Fair Play (30 page)

“I’m pretty sure it just makes me miserable, but whatever, dude.”

“You can stop right here,” I say when we are under the mammoth gazebo that covers the better part of my back patio. The diving board protrudes stiff and lonely from the tiles around the pool, and the pool cover sags down under the weight of the snow.  “Now he’s really gonna wow you,” Roman says to Amethyst.

“Shut up man, you’re gonna ruin it,” I say, swatting at him and missing when he jumps out of my reach.

Amethyst moves around the wheelchair to stand next to me.  I wish I could hold her hand, even with her big puffy gloves on I wouldn’t mind.

I reach into my pocket for the remote I know Roman put in there and press a button. The entire patio lights up with a million white twinkle lights and Ame gasps, throwing her hands into the air.

“Oh my gosh Adam, it’s beautiful,” she says. The lights sparkle in her hazel eyes as she turns in a 360-degree circle so she can look at it from every angle.

“He thinks this is some winter fairyland or something,” Roman says with a snort.

“He’s right, it is. I almost about forgot how freaking cold I am for a second there,” Ame says.

I haven’t been out here in a while because we’ve been practicing non-stop for weeks. Most days when I’m home, I come out here and sit until I can’t feel my limbs.

“This is the one place in my life that’s peaceful,” I murmur through my scarf. “I don’t have to be a star quarterback, I don’t have to be anyone but me.”

A cottontail deer skitters across the yard, followed by three more.

“Look, did you see that?” she says with eyes full of excitement.

“Yea, they’re out here all the time. Once one came so close I could touch it.”

She glances down at me for a little too long and I think she’s going to look away, but she doesn’t.

“What?” I ask gently when she looks away, ending the moment.

“Nothing. You seem different out here, that’s all,” she says.

“Mr. Nature Boy is what he is. Can we go inside now? I can’t feel my ass,” Roman says. He’s rubbing his hands together and marching in place now, which is an indicator that he’s had enough.

“Puss. You ready to go in, Ame?” She has her head tipped back, looking straight up at the lights blanketing the gazebo.

“Nah, I’m good for a few more minutes.”

Now that’s my girl. I knew if I could get her out here, she’d love it as much as I do. We grew up in the Midwest, and we are both used to long, grueling winters. Back then we made mad dashes from the car to the house and hid from the cold. We wished it away every chance we could. It’s ironic that the season I used to curse has become my sanctuary.

“Aight, you two have fun freezing to death, I’m gonna bounce. Glad you’re back at home, man.” Roman slaps me on the shoulder, lurching me forward before he turns toward the house.

Then he calls over his shoulder, “Nice to meet you, Amethyst. I think you bit off more than you can chew here with this one. I wish you luck.”

“You too, and I think I can handle him, so don’t worry.”

He chuckles as he opens the door.

“Nice guy,” she says, shivering.

“Yea, he’s okay. You sure you don’t want to go in? You look really cold.”

What I really wanted to ask her is if she would like to sit on my lap under this blanket and snuggle to get warm, but I don’t.

She gives me a duh-I’m-cold look. “In a second. First I want to do something.”

“What’s that?” I ask, curious as to what she could possibly want to do, but not for long. She squats down in a flash and scoops snow from the side of the path, forming it into a snowball. Lady is incredibly interested in what she’s doing. She lowers herself down paws out in front, butt in the air, and barks.

“Hey, no fair, I’m injured!” I yell, but it’s too late.

Splat.

The powdery snow hits me square in the chest, exploding into dust. Lady barks louder. She’s excited to have some action going on for a change.

Now there aren’t many things I’ve forgotten about Amethyst, but her expert aim and accuracy of throwing a snowball is one of them. She used to kick some serious ass on the playground when we had snowball fights back in the day.

“Life isn’t fair,” she says, scooping up a handful of snow and throwing it in the air so that it rains down on me and only me. The double meaning in her words stings. She has no idea how unfair it’s been for both of us.

Being the blackmail king isn’t a title I ever anticipated having, and spending my life without Ame was never in my plan.

