Law #3: Don't Fall for the Athlete: Sweet Second Chance Romance (Laws of Love) by Agnes Canestri (ebook and pdf reader .txt) 📕

Mike never installed a fence around the house because he said this district was as dangerous as a toddler’s club.

After observing the two figures, I establish that they must be boys, probably in their mid-teens. I step out of my hiding place and yell, “Hey, you, what’re you doing?”

The boys jerk back and snap their heads toward my voice. One of them says something to the other, then they scurry away as if pursued by a lion.

I’m just deciding on whether to follow them—I still have more than enough energy left in me for a chase—when a squawking voice resounds behind me.

“Let them go, my heart.”

I whip around to find an old lady with short, permed, pitch-black hair that my mother likes to describe as “shoe polish.” She holds a blue watering can in her wrinkled hand. A tiny spade and rake stick out of her grey gardening dress’s large pockets.

“You know the boys?”

“Of course, they’re Roy and Flinn, Susan and Greg Watson’s sons. They’re harmless unless you plan on cultivating Devil’s Trumpets or suchlike. In which case, I’d urge you to put up barbed wire around your garden. These kids operate across all yards, and they’ll surely trample your flowers.”

“So they live here?” I ask, my shoulders relaxing.

Good thing I hadn’t launched into a hunt of some innocent kids. It wouldn’t have been my finest moment of integrating into this suburb.

“Yes. Their family lives on the street parallel to ours.” The woman points at my house and then to the small but neatly kept little villa beside mine.

“We’re neighbors, then.”

“That, we are. I’m Gretchen,” she answers with a benevolent smile.

“And I’m Wyatt Harrison. Nice to meet you.”

Gretchen studies me with a curious glint. “So, Wyatt, do you craft jewels?”

My jaw drops. “Excuse me?”

“I said, do you craft jewels?” She repeats her baffling question.

“Why would you ask me this?”

Some people don’t recognize me from the get-go, or even after learning my full name. Which is fine. Not all folks are football fans, after all. Still, I’ve never been suspected of being an artisan.

Gretchen’s face moves into a flustered grimace. “I heard the boys gossiping about your rings. In plural. So I just—” She pauses, then defiantly tilts up her chin, which is so pointy it’s as if she’s shaped it with a pencil sharpener. “Real men should only have one ring—their wedding band. That’s why I assumed you were in the jewelry business.”

A chuckle escapes from my throat. “Those kids were referring to my Super Bowl rings. I’m an NFL football player.”

Her features smooth out. “Oh, dearie, I see. Well, that explains it, then. Roy and Flinn are all about heaving that piece of leather.” She raises a brow at me. “So you’re famous?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, kind of. At least among sports lovers.”

Gretchen adjusts her tools in her pocket. “Well, I’m a sports lover myself. I adore watching saloon dance competitions and figure skating.”

“Ah, I see,” I murmur. This explains why she didn’t flinch when I told her my name.

“But I guess what you do must also be interesting,” Gretchen adds with a polite smirk. “Even if a football jersey can never make a man as dapper as a silk shirt and a pair of well-fitted black pants.”

I don’t really know how to react to this, but I don’t have to figure it out because Gretchen continues, “I imagine your parents are proud of your success?”

“Yes, my mom is very pleased. She saves all my newspaper mentions in a giant folder and guards all my trophies as sacred objects.”

This is an understatement. Last year, I gave Mom two Super Bowl rings to preserve. Mom arranged them into an expensive porcelain bowl which she now uses as a special centerpiece in her living room.

“And what about your dad? He must also be thrilled.”

My jaw becomes rigid. “He’s not in my life anymore.”

Gretchen misinterprets my raspy voice and pats my arm in a commiserating gesture. “Oh, what a terrible loss that must have been.”

Suddenly, I want this conversation to end. “I’m going to go inside and take a shower, if you don’t mind.”

“Ah, dearie me, of course. You’ll catch a cold with that sweaty T-shirt,” Gretchen says.

I doubt I could get anything besides heatstroke in the oppressive warmth that surrounds us, but I nod. “Indeed. So then, see you around, Gretchen.”

I turn and hurry to my porch.

I bolt straight to the bathroom and set the shower to its coldest temperature. While undressing, my mind drifts back to the talk I had with Ellie about the details of my outburst. When she asked if there were any unusual events during the game, I didn’t tell her about my father’s call.

Should I have?

I recall the suffocating wave of bitterness that Gretchen’s well-meaning small talk triggered in me and that broken piece of windowsill that still must be sitting in my jeans’ pocket. My chest squeezes.

I quickly step inside the shower and turn my face upward. I let the icy flow run down my cheeks. After a few seconds of thermal shock, the glacial droplets chill my burning scalp, stripping away my previous self-doubts.

That’s better. I did the right thing, not mentioning my dad. His intrusion definitely didn’t push me off my rocker. He doesn’t have that power over me. Not anymore.

I close the tap and dry myself. I put on comfy clothes and saunter to my fridge to check whether the housekeeper Mike referred to me has filled up the shelves.

She has, even if she did her own twist on my grocery list and bought the “healthy” variants of all the products.

I lift a fat-free, sugar-free, gluten-free yogurt, on which the manufacturer had glued a bright “dairy-free” for good measure—should anyone miss the giant vegan sign—and snort.

There are only two types of players in my profession: those who’re struggling to lose pounds and those who need to pack on some more—nobody is in between.

I belong to the second category, which is both a curse and a