Page 2 of The Virgin Game Plan (Rules of Love 2)
I’m not a Disney character on helium.
I’m a twenty-two-year-old almost graduate with honors from a prestigious university.
So, no squealing, just a centering breath before I tug on my pink V-neck tee and twist my mostly dry blonde hair into a messy bun on top of my head, vibrating with quiet excitement the whole time.
Yup.
This is happening.
It is on.
I grab my jeans from the locker, pull them on, then retrieve my cell and reread the email to make sure it hasn’t changed. But there it is, the same words imprinted on my memory.
Yes. Hell yes. Absolutely yes.
It delights me wildly that major league second baseman Holden Kingsley replied to my email request with not just a yes, but a jet-fueled quad-shot-latte of a confirmation.
Grinning privately, I set the phone on the bench beside me, staring at the message as I lace up my Converse sneakers. I don’t realize how absorbed I am in spinning out the possibilities until I hear Layla deadpan, “From your rapt attention, there must be some breaking news rocking the sports world. Let me guess—the LA Bandits star pitcher has a hangnail? Some minor league prospect was called up to the majors?”
The pure sass comes from our volleyball team’s star spiker. She could host a master class in sarcasm, and her resting bitch face is top-shelf. I swear she can cut glass with her stare.
“Or is your favorite retro clothing store having a flash sale?” our teammate and friend Tia teases me as she ties a paisley bandana around her sleek black hair, arching a brow. “Because it can’t be a Tinder hookup that has you all giddy.”
Layla nudges her. “You know what would? A professor who wants Reese to do extra credit.”
“You know me so well,” I say. Any of those things would rev my engine—Tinder hookups excepted. But their teasing can’t dampen my enthusiasm for this score.
An interview with a Major League Baseball rising star.
Excitement buzzes inside me like I swallowed Diet Coke and Mentos. I want to crow in victory until it reverberates throughout the locker room. But the rest of my college volleyball team wouldn’t appreciate that, and bragging is best shared with a friend or two, who will add their congratulations to your own.
So, I tuck my phone—and the news—into my pocket, shut my locker, and redirect. “Maybe I’m just excited about half-price fries at the new Mediterranean café on the edge of campus. But only for the next fifteen minutes. So, c’mon, women. Skedaddle,” I say, waving them along.
Tia snorts, yanking a tunic over her yoga pants. “I’m down, but I don’t think fries make you grin like that.”
“I dunno. Fries make me pretty happy,” I say.
“Fries make everyone happy.” Layla slides her feet into flats, then shuts her locker. “So it’s not fries.”
“Exactly,” Tia agrees, mischief in her eyes. “I think Reese has got something more exciting on her phone than sports stats, extra credit, or cute clothes.”
She’s right—on my phone is the equivalent of a winning lottery ticket for a woman with my aspirations.
I wiggle an eyebrow at Layla. She arches one of her own in an intrigued Is that so?
My sharp nod says That is so.
Tia glances between us in avid curiosity, stopping on me with a silent Really?
The three of us have been friends long enough to master communication through a code of raised brows, expressive side-eyes, and telling quirks of the lips.
“I’ll tell you as soon as we leave,” I whisper, hoping it will hurry them up.
I’m barely able to contain my excitement until we’re outside, where I grab my phone again and waggle it at them. “Here it is, in black-and-white pixels. Proof that I am the bomb. The goddess of sports podcasts.”
This is what I couldn’t do in front of the others in the locker room. It sounds obnoxiously cocky.
Because I am cocky, but only about things that I’ve worked my ass off for.
Volleyball.
Asking hard questions.
And making a plan for the future.
“Holden Kingsley,” I say, giddy about the opportunity that I made happen.
Through gumption.
Through going for it.
“I nabbed an interview for my little old college podcast with the second baseman for the LA Bandits. It’s his second year in the majors, and he crushed it in his first,” I say, feeling like I could blast off to the moon without a rocket.
Layla--whose name fits her perfectly, as if her parents knew they were going to pop out a six-foot-two volleyball star--squeals. “Shut the front door!” All sarcasm and resting bitch face vanish.
Tia stops in her tracks, blinking. “For real?”
I hold up a hand and swear, “One hundred ten percent.”
Layla demands more with a dish it out wiggle of her perfectly manicured fingers—polished with silver sparkles and barely a nick. How she manages that while playing volleyball, I don’t know. It’s one of her many superpowers. She’s also gorgeous, with carved cheekbones and amber skin that’s always radiant. “All right. Tell us all the deets.”
