy for my manager, but he knows as well as everyone else in this room that half the shit that I get involved in is almost never really my fault.

I get picked on in the press and I’m a target for criticism and scrutiny just because of the kind of person I am. It’s what happens when you’re the best player in the league. The best player in the world, actually. Girls want to fuck you and paparazzi want to spread it all over the news to see you fall. Actually, girls have always wanted to fuck me, so I guess that’s just me.

Fifty two week suspension starting today.

My heart skips a beat. The words hang in the silence of the room like shotgun bullets about to rip through me. CLICK CLICK goes the button on the top of Hendrix’s pen and I have to control myself not to tear it out of his hands and crush it into a million pieces.

For a long moment I think it must be a joke, but it seems like I’m the only one who does. No-one is laughing. No-one is saying anything at all. Fuck this. How dare he try and ban me?

Dougie hangs his head at the end of an angry sigh that sounds much more resigned to the news than I like.

You have got to be fucking kidding me, right?

I can make it a two year ban, Jasper, I have that power.

Hendrix leans back in his chair, the wood creaking in his wake, his work here done. That fucker is absolutely loving this.

What the fuck for? Dougie?

Dougie speaks up, but his voice lacks conviction. You’re going to ruin the kid’s career.

It sounds like a statement and not a warning.

Douglas, you and I both know that the only person ruining Jasper Stone’s career is Jasper Stone.

Hendrix has his pen pointed at me like the barrel of a gun.

I want to appeal. I want another panel. A proper fucking panel.

Sit down, Jasper.

I feel Dougie’s thick hand on my arm, pulling me back into my seat. Hendrix clears his throat and then chooses his words carefully, his eyes moving from Dougie to me and back again.

You can appeal the decision, and it will go to another arbitration panel, and in six weeks time, when that panel has received the appeal, they will make the same decision I have, extending that ban for an additional fifty two weeks based on my initial recommendations. You’re lucky with a year. I could have buried you for what happened.

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. This is not at all what I expected to happen today. Not even close. Talk about going from paradise to hell in under an hour.

You’re fucking up my career.

Thank you, Jasper, your comments have been noted. Now, if you don’t mind, we are already behind schedule today.

Well behind schedule, one of the other panel members adds.

Now he’s showing me the door. This piece of shit pen pusher who’s never even picked up a rugby ball in his life is pointing his soft hands at the exit and showing me where to get off. I can feel the red mist about to descend.

We’re not finished here, I say calmly, teeth gritted and every single muscle in my body tense.

Douglas, with all due respect, get your player in line before he risks a lifetime ban.

I’m on my feet again, knuckles pressed against the table leaning towards the panel.

I’m the reason people watch this sport. I’m the best player in the fucking league.

Hendrix smiles at me with a corporate, shit-eating grin.

Not anymore you’re not.

Dougie has hold of my arm again. Come on. We’ll talk about how to appeal this outside.

This isn’t over, I warn them, my finger pointed accusingly at each one of the three men in turn, before Dougie manages to pull me away.

We are halfway to the exit when I hear the CLICK CLICK of that pen again, and my temper gets the better of me. I break away from Dougie, storm back over to the desk and show them just what a one year ban means to me.

When the security guards finally pull me away, all six of them, the table is a mess of broken wood and formica splinters, Hendrix is a shivering mess, and my ban has been doubled in length to two whole fucking seasons, without the ability to train rugby, officially, anywhere in the world.

I don’t feel good about it. I have a bitter taste in my mouth that makes my stomach lurch in all kinds of directions and none of what’s just happened seems real.

No rugby, anywhere for two years. If I so much as pick up a ball they’ll give me a lifetime ban.

Dougie thinks we can get it reduced again, but only back to one year and after what’s just happened, it’s going to take some serious grovelling on my part. Whichever way I look at it, they are fucking me. Me. Jasper fucking Stone. The future of rugby in this country. The future of rugby anywhere in the world.

I’m not going to let them get away with it. No-one can tell me whether I can or can’t play the game I’ve spent a whole lifetime making mine. My dad would turn in his grave if he knew what they were planning on doing. I need a drink to work out how to get this sorted, because this does not end here, not even slightly.

Moxlin, Arkansas, USA.

Moxlin Tigers training ground.

Penny

I find Dad exactly where I expect to, at the very edge of the field, staring out into the void of silent space in front of him. I catch him here from time to time, alone, just looking at the nothingness, perhaps reliving past glories or contriving to create new ones, maybe just hoping someone will answer his prayers.

I take my place alongside him without a word, and Dad puts his arm around me to draw me into him.

We have a month before the new season starts, six more to save this club from bankruptcy, and anything else but a winning run and we are seriously fucked. It’s likely we are anyway, but I don’t have the heart to tell Dad that just yet.

