JUST PLAYIN’
SHANDI BOYES
Edited by MOUNTAINS WANTED PUBLISHING
Illustrated by KILA DESIGNS
Photography by LINDEE ROBINSON PHOTOGRAPHY
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2019 by Shandi Boyes
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Written by: Shandi Boyes
Cover: Kila Designs
Photography: Lindee Robinson Photography
Editing: Mountains Wanted Publishing
DEDICATION
To Ann, and my beloved Uncle Larry,
Heaven gained another two angels way too early, but love is strong; it lives forever. Just as you both will in my heart.
Shandi xx
CONTENTS
Also by Shandi Boyes
Australian Glossary
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Shandi Boyes
ALSO BY SHANDI BOYES
Enigma Series - Steamy Contemporary Romance
Enigma of Life - (Isaac)
Unraveling an Enigma - (Isaac)
Enigma: The Mystery Unmasked - (Isaac)
Enigma: The Final Chapter - (Isaac)
Beneath the Secrets - (Hugo - Part 1)
Beneath the Sheets - (Hugo Conclusion)
Spy Thy Neighbor (Hunter - standalone)
The Opposite Effect - (Brax & Clara)
I Married a Mob Boss - (Rico - Nikolai’s Brother)
Second Shot (Hawke’s Story)
The Way We Are (Ryan Pt 1)
The Way We Were (Ryan Pt 2)
Sugar and Spice (Cormack)
Perception Series - New Adult Romance
Perception of Life - (Noah & Emily)
Reality of Life - (Conclusion of Noah & Emily)
Fight of Life - (Jacob - standalone)
Player of Life - (Nick - standalone)
Beats of Life - (Slater - standalone)
Wrapped Up With Rise Up (Novella)
Bound Series - Steamy Romance & slight BDSM
Chains (Marcus and Cleo)
Links (Marcus and Cleo)
Bound (Marcus and Cleo)
Restrained (Marcus and Cleo)
Pyscho (Dexter)
Russian Mob Chronicles
Nikolai: A Mafia Prince Romance
Nikolai: Taking Back What’s Mine
Nikolai: What’s Left of Me
Nikolai: Mine to Protect
Infinite Time Trilogy
Lady In Waiting (Regan)
Man in Queue (Regan)
Couple on Hold (Regan)
Standalones
Just Playin’ (Presley and Willow)
COMING SOON:
Asher (Russian Mob Chronicles 5)
Skitzo
AUSTRALIAN GLOSSARY
Jumper – Sweater
Tinny – Can of Beer
Thongs – Flip Flops
MGC – Melbourne Cricket Club
Cricket – Sport played in Australia, India, and the UK
Stubbies – Super-short men’s work shorts—Google search it for a visual!
Canteen/Tuckshop – Cafeteria in schools and at sporting events
Wanker — A real idiot
Tosser – See above
Scull – Drink quickly
Mate – Anyone of any gender as long as they aren’t your friend
Lounge-room – Living area
Milo – Like hot chocolate but different
Vegemite – A yeast spread a lot of Aussies eat
Tim-Tams – A really yummy chocolate biscuit. (Biscuit, as in a cookie, not those weird things you think are scones)
Buckaroos – Money
Bob — See above
Footy – Football
John Farnham — Australia Music Icon
Peter Andre — Also an Australian Music Icon, just slightly different. You might need to Google this one
AFL - Aerial pingpong. Not really, it’s a sports played here that I know nothing about!
NRL - National Rugby League
Bogan - An Aussie who usually wears flannel shirts, thongs, and swears a lot. Sometimes the male version comes with a mullet
Sneakers — Running shoes or otherwise known as tennis shoes
Map of Tasmania — Region on a girl between their thighs, often called a vagina
State of Origin — Three game football competition between New South Wales and Queensland played once a year
Golden nugget — Something worth remembering for later use
Dob me in — Rat me out, tell the cops. Tattletale on someone
Rort - A scam
Breaky – Breakfast
Undies — Male or Female undergarments: Panties, Boxers etc
Cheerio — A small red sausage, think mini hotdog Weiner
Wardrobe — Closet
CHAPTER ONE
Willow
“N ope.”
I step away from my roomie/quickly-becoming-best-friend, Skylar, with my hands in the air and my nose screwed up. I could never be accused of being overly girly, but even this is below me.
“I don’t care if we’re sitting in my loungeroom back home sipping Milo through Tim-Tams, you’ll never catch me wearing anything remotely like that.”
Skylar’s brow cocks in utter confusion.
“You’ll understand when we backpack Australia during summer break. You’ll be wearing thongs on your feet and slapping vegemite on your toast in no time.”
The bullshit expression I’m wearing jumps onto Skylar’s face. “You’ll never sell me on vegemite. The thongs though. . .” A frisky wink finalizes her sentence. No matter how many times I tell her thongs aren’t floss for her backside, she doesn’t believe me.
After slathering a second layer of orange glitter on her cheeks, Skylar lifts her blue eyes to mine. “Come on, Willow. You’re dying to show me all the great things Australia has to offer, yet you’re unwilling to get on board with an American tradition. It’s Showdown Saturday. You can’t get more traditional than this.”
“I can appreciate tradition without all that.” I wave my hand at her navy blue and orange-painted face, super-tight 69er jersey, and giant No. 1 foam hand.
I wish her visible getup was the end of her craziness. Unfortunately, I saw the streamers she stuffed into my backpack when she thought I wasn’t looking. Skylar is what we normal folks like to call “football obsessed.” If she could lift her leg above her head, I have no doubt her fanfare would extend past the bleachers. Alas, the squats she does at precisely five o’clock every morning have
nothing to do with agility, and everything to do with the latest curvy butt craze.
Unlike me, Skylar doesn’t have natural curves. Bar the areas she pays careful consideration to, she’s tiny. Her belly doesn’t hold the rolls mine do; her arms don’t wobble when she waves goodbye, nor does she wear elastic-waisted pants so her backside can squeeze into her favorite pair.
I have what is known as an hourglass figure: big breasts, tiny waist, and large hips. My grannie thinks my “womanly figure” makes me classically beautiful. I think my curves are annoying beacons that attract the wrong type of man.
Men these days want it all: a pretty face, large breasts, and a bootylicious ass on a petite frame. Even the drastic advancements in mankind haven’t clued them in on the fact that the likelihood of a woman having both a booty and a tiny waist is virtually impossible.
Corsets went out of fashion in the 1900s. . . along with most men’s realistic beliefs on an ideal woman.
Snagging a throw cushion from the couch, I take its spot before using it to hide the bulge my stomach gets any time I sit. “Maybe I should stay here? I have exams at the end of the week and a recital coming up.”
I love the kids I teach hip-hop to every Thursday afternoon and Saturday morning. Their mothers. . . not so much. Skylar and I reside in a region of America with more trophy wives per capita than any other place. God forbid the occasions their children’s sporting endeavors clash with their nannies’ one week of holidays they’re approved to take every three or so years.
When I started teaching, I never thought it would be the parents’ cells I’d be confiscating mid-lesson. Their eyes shoot daggers at me every time I enter the room, but poodle perms, botched manicures, and which housewife has a new set of boobies can wait until they’re outside my dance studio walls. I may not teach the classical ballet they wish their daughters would learn, but the values I instill in my students are still important.
Skylar clicks her fingers in front of my face, breaking me from my mommy-hating trance. “Nope. Nuh-uh. You’re not doing this again, Will. You chickened out of the last game.”
“I had the measles!” I throw my hands into the air.
She glares at me, but I can’t take her seriously with all she’s got going on. She looks like Bozo the Clown, but instead of a tear drop on her cheek, she has the number of her favorite player scrawled there in thick navy ink.
“My mother was dilated to ten centimeters but instructed not to push until the final whistle was called.”
“Because only an insane man would pretend his wife wasn’t in labor so he could watch the playoffs,” I murmur under my breath.
Pretending I didn’t speak, Skylar continues, “She scheduled her contractions to arrive only during commercials so neither she or my father would miss a single moment.”
I gag, sickened she thinks her parents have an ideal marriage.
“And. . .” She pauses, building the suspense as if I haven’t heard this story a million times since I commenced studies in the US three years ago. “Not only did the game go down in history as one of the greatest sporting events of all time, our team won.”
“All because your momma closed her legs?”
Even though I’m asking a question, Skylar ignores it, preferring to continue with her somewhat obsessive rant on how American football is why God created mankind.
“That’s the part you don’t understand, Willow. This is bigger than anything you’ve ever experienced.” She points to her cheek. “This is not paint on my cheek.”
“It isn’t?”
She shakes her head. “No. It’s my heart, my honor, and my pride. It’s what I live for.”
I’d laugh if she weren’t being serious.
She spreads her hand over her heart as if she is about to recite the Pledge of Allegiance “Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”
“Babe Ruth?”
Squealing, she moves to our makeshift kitchen to gather her keys from the bowl we cook our noodles in every night. “Babe Ruth played baseball—another great American sport, by the way—but it doesn’t come close to football. That was Vince Lombardi: player, coach, executive of the National Football League, and inductee to the Hall of Fame in 1971.”
After throwing on her 69er-emblazoned jacket, she nudges her head to the door. “Move it or lose it, Will. I don’t care if I have to drag you to the stadium kicking and screaming. We’re going to eat hot dogs and drink lukewarm beer from a can while watching twenty-two men get hot and sweaty.”
I hold my hands out palm-side up. “Why didn’t you start there? You can have the beer, but hot dogs and sweaty men. . .” My leap off the couch covers my fake eagerness.
