Play Along by Liz Tomforde
The basics
Title: Play Along
Author: Liz Tomforde
Series: Windy City #4
1. Mile High (2022) 2. The Right Move (2023) 3. Caught Up (2023) 4. Play Along (2024) 5. Rewind It Back (2025)
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Goodreads Summary:
Kennedy I’m the only woman on staff for the Windy City Warriors, and after years of putting up with a sexist lead doctor, I’m desperate to land my dream job with a new team next year. All I have to do is maintain my professional reputation for my final season in Chicago. But a Las Vegas run-in with the team’s shortstop threatens it all, leaving me with a fuzzy memory and a ring on my left hand. Now, not only am I legally bound to the most persistent man I’ve ever met, but thanks to Isaiah’s scheme to save my job, I have to pretend the whole thing was a planned elopement and not a drunken mistake. Isaiah Rhodes is reckless, impulsive, and frustratingly charming. He’s also my brand-new husband. They got the saying wrong. What happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas… sometimes it follows you right back home. Isaiah As the shortstop for Chicago’s professional baseball team, I’ve had my fair share of fun. But that all ended the day Kennedy Kay became a single woman. I’ve crushed on the team’s athletic trainer for years. I’ve flirted to no avail, so imagine my surprise when I woke up in Sin City with a ring on my finger and my favorite redhead in my bed. We agree to stay married for one baseball season, just long enough to keep her job safe, but in my mind, I’m using our time together to prove to her I’m husband material. Kennedy might be reluctant to join in on our game, but it’s one I refuse to lose. So come on, wife… play along.
Here is a spoiler summary of what happened in Play Along by Liz Tomforde to help refresh your memory before you read the sequel. If you need help remembering what happened in Play Along then you’re in the right place. Please keep scrolling for an explanation of how all the Windy City books are connected.
This recap was written by Judith @ Paper Riot!
What happened in Play Along?
- Isaiah Rhodes is Kai’s younger brother and a famous baseball player who has been in love with Kennedy Kay for years. Kennedy is his team’s athletic trainer and hasn’t been interested.
- Prologue: Isaiah and Kennedy meet in the women’s bathroom of the Windy City Warriors stadium. Kennedy just interviewed for a doctor job, but the head doctor is a sexist ass and tells her she can only be a trainer, not a doctor.
- Isaiah happens to be in the bathroom because it’s his hiding place and he’s having a bad day because it’s the anniversary of his mother’s death.
- They hit it off until she finds out he’s a player (casual player-staff relationships are strictly forbidden) and he sees she’s wearing an engagement ring (he finds out she’s no longer engaged in CAUGHT UP).
- Present day. Isaiah is on a team bonding trip to Vegas when he runs into Kennedy, who is on her stepsister’s bachelorette. The stepsister is a bitch who’s engaged to Kennedy’s ex-fiancé.
- Kennedy is having a shit time and Isaiah convinces her to have a drink with him. They get drunk and accidentally get married. But Kennedy freaks out the next day and plans an annullment.
- Back in Chicago, it’s Max’s birthday and the day Kai proposes to Miller (CAUGHT UP epilogue). Isaiah tells Kai and his teammates Trevor and Cody he got engaged.
- Isaiah and Kennedy get called to the Warriors’ owner’s office. A picture leaked of their Vegas wedding. To save Kennedy’s job, Isaiah tells the owner it’s serious and they’re not messing around. The owner agrees to keep Kennedy on, because they’re married.
- The owner is retiring next year and his daughter Reese is taking over as first female team owner. Throughout this book, she keeps sticking up for Kennedy, because the head doctor is still a sexist ass who keeps giving Kennedy shit jobs because she’s a woman and now married to Isaiah.
- They decide to stay fake married for one season until Kennedy interviews for a new job in San Francisco as head doctor (but Isaiah wants to make her fall in love with him). Isaiah gives her his mother’s ring.
- Isaiah almost fights with Dean Cartwright, Kennedy’s stepbrother, who plays for Atlanta. We met him in CAUGHT UP. They’re rivals and Dean used to sleep with all Isaiah’s girlfriends, which was traumatizing for him after his mom died.
