Love is a Battlefield: Games of Love, Book 1 by Tamara Morgan Page B

Remember that.”
    And he remembered. He remembered every time he sent a check home, and every time he lifted one of the weights to throw across the field wearing the bold Wallace plaid. But there were limits to his dedication.
    “Live in a house with three women?” Julian laughed off his sister’s scorn. “No thanks. I’m staying at the apartment until after the Games.”
    “And then?”
    Julian shrugged and returned his attention to his plate. That depended on a lot of things, not the least of which was finding a way to get Kate Simmons and her Jane Austen book club off his back and out of his mind.
    “You’re going this year, right?” he asked, almost as an afterthought. Although Beth and Nala had liked the Games well enough as little girls dressed in dancing shoes and with big, bouncing curls in their hair, it was an embarrassing spectacle to them now. Kate was right. Teenagers.
    “Well, you know…” Beth looked at her fingernails, which were painted a dark black.
    “I’d like it if you came.”
    Her eyes snapped up. “Oh. Okay, then. If you want.” She grabbed a soda from the fridge. “But I’m not wearing one of those skirts.”
    “Then don’t. It’s not for everyone.” He said the words seriously, a man who’d learned the hard way it took quite a bit of confidence to wear a kilt—and to look good doing it.
    He went home to his apartment not too much later. His mom had gone off to do something called Bunco, and his sisters retreated to their respective caves on the second floor of the house, leaving him sitting in the dated living room by himself, watching television on a ten-inch screen and feeling ineffective. It was difficult, sometimes, to remember they had lives that didn’t involve him, but that was to be expected when he spent so much time away. It was no one’s fault but his own.
    The night threatened to stretch ominously before him. It was still early—only about eight o’clock—and a quick check in his fridge revealed two lonely little beers. Two beers that wouldn’t be nearly enough to cover the feeling of deflation that was wrapping itself shamelessly around him like a pink, hand-knit shawl. One with lace around the edges.
    It was only natural—the feeling of deflation. It was the aftermath of making a debilitating blow to the enemy but not being allowed to watch while she fell, shrieking, to her knees.
    The debilitating blow had been accomplished that morning thanks to Flora Folio, the invitation printer. It hadn’t been hard to track them down. He’d waited a few days, of course, to make sure Kate and her little Jane Austen book club had time to put their order in. Let her think she’d won. That was the first tactic of any good battle—silently retreat from the playing field, all the while crouching, taking tiny steps backward, never moving your eyes from the real prize.
    Then he’d paid the invitation shop a little visit.
    It was shameless. He’d gone in with Michael, both of them donning their most charming smiles. Julian wasn’t stupid. He knew what effect his physique had on members of the opposite sex. Highland athletes were one step away from football players when it came to attracting women. They had a tendency to fall in line at the sight of the first flexed muscle.
    Michael had immediately laid on his signature charm, which Julian never could quite figure out. “Ladies, we’re in need of your help.”
    The two women in the shop, a young college-age girl whose long, straight hair looked like it weighed more than she did, and a middle-aged woman with fingers dyed black from the printing press they ran in the back, melted into a single puddle of obliging hormones.
    Julian leaned on the counter and toyed with a display of fabric bookmarks, smiling with as much feeling as he could muster any time one of them looked his way.
    “My friend here is a man in love.”
    The bookmark stand went crashing to the ground. Both women pretended not to notice, listening with