Hard Luck Read Online Free

me. “Besides, athletes don’t make faithful boyfriends. Believe me, I should know.”
    We all look down at the table and take sips of our mimosas. They know I swore off discussing my painful breakup with Mitchell Davis, the star baseball player for Northwestern, and now the Yanks. We dated for two years until he dumped me after leaving college to head to the pros. He’s in the past and I need to keep him there.
    I raise my now empty glass in the air to catch the server’s eye. I need a damn refill. The server nods and brings a mimosa-filled pitcher my way. We come here on Sundays for the fifteen-dollar unlimited brunch drinks, though there is a two-hour limit.
    “They’re called players for a reason,” I add, my fresh mimosa in hand, leaving out the part about me having a weakness for them, especially baseball players. Their tight pants that show off even tighter asses, gunned up biceps, and those cocky attitudes flip my hormonal switch. Give a guy a ball glove and I turn to goo.
    “You’re probably right. But I’d still love to hear the play by play from last night. The before the fall stuff.”
    “It started with me dragging her butt out of her apartment.” Taylor sits up and sticks her chest out like she accomplished an impossible feat, and maybe she had. I can’t remember the last time I went out to a club.
    “I’ll admit I’ve been on the hermit side this winter.” I can’t go clubbing too often, because I still have a ton of debt left to pay on my student loans.
    “No more staying at home,” Taylor gives me an ultimatum.
    “Okay, as long as you’re picking up the bar tab,” I jab, but halfway mean it. She’s from the North Shore, or what I call the old money area of Chicago. She even has season tickets to watch Chicago. Since she doesn’t have a boyfriend at the moment, I am her sidekick to every game. Lucky me, I get to drool over Mr. Luck from the third base sideline.
    “More of the story,” Erin says, drawing me back to Brady. I sigh.
    “Taylor dragged me to the bar where the hot threesome hangs out.”
    “She’s been avoiding the place,” Taylor adds. I start to protest, but shrug my shoulders instead. I am not a social butterfly and groups of hot single guys make me nervous as hell. Add those hot guys being baseball players…my stomach turns into knots just thinking about it.
    “She made me get a blow out, buy a new dress that barely covered my ass, and wear heels I could only shuffle my feet in,” I say, outlining Taylor’s pre-bar prep work of me.
    “And she stopped Brady Luck in his tracks,” Taylor adds. “My push to get you out and noticed succeeded.”
    “Getting noticed is one thing, going out with him is another,” I confess.
    “Baby steps,” Taylor says. “Besides, those guys don’t date, they fuck around.”
    “Just once I’d like to go out with a decent guy,” I say, finishing off my second mimosa.
    “That’s bullshit. Decent guys are boring for smart girls like us,” Taylor starts, giving her usual take on why we crave the bad boys. “We need a mental challenge in our lives to have happiness in the bedroom. It goes back to Anthropology one-oh-one. We are all desperately seeking a cave man. Yours just tend to be wearing baseball uniforms with numbers on their backs.”
    “You’re right. What am I supposed to do about it though?”
    “Chicago’s back in town next Saturday. We’ll try The Wit again after we go to the game. You know who they’re playing?” Taylor asks with a pointed stare.
    “Don’t tell me. The Yankees, right?”
    “Yep, one of those interleague games from hell,” Taylor confirms my fears. The team my former boyfriend plays for seldom comes to town. The Yankees are on the American League side versus Chicago being in the National League division. “At least we sit by Brady on third, and not the first base line where Mitchell plays for the Yanks.”
    “That’s not much consolation.” I hope he doesn’t try to reach out to me