RUNNING GAME (A SECOND CHANCE SPORTS ROMANCE) (22 page)

“The only people I can rely on.”

I ordered another drink on his tab, and we drank together in silence for a few minutes.

“What about
your
parents?” I asked him.

Lex stiffened in his barstool. “House fire. Took ‘em both when I was fifteen. I wound up on the streets, just a year shy of being a legal adult in England. I learned some street smarts, how to fight, things like that. Learned how to survive. If I hadn’t been mindlessly dedicating myself to football, I’d probably still be there…”

“You were homeless?”

“For a while, yeah. Streets of London are a cold place…”

I thought on this carefully. “I couldn’t possibly imagine what that’s like, either.”

“It’s
bloody
tough, is what it is,” Lex grumbled. “But I made it out, and with an appreciation for earning things. I’ve
earned
where I am in the world now. You might think that I’m just off globe trotting, but I’m here for a particular reason… and just enjoying my time while I can.”

“And what reason would that be?” I asked.

Lex’s lips curled into a mischievous grin. “Keeping myself out of trouble, little lady.”

I couldn’t ignore the fact that he was intriguing… or that the sex had been amazing. What I was doing here, I wasn’t exactly sure… but I felt drawn to him.

Lex had a special kind of magnetism to him, and whatever it was, it cast a spell on me, tugging me closer and closer…
Is this a mistake? Should I just get the fuck out of here right now?

I felt as if the decision was a conscious one, a fork in the road laid out ahead of me. I couldn’t see what lay down either direction, but something kept pulling my attention down one in particular…

Lex seemed to sense this.

“Listen,” he murmured, turning to face me quietly. “Last night was a lot of fun, and I’m glad to see you back again. I want you to come home with me again.”

“That’s rather forward,” I observed over the lip of my drink, taking a small swig.

“I thought you preferred to cut to the chase after last night,” he reminded me. It was true, and I couldn’t help but recognize how he was taking charge, sensing my apprehension.

“I can’t offer you stability right now. I don’t represent consistency or firm, solid ground. But what I
can
offer you is this: if you accompany me back tonight… if you choose to spend more time with me… you’ll never have a dull moment. Whatever boredom is in your life, I can make that all disappear.”

I eyed him silently.

His lip curled up into a smile again. “Well?”

I downed the rest of my drink and sat it down in front of myself, sliding my thumb and index fingertip along the glass, rotating it lightly beneath my touch.

“…Alright. Let’s get out of here.”

His smile turned practically devilish, and he clicked his fingers for the bartender. A few minutes later, and we were wandering down the streets of the French Quarter again, sauntering arm in arm towards his hotel room.

Until…

“
Bloody hell
,” Lex muttered to himself, patting his pockets. “Dammit. I think I left my card in the bar…” He glanced over at me sheepishly. “Would you mind coming back with me for a moment?”

“I can wait here,” I answered.

He sized up the surroundings for a moment. “Are you certain? This doesn’t seem a fantastic part of town…”

I threw him a sideways glance.

“Okay, okay then,” Lex grinned, his palms held up. “You live here, you can take care of yourself. I get it. Just wait here… I’ll be right back.”

The English gentleman grinned, shaking his head lightly before wandering back towards the pub.

I leaned against the wall of a nearby stoop, crossing my arms and tapping my foot. My mind wandered, wondering how I might paint my surroundings.

Effortlessly, I took in the details of the French Quarter. Not a whole lot of people were out; the few stragglers along the pavement were isolated into pairs or small groups from one another, with the odd speck of a person wandering around between them. None of them had any major defining features, which pleased me.

That would make for broad strokes,
I considered to myself.
Put the emphasis on the buildings, and paint some ghosts to meander alongside them…

The overall lighting was dim but poetic, casting bright bursts of light in front of bar fronts and under the occasional streetlight. I enjoyed the darkness that stretched between these parts, hoping to encroach across the area… but it was never enough to blacken the French Quarter.

There was such history here, and so many drunken escapades that no book could ever hope to properly catalogue them. New Orleans was such a wistful place, so full of life and light, even in the dark…

Lex still wasn’t back. I was starting to grow somewhat impatient.
He said that he’d only be gone a couple of minutes… what’s
taking
him?

That’s when I felt the firm hand, clasping over my mouth. Before I could even scream, I was being dragged backwards into an alley, away from the light, and a cocked gun pressed into my temple.

“Scream, and you die,” a gruff voice told me. “Do you understand? Not even a fucking peep.”

I nodded, and the hand slipped off of my lips… only for someone else to shove a gag into my mouth, tying it around my head.

Purely out of fear, I started trying to smack or punch whoever my aggressors were. I saw a quick glance – there were two of them, both dressed like thugs. My hands were restrained, and a blindfold was tied around my eyes.

“Mmmf!” I exclaimed, but it was useless.

I was being dragged backwards through the alley, stumbling blindly along with them. They were leading me away from the street, forcing me to follow them into the dark…

Oh god, no, not like this,
I sobbed in my head.

Suddenly, my palms were slapped against the brick wall, and my legs spread. A pair of vicious, hungry hands tugged at the bottom of my dress, whipping it up over my hips…

“Mmm, such an uptight little bitch,” one of the thugs chuckled. “Wonder if that pussy is this tight, too…”

“One way to find out,” the other commented directly into my ear. He was the one assaulting my dress, and I just waited for the sound of ripping fabric as I struggled to fight my way out of this.

This can’t be happening,
I pleaded into my head.
I should have just fucking gone back with him to the bar. Oh god, they dragged me back here, he won’t find me…

“Oh shit, this bitch is wearing a thong!” The aggressor holding me pinned chortled quietly. “Well,
luck be a lady tonight
…”

I felt my thong being ripped down my thighs, and I realized that I was totally, resoundingly fucked…

“Hey, who the fuck is–”

There was the sound of scuffling shoes, and a hard blow. The other thug went down, crumpling into some boxes. I felt the guy holding me down release his grip and take a step back.

“Who the
fuck
do you think you are?” He snarled. I ripped at the knot of my blindfold, desperate to free myself and see what was really happening.

Whatever was going on, it was a brawl. Fists flew, shoes scraped against the uneven pavement, and grunts of pain were exchanged.

I finally tugged the blindfold free, just in time to watch Lex Lambert dig his knee into the gut of my would-be rapist, dropping him to his knees and palms. Lex paused to check me, and I saw someone rise up behind him – the other asshole, by the looks of it.

With the gag in my mouth, I couldn’t shout at the danger or untie my own wrists, so I bobbed my head. