Played

 

Played
Naima Simone
Publication date: September 3rd 2024
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Sports

USA Today bestselling author Naima Simone heats up the page with intensity and wit in this romance between a pro hockey player and a firefighter, both struggling to move on from the past.

Being a firefighter isn’t easy. Especially for a Black woman. Working with family helps a little. But when somebody from your company doesn’t come back from a call, it’s brutal—as in, “How’m I supposed to go on?” brutal.

And one death took me to a really dark place.

A year later, I’m at the Pirates’ hockey training facility. Just another day on the job. Until I find a charred journal. I look inside for the owner’s name, but the words on the page punch me in the gut. It’s like reading my own thoughts. Reliving my own pain.

The journal belongs to Solomon Young, left-winger for the Pirates—a father and widower. When I return it, I’m racked with guilt for the invasion of privacy. The look Solomon gives me is cold as ice.

But damn if that man isn’t hot as hell.

Now he’s stuck in my brain. And fate seems intent on making us face off.

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EXCERPT:

Hours later, after the call to the hockey training facility, I finally sink to my bunk, the leather-bound book in my hands. I stare down at the journal, flipping it from front to back. Why am I so drawn to it? Hell, right now, I really am feeling like fucking Gollum with the One Ring.

This holds someone’s personal, most private thoughts. Yet I trace the Celtic tree of life emblem on the front, then toy with the leather string wrapped around it. The longer I hold it, touch it, the stronger the curiosity stirs inside me.

It’s wrong to pry. Wrong to even consider opening the cover and . . .

Dammit.

Even as the . . . ickiness writhes inside me like a pissed-off nest of snakes, I loosen the strap and slowly open the journal. There’s no name on the inside flap or on the first page where it’s typed This journal belongs to . . . with a line for the identification of the owner. Conversely, that makes me feel an iota better about violating this faceless and nameless person’s privacy.

Or I’m just trying to justify what I’m about to do.

What I can’t seem to stop myself from doing.

Slowly, as if I’m opening a box of precious treasure, I flip to the first page.

August 2

Dear Kendra,

Goddamn, I feel so stupid even writing that. You know I don’t do this shit. The most I’ve ever written was a grocery list the one and only time you let me go shopping by myself. And we both remember how that turned out. A $500 bill and a shit ton of beer and beef jerky. But here I am, writing in a journal of all things. The therapist your father insisted I go see gave me this as homework. And if I want to keep seeing the ice, I have to cooperate. Apparently, I have an anger problem that’s not getting any better. Your father better be glad he’s not just my in-law but the owner of my team or else I’d tell him and the therapists to go fuck themselves. Yeah, sorry. I know that’s your dad.

Well, since I have to do this and you’re the only person I want to talk to, I’m writing this shit to you. Besides, as crazy as it sounds, I swear I can hear you in my head. And I feel closer to you. Like you’re here right next to me. I said it sounded crazy, right?

I don’t have anything to say.

Except.

Except I miss you. I miss you like fucking crazy, sweetheart.

And I need you.

August 8

Dear Kendra,

Last night I dreamed about you.

It was so real. You still wore that peaches and cream body lotion. Your voice, smile, touch—they all were the same. And even though I was holding you again, talking to you again, a part of me knew that it was a dream. That I had to take advantage of this time with you while I had it. But even knowing that, I woke up reaching for you. And the pain of patting those cold, empty sheets sent pain through me all over again. As sharp as if you’ve been gone two days instead of two years. I lay there in bed, staring at the ceiling, unable to move. Like the pain, the grief were physical weights pressing me into the mattress, smothering me.

For a moment, Kendra, I thought the unthinkable.

I wanted to follow you.

Shit, I can only admit this here, to you.

I haven’t had those thoughts since the days right after you left. Why is it so hard for me to say “died”? I can’t. Even years later, I can’t say it out loud. Because it makes you being gone so fucking final. As if death isn’t. And yet, I haven’t said it in two whole goddamn years.

Which makes no fucking sense, right? If I want to follow you there, I should have the balls to say the words. I can hear you cursing me out for even thinking about it. You were always the bravest out of the two of us. I might fuck people up on the ice for a living but you? You were the one who was fearless, rushing into life, enjoying the hell out of it. Forcing me to go along for the ride.

I can’t fucking do this without you, Kendra. I don’t want to.

But we have Khalil.

He’s my lifeline, my saving grace. I hate to put that kind of pressure on a five-year-old kid, but I swear, if it wasn’t for him, I don’t know . . .

Sometimes I believe . . . Shit, I feel ridiculous for even saying this. But sometimes I believe you somehow knew you wouldn’t be here, so you gifted me with him. I will always have a piece of you here as long as I have him.

Yeah, I’m done after that.

I’m out.

I don’t stop reading until the last entry. I close the leather cover, my heart slamming against my rib cage, pumping hurt, anger, and sadness through my veins.

At some point, I realized the identity of the book’s owner.

Solomon Young.

Author Bio:

Published since 2009, USA Today Bestselling author Naima Simone loves writing sizzling romances with heart, a touch of humor and snark. Her books have been featured in The Washington Post and Entertainment Weekly, and described as balancing “crackling, electric love scenes with exquisitely rendered characters caught in emotional turmoil.”

She is wife to Superman, or his non-Kryptonian, less bullet proof equivalent, and mother to the most awesome kids ever. They all live in perfect, sometimes domestically-challenged bliss in the southern United States.

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