I got the dreaded phone call, the one every baseball player hopes and prays never comes. I was traded - yeah, that phone call - traded from my longtime team of over 10 years to not just any team...to my childhood rivals, the Chicago Rebels. I was completely and utterly screwed, right? Wrong. The trade was the least of my concerns. I met a girl, Natalie. She was perfect, but I swore I would never get involved with anyone during the season. It was too complicated. But can you believe I had zero restraint when it came to this girl?

Let me ask you a question: If someone is vying for your spot on a team and just so happens to injure you during practice, would you believe it was on purpose? Word around campus is...it was no accident. That injury has cost me everything - my starting position, my junior year, and the draft. Now, I’m a senior fresh off recovery, struggling to find my groove, until the day I run into a nervous, fidgety girl with freckles in the dining hall. 

Breaking news: The bad boy of baseball, Maddox Paige, is totally and utterly whipped. Okay, that might not be the headline in the newspaper this morning, but it's the reality of my current situation. It all started a month ago when I received a call from my best friend, Kinsley. She’d gotten a new job in Chicago and needed a place to stay. I've known the girl since I was five, so I figured there wouldn't be any harm in having her stay at my place for a while. Ha! Total disaster.

Have you heard the rumor around campus about the locker room? If you haven't, let me enlighten you: Legend has it, if you bring a girl into the sacred aftergame domain of the baseball locker room, it will end with a walk down the aisle. But not all baseball players are superstitious, me included. So, when the girl I've fallen for brushes me off, I start to question if I need to switch my way of thinking. Maybe, it's time I finally hand out a coveted invitation to the locker room. The only question is, will she accept?

I’ve recently become the pawn of a meddling mom. Yes...a meddling mom - who's been trying to set me up all summer. Now, I understand it’s not a crime for a mother to want her child to fall in love, but when she makes it her relentless mission, the heinous act should be classified as a misdemeanor at least. Of course, my mom, the evil matriarch in the devil’s leggings, made her final stab at finding a girl for me days before I went back to college.

It started with one night out with the boys. She was the hot diner waitress putting herself through school. I was the rich, arrogant player everyone misjudges. On paper, we didn’t match. Yet all it took was one day. One single day to change her mind. She wasn’t planning to spend her day off with me. She wasn’t supposed to fall for my charm. But one day, one smile, turned into several nights of her calling out my name. I’m not the guy she should end up with. I’m jealous, possessive. Not here for a long time - just a good time. She’s changed me.

He proposed . . . and I said yes. Normally a jovial occasion for a couple in love, but this proposal has a very different feel. Because the man that I'll be calling my husband blew into town with one thing on his mind . . . to make my life a living nightmare. So why did I say yes? Well, because we both need something from each other. Namely, I want the farm land he currently owns, and he needs a wife in order to inherit his family cabin in his grandfather’s will. So as he so eloquently put it, my hand, for his land.

Ryot Bisley is my husband. Yes, the former third baseman for the Chicago Rebels and absolute heartthrob of the Windy City. That Ryot Bisley. The first time I ran into him, he was grumpy, a horrific host, and left me on his sofa with nothing but a nylon baseball flag to use as a blanket.

There are a million reasons why I shouldn’t date Fletcher Huxley. He’s a growly-faced, stubborn-streaked, international rugby legend trying to revive his flailing career in the US after being canned by his team overseas. While he might have the good kind of thunder thighs, intriguing tattoos, and a booty of steel, he also holds the top position on my very short nemesis list thanks to what happened the first time we met.

Five hockey players, a cabin in the woods...and little old me, Winnie Berlin. Sounds like the start of a fantasy, right? But it's not. It's my reality. It all started when I got lost in the middle of the Canadian Rockies. A wicked thunderstorm sent my car mud sliding into a ditch, and for a girl whose survival skills involve finding the nearest Starbucks, I was in deep trouble. Forced to abandon my car in search of help, I stumbled upon a cabin in the middle of nowhere.

I’ve got a list of people I absolutely don’t ever want to be stuck with on a boat, or a plane, or a train, and it starts and ends with the broody, grumpy, too-sexy-for-my-own good Axel Huxley. Also known as this romance novelist’s number one nemesis. The man is legendary for his mighty pen and his even mightier scowl. I tried to work together with the cocky thriller writer once upon a time, but the two of us are like vodka and good decisions. We don’t play well together.

How do you date your best friend's sister? Easy...At least - that's what I thought was going to happen. But my attempts to win over Julia Westin backfired in more ways than I can count. The thing about Julia? She's smart - really smart - and her wicked gaze cuts through all the charm I've tried slinging her way. She's not interested in games, my gifts, or my stories. She might want me too; but she's not giving in that easy....

"She went home with someone else that night?" I would like to make it known, I have a lot more swagger than what it seems. I don't normally ask a girl out, have her fail to recognize it's a date, and then give me a high five - as if I'm her wingman - and take off with someone else. No. Normally I'm the one taking the girl home, but with Stella, it's been one failed attempt after another and frankly, I'm done trying. But thanks to my best friend getting married in Hawaii right before the school year starts, I'm stuck on a tropical island.

Am I friends with JP Cane? Ha! That's laughable. Besides the fact that he’s adopted some far-fetched notion from the movie When Harry Met Sally that says men and women can't be friends and work together, it’s safe to say we're not friends. He's annoyingly loud, obnoxiously handsome, and has made an art out of poking all my hot buttons...multiple times a day. So you can imagine how disgruntled I am when I not only have to fly to San Francisco with him for work, but stay in the same penthouse. Yup, we're sharing the same air, 24-7. We're talking full-fledged working roommates.

Tucked away at the base of the Rocky Mountains lived a little boy with one singular dream: leave this broken and battered home and become someone. Be somebody’s hero. That boy was me - Colby Brooks. Except I’m not that same little boy anymore. My dreams might still be the same, but my reality isn’t. I learned a long damn time ago the only way to achieve my dreams was to avoid distractions - at any cost. But all it took was one single night. One night and my entire life...changed. One night had me colliding headfirst with the biggest distraction of my life: Rory Oaks.