Play for Me - Softcover

Hubscher, Libby

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593547225 ISBN 13: 9780593547229

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

When her new job takes her to a New England boarding school, she’s surprised to find her roommates are all men – including a very handsome one who plays by his own rules. 

Sophie Doyle has her dream job as the head athletic trainer for her favorite baseball team (go Red Sox!), a handsome boyfriend, and easy access to the finest cannoli in Boston. When she loses all three and the World Series to boot, she’s forced to apply for the open trainer position at an arts-focused boarding school in New Hampshire. The only available room is a glorified closet in an apartment with three guys: Jonas Voss, the aloof and attractive orchestra teacher, and his two rambunctious roommates.

Sophie knows that training a bunch of privileged high school kids whose idea of a play is A Chorus Line instead of a walk-off homer is going to be a big change from the pro athletes she’s used to. She wasn’t expecting that these students would have big-time talent and even bigger-time problems. Sophie has troubles of her own—Jonas is a full-fledged grump who clearly doesn’t want her near him or the precious piano he never plays.

With sunny optimism, Sophie sets out to win over Jonas and help the kids she’s growing attached to. But when her relationship with Jonas moves to the major leagues and plans change at the end of the season, they have to choose whether they are playing for keeps.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Libby Hubscher is an author and scientist. She studied biology at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and holds a doctor of philosophy in molecular toxicology from North Carolina State University. Her work has appeared online and in textbooks, scientific journals, and literary journals. Her short story "The Unwelcome Guest" was long-listed for the Wigleaf Top 50 in 2018. She lives in North Carolina with her husband, two young children, and a menagerie of pets.

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Chapter 1

I lost everything I loved in the span of twenty-four hours. Well, nearly everything, since Dad was still safely tucked away in Sommerset Meadows, but that's a different story. Heartbreak comes in all forms.

For me, baseball went first.

My home in Boston and cannoli from Vitales in the North End quickly followed.

I was eating my feelings in the form of a chocolate chip cannoli when a man holding a sheet cake paused to look me over, and upon recognizing me, he promptly spit in my face. He was wearing an autographed Big Papi jersey and an expression that can only be described as murderous. They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned . . . well, a woman scorned has nothing on a Red Sox fan who just stumbled upon the trainer responsible for ruining the team's World Series run stuffing her face with pastry.

"That's for benching Iwasaki!" he hollered. "You cost us the series!"

The rabid fan couldn't have known that only two hours earlier I'd been forced to resign in front of a room full of middle-aged men in ill-fitting polo shirts. He wouldn't have seen me sitting on the T next to a cardboard box full of my things, willing myself not to cry. And he definitely had no earthly notion that I'd arrived home to find the rest of my worldly possessions packed away in a matching luggage set my boyfriend, Patrick, had originally bought for me to use on our trip to Zurich in January. As the team doctor, he hadn't taken kindly to me calling his medical judgment into question. He'd carved me out of our shared brownstone and his life with speed and surgical precision.

I didn't fault any of them for being angry, even this guy. I was a Red Sox fan, after all, one who grew up watching every home game while my dad worked as a custodian in Fenway; the agony of defeat had rocked me to my core more than once. But I wasn't at my best, and my cheek was damp with spittle, which is probably why I exploded out of my chair, knocked the cake box out of the man's hand, and smashed my half-eaten cannoli into his face.

"I'd do it again!" I yelled. Cake splattered on the floor around us. It was completely out of character-the aggression, I mean, not the thing that had brought me to that moment; still, I meant what I said. At only twenty-two, Iwasaki was already the kind of pitcher that comes along once every hundred years. He'd had an ulnar collateral ligament sprain that the medical team had been treating with stem cells and plasma injections, but his body wasn't ready. I could see it in his face, the way he grimaced and guarded his arm when no one else was looking. Just hours before the game, he'd been drenched with sweat after throwing a couple of easy pitches.

"How bad is it?" I'd asked him.

He'd shaken his head. "Not bad," he'd said. "Just nerves." As if the league's best pitcher had ever been that nervous a day in his life. I gave him a look. "I'm good," he lied.

What ensued was a series of fights with what felt like everyone in the organization from Patrick to the GM, but in the end Iwasaki went back on the injured list, and I went on a list too-one that started with "black" and ended with "balled."

