Once Upon A Half-Time: A Sports Romance - Sosie Frost Page 0,10

Thompson for the morning. That was fine by me. I was still staying as far away from him as I could, even if Peter hadn’t said anything about the missing SD card.

Yet.

Maybe I had escaped without notice. That probably meant we desperately needed to clean the office. But if the clutter had hidden my tracks, I was ordering out for lunch today—the more styrofoam containers, the better.

But piling more trash on our disaster-area of a desk wouldn’t solve the problem. Sooner or later, Peter would realize the incriminating pictures were gone.

And I still couldn’t believe we had the photos. Every team we played had a folder. Offenses. Defenses. Special teams. Blitz installations. Trick plays. The images were from other teams’ practices, all date-marked before our biggest games of last season. I had no idea where they came from or how Peter got them, and I wasn’t about to Lois Lane this mess to find out.

If the league president, Frank Bennett, knew the intel we had?

Hell, if the loud-mouth Sports Nation reporter, Ainsley Ruport, thought something was suspicious?

There wouldn’t be an Ironfield Rivets anymore.

It wasn’t heroic of me to take the card, but I had to figure out what to do with it. Any, all, or none of the coaches might have been in on it. God only knew how long the team had been cheating and how many more photos they’d planned to take.

Until I had the full story and knew exactly who I could go to, the only way I could protect the players was if I kept my mouth shut.

And that was easy enough—for now.

I headed to the defense, but that crossed my path with the only douche on the team I tended to avoid. It was best to ignore him, but Bryon made it so damn hard. Sure, the team had trouble-makers—Jack had been the worst before he married Leah, though Lachlan would certainly fill his shoes. But men like Bryon were just trouble. He’d be one of the league’s greatest running backs…if he could stay out of jail.

Bryon whistled for me. “Hey, Elle. I’m ready for my close-up now.”

“Not without something slipped in my drink,” I said.

He posed, lifting the hem of his shirt to showcase his abs. “You sure? How ‘bout a picture, baby? Say the word, and I’ll give you a show.”

The hump of his hips wasn’t pleasant. That sort of gyrating would transmit six different diseases across the field.

“Sorry, Bryon.” I reached into my bag, holding up my camera lens. “I don’t have a big enough zoom.”

His middle finger was anything but gentlemanly. Didn’t bother me. The bigger the asshole, the smaller the prick.

I’d spent enough time with the team to grow accustomed to the usual alpha-jock behaviors. I knew when to duck out of the way of flying athletic supports, I had a sixth-sense on when to avert my eyes before the entire defensive line dropped their pants, and I definitely knew who not to photograph one-on-one. Over the last couple years, more and more guys ended up on that list.

Fortunately, the scariest men on the team were some of the biggest teddy-bears. I ducked into the defensive practice and joined a circle of linebackers, huddling before they drilled.

It was weird to drop to my knees in a group of six men, but ordering around Cole The Beast Hawthorne was probably a worse idea.

Still, this was an awesome shot.

“Let your hair down, Cole.” I aimed the camera. He scowled. That was fine—it added that menacing, defensive atmosphere I hoped to capture. “Pretend this is a game.”

Cole’s shoulder-length blonde hair remained firmly secured in the pony tail.

“Come on. This.” I gestured around the huddle. “Looks great. The linebacker core—all prepared for battle. Can’t ask for a better image.”

Paxton, our most senior veteran, grinned his toothy, handsome smile—always good for a photo, though his two gold front teeth usually reflected my flash. “Elle, baby, you just say the word, and I’ll give you all the modeling you could want.”

“I can’t afford your rates, Pax.”

“For you?” He flexed his biceps. “I’ll do it for free.”

“A session like that would melt the camera.”

“A wet dream come true, Elle.”

“And yet you’ll wake up the same way you always do—alone and…” I snapped a picture. “Sticky.”

“Jesus, have mercy.”

We were still missing one camera-shy, irritated linebacker. I curled my finger for Cole to approach.

“It’s not the same with you brooding,” I said.

“Yeah, Cole.” Sean, our third-year outside linebacker, took the opportunity to rest. He puffed hard, resting on his