The Bookworm's Guide to Flirting (The Bookworm's Guide 3)

Three to four inches of snow now coated the ground in White Peak, and I was absolutely fucking freezing.

Which was why I was running through a park and not wrapped up in bed where I wanted to be.

Seb was running alongside me, and aside from a few words, we’d been jogging in silence. I knew he had a lot on his mind since he’d never play baseball professionally again, and that was exactly why I’d said yes when he’d asked me to run with him this morning.

Technically, I was no longer his trainer, but I was his friend.

And God knew he needed a friend right now.

He took a left, and I followed him, quickly recognizing the path. It would take us toward one of the hike trails that would go to Peak Place, a clearing halfway up a mountain that was a popular place for teen parties in the summer.

Otherwise, it had an amazing view of the mountains that lined White Peak to the north.

We reached the hiking trail and slowed to a walk. Seb paused to drink water from his bottle, and I waited until he was ready to start hiking.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said after a few more minutes of silence.

“A dangerous pastime,” I replied.

He cracked a smile at that. “I want to do something. Now that I know I can’t play again because of my stupid shoulder, I’m fucking about doing nothing.”

“You’re allowed to have this time to grieve your career, Seb. You worked hard for it and it was stolen from you. Nobody will judge you.”

“I know, but it’s not making me feel better. It’s making me feel worse because I have no purpose.” He looked over at me. “What are you doing?”

“Work?”

“Yeah.”

“Private clients, but Steve said something about having me travel with the team this season.”

He nodded slowly—thoughtfully, almost. “What if you worked for me? Or… with me.”

I frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“You know the team paid out my contract as a goodwill gesture. I’m grateful they did that, but I think I want to invest. There’s a ten-acre plot for sale about ten minutes away. The farmer is splitting up his land, and this particular plot has two huge barns on that are ready to be converted. They’re in really good condition. I took Kai along to look them over and he said he thought they were prime for conversion.”

“Right. And you think you’re going to buy it? What for?”

“To start a school. Here.”

“What?”

“A sports school. All the towns around here have to drive to the city, so a lot of kids don’t get to experience it. I’ve done some research—well, my sister did—and the acreage is close to a main road where it’s accessible from all the little towns in our area.”

We stopped.

“And you… want to convert the barns? Put a football pitch there? What?”

“Football? I don’t do football. Soccer, maybe.”

“That’s what I meant.” I smiled wryly. “So you’ll convert the barns into training areas and do stuff with the outside?”

Seb nodded. “Yeah. The barns are fucking massive, so I figured I could turn an area of one of them into a space that’s got beds, a big kitchen, and we could have like a camp there. Weekend camps. Weeklong camps in the summer. The other barn could be for practice when the weather is shit outside. Put in a gym, a soccer pitch, softball area, baseball area, even a running track if we can get all the permissions. The possibilities are endless.”

“Okay. I think I get what you’re saying. And you want me to help?”

“Yeah, look—I know a couple guys who’d probably be up for it. We could go into business together.”

I snorted. “I don’t have the money for that, Seb.”

“Doesn’t matter about the money. You know your stuff, Dylan, and I don’t even think I’d be this recovered if it weren’t for you. The kids around here need a place to go and play sports where they can be safe and parents don’t have to do two-hour round trips for a one-hour training session.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” I said after a moment. “I actually might know a guy who would be interested in the soccer side of it.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, we went to university together. He moved over here and is a soccer coach in New York but fucking hates it there.”

Seb nodded slowly. “It could be done. The land is good, the barns have some rudimentary planning permissions already applied, and if we took it step by step, we could get it open by the summer. I’d need to get the dirt track to the barns made into a proper road, but that’s an easy thing to do.”

“I thought you said you had no purpose.”

“Easy to let your brain run away with you when you’ve got nothing to do.” He smirked. “What do you think?”