Game Day Box Set: A College Football Romance Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Bonus Offer

  Head in the Game

  Chapter One

  Lilah

  Chapter Two

  Riley

  Chapter Three

  Lilah

  Chapter Four

  Riley

  Chapter Five

  Riley

  Chapter Six

  Lilah

  Chapter Seven

  Lilah

  Chapter Eight

  Riley

  Chapter Nine

  Lilah

  Chapter Ten

  Riley

  Chapter Eleven

  Lilah

  Chapter Twelve

  Riley

  Chapter Thirteen

  Riley

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lilah

  Chapter Fifteen

  Riley

  Chapter Sixteen

  Lilah

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lilah

  Chapter Eighteen

  Riley

  Chpater Nineteen

  Lilah

  Chapter Twenty

  Riley

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Riley

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Lilah

  Heart in the Game

  Chapter One

  Megan

  Chapter Two

  Reggie

  Chapter Three

  Megan

  Chapter Four

  Reggie

  Chapter Five

  Megan

  Chapter Six

  Megan

  Chapter Seven

  Reggie

  Chapter Eight

  Megan

  Chapter Nine

  Reggie

  Chapter Ten

  Megan

  Chapter Eleven

  Reggie

  Chapter Twelve

  Megan

  Chapter Thirteen

  Reggie

  Chapter Fourteen

  Reggie

  Chapter Fifteen

  Megan

  Chapter Sixteen

  Reggie

  Chapter Seventeen

  Megan

  Chapter Eighteen

  Megan

  Chapter Ninteen

  Reggie

  Chapter Twenty

  Reggie

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Megan

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Reggie

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Megan

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Reggie

  Soul in the Game

  Chapter One

  Nara

  Chapter Two

  Ben

  Chapter Three

  Nara

  Chapter Four

  Ben

  Chapter Five

  Nara

  Chapter Six

  Ben

  Chapter Seven

  Nara

  Chapter Eight

  Nara

  Chapter Nine

  Ben

  Chapter Ten

  Nara

  Chapter Eleven

  Ben

  Chapter Twelve

  Nara

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ben

  Chapter Fourteen

  Nara

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ben

  Chapter Sixteen

  Nara

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ben

  Chapter Eighteen

  Nara

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ben

  Chapter Twenty

  Nara

  Love in the Game

  Chapter One

  West

  Chapter Two

  Lou

  Chapter Three

  Lou

  Chapter Four

  West

  Chapter Five

  West

  Chapter Six

  Lou

  Chapter Seven

  Lou

  Chapter Eight

  West

  Chapter Nine

  Lou

  Chapter Ten

  West

  Chapter Eleven

  Lou

  Chapter Twelve

  West

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lou

  Chapter Fourteen

  West

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lou

  Chapter Sixteen

  West

  Chapter Seventeen

  West

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lou

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lou

  Chapter Twenty

  West

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Lou

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  West

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Lou

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  West

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Lou

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Lou

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  West

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Lou

  Thanks for reading Game Day

  Box Set - Exclusive Bonus Story - West and Lou

  Box Set - Exclusive Bonus Story - Ben and Nara

  Box Set - Exclusive Bonus Story - Reggie and Megan

  Box Set - Exclusive Bonus Story - Riley and Lilah

  Bonus Offer

  Sneak Peak

  Chapter One

  Kay

  Chapter Two

  Hudson

  GAME DAY: A COLLEGE FOOTBALL ROMANCE

  Lily Cahill

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, are entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 Nameless Shameless Women, LLC.

  All rights reserved.

  Want more exclusive content?

  Check out the additional bonus stories on our website!

  Visit www.LILYCAHILL.com to get your FREE stories now!

  Chapter One

  Lilah

  “THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN my wardrobe that says ‘college professor.’’’

  My grandmother glances over to where I stand in the kitchen doorway, wearing two different shoes, a bell skirt, and a bra. “Why don’t you go like that?” she says dryly. “You’ll certainly make an impression.”

  I am not in the mood for humor. “Gamma, what was I thinking? I can’t teach a college class.”

  “And why not?” she says with an arch of her eyebrow. She pulls a bowl out of the cabinet and fills it with granola.

  “I never should have agreed to this,” I say, flopping down in one of the chairs in my ridiculous half-outfit. “Did I tell you? When Marty first asked me to take over his classes for the summer session, I laughed in his face. I should have stuck with my initial instincts. This is a terrible idea.”

  “Oh, hush,” Gamma says as she pulls berries and milk out of the fridge and adds them to the bowl. “Eat this, and I’ll fix your hair. You are going to be a wonderful professor.”

  “I am basically the same age as all of the students,” I say, snatching up the bowl. I’m not the kind of girl who lets anxiety affect my appetite.

  “But far more experienced,” Gamma points out as she slips behind me and gathers up my hair. “Did you or did you not start painting landscapes before you could talk?”

  “All babies finger paint,” I point out through a mouthful of granola, then wince as Gamma tugs on a strand of the loose
braid she’s weaving down the top of my head. I recently shaved the sides of my head on a whim, leaving me with a mohawk of thick, black hair.

  “You started winning contests when you were ten,” my grandmother points out. “And started selling paintings before you were in high school. God knows, that money has helped us through some tough times.”

  “I don’t mind,” I tell my grandmother for the thousandth time, and though I can’t see her, I know she’s shaking her head.

  In my artist’s eye, I can see the way we look together. We’re both big women, tall and curvy, with the same mahogany skin. Gamma wears a crisp, white blouse with pink piping, a matching pink sweater, and a small gold cross necklace. Her hair is shaped into the same gray ball that has surrounded her face since I was born. I, on the other hand, am wearing a combat boot on one foot and a spiked heel on the other. Colorful tattoos spin up one arm and across my chest, where my sizable breasts are displayed in a zebra-print bra. And my grandmother is putting the finishing touches on my two-inch-high mohawk.

