Take The Shot (Philadelphia Bulldogs #1) Read online

  Take The Shot

  A Philadelphia Bulldogs Novel

  Danica Flynn

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Sneak Preview of Score Her Heart

  Follow Danica

  About the Author

  Content Warning: This book deals with past miscarriage of a character and infertility.

  Take The Shot

  Copyright © 2019 Danica Flynn

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information browsing, storage, or retrieval system, without permission in writing from Danica Flynn.

  ISBN: 978-1-7342012-0-8

  Cover Photography: Halay Alex/Shuttershock

  Cover Design: Emily’s World of Design

  Copy Editor: Melinda Utendorf

  For my partner, J, thank you for always believing in me, even when I didn’t.

  Chapter One

  DINAH

  The bass thumped against the wall, shaking me from my concentration as I tried to write. As if on cue, my phone vibrated against my desk lighting up with “Mom” across the screen. I silenced it, dodging yet another call from my mother wherein she tried to persuade me to go out on a date with another “nice Italian boy from the old neighborhood.” See also: balding, divorced dads. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but I was only thirty and she kept trying to set me up with guys closer to my dad’s age. My family meant well, but they just didn’t understand what it was like to be a widow at my age. Or what it was like to endure a dangerous miscarriage that almost killed me.

  Not that I’d ever told them that last part.

  I put my headphones on and tried to drown out the sounds of my neighbors having another party. I didn’t really mind the noise, it was a Friday night after all. I was always invited to their shindigs, but tonight I had to get some writing done. I stared at the screen blankly, trying to figure out how to dig myself out of this plot hole. Working a full-time job in marketing sucked when all I wanted to do was write my novels.

  I cranked up the volume of my own music. I drummed my fingers on the tabletop as if it would will the words out of me. When I heard the thumping bass through the wall again, I knew tonight just wasn’t my night. Not that I was going to blame the hockey players next door, this was on me.

  I lived in a kind of swanky condo next door to two pasty Canadian hockey players for The Philadelphia Bulldogs. TJ was a lovable douche, but friendly enough. His roommate, Noah though, was a tall, lanky hottie with long hair who said “eh” a lot. Even when I had a husband, I had to admit he was cute.

  When Jason died suddenly in a car crash two years ago, Noah had sent flowers and came to the funeral. He handled all the hockey questions my dad and three older brothers threw at him, even though it had been wildly inappropriate. My family were loud-mouth Italians from South Philly, so it hadn’t really been all that shocking that they razzed my friend, the hockey player, at the funeral for my husband.

  The Mezzanettis did not give a single fuck about anything.

  Like ever.

  My phone buzzed on the desk and I tried not to smile when I saw it was from Noah. Speak of the devil.

  NOAH: Is the music too loud?

  I smiled at his question. He was such a good old Canadian boy. I could barely stand it. It definitely made it harder for me to not think about just banging one out with him, just one time. I couldn’t do that, no matter how much I wanted to, that would have made things too complicated. Plus, I was pretty sure he was just really nice because he was Canadian and was not into me like that. He was a sweetheart, and it wasn’t like he ever had fantasies about me.

  ME: Kinda. I’m on deadline.

  NOAH: Sorry. I’ll ask them to turn it down.

  ME: It’s fine!

  NOAH: Come over!

  ME: What part of deadline, did you not understand?

  NOAH: Please?

  A smile curled up onto my lips. I couldn’t help it when it came to Noah. He may have been a total hockey hottie, but he was also my best friend. It was sweet that he cared enough to ask if the music was too loud. That was Noah, he always was putting others before himself. I think deep down I knew that it was one of the reasons I couldn’t stop myself from fantasizing about what his big hands could do to me every time he smiled at me. Or how when he looked at me with amusement in his azure eyes it sent shivers all the way down my spine. Half the time, I didn’t know how I kept my composure when I was around him. Maybe it was because I knew I was one hundred percent not his type. Besides, at the fresh age of twenty-two, he was a bit too young for me.

  I couldn’t focus tonight, but it was crunch time, and I was coming up on the deadline to get my first draft to my editor. It was fine, I would just spew garbage and fix it later. I turned up the volume on my music and poured out all my sorrows into my laptop. I still had a plot hole, but I didn’t know what to do about it right now. I didn’t think it was something I was going to resolve tonight. I had to look at this with fresh eyes, not eyes that were lingering on my phone.

  I closed my laptop and proceeded to melt into my couch listening to My Morning Jacket, even though it reminded me of Jason. And then I felt even guiltier for thinking of Jason and Noah within the same sentence.

  My phone buzzed against my thigh. I rolled my eyes at TJ now hitting me up to come party with the dudebros.

