Prologue

Prologue

The lights on the clock mocked me mercilessly, but I was used to it. I stared up at the hotel room ceiling, and I knew that sleep was going to escape me again tonight. You’d think that after fighting grown ass men for a full eighty minutes that my body would welcome sleep, but it wasn’t my body that wasn’t tired. My mind and eyes were wide awake, and nothing over-the-counter had been able to help so far. As for anything that could be prescribed, I wasn’t about to fail a drug test or have my judgement on the field questioned. Luckily, it was already May, and our season ended in just a few weeks.Reaching for my phone, I pulled up the first social media feed to pop up, then started scrolling through the public suggested posts and videos. However, instead of searching for something interesting, I was looking for something that would bore me enough to put me to sleep. Having tried alcohol, sex, reading, nature noises, blackout curtains, and a safe amount of cough syrup, I’d been left with scrolling through my phone, hoping to find something to put me to sleep.As my thumb ran across the screen, I started to wonder how long a person could go without sleep. The insomnia had started about three weeks ago, and I had no idea why. I’d never had any problems with sleep, either falling into it or staying in it. In fact, up until sleep had started evading me, I’d been as healthy as a horse. Playing rugby wasn’t for the weak, so I worked out, ate right, and got my recommended amount of rest. Still, after the Hampshire victory those few weeks ago, my brain and the need for sleep weren’t connecting.The laughter and noise coming from the hallway caught my attention, but I knew better than to go check on what was going on. Though rugby wasn’t as popular in the US as a lot of other sports, it was popular enough in the right states. California, Texas, and New York were the states with more than one team, and there were twelve total teams nationwide. So, in the states and towns where rugby was played, there were quite a bit of female fans that got off on the aggressiveness of the sport. The noise in the hallway was the familiar sounds of some of those female fans with one or three of my teammates.As I turned my attention back to my phone, my thumb stopped on a very pretty auburn-haired beauty that looked like she was going to bake something. While I had nothing against cooking or baking in general, watching someone measuring out flour seemed like a good way to put me to sleep. I raised the volume on my phone, and with any luck, her voice would be soothing enough to knock me out.Okay, so…this is only my second video, and if there’s any justice in the world, everyone will forget the first video that I made and give me another chance.My lips quirked. Her voice sounded low and husky, almost like she had a sore throat, and it sounded sexy as hell, though that’s not what I needed right now.Today, I’m going to try cupcakes. She stared down at the arrangement in front of her, looking a bit confused. I mean, you can’t really mess up cupcakes, right? The directions are on the box, and you only have to frost the top.She had muttered that last part as if she were talking to herself, and I found myself wanting to find out how this attempt was going to end up. Based on her opening line, her first video must have ended up in failure. Luckily, based on her profile, it showed that she had two videos in her history, so I was definitely going to have to check out her first attempt at cupcakes, or whatever she’d been trying to bake.An hour and a half later, her NASCAR-themed cupcakes looked like they’d been baked by a three-year-old, and her kitchen looked a mess. Granted, she wasn’t looking squeaky clean herself, but what amazed me the most? She wasn’t crying or making up excuses for her failure. She was studying the mess like she really had no idea how she could fuck it up so badly, but she didn’t seem upset.When her Bambie-eyes looked back up at the camera, she looked tired, but not beaten.Well, that didn’t go as planned. She pursed her lips, taking a moment. Okay, well, we’ll try again later. So, for those four viewers that I have, I appreciate your time, and if you can stick with me just a little bit longer, I’m sure I’ll find something that I’m good at.I stayed awake for another two hours, only with a pretty brunette on my mind this time.