Until It Was Love (Copper Valley Pounders Rugby, #1)

by Pippa Grant

It’s official. Even when he’s passed out cold after giving blood, I still actively dislike Fletcher Huxley.

RugbyFletch: Which day should I seize? CoachGoldie: Tuesday’s best for me. RugbyFletch: Consider it done. CoachGoldie: Great. See you then.

I’m in a coat, and this is Fletcher Huxley. There is zero reason for my body to react like an attractive man touched me.

But handsome doesn’t equal attractive by default. Attractive is far more nuanced.

I don’t know if he’s smiling or scared now, or possibly both,

She beams at me, and fuck me. I’ve fallen into a cave full of cupcakes and rugby balls except with the sun shining and sand at my feet and someone on the way with a strawberry daiquiri. My favorite things.

No, she’s walking, talking, breathing temptation.

Silas is red as a stoplight. I’m hard as a steel plate. And I’m slowly realizing that I’m not in charge here. Goldie is. She’s playing both of us. And fuck me one last time, it makes me like her even more.

The ’stache twitches again. I think it might have saluted me. As it should.

You are not responsible for the world.

I shield my eyes. “To see if you’re okay.” “I’m bloody brilliant. Why are you—what the fuck’s wrong with you? Quit hiding your eyes.” “You need the mustache back.”

Not that I mind being a pawn. I’m a fucking good pawn and I know it.

There’s some squishy-squishy action happening in my chest. A dash of weakness in my knees. Unexpected thrill in my belly. And some wetness in my panties that does not get better when Fletcher sweeps his bulky, solid arm around me, pulling me against his crisp white shirt and hard body as we hit the edge of the dance floor.

“They were my friends when I had no friends left.”

“I used to stare at my ’stache anytime I got too full of myself. Now there’s nothing between me being hot and me knowing I’m hot.”

How hard is it to want someone who was once important in your life to be happy, even if you don’t want to be the one to make them happy anymore?

“You’re a disaster, aren’t you?” “Every fucking day. Only way to live.”

“You’re a good man,” I whisper. He slides me a completely unreadable look. “Do yourself a favor and don’t believe that.”

Hallie puffs out her chest, showing off the dragon sticker. “He my fwend.” “I hope you hold out for more than a couple stickers and candy bars by the time you’re old enough for men to buy you.”

Hallie’s chin juts out and her eyes narrow and she gives me the three-year-old version of the what the fuck is wrong with you, lady? look.

He’s the most fun kind of egotistical annoying that I’ve hung out with in a long time.

he, too, is too much of an island sometimes?

He understands the unique kind of loneliness that comes with not knowing where you’ll fit next. With needing to go somewhere else—anywhere else—to find what’s suddenly missing in your life.

So your truth finally comes out, Coach Goldie. You fake fitting in too. You’re as lost as the rest of us.

“I’d miss me too. I’m fucking awesome.” “It’s precious how you hide your insecurities behind your ego.”

I’ll hold my phone up like I’m recording the match or taking pictures and yell when everyone else does, but really, I’m reading.” She’s not lying. And that’s the funniest shit I’ve heard all day.

“I like you entirely too much.” Her lips curve up in a smile as her eyes drift shut.

There’s no one who loves me because you never loved me.

RugbyFletch: I just laughed out loud and scared my dog. CoachGoldie: If you laughed more often, it wouldn’t be so traumatic for her.

She’s leaving. But the idea of being alone with my own thoughts tonight was even worse than knowing it’ll hurt like hell to get closer and then watch her leave.

And that’s what hurts most. I’m not worth the risk to him. I’m not enough.

No matter what I could’ve done, no matter how much I could’ve tried, I was never going to be enough.

Nice would be smiling and nodding. Kind is telling you the truth.”

Your best will never be the same from one day to the next,”