“I surrender!” I yell as she starts in on snowball number two. “Let’s go inside and have some coffee,” I say in an attempt to tempt her.

“Who’s the puss now?” she says, handing me a perfectly formed ball of snow before taking off into the side yard with Lady on her heels.

“Go long!” I call out when I throw the ball with perfect precision. She turns and like I taught her when we were kids, she dives for the ball, catching it midair.

“Whoo hoo! Awesome catch, babe!” I yell. She falls with a whump into the soft snow. Lady barks and romps around her, loving every second of silliness.

Her head pops up out of the snow and she pulls her scarf off of her mouth, showing her amazing smile.

“I still got it!” she yells.

Yeah, she’s still got it all right, and I will too as soon as I take care of that asshole Vinnie De Palma.

Chapter Sixteen

Amethyst

Sleeping with a hundred-pound Great Dane feels a lot like sleeping with a person. Lady is snuggled up against me in the dark with her head on the pillow next to mine. The sound of her soft breathing fills the room and I can feel the heat from her body through the blanket.

Adam insisted I take her with me to the guesthouse after I helped him into bed tonight. I’m beginning to think he’s trying to protect me from something.

Grant sticks to me like glue every second I’m not with Adam. A new security system is being installed tomorrow, and now I’m sleeping with a beast that would scare any intruder to death with her presence alone.

Lady stirs in her sleep, “It’s okay girl, shush, back to sleep with you,” I say, reaching out to stroke her enormous head. In the dim light of a lamp on my nightstand, I watch her close her eyes, but only for a moment.

The bed jostles violently when she jumps to her feet. She doesn’t bark but stands alert and ready for I don’t know what, staring at the window. This is ridiculous. I wasn’t scared before, but now I sure as hell am. I believe dogs are better than any top dollar security system so I trust that this isn’t a false alarm. Somebody’s out there.

Trembling, I reach for my phone on the nightstand and dial the only person with a Virginia area code in my phone. Adam.

He answers on the first ring, like he was holding his phone in his hand waiting for my call.

“Ame, what’s wrong?”

“Lady hears something. She woke up and now she’s standing in the middle of the bed staring at the window. I’m totally freaked out here, Adam. Is the security system activated?”

“Fuck yes, but Cherry still knows how to disarm it.”

“Why would she be coming over in the middle of the night? And why would she want into the guesthouse? I told her not to barge in here anymore.”

Shit, I hadn’t told him I’d met Cherry or that I ran her off.

“How do you know … wait, you talked to Cherry? When, why?”

Adam is in full-on panic mode, the tone of his voice accelerating with every word he speaks. What is it with this Cherry woman anyway?

“Yeah, the first day I was here, she came into the guesthouse trying to intimidate me. I told her to leave and I took her key.”

“What did she say to you?”

“Nothing, Adam. Hang up and send somebody out here. I’m scared.” I try like hell to keep my voice in check in case whoever is out there is listening to me, but it’s not easy.

I glance at Lady, and she is pivoting on the bed, following who or whatever is outside the window around to the other side of the room. I jump, and Lady hops off the bed when a stick cracks outside the dark windows.

“They’re moving.”

“Stay still, Ame, Grant is on his way out. I activated the silent alarm.”

Lady starts for the window. She can’t go over there, what if the person is dangerous?

“Lady,” I say, half-whispering, half-hissing. She stops advancing but she never takes her eyes off the window. Someone knocks on the kitchen door hard and loud. I nearly jump out of my skin, and Lady takes off into the house in the direction of the noise.

“Ame? What’s going on, are you okay?” Adam yells in my ear.

“Lady took off. Someone is knocking on the kitchen door,” I say through chattering teeth.

“It’s probably Grant, but don’t open it. He’s got the code, he didn’t want to scare you by walking in.”

“Well, he’s doing a really shitty job of not scaring me if that’s what he’s shooting for.” Shooting, oh God, I hope nobody has a gun.

“Ms. Amero? It’s Grant, I let myself in. Don’t be alarmed.”

