Page 1 of Playing to Win
Chapter 1
Callie sighed in exasperation as she felt the same hand grabbing her ass for the third time that night. Forcing herself to smile cheekily as she turned to face the culprit, she mentally visualized her shoe connecting with his balls. She eyed his skinny frame, noting that his greasy brown hair was in desperate need of a good shampooing. And he seriously needed to tell his tattoo artist that his rendering of what should be a pin-up girl on his arm shared a remarkable resemblance to Steve-O from MTV’s Jackass.
“Sir,” she said, the fake smile plastered on her face, “I’ve asked you three times tonight not to touch me. Please, enjoy the game. Looky but no touchy. That’s the rule.”
“Well, now, girly. I figure that if the owner of this team didn’t want us to handle the merchandise, he wouldn’t have your particularly fine ass hanging out of that skirt of yours,” he told her with a waggle of his much in need of a plucking eyebrows.
“You leave me no choice, sir.” Callie smiled. “You know that saying, ‘Third time’s a charm’? Well, in your case, the third time isn’t so charming.”
The uncouth fan, mistaking her smile for a sign of acquiescence, reached in for another grab of her derriere before turning his eyes in the direction Callie now faced.
Callie gave a slight nod to Nico, the six foot five, two-hundred eighty-five pound, all-muscle bodyguard to the cheerleaders of the Oklahoma City Thunder professional basketball team. Without preamble, he walked with frightening authority down the steps and planted himself in front of the offender. She watched ass man’s eyes go wide as he put two and two together, realizing that Nico was the third time’s a charm Callie previously mentioned.
“I believe this lady here asked you to stop harassing her,” Nico said in his big, grumbly, totally peeing-down-your-pant-leg worthy voice. “And you didn’t listen. Now you get the pleasure of my company escorting you out of the building.”
“Come on, man. I was just kidding with her. Besides, don’t you think that ass of hers is just screaming to be grabbed? I know you’ve thought it,” weasel man said with a snarl.
Callie hid a smile behind her hand, knowing what was coming. Nico grabbed the man by the shirt, lifting him until they were eye-to-eye. “While it may be grab worthy, that doesn’t mean some pesky jerk off who needs his unibrow plucked in a desperate way can touch her. You. With me. Now.”
Nico, his grip still on the front of the guy’s Kyle Kelly jersey, proceeded to haul him up the stairs amid cheers from the crowd who witnessed the spectacle.
“Finally, that jerk wad will stop harassing you,” a lady in the stands yelled Callie’s way. “Three cheers for Nico!”
And with a hip, hip, hooray from the fans sitting in her section and a sigh of relief coming from Callie’s lips, she turned back to the game to do her civic duty.
Being a professional basketball cheerleader had its perks. Callie did get paid, even though her salary was miniscule at best. Still, it helped pay the bills, so who was she to complain? The real money was actually made when she was required to go to sponsored events like fan meet and greets or hobnobbing with the executives of the team. Besides, it also got her an amazing courtside view night after night without paying for a ticket. For a daughter of a career basketball coach, that was a dream come true.
Four years ago, when Callie shared with her dad her idea of how to help pay for the expense of her college tuition, he vehemently objected to her doing anything that had her willingly dress in a skimpy outfit, shaking her booty for the masses. One look at her first semester of tuition, however, in addition to a closer look at his annual salary, he reluctantly decided that her having a job that allowed for the flexibility of an NBA cheerleader was something he could tolerate if she promised it would not be a long-term thing. When he realized that another perk of her job was a guest ticket for every home game, he all but drove her to the audition himself.
Callie was actually surprised when she made the squad. She had no dance experience, unless you counted dancing in the mirror in her bedroom with her high school best friend, Carly. Being raised by a single dad didn’t exactly make her the most girly girl on the planet. But she was blessed with a God-given sense of rhythm and, according to the squad choreographer, Vanessa, a body that only Mother Nature could supply.
She didn’t see what was so special about her. Gawky all through her junior high and high school years because of her five foot, eleven inch frame, she finally started to develop some curves around high school graduation, but nothing that would cause Hugh Hefner to knock on her door. Her naturally curly white-blonde locks seemed to have a mind of their own and her hazel eyes wouldn’t be in a commercial for Maybelline mascara anytime soon. Still, she knew she wasn’t unattractive. Whatever the reason Vanessa decided to give her a chance, she wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, as her Nana always said. Whatever that meant.
An ear-rattling buzzer sounded, signaling a mandatory commercial time-out. Pom-poms in hand, Callie bounced down the steps with the rest of her squad, ready to dance their new number for the sold out crowd.
“You ready for this, girly?” Aria, her best friend on the squad, asked her.
“If by ready you mean ready for my bed and some shut eye, then that’s a resounding yes,” Callie responded as the music started, signaling the beginning of their number. Seeing the local news camera guy, Brian, coming in for a close up of the two of them, she flipped her hair for all she was worth and gave the camera what she hoped was a sultry, not a care in the world smile and not a crazy, deprived of sleep grimace. She also tried not to bend over at an inopportune time and show a bunch of cleavage to all of TV land. While the blue, orange, and white Thunder dance uniforms weren’t as skimpy as some other NBA cheerleaders were, they would definitely not win any modesty contests. It took Callie three hours to walk out of the cheerleader dressing room in the get up at her first rehearsal.
“Sleep? Who said anything about sleep?” Aria asked, effortlessly flipping her long auburn locks over her shoulder and smiling seductively into the camera like it was second nature, making sure to show off her substantial cleavage in the process. “We have that promotional event with the season ticket holders after the game, remember?”
Callie couldn’t contain her groan. “Are you kidding? I totally forgot about that! I have a huge test on Friday that I’ve totally procrastinated studying for. Now I won’t get to sleep at all because I’ll have to stay up until then to have any sort of chance to pass it.”
“Girl, how many times have I told you that college is overrated?” Aria said, throwing her arm over Callie’s shoulders as their number drew to a close and the buzzer signaled the end of the commercial time out. Making their way back to the sidelines, Aria tossed her a grin before making her way to where she always stood. “I always told you I could get you a job at the bar with me.”
Aria’s dad owned A Shot of Whiskey, a ridiculously cool bar located in downtown Oklahoma City. She had been trying to convince Callie to drop out of college and take one of its lucrative bartending gigs for as long as Callie could remember.
“And have my teetotalling nana roll over in her grave to come back and haunt us all? No thank you, ma’am,” she said with a grin her best friend’s way. “Besides, what are you going to do when your beauty fades and you have to depend on something else to get your tips?”
“Easy,” Aria replied with a wicked grin. “I’ll get a boob job so they’ll be looking at my knockers instead of my face.”
Tossing her head back in a laugh, Callie couldn’t help shaking her head. “Your knockers are big enough as it is. Get them any bigger and they’d be calling you Dolly Parton.”
“A girl can hope, can’t she?” Aria said with a wink and an exaggerated sigh. “Well, if you ever change your mind, you know where to find me. And besides, what’s one late night? Kelly’s the star of the evening, which means you get to take about a million pictures with the hunk.”
“Yay, me,” Callie said with a grimace. “I can’t wait.”
“What do you have against the man? He’s utterly delectable. I wish I were lucky enough to get to pose with him for a few hours.”