Dad’s been in charge here for as long as I can remember, putting me officially in charge of the finances when I graduated from college. Believe it or not, the Tigers were once a superbowl winning side. Looking at them now, they are exactly what everyone has been saying for a long time, the joke of the NFL.

We went 0-16 last year. 0-16. That was with the first draft pick who spent fifteen of those games recovering from injury. The year before that we didn’t even score a touchdown in the whole season. Our last win came at the very start of that campaign two years ago, from a series of field goals and a hell of a lot of good luck in a messy game we won by a single point and shouldn’t have.

Things have been on the way downhill for a long time but Dad and I refuse to let go.

Investors want to buy him out, rip down the roots of the club and change our history. They want to get rid of the Tigers and build a shopping mall in our place. A fucking shopping mall. Neither of us are going to allow them to do that if we can help it, but the decision may be slipping out of our hands.

This club is hemorrhaging money, and it’s affecting our lives away from football as well. Dad’s not exactly ancient, but he’s getting older, and the stress of this job is affecting his health. We’ve got first draft pick again this year if we want it, but we’re going to have to do some creative accounting just to afford our existing player’s wages, let alone get anyone new in. Dad and I both know we’re going to have to pass it up, we just haven’t told the players that yet.

This club needs a miracle, and there is an outside possibility I may have just found one. A glimmer of hope in a world that has been devoid of it for what feels like an eternity. Either that or it’s the final nail in a coffin that’s taken forty years to build. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Jasper Stone.

Dad doesn’t even look at me.

We can’t afford any more players, Hon. We can barely afford to pay the ones that are willing to stay.

What if we got him to play for us for free.

Now his eyes drop away from the field and he turns to fix them on me.

Free? Look, I know you’re a whizz with numbers, Penny, but you and I both know that if there are two things that are certain in the world of football, it’s that a quarter is almost never fifteen minutes and nobody ever plays for free.

I’d expected exactly this reaction from him and I’m not going to give up so easily.

Well, this one might.

Then he’s not a football player.

Actually, he’s not a football player.

So who is he?

Who’s Jasper Stone? Ok, where do I begin?

London, England.

The Divine ‘O’ Nightclub.

Jasper

One fucking year without Rugby. Two if Dougie can’t manage to get the ban reduced. How the fuck am I going to survive? Alright I’ve got a bit of cash stacked away from the last couple of years, but who the fuck is going to want to touch me now? Adidas have already pulled out and Dougie reckons Gillette and Hackett will be quick to follow. This is seriously bad news.

Hey, aren’t you Jasper Stone?

I’m suddenly surrounded by a group of good looking girls desperate to get a selfie. It isn’t the best moment, but this might be what I need to cheer me up. I pose, let them take turns sitting on my lap and give each one of them a kiss on the cheek when I’m done. It’s not like me to pass up an opportunity and even though these girls don’t stick around for long after they’ve got what they want, I’m happy to give it a go. I’m not in a long term relationship and I don’t want to be. I like playing the field in every sense of that word, and now I can’t play it in the literal sense, that leaves only one option left.

I didn’t come here to dance either. I came here to drown my sorrows and to pick up my spirits.

The news is already out.

My ban is official. I’ve got press conferences I’ve been avoiding and interviews with newspapers and media agencies I keep putting off. If I see another journalist buzzing round me I’ll do without hesitation what I did that landed me in this mess in the first place. I have principles about privacy, but I guess that kind of thing doesn’t fit well with a public persona. I’ve never been able to assimilate that in the way that Dougie, the Rugby Board, and my club and country have always wanted me to.

Fuck paparazzi. That guy deserved it. What I don’t deserve is this ridiculous ban and I know my fans agree with me. People love me, you just need to read social media and not daily newspapers to see that. The rugby board are going to regret it. The whole of the country is going to regret it.

Do you regret it, Jasper?

A cute blonde has slid in alongside me. At first glance I can’t tell if she’s pap or not, but those kind of questions I don’t answer anyway.

Yeah, I should’ve ordered a treble.

It might be wise to save your money.

Then I’ll have a quadruple please, on the rocks.

I shake my glass and the girl smiles at me. Just tidy enough to keep the reality from the door that little bit longer.

She’s not paparazzi, but it isn’t long before we encounter some, outside the club on the way back to mine. These fucking people are like angry wasps ready to swarm over anything that looks like it needs to be stung.

Fucked up, Jasper?

You can’t avoid us forever, Jasper.

Comments, please?

Fuck off.

Anything else to say?

I’m a little drunk, and a lot pissed off. I shouldn’t do it but I can’t help myself. These people are like the scum of the earth and they need to be told. I grab one of the cameras, wrench it out of the guys hand and look for all the world like I’m about to smash it against the ground. I don’t, but it doesn’t stop him pleading.

