SCORE (Travis Brothers Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  1: Skye

  2: Blake

  3: Skye

  4: Blake

  5: Skye

  6: Blake

  7: Skye

  8: Blake

  9: Skye

  10: Blake

  11: Skye

  Epilogue

  Epilogue #2

  Epilogue #3

  About HERO (Travis Brothers, Book #2)

  Hot Summer Lust excerpt

  Connect with Juliette Jones

  Skye Monroe has just moved to Austin to start college. Shy, studious and artistic, she’d rather keep to herself. But when she gets talked into attending a school football game by a new friend, the drop-dead gorgeous quarterback can’t take his eyes off her. Will Blake Travis be the one to bring Skye out of her shell?

  Blake Travis is saving himself. The hottest, most eligible star at UT just isn’t interested in playing any other field except the one with a football on it. A romantic at heart, he’s holding out for the real thing. As soon as he lays eyes on the shy stranger with the smoky green eyes and flaxen hair, he knows he’s found her.

  SCORE is a sweet, safe, scorching-hot love story with a happy ending. No love triangles, cliffhangers or cheating.

  Book #1 in the Travis Brothers series

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  SCORE

  Copyright © 2017 by Juliette Jones

  All rights reserved by the author

  SCORE is a work of fiction. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, distributed or scanned in any electronic or printed form without permission from Juliette Jones.

  Cover art photo used under license from Shutterstock.com

  Cover design © Juliette Jones

  First Edition: July 2017

  Published by Juliette Jones: [email protected]

  1: Skye

  2: Blake

  3: Skye

  4: Blake

  5: Skye

  6: Blake

  7: Skye

  8: Blake

  9: Skye

  10: Blake

  11: Skye

  Epilogue

  Epilogue #2

  Epilogue #3

  About HERO (Travis Brothers, Book #2)

  Hot Summer Lust excerpt

  Connect with Juliette Jones

  For the twelfth time in just over four years, it’s my first day at a new school. This time, though, everything’s different. I finally made it out of the wasteland of high school hell and am starting my first day at the University of Texas at Austin. I’m so used to that sick, scared feeling of walking into a crowded space and being stared at by a bunch of curious strangers who eyeball me from the safety of their cliques and their friendships, it takes me a second to realize it: everyone’s new. No one here knows each other. Maybe for the first time ever, I don’t have to feel like I’m crashing someone else’s party.

  I stand in line at the registration desk, which is outside on the crowded green. I’m wearing baggier clothes than I need to, but people still stare at me. I’m used to it. I know what I look like. Maybe I should have dyed my hair like I thought about doing.

  People are already starting to cluster into groups and talk to each other, but I keep to myself. As usual. It’s not the first time I’ve wished I wasn’t such a complete introvert. I wish I was capable, like the girl in the next line, of starting up a bubbly conversation with some random stranger and not feeling all self-conscious about it or turning red or stammering over my words like the biggest loser in the world. Shyness is a curse.

  It probably didn’t help that I moved schools so much when I was younger. Or that my parents basically abandoned me by dying and left me in foster care which turned out to be as close to hell as a person can get. But all that’s behind me now. I’m eighteen. I’m a college student. From now on I can live my own life and not have to rely on anyone else. It’s just about the best feeling in the world.

  So I try to smile when the guy next to me looks in my direction, eyeing me from head to toe. I pretend I feel confident and ready to take my new world by storm. At least if I look like I know what I’m doing, people might actually think I do.

  There’s a band playing in the middle of the green and a group of loud, muscular jocks are throwing a football around. Even a misfit like me might actually enjoy college. And with my small scholarship and my art commission, I can actually almost afford college.

  It’s nice out. The sky is blue and the scene is busy and inviting. The college green is full of the usual mix of preppies, nerds, hipsters and so on, but everyone looks cool and somehow collegiate. Nearby, a cluster of pretty girls are eyeing up the football jocks. These are the kind of girls who used to make my life hell in high school: the beautiful, try-hard cheerleader-types who make an art of flicking their hair and hiking up their already-miniscule skirts. They hate people like me: loners, who – God knows why, since I avidly try to avoid it – get people’s attention. And it’s always the kind of attention I wish I wasn’t getting.

  I do my best to avoid the cheerleaders. Maybe things will be different in college.

  I’m next in line. The guy handing out the paperwork introduces himself as Joe. He’s a senior, he says. He gives me my list of classes and does his intro about the orientation schedule. Then he winks and writes his phone number down on my course book. “Call me later,” he says. “Tonight, if you want. I’ll show you around.”

  Sure.

  Like I’d have the nerve to do something like that. Besides, there’s no way I’ll have time for a social life. The university’s commission for my sculpture will take at least twenty hours of work a week. Then there’ll be my full course load and all the studying that goes along with it. I’ll be lucky if I meet a single person.

  I smile and tell him I will, even though I know I won’t. “What’s your name?” he calls after me, but the crowd is already closing in, so I escape without telling him. I take out my map and start following it to find my dorm.