"It'll be fine," I'd assured everyone. "Morano is one hundred percent and he's looking great."

The backup pitcher, Morano, was solid. The pitching coach agreed, and everyone conceded; no problem, I thought. I am an optimist.

Morano choked. Epically.

The Phillies hadn't just beaten us; they'd humiliated us in Fenway Park.

The man who'd been on the receiving end of my cannoli was screaming, a strangled animal sound. Espresso cups stilled. Around us, the bakery patrons fell silent. There were no shouting spectators here egging us on. A woman with a small child cowered, shielding the toddler with her body. The worker behind the counter who had winked at me when he handed over my food now picked up a phone to make a call. I retreated, accidentally placing my shoe directly in the middle of a chunk of cake. I slipped on the mass of buttercream and nearly fell. Frantically, my arms windmilled, and I grabbed for anything to keep myself upright. I caught the man's shirt; a button popped off and thwacked against my forehead.

I looked up. The man's screaming ceased. He reached up and wiped the cream from his face. A glop of frosting landed in my hair-pale white against my deep red waves. I had a sudden, sickening realization that there was no team behind me, ready to get in the mix, and there never would be again. I was on my own, and my life in baseball-and at my favorite bakery-was over.

There's no bullpen in the North End, no dugout to cool off in, and since, as I learned later, the delectable flaky pastry scratched the man's cornea, I spent the better part of the afternoon in a holding cell in the Boston district A-1 police station.


I was braiding my hair and trying to figure out how I was going to tell my dad about my fall from grace when my best friend, Astrid, appeared, looking like a cross between a blonde bombshell with a foul mouth and a glorious angel. She was wearing oversized black sunglasses, ripped high-waisted jeans, and a tube top with puffed sleeves that revealed her pale midriff. She might have been the only person over the age of thirty who could pull a look like that off. Astrid was warm and disarming, and at the sight of her, relief pooled in me and that feeling of utter loneliness dissipated.

She tossed her blonde waves over her shoulder and removed her sunglasses.

"Sophie, in all of our years of friendship, I never once envisioned having to bail you out of jail," she said, tucking the glasses into her purse. "I feel like we've reached a whole new level of closeness."

"Thank you for coming." I smiled; I couldn't help it.

A cop unlocked the door and gestured for me to get out with a quick jerk of her head.

"It better be a good story," Astrid said, folding me in her long arms. "Was it a pervert? I love it when a perv gets what's coming to him."

I grimaced. "I was defending my honor. Sort of." I eyed the room. From the glares I was getting, the police were also Red Sox fans. It was Dunkin' Donuts with a side of dirty looks in there. "I didn't mean to hurt him."

"Let's get you out of here," Astrid said. "I know everyone loves Iwasaki, but geez." She raised her voice. "It's just a game."

"Astrid, shhh. Don't antagonize them." She slung one arm around my shoulders and together we speed-walked toward the exit.

"So, where to?" Astrid asked once we were outside beneath the old blue station sign, standing in the shadow of the brick behemoth. "Home?"

"About that . . . Patrick's pretty mad." I glanced up at the brick building. The architect must've had a mandate to put in as few windows as possible.

Astrid's eyes narrowed. "How mad?"

"'I can't be with someone who would question me at work. It's over' mad. At least that's what he wrote in his note."

"Wait, you haven't talked to him? He left a note?"

"It was taped to my suitcase."

"You've been together for what . . . four years? I know you said things had kind of cooled off a bit, but that's beyond cold. Okay, well . . . I never liked him anyway. His nurse was an extra with me on ShadowWorld back in March and she said he's a dick to all the office staff."

"You're just telling me this now?"

"Yeah, game night's been wicked awkward."

Astrid was trying to cheer me up, so I obliged her, but the laugh I managed to conjure was paper-thin. My stomach swirled. I wasn't sure whether I was going to burst into tears or throw up, but some kind of dramatic emotion was threatening to surface.

"Could I stay with you for a bit?" I asked.

"I would love to be your roommate again, Soph, but I'm headed to Toronto in two days for that film I told you about. Since I'll...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593547225
• ISBN 13: 9780593547229
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 368
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland