Houston we have a proble.., p.1
Houston, We Have a Problem, page 1
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Darcy
October 13
Chapter Two
Houston
October 14
Chapter Three
Darcy
October 16
Chapter Four
Houston
October 18
Chapter Five
Darcy
October 20
Chapter Six
Houston
Chapter Seven
Darcy
Chapter Eight
Houston
October 21
Chapter Nine
Darcy
October 22
Chapter Ten
Houston
Chapter Eleven
Darcy
October 24
Chapter Twelve
Houston
Chapter Thirteen
Darcy
Chapter Fourteen
Houston
Chapter Fifteen
Darcy
October 25
October 26
Chapter Sixteen
Houston
Chapter Seventeen
Houston
Chapter Eighteen
Darcy
October 30
Chapter Nineteen
Houston
Chapter Twenty
Darcy
Chapter Twenty-One
Darcy
October 31
Chapter Twenty-Two
Houston
Chapter Twenty-Three
Darcy
Chapter Twenty-Four
Houston
Chapter Twenty-Five
Darcy
Chapter Twenty-Six
Houston
November 1
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Darcy
November 2
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Darcy
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Houston
Chapter Thirty
Darcy
November 3
Chapter Thirty-One
Houston
November 4
Chapter Thirty-Two
Houston
Epilogue
Darcy
July 2
Also by Dana LeCheminant
About the Author
Copyright © 2024 by Dana LeCheminant
Cover Design Copyright © 2024 by Dana LeCheminant
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, names, incidents, places, and dialogue are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Author’s Note
The Love in Sun City series can be read in any order, as standalones or together. Writing this series has been such a fun experience for me because the four stories all overlap and share scenes over the course of a month. Not only did I get to discover the stories, but I also got to discover them at the same time. It was a cool experiment to see how this type of project would work, and hopefully it gets you excited for the other stories as you read this one. I’ve added dates to each book to help you keep track of shared events, if you so desire. :)
Enjoy your time with the Briggs siblings as they simultaneously (and quickly) fall madly in love!
– Dana
Chapter One
Darcy
October 13
You know that thing where you wiggle a pencil just right and it looks like it’s made of rubber? I am so good at that thing. It’s probably not a thing I should be good at in the middle of a staff meeting, but as the youngest female reporter for the country’s premier sports news agency, I tend to have a lot of downtime.
It’s probably not a great idea for me to zone out during these meetings, but I learned pretty early on that I haven’t earned enough clout to be able to pick which stories I tell when our editor in chief, Connor McMillan, is throwing out ideas for the taking. I tried once, and Connor shot me down so fast that I still feel the sting even two years later.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a great journalist. Some of the stories I’ve reported have trended for weeks on end. And it’s not that Connor doesn’t trust me, either. Though that first rejection hurt, Connor has never given me a bad story. But my stories have fallen into a certain pattern of assignment, which is absolutely intentional on his part.
I accidentally stumble across one bicyclist taking steroids when I try asking him about his juice cleanse and forget the word cleanse, and suddenly I’m the woman who exposes crooked athletes.
It can be fun uncovering secrets that can be dangerous or affect other athletes, but it’s certainly not the kind of story I like telling most.
“Paxton.”
I snap to attention, also snapping my pencil in the process because my brain thinks it actually is made out of rubber and I grab it with both hands. Oops. “Yep.” How did I snap a pencil with my bare hands? Am I that strong, or is this pencil awful quality? It came from the supply cupboard, but Enhance media isn’t known for being frugal. We’re one of the best for a reason.
Connor gives me a narrow-eyed look that says he knows I wasn’t paying attention, but he lets that go. He may give me stories I’m not especially fond of, but he has a soft spot for me. Has from the beginning. I like to think it’s because of my charisma and charm, but I’m pretty sure it’s just his fatherly instinct kicking in. I’ll take it.
“Markham has the flu,” he says.
I sit up straighter. I don’t think I’ve missed the context of this statement, but that doesn’t mean I understand why he’s telling me this. “That stinks?” I say.
He fights a smile. “He was covering the Series as Jacobsen.”
Okay, now he definitely has my attention. “Like, the World Series?”
Nodding, Connor points at me. “You’re going to take his place.”
Since I can’t sit up any higher, I stand. I don’t care that everyone else in the room is either snickering or scowling, depending on their interest in covering the biggest championship tournament in baseball. This will be the first time I’ve had a chance to cover something this big on my own.
“Game Six is tomorrow,” I say, as if my boss doesn’t know that already. It could be the biggest game ever with how evenly matched the Burrs and the Red-tails are. Right now the Red-tails are ahead by one game, but the Burrs have a good chance of tying things up.
Connor smiles. “Then you’d better go figure out which tech you’re taking with you. Let’s go talk sports!”
As the room clears out after Connor’s usual dismissal, I fight the disappointment that washes over me. I don’t know why I would think I could do this story without a tech, but I did. It’s not like there are any corrupt players on either of the teams that are in the Series, and this would be my first real chance to talk about the actual sport instead of just the dirty secrets behind it.
“Connor?” I chase after him, hot on his heels as he heads back to his office.
He doesn’t look back. “No, Darcy.”
“But—”
“Everyone at Enhance goes incognito. You know that.” He holds his door open for me, knowing I’m not going to drop this argument.
This is the first time I’ve thought I might be able to win, so of course I’m going to push back. “I know wearing a disguise is a safety protocol,” I say as Connor slips into his chair. “But is there really going to be danger at a World Series game? I’m just there to cover the game, right? So I don’t see why I need to—”
“Darcy.” That one word carries Connor’s full authoritative voice, the one that made me terrified of him as an intern until I heard him humming the theme song from that kids show, Bluey, one day. He’s only intimidating when he wants to be. “The reason everyone wants to work at Enhance is because we take care of our own.”
I pout. “Yeah, but no one knows how you do that because no one knows that none of Enhance’s journalists are real people.” I still remember my first day of working here, right before I started grad school, and the monstrously large NDA I had to sign. I didn’t know until two years later, when I finally got hired on to the journalism team, that we have an entire department full of makeup artists and wardrobe designers—technicians, as they’re officially called—whose sole purpose is to transform us into other people when we’re on camera.
Connor patiently nods despite my unprofessionalism right now. “Did you know that when we switched to aliases on screen, the number of threats our team received on a monthly basis was cut in half? And that’s not just because no one knows how to find people who don’t exist. Going incognito gives you freedom to step beyond your usual boundaries and tell the stories you want to tell without your personal biases getting in the way. It lets you tell the story the right way.”
I let out a deep sigh. “I know.”
Chuckling, Connor taps his knuckle on the desk. “Do you know why I picked you for this when I could have chosen a more experienced journalist?”
I wish I had an actual answer, but I don’t. “Because you know how much I love baseball?”
“Because I have never seen anyone better at leaving their baggage at the door than you,” Connor says pointedly. “I know you hate some of the ass
Tamlin Park. She’s the only thing separating me from going back to being an assistant, and I know it. Without her, I never would have gotten in front of a camera, and I can’t hate her for letting me do a job that I love. I may hate the career-ruining stories, but Connor always gives me a good story in between to cleanse my palate.
In fact, those more lighthearted stories have become more frequent as of late, which has me wondering if I might have a chance to change up the pattern soon. I probably shouldn’t be fighting Connor so much on this when it’s company policy, but…
“So, there’s really no chance of telling the story as Darcy instead of Tamlin?”
Connor rolls his eyes and clicks on his computer. “No, but I’ll tell you what. The next time you give an exposé on illegal drug use in the NFL and get two dozen players kicked out of the league, I’ll let you do the story as yourself. You know self-defense, right?”
“Okay, fine, you’ve made your point. I’ll go find myself a makeup tech.”
I’m at the door before Connor says, “Oh, and Darcy?”
“Yeah?”
He gives me the kind of smile that seems to make his eyes twinkle. It’s the smile that tells me I’m going to like what I’m about to hear. “We’ve set up an interview with Houston Briggs. I’ve got a hunch there’s something there, so show me what you’ve got.”
I can’t hide the grin that spreads across my face, even after I make my way down the hall to see who’s available to come with me as my makeup tech tomorrow. Houston Briggs? He’s the top starting pitcher for the Sun City Red-tails, one of the teams in the Series, and I can’t remember the last time he did an interview with Enhance. For some reason, he’s fairly interview-shy nowadays despite being one of the best players in the game right now. That could easily mean he has something to hide, like Connor seems to think.
I wonder what Connor is hoping I’ll find. Briggs has always been intriguing to me in the same way I have a weird fascination with nature documentaries that depict hunting scenes with all their carnage. I’m not sure if he’s the predator or the prey in this scenario, but I have a feeling something’s going to die.
Houston Briggs may seem perfect on the outside, but there’s no way he’s that good both on and off the field. Whatever Briggs is hiding, I’ll find it.
Chapter Two
Houston
October 14
Bottom of the ninth. Bases are loaded. Zero outs. Batter has two strikes. We’re ahead by one. This pitch could end the game for good or bad. The crowd roars, lights hum, and my heartbeat pulses in my ears. Lars Jensen is at home plate, bat at the ready and a murderous glare in his eyes. He’s the Burrs’ best batter, and I can see in his eyes that he’s determined to knock whatever I throw at him out of the park.