Don’t be alarmed; is he out of his damn mind? I’ve never been more alarmed.

“Where’s Lady?” I call out.

“She’s with me, is it okay if I come into the bedroom?”

“Adam, Grant’s here, I’m safe.”

“I know; I am too,” he says, and I sit up in bed when his voice echoes in my ear.

Grant enters the room, flicking on the lights before he goes straight to work making sure the windows are all locked. Adam is right behind him in his wheelchair, still dressed only in the pajama bottoms I helped him put on earlier.

I’ve never been so relieved to see someone in my entire life. I don’t even think before I spring out of the bed and into Adam’s open arms.

“It’s okay, we’re here now, nothing’s going to happen to you,” he says, stroking my hair and rubbing my back. Standing between his legs with my arms wrapped around his neck, I realize how hard I’m trembling. His presence and his touch are comforting, but the adrenaline rushing through my body is in control.

Lady nudges my shoulder, and Grant calls the room all clear and exits to search the rest of the house.

“How did you … why are you out of bed?”

“I’ve still got two arms and a leg that work,” he murmurs against my neck.

“But you’re not supposed to …”

He pulls me away from him and holds me at arm’s length with his hands cupping my cheeks.

“I don’t care what I’m
supposed
to do. You called, I came, period.”

The thought that it could have been that easy six years ago crosses my mind. If I had been able to contact him, would he have come back to me? It doesn’t matter, what’s done is done. It does feel like circumstances are pushing us together really hard lately and it makes me wonder if there’s a higher power involved.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Was there anyone out there?” I say, standing to get out of his bubble of personal space before one of us does something stupid.

“Not that we could see, but it’s really dark. Grant’s going to check the security footage to be sure. Lady doesn’t spook easily though, so I think there was probably somebody here.”

I wrap my arms around myself in the chilly air. One of them must have left the door open when they came in.

“Do you think it was Cherry?” I ask. She was pretty irritated with me when I demanded she give me the house key.

“I don’t know. Cherry’s capable of almost anything. I wouldn’t put it past her. What did she say to you when she was here?”

That’s twice in fifteen minutes he’s quizzed me on Cherry.

“She was marking her territory, letting me know you were taken and that she wasn’t happy about getting the boot.”

“And that’s it?”

Grant pokes his head around the door. “Sorry to interrupt but the house is clear, Adam. I’m going to reset the security system, but I suggest Ms. Amero sleep in the main house tonight just to be safe.”

“Thanks. I’ll stay here with her instead. I don’t want you to have to go outside in the middle of the night,” he says. “I know how much you love the cold.” Adam winks and just like that, Grant is gone and Adam is spending the night, in the one-bedroom guesthouse, with a cast and a brace on his leg.

“Wait, don’t you want to sleep in your own bed? Your leg you know, extra pillows and all that.” I’m grasping at straws. Sleeping with Lady was one thing, but Adam, no … no, no, no.

“I’ll be fine, but if you could help me into bed? I think I pulled something trying to get up so fast.”

Lady jumps onto the king-sized bed and circles three times dead center before lying down. She plunks her head onto the mattress and looks at us like “
you guys coming or what?”

“Yeah sure, come on,” I say, wheeling him to the opposite side of the bed. With a little maneuvering and a lot of pillow plumping, we get him into bed with his leg slightly elevated. When we’re through, he’s smiling from ear to ear like a teenager in the backseat of a car about to make out with a girl for the first time.

On an eye roll, I turn away and round the bed, taking my robe from the chair by the door. I slip it on and make to leave the room when Lady’s head pops up. Adam looks confused, “Where are you going?”

“To sleep on the couch.”

“That kind of defeats the purpose of me staying with you, doesn’t it?”

“Well yeah, maybe, but we can’t sleep in the same bed. We agreed to keep this professional.” I cinch up the belt on my fuzzy peach robe, and Lady whines.

“Lady thinks you should stay too. Come on, Amethyst, what am I going to do with a cast on and a hundred-pound dog between us, huh?” He gestures at his leg and then to Lady. “I want to be near you after that fucking scare. I need to see with my own eyes that you’re safe.”