  I’m mortified when one of the jocks starts walking over to me. Calm down, I tell myself. Act normal. He leans his shoulder up against a tree, blocking my way. He’s huge, like he might be a linebacker or a heavyweight wrestler or something. He could break me in half if he decided to. I’m so intimidated I can hardly breathe.

  “Hey,” he says. “You must be a freshman.”

  I wish I could beam myself to an alternate universe, I really do. I’m so not good at this kind of thing. Stop being such a timid freak. You’re a college student now. You can handle this. I attempt a smile. “Yeah.”

  “You’re fucking gorgeous,” he says.

  I don’t know how to reply to that so I try to just keep walking but he walks along with me.

  “Where’re you from?” he says.

  I don’t want to chit-chat with this oversized stranger. I want to be left alone. But being rude will only make things harder in the long run, that’s one thing I learned in high school number seven. “Galveston,” I say. And before that: Plano, Abilene, Fort Worth, Waco, San Antonio and a whole bunch of other places. But there’s no point telling this colossal jock my pathetic life story.

  “Well, Galveston, you and me should get to know each
other.”

  One of the cheerleaders catches up to Linebacker. She slides her fingers over his hulkish bicep. As she does this, she shoots a few daggers out of her eyes at me before turning back to him, softening. “Jared, can you walk me to my dorm? I don’t know where it is.”

  I take that as my cue. I turn left and keep walking, hoping they won’t notice me leaving.

  “Lookin’ forward to seeing you again soon, Galveston,” the jock calls out to me as I walk away. I blush and give him an awkward little wave as I retreat.

  I finally find Houston Hall. As I search for room 217, I do my best not to feel the heat of all the endless sets of laser-beam stares of the people around me.

  It doesn’t take me long to find my room.

  A pretty girl with long red hair is sitting in the large open window that looks over the green, checking her phone. Her bag sits on one of the beds. She smiles widely at me as I walk into the room, like she’s actually happy I’m here. My roommate. “Hi. I’m Piper.”

  I smile back at her. It’s impossible not to. She’s genuinely nice, you just get that feeling. “Skye.”

  “I hope you don’t me claiming the bed next to the window. And the bigger closet. Your desk is bigger, though. And you have an extra bookshelf.”

  “No, that’s fine.”

  “I saw you talking to that football player and his groupie,” she says.

  “Oh. Yeah. I think I’ve already made at least one enemy.”

  “Those girls are fine as long as you stay away from the football team.”

  “You know them?”

  “I know their type. My brother was the quarterback at my high school in Phoenix,” she says. “My other brother was a wide receiver. And my other brother was a halfback. We had girls like that camping out on our doorstep all the time.”

  “Wow. Well, I’ll definitely be staying away from the football team,” I assure her, remembering Linebacker. “As far away as possible.”

  “There’s no way we’re not going to the game tonight, though,” Piper beams. “That’s half the reason I came to this school. To watch the Longhorns.”

  I laugh a little as I put my bag on my bed and start unpacking it. “I’ll probably skip the game.”

  “No way, roomie, you can’t bail on me! I don’t know anyone else here yet. You have to come with me.”

  “I’ve never really been that into football,” I tell her. I watch it sometimes, but only because those are the memories I have of my dad so long ago: watching football. Telling me all about the players and the plays and I would nod and climb onto his lap and pretend I was as into it as he was, even though I was too young to understand. But that was a long time ago.

  “What are you into?” Piper has copper-red hair and a smattering of golden freckles across her nose. Her face is open and sunny, like she’s actually interested and not just asking to make small talk. So I find myself telling her.

  “I’m a sculptor. I make stuff out of clay, metal and basically anything else I can get my hands on.”

  “That’s so cool! Are you majoring in art?”

  “Yeah, it’s how I got in. The university commissioned some of my work and I get a partial scholarship once it’s completed. So I’ll be spending most of my time at the art building for at least the next few months.” I’m excited about the sculpture I’m planning. It’s going to be an abstract impression of a longhorn bull (the admissions committee’s idea, but I’m running with it).

  “That’s so awesome. God, I wish I was artistic. I’m about the least artistic person I know. I’m studying psychology.”

  I smile, putting some of my stuff into drawers. “That sounds interesting.”

  “Yeah, just be careful: I might start psycho-analyzing you any minute.”

  I smile. “I’ll watch out for that.”

  “Any time you need some therapy just let me know. You can be my first patient.” Her phone pings and she’s busy for a few seconds. Then she says, “So, what do you say? Kick-off’s at seven.”

  “I’ve never actually been to a football game before,” I admit. “I don’t even know the rules.”

  “I’ll teach you,” she says. “Who knows, you might actually enjoy it.”