  TJ: Girl, come over!

  ME: On deadline!

  TJ: Come over anyway! Noah would be happy to see you.

  ME: He’s SO not into me. I’m too old for either of you fuckers.

  TJ: hahaha. Yeah…okay….

  ME: What does that mean???

  TJ: come over!!!!

  Ugh, TJ was insufferable. I loved that guy, but also I hated him because he saw right through me and he knew if things were different I was down to clown with his roommate. He had been encouraging it, and I didn’t understand why.

  I met my husband in college, and I never imagined being with anyone else. It also didn’t mean I needed to be alone forever. I didn’t exactly think fucking my next-door neighbor, no matter how cute he was, was a particularly good idea. Not that I hadn’t thought about it, multiple times and when alcohol had been involved. That’s how TJ found out that I had the hots for his best bud. We went out drinking together last year when Noah had been dating this pretty blonde. I had let it slip that I thought Noah was hot, and TJ had been holding it over my head since then.

  It had been two years since Jason’s death and since Noah found me passed out in the stairwell. Immed
iately he had jumped into action, took me to the hospital and probably saved my life. Then held me while I cried after the doctors told me that the scarring when they did the D & C meant it would be harder to bring another pregnancy to term. I never really wanted kids before, but learning that it was unlikely for me, straight gutted me for months.

  I never told anyone about the miscarriage, so naturally everyone just assumed the dark depression I went into afterwards was solely because of my dead husband. That was only partly true. The only one who knew and kept my secret was Noah. Noah, the gentle giant who let me soak his t-shirt while he stroked my hair and told me everything was going to be okay. Even when I felt pretty fucking far from okay.

  Noah was a good friend. The kind who held my hand while I cried myself to sleep in that hospital bed. The kind who missed a practice and got benched for a couple games, because he cared more about his friend than playing a fucking hockey game. Even if it could have cost him his career. Which was why nothing could ever happen between us. I couldn’t bear to lose his friendship.

  I was trying to make a decision on if I should attempt to figure out my plot hole some more, or if I should go next-door, when my phone buzzed again. This time it was my oldest brother Frankie.

  FRANKIE: Can you please just tell Ma you’re okay?

  I groaned and typed away back to him.

  ME: I’m FINE! Just tired of her trying to set me up with old men.

  FRANKIE: Sorry, Dee-Dee.

  FRANKIE: I’d tell her to back off, but you know how she is.

  ME: I thought it would get BETTER when her and Dad moved to Florida.

  FRANKIE: You’re cute!

  I groaned again. I loved my family, but they could be nosy as fuck. And blunt as shit. Two days, TWO WHOLE DAYS, after Jason was in the ground, my mom started asking if I was seeing anyone. Like, lady, let me mourn a bit! Of course it was because my mom was expecting grandchildren. Even though she already had one from Frankie and his wife, and honestly my meathead brother Tony probably had some running around he didn’t know about. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I couldn’t have kids. I wasn’t ready to pour a pound of salt into that wound.

  I sighed, and dropped my phone back onto the couch. Now I was frustrated, and I really needed a drink. I urged my body off the couch and decided to say fuck it and go next-door. Maybe the shitty beer TJ drank would mellow me out.

  TJ opened the door and screeched mere seconds after I had knocked, “You came!”

  I laughed when he bent down to my five-foot-two frame and laid a sloppy drunken kiss on my cheek. A lovable douche indeed. He must have been really into it tonight, because if there was one thing I discovered about the Desjardins, it was that they could put it away. His twin sister was somehow worse, if that could be believed. His pale face was red from all the beer and his short cropped dark hair was hidden by his backwards baseball cap. What was it with hockey boys and wearing hats backwards?

  “Not in two years,” I joked.

  TJ broke out into a hyena laugh, that I was concerned he was going to fall on the floor and start rolling around on it. He wiped the tears from his eyes. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously,” I deadpanned.

  “What about that guy last month you met at one of our games?”

  I rolled my eyes. The last Bulldogs game I went to, I ended up chatting up the guy next to me. He was nice enough, and I figured it was time to get back on the horse. It was the wrong horse. Like so bad, I had to tell him to stop before we even had sex. I came over here after he left, laid on the floor in their living room and asked Noah to put me out of my misery.

  I put my hands over my face in mortification. “Please don’t remind me.”

  TJ handed me a beer. “Come on girl, we need to find you a man soon!”

  I scoffed at him but took the beer.

  TJ was smirking at me now. “I think I know one perfect for you.”

  My eyes slid over to Noah sitting on their couch with a beer in hand. “T, he’s not into me. Plus, the age difference would be weird.”

  “We’re not that young! What’s eight years? That’s nothing!”