My fingers tense around the ball, shifting the threads exactly where I like them. My shoulder throbs, but I ignore it. Can’t show any weakness. It’s Game Six of the World Series, and the Sun City Red-tails are ahead of the Oklahoma Burrs. Three games to two.
One throw, and this could all be over. If we lose, we’ll have to play another game and potentially lose the Series.
I glance at Hopkins on first base and get a nod. Behind the mound, Badir signals a slider, which historically Jensen can’t hit worth crap. It’s not my best pitch, but it’s probably our best chance at ending this thing.
I take a deep breath, adjusting the ball in my left hand. This is it.
The energy of the stadium changes as I wind up, and the whole place seems to grow still as I release, the ball flying exactly where I want it to. Jensen tenses, shifts, swings. The ball collides with the bat, the sound hitting me in the chest, but it flies high as Jensen takes off running.
Ortiz catches the ball and throws to Hopkins, who misses the guy leaving first base but doesn’t hesitate to throw instead. The ball flies to third base just before the runner reaches it and then straight to Badir, who catches the final runner before he can slide home to safety.
My breath slides out of me as the crowd goes wild. The Red-tails storm the field as the victory sets in, my teammates screaming and crying and tackling each other as they surround me.
I’m supposed to share their joy, and I do, but now that the adrenaline is wearing off, the pain seeps in more strongly. My shoulder burns from pitching another full game, as if I need the reminder that I’m not nineteen anymore. I should have been subbed out around inning six, and I’m already regretting my own stubbornness.
Hopkins and Badir grab me, lifting me up on their shoulders and forcing me to plaster on a smile because now the cameras can see me. As long as they can’t see the pain, I’m fine. We won. I focus on that as much as I can. We won the World Series.
The next half an hour passes in a blur as the team’s owner accepts the Series trophy. Thankfully the pain dulls as my arm cools and I can start to enjoy the win. It’s only the second time the Red-tails have gone this far in the championships, but we’ve never lost a Series, and that’s a big deal. Players will start getting more sponsorships, better paychecks, more playing time. This is everything we could hope for as a team, and the excitement is palpable.
So, why am I glad when my agent pulls me from the crowd?
“Enhance Media wants an interview,” he says, hardly looking up from his phone as he leads me to the news tent. Alan Roundy is a beast of an agent, and despite his outward inattentiveness, he’s had my back from day one, when I got recruited after my sophomore year of college. He’s got some big names on his roster, but I like to think I’m his favorite.
Case in point: he got me a spot with Enhance. The news site is the biggest sports media company in the country, and they can make or break an athlete’s career depending on how they spin a story. They can be brutal, but they can also be the best thing to ever happen to one of us.
So far, I’ve been lucky, and the few Enhance journalists I’ve spoken to all love me. I mean, I’ve hardly given anyone a reason not to love me. I’ve never done anything to get on their bad side, and I don’t plan on changing that now. I’ll take on any of their journalists as long as it’s not…
I stop dead the moment I step into the tent and get a sudden sense of unease.
I don’t know what it is about Tamlin Park, but I know it’s her waiting for me even before I see her, though see her I do. It would be hard not to see her. As always, the sight of her in that skintight black dress and heels as she speaks to her cameraman has me frozen, my breath stuck in my lungs. It’s like she sucks the oxygen out of a room, suffocating every athlete within a fifty-foot radius, and she does it with a smile. A drop-dead gorgeous smile, sure, but it’s the kind of smile that ends careers. I should count myself lucky that I haven’t had to personally face her before now, but I guess it’s time to meet my doom.
Unless I can pretend I forgot why I came in here?
Unfortunately for me, Roundy is too good at his job, and he notices my hesitation immediately. “Are you going or what?” he asks without looking up from his phone. “We don’t have all night.”
My attempt at speaking Tamlin’s name comes out in a curse I’m not allowed to say on live TV.
Roundy glances up. “Don’t make me grab the soap again, Briggs.” He doesn’t personally care when I swear, but ever since meeting my twin sister a couple of years ago, he’s been fueling her drive to clean up my language. It’s both annoying and endearing.
He looks around the tent in search of the source of my reluctance. “Why aren’t you—oh.” His whole face twists in discomfort, which doesn’t exactly leave me feeling very confident. “I thought it was Jacobsen covering the Series.”
“Clearly not,” I growl. Ted Jacobsen would have been a walk in the park, especially because he’s a Red-tails fan. He’s the kind of guy I’d take out for a beer after a game and talk about golf and the price of ground beef.
But Tamlin Park? She eats athletes like me for breakfast. She’s only been reporting for Enhance for a couple of years, but that’s been plenty of time for her to make a name for herself as a ruthless shark.