  My alarm rings and I roll out of bed. My house, as usual, is quiet. Unbearably quiet. It’s been a long summer, of empty days and sleepless nights. Along with brutal football practice for the last month, five hours a day, every day, in the blistering Texas heat, listening to Coach scream and cut the newbies left and right.

  I stare for a few seconds at the photograph on my dresser. Of my family, years ago. I wish I could bear to put the damn thing away. It only makes the loneliness even more profound.

  I’m glad classes are starting up again and the football season officially starts tonight. Once I can immerse myself in games, practices and my business studies, time won’t seem so slow and so heavy, I can only hope. Ethan’s tour of duty ends next month, finally. My brother has seen some pretty serious combat in Afghanistan and I have a feeling he’ll be a changed man when he gets back. I email him every couple of days to try to boost his morale, which hasn’t been great lately. It’ll be good to have him home again. This house is too damn big for one person.

  I drive to the campus stadium, park my car and make my way toward the changing rooms.

  “Hi, Blake.”

  I glance in the direction the voice is coming from as I walk across the parking lot. I’m thinking about the plays we’ve been practicing, so I’m distracted. It’s two girls, standing close to each other, leaning against the brick wall of the gym like they’re waiting for me. They look vaguely familiar. Maybe they were in one of my classes last year, who knows. Who cares.

  “Hey,” I barely say as I walk past them. I’m not in the mood to talk to anyone, especially a couple of girls I have no interest in.

  “Blake,” one of them says, and I turn to look as I open the door, waiting for them to say whatever it is they want to say. “We know about your rule, but we were just wondering if …”

  “… if you might change your mind,” says the other one. “With us.”

  I can’t believe this. “No,” I say gruffly, walking into the sports complex, letting the door slam behind me.

  Fuck.

  My ‘rule’. It’s become common knowledge around here which irritates the hell out of me. It’s no one’s business but my own. And now I’ve got girls coming up to me every day of the week wanting to help me fucking break it.

  That’s not going to happen.

  It’s bad enough I have to listen to the other guys about their ‘scores’ and how many chicks they fuck on a weekly basis. That’s just not me. I’m holding out for the real thing.

  “You’re late, Travis,” Coach says as I walk into the locker room and toss my bag onto a bench.

  “By three minutes,” I say, glancing up at the clock.

  “That’s classified as late.”

  I change into my gear and do some warming up.

  “It’s time,” Coach says, “Let’s do this.”

  I can hear the crowd chanting my name. Jared rolls his eyes. “Always the quarterback. Never the linebacker.”

  We run out onto the field. The crowd roars and it’s a good feeling. I basically live and breathe football and have since I was about five years old. We’re playing one of our biggest rivals tonight and they’ll give us a run for our money, but I’m more than fucking up to it. I can feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins like a drug. First play, I hand the ball off to Jackson who runs it for twenty yards before he gets tackled. It’s a good start. The fans go nuts. It’s our first game of the season and they’re feeling it. I look up at a waving flag and something catches my eye. A glow.

  A girl.

  She’s sitting in the second row of the bleachers with a friend. She has long, white-blond hair. Our gazes lock and her cheeks flush before she drops her eyes.

  But I can’t look away. Everything about me is drawn to her, like she’s a magnet
I can’t resist the pull of. The desire to see her and feel her and get closer to her is entirely beyond my control. It’s like one of those shots in a movie where everything fades out except the object that takes all your focus. One golden girl whose shy eyes somehow reflect my future and the entire direction of my life. I want to touch her so badly my muscles are clenched and my fingertips zing. My mouth feels parched. And my heart aches as though I’ve been missing something monumental and here it suddenly fucking is.

  “Travis!” yells Coach. “Get your head in the goddamn game.”

  I do, but not before glancing back at the girl. She’s so beautiful. Her face is angelic. Her hair is the color of butter. She looks soft and enchanting and somehow shimmery, like a mermaid that just wandered onto dry land. I’m staring. She glances up again and blushes a little more and – Jesus – I’m getting hard just looking at her. In the middle of a goddamn football game. Not good. Who is she?

  I don’t even realize I’ve said it aloud, but Jared is within earshot. “I saw her on the green today. Fuckin’ goddess.”

  I feel like lunging at him. Tackling him to the ground and making sure he understands that she’s mine. If he goes anywhere near her, I’ll go fucking ballistic.

  Coach is storming over to me. He’s called a time out. His face is as red as a newly boiled lobster. “What the fuck is going on, Travis?”

  “He’s checking out some girl in the stands,” says Jackson, laughing.

  “But what does this mean?” Jared ribs me. “Could it be that, finally, the lone wolf quarterback has met his match?” My team gives me shit all the time about my ‘rule.’ I’m used to it. Occasionally it pisses me off, but not tonight. Because it’s true. I’ve met my match. Just like that, I’ve found her.

  Coach is about a foot shorter than me but he does his best to put his face in my face. “If you have any intention of continuing as the starting quarterback for this team, you’ll get your goddamn head back in this game. You can play the other field in your own time.”