The Love Playbook

By Suze Winegardner

When Avery Stone learns her dad will be fired if his high school team doesn’t make the playoffs, she has to get her head out of her day planner and do something—anything—to help him win. Even if it means secretly coaching the team’s newest player, who seems to have more game than skill.

Lucas Black just transferred to Hillside with a fake name and a big secret. The MVP of every team he’d played on since he was seven—not to mention the MVP of every post-game party—he can’t understand why since arriving at Hillside, he’s been unable to catch a single. Freaking. Ball.

Until…Avery. Amazing, kind, generous, and crazy-freaking-hot Avery.

As Lucas goes from zero back to hero and Avery struggles with just what Lucas means to her, she inadvertently sets them on a collision course with Lucas’s secret…a secret that could take down not only Lucas but her father too.

DISCLAIMER: This Entangled Teen Crush contains a football player hotter than the Texas sun, hotel cuddles, and a steamy makeout session in the rain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Nov 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9781640638563

Book preview

For Rick, who's been fruitlessly trying to get me to love Tom Brady for years. I love you. (But not Tom, sorry.)

Chapter One

Lucas Black ran down his street like his hair was on fire, trying not to overthink the phone call he’d just had with Coach. He told himself not to get his hopes up, but he was beginning to realize that it wasn’t hope that had him running to his new high school football field: it was a need to feel alive.

To feel…anything, really.

This could be his chance to feel normal again. To prove to himself that he wasn’t a complete and utter failure, because the past few months had been a total shit show for both him and his mom. And it had been all his fault.

Being the new transfer to a small town hundreds of miles away from his friends—or the people who used to be his friends—was definitely not how his senior year was supposed to go down, and it was sucking balls. Seriously sucking balls.

This was supposed to have been his year, his time to reign at school, his time to officially announce that he was going to play football for the college that had been pursuing him for nearly four years. He was supposed to be living his best life. Kicking names and taking ass.

But no. Of course it hadn’t happened like that. Basically, it had all gone to shit.

And as all if that wasn’t bad enough, he was also late. He hadn’t wanted to explain to Coach that his mom’s car had its wheels stolen two nights after they’d arrived and that he had no way of getting back to school, so he’d shoved some gear into a bag and taken off running.

Coach had called him in for a practice. Normally he wouldn’t have been allowed to play for a couple of months after transferring schools, but Lucas had gotten lucky. Someone was either hurt or sick or hadn’t made the right grades, and the team was desperate to fill the spot. An opportunity like this was all Lucas wanted. A chance to feel like himself again—something he hadn’t been able to do since his mom and he had changed their names and run away across the state. A chance to feel at home in his skin again. A chance for a fresh start.

After that, all he wanted was to get decent job—something that wouldn’t interfere with school or football—and then he’d keep his head down and just try to keep everyone happy. Especially his mom. He’d have a little money to help get them by, and he’d have football again. That was all he needed to get through this shit show of a senior year.

So Lucas Black ran. The fact that he still had fairly decent sneakers when everything else had been taken away was some kind of blessing. Maybe his only blessing. He ran, taking the most direct route he could to the high school football field. Practice started thirty minutes ago, and he’d promised to be there as soon as possible. He couldn’t be late. No brand-spanking-new-just-arrived-in-town player ever wanted to be late for their first practice.

Hillside was about to find out what real football was all about.

He ran down his street, past the convenience store with the metal grating over its windows, past the burned-out car that had been there since before he and his mom had arrived in town, and past the black sedan with the people inside. The car that everyone in the neighborhood seemed to know was the undercover cop car.

He counted his steps as his feet pounded the dirty, overgrown sidewalk.

One two. One two. One two.

He remembered what his life used to be like, before everything fell apart. He couldn’t shut down the memories: the clunk of the floodlights, the crowd singing the fight song, the sound of the band, the cheerleaders, the smell of hot dogs and fries and funnel cakes.

One two. One two. One two.

The residential area gave way to boarded-up strip malls, more litter, and boards. He leaped over a fire hydrant as if he was jumping over a sliding tackle by a cornerback.