That’s my livelihood. I’ll sue you. I’ll send you to prison.

Instead I just turn the camera on him and start clicking so the bulb flashes off in his eyes.

How do you like it now? You fucking worm.

When I’m done, I rip the memory card out and toss the camera back to him.

That’s my work, my intellectual property. That’s a criminal offense.

I place the card on my tongue and swallow it.

I’ll let you know when it comes out and you can come round and pick it up.

When we leave a crowd has gathered round us, whooping, cheering, filming the whole thing on their mobile phones. This fucking country is obsessed.

I’ve had enough. I flag a cab down and blondie and I head back to my apartment.

Moxlin, Arkansas, USA.

Moxlin Tigers training ground.

Penny

I show Dad the tapes, the newspaper articles, the records, both personal and criminal, the good, the bad, the shocking and everything else in between. His answer, once I’m done, is a resounding No.

This is the animal you want to bring to Moxlin? This is your idea for a solution to our problems? He’s not even playing our sport.

It’s a fair point, but if anyone can make the crossover, as long as he stays out of trouble for long enough, it’s Jasper Stone.

I consider myself a bit of a nerd when it comes to sports. It’s why I’m here standing next to my dad in the first place, while my brother, who was never able to throw or catch a ball of any size like his little sister could, holds down a very corporate job in a very big city about as far away from Moxlin as you can get.

I’m not only in charge of the accounts department here at the Tigers either. I help scout players and I look after PR. Jasper Stone is the best rugby player to come out of England in the last generation, which isn’t just my own opinion, it’s universally acclaimed. Some consider him the best player in the world currently, with the potential to be one of the all time greats, and I may have just negotiated a deal to get him to play for us, ok not at rugby, but at a game that largely employs the same techniques, all completely for free.

He may be our only hope, and if he isn’t, we lose nothing.

Players make transitions from one sport to another all the time. You can’t deny he’s not talented.

He’s a mess. We don’t need that kind of player here, no matter how good he is. No matter how bad a situation we’ve found ourselves in.

Well, unfortunately you and I both know that’s not entirely true.

Forget it, Penny, it’s a nice idea, but it’s not going to work. We need to concentrate on rebuilding the team with the players that have stayed loyal to us, and you need to concentrate on working out how to pay them and keep the club afloat.

He’ll go elsewhere.

Let him.

Dad, I’m serious about this. Watch the videos again. This guy is two meters tall, weighs two hundred and forty pounds and can run the hundred meters in eleven seconds. We just need to give him the ball and he’ll do the rest.

And what does he do when he hasn’t got it? Go looking for girls he can fuck and guys he can fight.

I roll my eyes.

We’ll handle him.

Who’ll handle him?

I’ll handle him.

Dad knows I’m a strong woman but he still can’t help but give me the look.

If he comes, he comes for free, Dad. Free. What have we got to lose?

Our reputation.

Our reputation? It almost makes me laugh. "Dad, we are the joke of the NFL. Our reputation can’t get any worse. If we don’t start winning, this is the end of the Moxlin Tigers forever. We don’t get a do-over, we don’t get another season, this is it, our absolute last chance to save ourselves from the annals of NFL obscurity."

And you think this meathead from across the pond is our only saving grace?

He’s the best chance we’ve got.

Dad shakes his head.

Then we’re fucked.

London, England.

Corsham Rugby Club training ground, manager’s office.

Jasper

What the fuck? No fucking way.

I thought they’d put this meeting on to tell me they’d spoken with the board and got the ban lifted entirely, not this. What the fuck do I want to go to America for? I don’t know anything about America, or Americans, or that bullshit fucking dance that they make out is a sport over there. I’m an English Rugby player not an American Football fucking jock. I don’t know the first thing about it.

Now hang on a minute, Jasper. If you want to continue getting paid, you may not have much of a choice.

Dougie, Alex Santos, some chick from HR who I’m pretty sure I haven’t banged but might have done by the way she’s been fluttering her eyelids at me, and some other young looking girl who I presume is Alex’s new secretary, all wait for a response.

Paid? Full pay? My pay?

I thought that might prick your ears up, lad.

I want to continue playing rugby, here in England, not American Football a thousand miles from home.

You’re lucky there’s still a place for you here at the club at all after what happened. It’s only because you’ve been with us since you were six and Dougie knew your father that you are, so I’d be careful how you tread if I were you.

You know that ban is bullshit. Jack Thompson puts an opposition fan in hospital and gets suspended for a week, I threaten a scum paparazzi and get banned for two years.

On top of everything else.

They’ve had it in for me since I started. And before that they had it in for my dad as well.

That’s as may be, but it doesn’t change the situation we find ourselves in now does it?

And your answer is to send me to America.

It might give you a chance to stay out of trouble for a while.

"It won’t give me a chance to play rugby though will