- Kennedy has dinner with her family, who are in town for a business deal (they’re a rich rich hotel family who don’t do affection). She asks Isaiah to join her because her ex-fiancé and stepsister are there.
- Kennedy’s family is horrid and only care about business. The stepsister reveals the ex-fiancé had been cheating on Kennedy. Isaiah tells them they suck.
- Kennedy asks Isaiah if he can teach her how to be physically affectionate. She received no affection growing up, so she finds touch very difficult. Her ex used this against her. Isaiah agrees, even though she wants to do this for whoever she dates after this.
- Because his mom died in a storm, Isaiah has panic attacks when it storms and he calls all the people he loves to know they’re safe. He finds it hard to show weakness – he’s always “the happy one” because that’s the only way he could help Kai growing up.
- Kai retires from baseball to be home with his family and have more babies with Miller (who officially adopts Max so he knows he’s loved) and Isaiah finds this very hard.
- Kennedy interviews with the San Francisco team, which is very modern and has multiple women on the team.
- Isaiah brings Kennedy to family dinner. She’s already met the girls in CAUGHT UP.
- Isaiah tells Kennedy he loves her. She gets a call about the job a second later, and tells him she didn’t get it.
- Dean Cartwright comes to apologize to Isaiah because Kennedy told him to. He tells him she got the job but turned it down.
- Kennedy sees on TV that there’s rumors of Isaiah being traded to a different team. He shows up at her house because, he wants her to have a choice (re: the job, the relationship etc.). He hands her unsigned divorce papers should she want it, but he also tells her he’ll move with her if she wants to go to San Francisco, but she can’t work for the asshole doctor anymore.
- Kennedy decides to quit her job and stay in Chicago, but Reese tells her she fired the sexist head doctor because the team all filed complaints for her Kennedy is now head doctor.
- Epilogue: Isaiah and Kennedy redo their wedding in Vegas. All their friends are there. Kai and Miller have a daughter, Emmy Mae (named after Miller’s dad Emmett/Monty and Kai’s mom Mae, see CAUGHT UP).- All the other kids dance together: Max, Taylor, Navy and Iverson. Isaiah and Kennedy don’t know if they want kids. Rio is there, complaining about being single.
How are the Windy City books connected?
BOOK 1: MILE HIGH
This book is about Stevie Shay (a flight attendant for a hockey team) and Evan Zanders (a player on that team), who fall in love. In this book we also meet Indy Ivers (fellow flight attendant and Stevie’s friend), Ryan Shay (Stevie’s twin and a basketball player) and Rio DeLuca (another hockey player who becomes friends with them all).
BOOK 2: THE RIGHT MOVE
This book is about Indy (Stevie’s friend) and Ryan (Stevie’s twin) who become roommates and start (fake) dating. In this book we see more Stevie and Zanders, and Rio, who is now Indy’s good friend and obessed with Ryan. We meet Kai Rhodes, Ryan’s friend who is a baseball player and a single dad. Stevie finds out she’s pregnant.
BOOK 3: CAUGHT UP
This book is about Kai (Ryan’s friend) and Miller (Kai’s coach’s daughter), who nannies for him and eventually loves him and his son Max. In this book we see the entire friend group (Stevie, Zanders, Ryan, Indy, Rio, Kai and his brother Isaiah) have family dinners every week. We also meet Kennedy Kay, the baseball team’s athletic train who Isaiah is in love with. Stevie is pregnant; Ryan and Indy get married.
BOOK 4: PLAY ALONG
This book is about Isaiah (Kai’s younger brother) and Kennedy (his athletic trainer), who get drunkenly married in Vegas and have to pretend to be married. All the other couples (and Rio) still show up. Indy is pregnant, Zanders and Stevie have their kid.
BOOK 5: REWIND IT BACK
Book 5 will be about Rio, Zanders’ teammate from the Raptors, who becomes Indy’s best guy friend in book 2, and is part of their friend group throughout the series. He frequently complains about being single, always joins in for girls’ night and is pretty much in love with Ryan Shay.