He inhaled deeply, and in his mind, he was running on the field. He caught an impossible ball, tucked it under his arm, and ran. Blood pumped around his body as his situational awareness processed the imaginary play like a slo-mo replay. He saw every player on the field, every move, every thought that flickered across the safety’s face as he made up his mind to try to intercept Lucas. Too late, though. Way too late, buddy.

One two. One two. One two.

The crowd got to their feet, cheering as he made yards. They were chanting his name. Lucas! Lucas! Westman! Westman! Nothing could stop him now. He kept his eye on the end zone. So close. His breathing came fast, his heart pumping with exhilaration. He ran faster and faster. He was going to be the Friday night hero again…

Brakes squealed, ripping him from his memory and scaring the crap out of him. He stopped dead in the middle of the road that he’d started to cross without looking. The car stopped about an inch from his leg. He looked slowly up at the driver. A little old man was peering over the steering wheel with eyes like saucers.

Sorry. Lucas held up his hand in apology. Sorry.

Steadying his breath, he took off again, trying to remember where in Hillside he was. Had he passed the Esso station yet? Had he missed the…? No, he could see the beginning of Main Street. He hadn’t gone wrong. He just needed to go right at the light by the hardware store.

It was useless thinking about how things used to be. He’d blown all that shit out of the water. Wrecked everything. All his dreams and, much, much worse, all his mother’s dreams, too.

The light by the hardware store was red, so he braced his arms on his knees as he caught his breath. He had to get his head straight. He wasn’t Lucas Westman anymore. He wasn’t the school MVP four years running, and he wasn’t the player all the colleges had been after.

He was Lucas Black, a transfer, and he had to keep a low profile. Be good enough. Just good enough to be on the team but average enough to avoid the attention of anyone outside of the school. Of anyone who would put Lucas Westman and Lucas Black together. Anyone who would find out that he’d been banned from playing.

Lucas Black. Lucas Black. Lucas Black, he chanted under his breath as he waited for the light to change.

A bell jangled behind him, and he spun around.

A girl in a Hardy’s Hardware green apron was standing, seemingly stupefied, in the doorway of the store. Her blond hair was caught back with a hairband that ran across her forehead, and her dark eyes watched him. How long had she been standing there?

Hi, how are ya? he asked in a way that wasn’t supposed to get a response. He turned back toward the road. What was with this light? Why wouldn’t it change?

Are you all right? she asked.

He turned his head. What? Oh, yeah. Fine, thanks. Just, err. Just remembering history—dates and names. Tests, huh? Nightmare. Shit. Now he was babbling.

Her forehead creased. Okay. She stretched the word out as if she were sending out sensors to see if he was telling the truth.

The light. Thank God!

Bye! He booked it over the road and then tried to walk normally. Like a normal person. Whatever that looked like. He turned back and then cursed himself. She was still there, looking at him walk away.

He had to get his shit together. Like, now.

…

Avery Stone watched him go. Lucas Black? She didn’t remember learning anything about a Lucas Black in American History. Was he okay? Did he seem okay? Should she have made sure he was all right? A perfectly fine person didn’t brace himself on his knees as if he were about to upchuck and chant the name of some guy like a kind of mantra.

Wait. Was he that new guy that had come from the other side of the state? Lexi had mentioned a new guy, but Avery was sure she’d never seen him before. Or maybe she just hadn’t noticed him? Lexi always complained that Avery would miss Armageddon because her head was always stuck in her planner.

She’s not wrong.

A guy like that, though… He might be worth putting her planner down for. He was nice to look at—that much was clear as soon as he’d turned around. Dark hair, angular face, dark eyes from what she could see in the late afternoon light. Built nice, too. But that didn’t take away from the panic that was clearly written on his face when he’d seen her standing there. Should she have asked him if she could help in some way?

She took another breath. And another. Her tense shoulders fell, and she remembered what she’d been doing when she’d found that boy talking to himself. Brooms. Changing the price on the brooms. Mr. Hardy, her boss, was a big Weather Channel fan. If a windstorm was going to blow in, he reduced the price of brooms. A heat wave? He reduced the price on freon. A hurricane? Boards and nails and hammers. No one in Hillside actually needed to watch the weather forecast—they just had to drive by Hardy’s Hardware and see what the special was. And they all shopped at Hardy’s because pretty much every other hardware store in the county increased the cost of items they knew there would be high demand for. Mr. Hardy said that price gouging was un-American. Hillside agreed with him.