  Chapter Two

  NOAH

  I sat staring at my phone wondering if Dinah was going to text me back, but she was on deadline for her next book, so I knew she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t let me read this one yet, even though I told her I really liked the first one. She had been surprised that a dumb jock like me wanted to read a cute romance story. Like men didn’t want to have a happy ending too or some other bullshit. I ran a hand through my shaggy hair and took a long sip of my beer.

  TJ slumped on the couch beside me. He glanced at my phone in my hand and rolled his eyes. “Dude, are you still pining?” he asked with a groan.

  I shoved my phone in my pocket. “What?” I played dumb and took another huge gulp of my beer.

  TJ raised a black eyebrow at me. “Come on, D has no idea you’re into her. You got to tell her.”

  I shook my head.

  I guess my subtle ways of telling Dinah I was interested hadn’t really worked. TJ was my teammate, roommate, and good bud, but Dinah was the first person in my life that I thought was my best friend. The first woman who looked at me not as Noah the hockey player, but Noah the person. When we first moved here, I was heartbroken when I found out she had a husband. Then he died tragically and she broke apart. I had sent her flowers, and tried to be a good friend to her. I even endured her insane family who instead of consoling their daughter and sister, told me to stop turning over the puck so much. Philly fans were something else.

  She would only ever see me as her good bud and kid brother. Definitely not someone that she would ever wrap her arms or even her legs around if I was being honest with my fantasies.

  TJ cocked a grin. “If she comes over, you have to finally make a move. You’re both single, it’s time, bro!”

  I chewed my bottom lip.

  TJ nudged me when he heard a knock on the door. He jumped up and answered it, before I could argue with him further.

  He greeted Dinah with a wet sloppy kiss on the cheek. A stab of jealousy struck through my heart at the sight of it. She laughed at him and walked to the kitchen island in our open-concept condo and struck up a conversation with our teammate Benny. Which was hilarious because Benny at six-foot-four and her at five-foot-two, looked like the opposite ends of the height extremes in the room. I chugged more of my beer and amped myself up. This was it, I had to finally make a move on her, if not, she would never know and I would regret it for the rest of my life.

  Probably.

  Dinah was sitting on our kitchen counter, drink in hand and laughing hard at whatever TJ and our other teammate Hallsy was saying to her. Benny was no longer hanging in the kitchen, which I was kind of grateful.

  Women loved Benny, and he was the kind of guy women could seriously fall in love with. He was a good guy, not the asshole playboy the media tried to paint him as. Ever since some racist-ass gossip columnist painted him as the “Latin Lover” he had developed a reputation as a playboy. One that couldn’t be further from the truth, especially since he was the only player I knew that didn’t do one-night stands. Like ever. Being a pasty white guy from Winnipeg, I was never going to understand what my teammates, Hallsy, Mac, and Benny went through being players of color, but I knew there needed to be a culture change in our sport. Especially after shit like that got published in the media about one of my best buds.

  Hallsy’s girlfriend Mia was just shaking her head at all of them. Dinah looked up at me when I walked in, and I mean really looked up, because with my six-foot-two frame I tended to dominate every room I walked into. Her dark brown hair was pulled up into a messy bun, and she wore black leggings and an old-school Patrick O’Sullivan jersey.

  Uh oh, she must have writer’s block if she finally came over tonight. She should have looked sloppy, but she looked comfortable, at home, and gorgeous as hell. I shouldn’t have been into it, but I so was.

 
; She smiled at me, her green eyes looked like they sparkled underneath the lights of our kitchen. Damnit, I didn’t think I could tell her how I felt now. I finished my beer and took another out of the fridge, getting a second one for her. She laughed when I handed it to her and I bent over to hug her in greeting.

  “Hey,” I whispered into her ear, trying to be all calm and cool. When really I was a ball of nerves.

  She wrapped her small arms around my back as I hunched over to meet her small frame. “Hey,” she said back.

  I pulled away and TJ was making this annoyed face at me. It wasn’t like I was going to make a move on her with everyone standing around watching. Mia was looking between me and Dinah carefully, and cocked her blonde head in question. I ignored it.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked, trying to cut the tension in the room.

  TJ’s eyes sparkled and I knew I was in trouble. “I asked D for relationship advice.”

  A smile tugged at my lips. When we became friends, I had complained to her that girls were so complicated, but she explained it was pretty simple. I thought about her answer a lot. A LOT. Also maybe when I was horny and in the shower too. And maybe she was the star in those images I conjured in my head.

  ”Yeah? What’s that?” I asked, nervously pushing my brown hair behind my ear.

  I turned to Dinah and she was chugging her new beer to keep from repeating it.