The Game by Vi Keeland by Vi Keeland

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah. It was a crazy time. One day I was living my quiet life, and the next I couldn’t go anywhere without a reporter sticking a microphone in my face. And my lovely new half-sisters held a press conference saying I was a gold digger who’d manipulated a sick man, even though I’d never met John Barrett.”

“Jesus, and I thought I had a lot of pressure.”

“My grandfather likes to say pressure makes diamonds. He forgets it can also cause a nervous breakdown.”

Christian looked over once again and smiled. “Nah…you got this.”

A little while later, we pulled up to the address I’d given him. Christian’s brows dipped as he looked over at the crappy old building. “Do you need to stop at the store or something?”

I laughed. “No, this is where I live.” I pointed up to the third-floor window, two stories above the fruit stand downstairs. “It’s a walk up, but it’s rent controlled, and I have a skylight.”

“How long have you lived here?”

“Since I was sixteen. I worked for Mr. Zhang, the owner, in exchange for a place to stay until I finished college and got a full-time job.”

“You said your aunt took care of you after your mother died, right?”

I nodded. “She did, but she died during a routine hernia surgery six months after my mom. She had a reaction to the anesthesia. So the state placed me with a cousin of my mom’s. That didn’t work, so I moved out on my own.”

“At sixteen? The state didn’t care?”

“They didn’t know. Social services is so overwhelmed with people who don’t have places to stay that they don’t check on people too often who are taken in by family.”

Christian was quiet as he glanced toward the grocery store again. “I guess it’s convenient to get fresh fruit.”

I smiled. “That it is. And I’m guessing you live somewhere a little more swanky?”

Christian squinted at the building. “How do you get in?”

“Through the store. There’s a door in the back that leads upstairs to the two apartments.”

“What about when the market is closed?”

“It’s open twenty-four hours. So it’s never been a problem.”

Christian grinned. “You really jumped into the billionaire lifestyle, huh?”

“Totally.” I chuckled. “Well, thank you for the ride home—and for dropping off my grandfather.”

“Hang on. Let me find a parking spot, and I’ll walk you.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“Maybe not. But it’s dark out, and I’m going to do it anyway.” He looked around. The street was lined with bumper-to-bumper cars, so he hit the button for the flashers. “On second thought, right here looks good.”

Christian got out of the van and jogged around to my side to open the passenger door. He held out a hand to help me. Being the klutz I am, I somehow dropped my binder as I stepped to the curb. It fell to the sidewalk and bounced, spilling the contents all over the street.

“Shit.” I bent to scoop up the papers, but the breeze caught a few pages and sent them sailing down the street.

Christian chased those down, while I corralled the others. When they were all cleaned up, he went to hand me the ones he’d gathered, then pulled them in for a closer inspection. “You’re keeping your own stats? You know there’s a team analyst who does that—more than one, actually.”

“I know. I used their stats to build an algorithm to try to predict the success rate of certain plays in the future.”

“Really? You can do that?”

“I thought so. It worked pretty well for some players, but not so much for others.”

“Which ones?”

“Which ones what?”

“Did it not work for?”

I shuffled the loose papers around until I found the ones with the most red ink. “Yates, for one. His was completely off. And so was Owens.”

Christian smiled. “Ah, you’re missing the human factor.”

“What do you mean?”

“Yates’s girlfriend dumped him this week. He’s a great player, but he’s also emotional as shit. He was off his game at practice all week, too. And Owens is worried about his contract renewal. His wife recently found out she’s pregnant with their fifth kid, and he’s in his early thirties. He’s got a lot riding on his shoulders with an uncertain future.”

“Oh wow,” I said. “I didn’t know any of that.”

Christian extended the papers in his hands to me. “Numbers are only half the equation. You need to get to know the people, too.”

I scrunched up my nose. “I’m not so great at that.”

He smiled. “I can help, if you want. I’m benched for a while still and mostly sitting around twiddling my thumbs.”

“That’s kind of you to offer. Normally when I tell people the things I’m doing for fun, they just look at me like I’m nuts.”

Christian walked me to the entrance of the fruit stand, which was only twenty feet away. “By the way, what was the reason you shot down the guy who asked you out earlier?”

“Umm… I recently went out on a first date with someone I used to work with, and my life is kind of busy right now.”