  It would make a good portrait, I muse. If I did that kind of thing.

  “I’m both ashamed and proud to say that you’ve had enough success over the years to support us both,” my grandmother says. “But I still wish you could have gone to art school.”

  I reach up to touch her hand, so familiar within my own. “I didn’t want to go to art school.” That isn’t true, and we both know it. Still, I try to put a good face on it. “Fifty grand to learn stuff I can find on the Internet? Not worth it.”

  “I know full well you stayed home because of my heart,” my grandmother says as she ties the last strands of my braid into place. “It’s been three years since my heart attack. When are you going to stop worrying?”

  As if that’s an option. I had come home from school when I was seventeen and found my grandmother collapsed, barely breathing, surrounded by the bags of groceries she’d been carrying into the house. I’d almost lost her, and I’ve worried about her every day since.

  “You’re a good girl, Lilah,” Gamma continues when I don’t answer. “You’re going to knock the socks off those college kids. I bet none of them have won the Pitkin Prize.”

  I squirm a bit. “I bet none of those college kids have even heard of the Pitkin Prize.”

  “Well, then they’re ignorant, and you should tell them all about it,” she says. “Lilah, you won one of the most prestigious contests in the nation. You have a painting on display in the MOMA. If you aren’t going to brag about it, I’ll just have to do it for you.”

  Just to prove her point, she pulls her phone out of her pocket.

  “Don’t you dare,” I burst out as she busily works the screen.

  “You think I’m not going to tell my friends that my baby is teaching a college class? I’m proud as a peacock.”

  That warms my heart and eases my nerves. “All right, fine. But don’t mention the Pitkin.”

  “Why not?” she asks absently, busy composing the perfect humble-brag.

  “I don’t know.” On the table, I sketch mountains with the tip of my finger. “It feels like bragging.”

  “It’s not bragging if I do it for you. And why shouldn’t you be proud of yourself?”

  “I am.” That sounds like a lie, even to me. I repeat the words, making some effort to sound like I mean it. “I am proud. It’s just … with everything that’s happened … I wish I had never gone to New York to accept the prize.”

  My grandmother lays her hand on my shoulder. “You know it’s not your fault. What happened to Natalie.”

  A river of hot emotion runs through me at the sound of Natalie’s name. I nod as I attempt to swallow the flood back down. “I know it in my head. It’s my heart that isn’t so sure.”

  “I know all about regret, my girl.” Gamma presses her lips together. I know she’s thinking about my mother, because her eyes turn heavy and sad. “But you can’t change the past. All you can do is learn from it, and take your joys where you can.”

  I take a deep breath. I’m perilously close to crying, and that would be a terrible way to start any day. But it’s especially terrible today, when I need to feel confident and strong. I manage a smile for my grandmother. “Okay. You’re right. Brag about me all you want.”

  Gamma lights up. “That’s my girl. Now, go put on that pink crop top I like and your leopard print shoes. That gold skirt will be just fine. And,” she says, shimmying her shoulders at me, “after you’ve done your makeup, we are taking a selfie.”

  Gamma has embraced social media to an astonishing degree. I think she has more Instagram followers than me.

  “All right,” I say with mock-exasperation. “But I get to pick the filter. After all, I’m the artist.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  I loose one final sigh, letting my shoulders sag. “Are you sure I can do this?”

  Gamma lay her hands on my cheeks, her eyes filled with love and pride. “Lilah, I’m certain you can do anything.”

  I try to hang on to those words on my way to the campus of Mountain State University. It is a glorious morning. Sun showers down on me from a brilliant blue sky as I ride my bike along the river trail cutting through the town center. The water is running high now at the beginning of summer, and I spy a group of college-aged guys paddling their way through the current atop a couple of huge inner tubes.

  It’s hard not to feel happy when you live in a beautiful place. Even with all the horrible stuff that has happened in the last six months, I still love living in Granite, Colorado.

  I grew up here, hiking in the surrounding mountains and hanging out with the artsy kids on the Diamond Street pedestrian mall. The town built a reputation for hippies and liberal politics in the 1960s. But in the past twenty years, since Coach Moe Foster came to town, we’ve had a reputation for something else—football.

  The MSU Mustangs are one of the best teams in the nation. Or, they were. Before all the shit that went down at the end of last year’s season. A lot of people say they don’t deserve the punishment they got. I say, a lot of people are wrong.

  Someone who cares could give you statistics, but all I know is that every year, for my entire life, college football has been the most important thing in this town. And it still is, but the definition of “important” has changed. It had been something of which we were proud. But then it became the source of the biggest scandal in the university’s—and our town’s—history.

  The river path rises up and I suddenly find myself there—on the MSU campus. I’ve barely been here since Thanksgiving, when Natalie and I came to check out the student film festival. A month after that, I had been in New York accepting the Pitkin, and Natalie had come here to a party. Alone.

  The campus is stately, manicured, and relatively empty since most of the students are gone for summer break. In the distance, I can just see the stadium peeking out from between the golden-pink sandstone buildings.

  Without warning, a wave of anger washes over me. So hot, I have to stop my bike. I’ve never been a fan of football, but growing up, there was no way to avoid it. It was a condition of living in Granite, like snow in the winter. It used to just be an annoyance—not being able to get around on Saturdays due to the tailgates and drunken fans, listening to a persistent buzz about a topic I cared nothing about, struggling to find something else to do during games since every other single person in Granite was glued to the game. Now, everything about football fills me with rage.