After sliding the new, red-bordered Special Offer price tag on the big wire basket of brooms, she returned into the store. The door tinkled as she entered, and Mr. Hardy’s head popped out of the back to make sure it wasn’t a customer.

Just me, she called.

He smiled and nodded then disappeared again. He was trying to repair Mrs. Diaz’s lawn mower again—for the fourteenth time, no exaggeration. They knew she couldn’t afford a new one, so they kept repairing it, pretending to her that the thirteen-year-old mower that her husband had bought before he died was still under warranty.

Avery sat back down on the stool in front of the check out, picked up her spiral-bound planner, and propped it on her knees. Her father was due to come pick her up from work at 7 p.m. on the dot. They’d have dinner at 7:30 p.m., which would last twenty-five minutes, plus five for clean up, and then she’d have an hour and a half to complete her English essay before another twenty-five minutes of reading and then bed.

She took a deep breath in and let it out with a satisfied whoosh. The day had gone perfectly—exactly as she’d planned. She already had the bullet points for her essay written on a note card paperclipped into her planner, so she may even have an extra ten to fifteen minutes to text with Lexi tonight.

She pulled out the note card to check that she still agreed with the notes she’d made. As she flipped the card to check the bullets, the bell over the door jingled. She looked up. Evening, Mr. Duchamp, she said with a smile. What can I get you? She stood and smoothed down her apron.

That’s okay, Miss Avery. I’m just here to see Benny. He pointed to the back.

Mr. Hardy called out, Come on back, Dan.

She waited for him to disappear into the workshop and then sat again. She pulled her planner toward her and then thought better of it. She needed to restock the baking soda at the back of the store. Mr. Hardy had ordered early, ready for 5th grade volcano science project week.

She put the planner carefully on the stool and went around to the last aisle.

After taking the remaining three boxes off the shelf so she could restock the newest boxes at the back, she went to the stockroom to get the new delivery. She hefted the box into her arms and tried to shut the door with her foot.

As she did, she heard her father’s name. She hesitated. Her father was the head coach at the high school, but nonetheless, it was strange to hear her boss talk about him to someone else.

All I’m saying is that I spend over thirty grand on the sponsorship of the team. And that’s just this year. If they don’t finish well—and I’m talking at least get to the playoffs—I’m going to have to bring someone else in, Mr. Duchamp said.

Bring someone else in?

By now, all pretense of walking slowly past the door had gone, and she was absolutely, definitely eavesdropping.

Mr. Hardy sighed. We all put money into the football team, Dan, and in turn that money comes back to the town. This is a football town. Coach Stone has done us proud.

Was it just her, or did he not sound too convinced at his own words? What was happening? When had firing her father ever been a topic of conversation? In that second, she realized how naive she was.

Sure, her dad was the head coach. Sure, her twin brother was their quarterback, and sure, it was just a high school team. But, of course, the new floodlights that had been put in last season and the Duchamp Motors locker rooms that had been refurbished…and now she realized that they hadn’t been called that because Dan Duchamp had been a Hillside football player back in the day. They’d been called that because he’d paid for them. The Duchamp Autos name was all over the football field, the team uniform, and the board outside the school that announced special events.

It was probably the only way a town as small as Hillside could afford a football program at all.

Coach Stone has done us proud…in the past, Mr. Duchamp said. But you know as well as I do that there’s been a lack of discipline in recent years. I mean—he started to sound annoyed—one of the three available receivers has a broken ankle, and the other can’t run as well as he can catch, and, well, Coach mentioned that there may be a late transfer coming to take his place, but no one’s heard of that kid, so who knows, ya know?

The box of baking soda started to slip, so she hefted it up. She should go, stock the shelves. But she wanted to know more. Football was her father’s life. At least since… She made a move to go, but at Mr. Hardy’s next words, her whole body froze.

You can’t fire him. Not after what happened last year. No one in the town would stand for it. His voice had dropped to a virtual whisper, as if he didn’t want to say the words out loud.