I love spending time with Skylar, but I’d rather do it without thousands of like-minded footy fanatics.
THE CLOSER OUR train chugs to the stadium we’re about to waste three precious hours at, the less loony Skylar seems. Our cart is brimming with people dressed similar to her. There’s an even mix of 69er supporters and the team I’m not allowed to mention. They’re rivals, but their love of the game is undeniable.
They come in all shapes and sizes too. The guy on my left has a face full of piercings and a blue and orange mohawk that nearly took out my eye when the jam-packed train caused my breasts to land in his face. He wasn’t jumping in fright, more hopeful for another collision than anything. On the right we have a bunch of kids whose dads never got drafted dragging them away from the books for the night with the hope their love of football will rub off on them.
Then there are people like me: the lunatics with plain clothes, unpainted faces, and lack of team colors making them stick out like a sore thumb. If Skylar had warned me my contempt for donning all things 69ers would mean I’d be gawked at like a freak in a sideshow act, I wouldn’t have been so opposed to the idea.
Ha! Who am I kidding? Even a million buckaroos couldn’t convince me these people are normal. There’s only one occasion I’ll don a face full of paint and florescent clothing—it is when I’m on stage, grinding off calories to the latest hip hop track.
I stop picturing the kids’ faces when I reveal the outfit I’ve organized for the beginning of the season dance off when Skylar stands from her seat. She found a seat because her waist is half the size of mine, but her chest is nearly as voluptuous. Even my cleavage being all-natural didn’t award me any extra brownie points.
“Ready?”
I scan the frantic crowd making a beeline from the train platform to the stadium before nodding. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
DAMN, I thought the fans in the trains were nuts. They have nothing on the thousands of people filling the stadium. Skylar laughs when I ask if she has earplugs. I’m not joking. The roar of thousands of people cheering at once is near deafening. The last time I heard such a ruckus was when New South Wales finally conquered Queensland in the State of Origin after eight years of consecutive losses.
Now that’s what you call football. State versus state. Mate versus mate. There are no shoulder pads and helmets. Pure muscle and speed are the only things needed to play Australian Rugby League. . . and perhaps a lack of brain cells. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a dangerous sport, but it’s not for the weak at heart either.
“This is us.”
A wolf whistle parts my lips when I drink in the bleachers next to us. Leather-lined, extra-wide seats mere inches from the action. Money couldn’t buy such a prime spot. . . so how the hell did Skylar afford them? She’s not broke, but she isn’t rich either. Unlike me, her studies are being funded by her parents. I’m on a paid scholarship that thankfully wasn’t withdrawn when my knee buckled upon landing a near perfect grand jeté.
I’m drawn from reminiscing about the good old days when Skylar huffs, “These aren’t our seats. This is our section.” After pointing to the very top of an extremely long set of stairs, she says, “Those are our seats.”
The thirty pounds I’ve put on since my prima balleri
na dreams were squashed by a knee reconstruction hasn’t affected my fitness. I climbed the 9351 steps to our seats—yes, I counted—without stopping to chug a beer gifted by an unknown admirer during my climb.
That hideous display of bad sportsmanship falls solely on Skylar’s shoulders. For someone “dying to smell the testosterone of Saturday night football,” she’s seconds from passing out. Her face is as red as a beetroot, and she’s gripping the armrest of her chair so firmly, her French-tipped nails are close to snapping.
“You. Here,” she commands a man to her with the wiggle of her finger and two breathless words. “Two root beer floats, four hot dogs, and one of whatever that is.”
The man’s eyes drop to the assortment of food in his hands. “My fried PB&J?”
His reply resurrects Skylar from her death. “They sell fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches here?”
Pretending her girly voice didn’t pierce his eardrums, the man nods. “That they do—in the cafeteria, where I picked these up.”
With a wink that reveals he’s struggling not to ask her for her number, he takes his seat four rows down from us.
Skylar slumps into her chair with a sigh. “God. What happened to the good old days where hotdogs were delivered to your seat, and your beer wasn’t room temperature from hiding it in your cleavage to deceive security?”
Her questions coincide with the removal of the beer cans she snuck down her shirt seconds before our bags were checked. It also has me wondering if I got stuck in a time-warp that delivered me back to Australia. The whole “hiding your beer from security” was a trick my dad did at the cricket, except he used his beer belly as a cover for the extra lumps in his stubbie shorts. Non-Australians won’t understand the effort he went to scull a beloved tinnie at the MCG until they Google the original stubbie shorts of Australia.
Let me paint you a picture: short-hemmed, elastic-waist cotton shorts that leave nothing to the imagination. Up until this day, I still haven’t worked out how he hid an entire six-pack down his pants. It defied logic—in more ways than one.
“No, I’m good,” I assure Skylar when she tips a can of contraband my way. “I’ll stick with water.”