Coming May 28th from Amie Knight, THE FIRST SCORE, an all-new best friend’s brother, new adult sports romance! I’m thrilled to share the gorgeous cover and an exclusive excerpt with you today!

There was something about that first score, and not just on the football field.

I loved all of life’s firsts, which was why I’d been saving mine for one girl, my older sister’s best friend—Hazel Jones.

She was tough and sarcastic with walls around her heart as tall as a football stadium, but I knew she was the one for me.

Desperate times called for desperate measures and I’d have done anything to make her mine.

Like create a fake online persona.
Lie about my age.
Pretend I wasn’t some naive virgin.

And catfish the hell out of the love of my life.

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EXCERPT:

Ollie

I typically wasn’t a rule breaker or a line crosser, if you will. I was as straight as an arrow. Sweet as a Georgia peach in the Summer. Okay, okay, maybe that was taking it too far. But one thing I knew for sure? I was a rule follower. A people pleaser.

But my sister’s best friend, Hazel? She made me want to break all of the rules. When she was around, the only person I wanted to please was myself. In so, so many ways.

She made me cross lines. She made me do stupid, stupid things. But that’s what happened when you were in love.

And I’d been in love with Hazel since I could remember.

Hell, one of my very first memories ever was of the first time I saw her. I’d heard a small knock on the door of our home and taken off to answer it before my mom could. And there she stood on our porch. A dilapidated stuffed bunny hanging from one hand and a small duffle in the other. Her worn care bears shirt was stained and her too small dingy jeans had a giant whole in the knee. Her mess of brown hair was piled high in a knot on her head. And her big brown eyes. Well, they were sad.

“Well, are you gonna let me in?” Her pretty pink lips had asked and I poked my head out of the door, glancing behind her long enough to see an old blue beater pull out of our driveway without so much as a finger wave of a goodbye.

“Where’s your clothes?”

My head snapped back to her, the car long forgotten because all of a sudden I was feeling mighty chilly. I leaned against the doorjamb as I looked down at myself, unashamed of the fact that I was only wearing a pair of tighty whities, as my sister Scarlett liked to call them.

I gave the sad-eyed girl a smile. “I’m letting ‘em breathe.”

I didn’t know what the hell I was saying. I was five. It was something my daddy said when my momma gave him a hard time when he walked around their bedroom in nothing but a towel around his waist.

Her face screwed up. “Let what breathe?”

“Oliver Knox, if you do not let that child in and go upstairs and make yourself presentable, you won’t be getting not one of those chocolate chip cookies you’ve been begging for all day.” My mother shewed me out of the way and grabbed the duffle bag from the girls hand. “Well, come on in, Hazel. Scarlett will be so excited you’re here.”

My mom gave me a death glare over Hazel’s head that had me flying for the stairs.

“Scarlett, Hazel’s here for y’alls sleepover!” My mom called, sweetly, like she just hadn’t threatened me with her green lasers.

I passed my sister on the way up much to my dismay.

“Lord, Ollie. Put on some dang clothes. You’re so embarrassing.” She rolled her eyes as she stomped down the stairs.

“I’m letting them breathe,” I called back, almost to the top.

She turned on the bottom step to look at me, her face red. “Stop saying that!”

“What’s the big deal?” I muttered, walking across the landing to my room, but deciding instead to stop and have one more peek at Hazel over the bannister that looked over the living room before I got dressed.

What I didn’t expect was for her to be looking at me, too. My momma and Scarlett were talking a mile a minute and helping Hazel put her things away but her eyes were firmly on mine. Feeling awkward all of a sudden, I did what any five-year-old boy in their underwear would do. I did a little jig and finished it off with a waggle of my eyebrows.

And that’s when it happened. Her sad eyes lit up and her serious pink mouth tipped up at the ends in a barely there smile.

My little heart soared, so naturally I did my jig again followed by a bigger and better wag of my eyebrows before ending it with a slow twirl for effect.

A small giggle I knew belonged to Hazel made me smile before I heard thunderous voices of my redheaded sister and mother yell, “Oliver!”

I ran like my ass was on fire to my room, a huge grin on my face, my heart beating a thousand miles a minute. At the time, I thought it was the thrill of it all that made my heart feel that way.

But through the years, I slowly realized that the pounding feeling in my chest only came around when Hazel did. And God, did she come around. And lord, was it torture.

Because there was only one thing that I wanted to do, despite myself. I just wanted to make Hazel’s eye’s happy. I wanted to make her smile and it was no easy feat.

I didn’t know then what all of that meant, me wanting her to be happy. Me wanting to be around her all the time. But I did now. Boy, did I. And like I said, it made me want to do foolish things to be close to her. Stupid, crazy things.

Anything.

Everything.

And being a grown man, now, didn’t stop me from doing the dumbest thing yet.

Yeah, I’d crossed plenty of lines when it had come to Hazel. But nothing, and I mean nothing, compared to the day that I logged onto a gaming server that I knew Hazel liked to play on.

It was a hell of a bold move on my part and required more than a few rum and cokes and the desperation of a lifetime of love unrequited.

I then crossed even more lines. Lines that couldn’t be uncrossed.

I made a fake name.

I lied about my age.

I pretended that I wasn’t a naïve virgin.

And I catfished the hell out of the love of my life, my sister’s best friend.