Hooked: A Stepbrother Romance by Iris Parker Read Free Book Online Page B

just down the street. It’ll probably take us longer to drive than to walk. How much did you spend on this?”
    “Not too much,” Simon reassured me. “It’s pretty cheap if you rent for the whole season,” he added as an afterthought.
    The words sank in slowly, and a thousand criticisms popped into my head. The money could’ve kept the rec center open even longer, and what if we lost and couldn’t advance? Yesterday’s surprise of custom team uniforms had felt excessive, but a bus ? It was crazy, it was…
    Looking around, I cut my inner critic off mid-rant. Everyone was hooting and hollering, grinning from ear to ear. They looked good . So proud and professional, each player wearing a shirt emblazoned with his or her name. They were grinning from ear to ear, looking happier than I’d ever seen.
    They were all part of something bigger than themselves, now. The pressure had been building for weeks, team spirit growing along with the anticipation of testing themselves against others. They were full of adrenaline, and not a single trace of the apathetic boredom of last month could be found on any of their faces.
    Today, we all wanted to win. Today, we all loved rugby.
    And Simon.
    As much as I wanted to criticize him, the man had been nothing short of a great coach. I’d been sure that sticking him with the girls would sabotage him irrevocably, but he’d managed to form a real bond with them in record time. Even Shauna, who resented male authority thanks to the string of assholes her mother dated, seemed to sincerely like Simon.
    The bus ride lasted all of ten minutes, most of it in traffic, and the enthusiastic teens surged out without missing a beat. The other team was already there, and soon the referee began calling the players to the field.
    Simon and I waited together on the bleachers, side by side. His strong thighs pressed into me, and the skin of my arms erupted into goose bumps. It took all my willpower to avoid the shiver that was threatening to run up my spine. This man, with his quiet masculinity, was beginning to drive me crazy in more ways than one.
    In sore need of a distraction, I fixed my attention onto the field. My team was up first, and I started motioning to them, reminding them that they needed to listen to the referee and his instructions. But out of the corner of my eye, I could see Simon waving at someone far up in the bleachers.
    She was in the fourth row, standing straight across from us and waving frantically back in our direction. Sliding my sunglasses down from my forehead to hide my eyes, I stared shamelessly at her distant figure. Of course, I had no business doing it, but part of me needed to know who Simon was seeing.
    I felt a sick lurch in my stomach as I looked her over, noting the flamboyant bright red hair and the pink floral dress. He had very much found someone here, someone he was already declaring his love to, I realized as I recalled the phone conversation I’d overheard.
    Did that surprise me? After all, I was probably the last person on the planet who still disliked Simon. He was everybody’s hero, a great catch. Hell, even I was starting to warm up to him.
    Still waving, he turned his smiling face to me and a nervous-sounding laugh escaped his shapely lips.
    “Mom,” he said cryptically.
    “Sister,” I corrected without thought. What was he on about? Mom was in California with Dad….
    “You’ve never met her, right?”
    Suddenly, it clicked.
    “You have a mother?” I asked, apparently trying to impress him with my ability to ask profoundly stupid questions. “I mean, of course you do. But what’s she doing here?” I corrected.
    “She came to watch the game.”
    “She came all the way here ? For a recreational summer amateur league game? Doesn’t she get enough rugby watching you perform with the English national team?”
    “England’s not down the block from her place. This is.”
    “This is down the block from your mom’s?” I echoed.
    “My