Mr. Duchamp lowered his voice, and Avery strained closer to hear him through the door. And last year was the first year in the town’s history we weren’t in the top three teams of the conference. It was understandable. What that family went through—may God rest her soul—was terrible, just terrible. No one raised an objection when we crashed out before playoffs. But that was last year. We can’t afford to turn a blind eye this year. We need to nip this downward spiral in the bud.

Tears prickled Avery’s eyes, but pure stubborn willpower stopped them from falling. How long would it be before she could eavesdrop in safety, without being anxious that someone would bring up her mother’s sudden death? She tried to stifle a sniff. She was done. It was true—eavesdroppers never heard anything good.

I have someone who can slide into his place seamlessly. Someone who will raise this team where it belongs, Mr. Duchamp said, his voice almost shaking with a spiritual passion. He’s the son of my oldest friend.

Oldest friend or oldest customer? Mr. Hardy asked mildly.

"What does it matter? Look, I’m not the only one in the community who has money wrapped up in the team. Those boys need to hit regional headlines, they need to be in the county newspaper, they need to be all over social media—especially Brady’s Balls—to make the sponsorship investments worthwhile. Right now, Coach needs a miracle." Mr. Duchamp’s last words trailed her as she soundlessly pushed through the swing door back into the shop.

Avery refilled the shelf on autopilot. She, her dad, and her brother had barely made it through the past year. Without football as the glue, she couldn’t imagine what would happen to them. Both Avery and her brother would be off to college next year, and then what would Dad have? Avery pictured him sitting alone in their house. In her imagination, the bright magnolia walls were gray, the blue carpet dark. Her dad in his recliner, eyes glazed as he watched Sports Center, dirty plates and beer cans around him.

Since her mother died, Avery felt like the family was hanging on by a thread. Everything was. One stiff gust would blow them back to the day her mom had died. A family barely talking, barely functioning. She couldn’t stand that. She didn’t know if they would survive another death in the family. And that’s what Dad losing his job would feel like.

Okay. She took a breath, pulled her shoulders back, and kicked the empty box down the aisle back to the counter so she could flatten it for the trash. She put her planner carefully on the counter again and sat back on her stool as if nothing had happened. After a second, she jumped off it again and just plain tore into the box. In seconds, it was less flattened for the Dumpster and more torn to shreds by a savage monster. She hid the remnants in the stack of neatly folded boxes and took another deep breath. She sat back down and pulled her planner onto her knees.

She’d started using a planner at her father’s request, after their family therapist had suggested that they might help keep moving her forward after her mom had died. The pages were tangible evidence that she had a future. That her life was still in place. Everything up until she graduated from college had been laid out. Her father said it kept her on track, but she liked her planners because they made sure there were no surprises. She hated surprises. They sucked.

The planner always had all the answers. There was a whole section for her pros and cons lists, but there were absolutely zero pros to her dad being fired and all the cons. She flipped through the pages to her motivational statement page then to her stickers. This was clearly not a problem that a you go, gurl! sticker could fix. She closed it again and stared at the cover, feeling vaguely betrayed that it couldn’t help her or comfort her like it usually did.

She peered blindly through the window out to the crossroads. What she wouldn’t give for that boy to come back and help her. To tell her everything would be okay.

There was no doubt she’d have to tell her father about what she’d heard. Right? But how? How did you tell your father that the good people of Hillside thought he was doing a crap job and that he would be fired if the team didn’t get to the playoffs? How did you go against an important sponsor with a replacement coach in the wings?

She had no ideas, and she was running out of time.

Chapter Two

All Lucas had to do was catch the ball.

It should have been too easy. He’d read the QB’s play; he’d be in exactly the right spot at exactly the right time to snatch the ball from the air and bolt for the end zone. Simple. It was just a ball. Just a freaking ball. Nothing special about it, like the thousands—no, hundreds of thousands—of balls he’d caught every day since he’d hit middle school. He’d done this every day of the past four years and twice a day during the summer. Just see the ball, get his hands on the ball, and then run with the ball. Easy.

But right then, it seemed like the whole getting-the-ball-in-his-hands thing was well below his skill