He has a point; there would be no hanky-panky going on with Lady between us.

“Okay, but you stay over there and I’m keeping my robe on, got it?”

“Got it, roger, over and out.” I snort when he salutes me and I crawl under the covers.

“You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“You’ve got three hundred pounds of defense going on over here, no need to worry.”

“An injured football player and a dog who would probably lick an intruder’s face. I feel safer already.”

He chuckles and I turn out the light. Snuggled down deep under the covers, I can’t help but think this is how it should have been. Adam and I together with our dog, a little gentle banter, and a feeling of being loved and content.

We are quiet for a while. I can’t sleep, and I can’t tell if Adam’s awake or not. How am I supposed to relax after all that’s happened tonight? I thought some crazed burglar dressed in black from head to toe was going to break in and attack me. Or worse yet, Cherry could have broken in to eliminate what she sees as her competition, me.

“You’re not sleeping, are you?” his voice pierces the quiet in the room, and I jump.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” he says, reaching over Lady to touch my shoulder. I have my back to him and I’m cocooned in my robe, sheets, and blankets, but his touch not only electrifies me but soothes my frayed nerves at the same time.

“It’s okay, the adrenaline is still pumping I guess. I can’t sleep.”

“Me either, but I have insomnia, so I’m used to it.”

“You do? You never had any trouble sleeping when we were together. You fell asleep during movies, at Sunday dinner, on the couch watching football, and I think you were in bed by ten every night in college.”

“I fell asleep all those times because I wasn’t sleeping at night, goof. Just because I was in bed didn’t mean I was sleeping.”

“Okay, no need to describe what you did in bed alone in college. I’m sure I can guess.”

“It wasn’t like that, I worried a lot about my family, school, football, you, the future, everything. It was like a pinball machine in my head; the ball kept bouncing around from one worry to another. The next thing I knew, the alarm would be going off and then I worried about messing up in class or on the field because I hadn’t slept.”

I turn over in bed to face him. “I never knew that. Why didn’t you tell me? And why were you worrying about me?” I can’t believe he was struggling with something as basic as sleep and I never noticed. Some nurse I was shaping up to be.

“I didn’t want you to worry too. I was always convinced someone else would steal you away from me. In high school I was the shit, but in college I was one of a thousand guys who thought they were the shit.  Simple math, more variety plus guy with limited time equals new guy.”

“Boys are dumb.”

He laughs, and Lady opens her eyes to find out what’s going on. Adam stifles his laughing and we continue our conversation in hushed tones to keep from bothering Queen Lady.

“I’m not gonna disagree with you on that one. I know a lot of dumb guys. I got help though, went to the doctor for sleeping pills and he put me on anti-anxiety medicine instead. I’ve been sleeping like a baby ever since, well, until I broke my leg anyway.”

“You can take those medications with pain pills if that’s what you’re worried about. You should start taking them again tomorrow or today or whatever,” I say, looking at the digital clock on the night table behind him.

It’s two a.m., five hours before I usually start my day. Both of us are going to be suffering from sleep deprivation today.

“Yeah, you’re right, I will. Since we can’t sleep, what do you want to do? Do you play Candy Crush?”

“Seriously? Candy Crush? That’s so old school. I play Color Switch when I’m bored out of my skull, which isn’t often.”

“Hmm … what else can we do?”

I know what he wants to do, predominantly because I want to do it too. I stare at Adam while he thinks of a game to play and imagine shoving Lady aside and straddling his hips, picking up where we left off earlier today.

It’s so easy to slip into a fantasy. He’s already shirtless, not to mention in my bed. I would finish my trail of kisses to his thick, hard cock. When I reached my destination, I would slip it out and slide my hand up and down, driving him crazy. Then I would dismount and sit next to him while I licked, swirled, and sucked on it until he forgot about the pain in his leg. When he’s clawing at the sheets ready to come, I’d stop. I would climb aboard again, straddling his trim, muscular hips and slip my panties to the side, hovering over him, licking my lips in anticipation of the impending impalement.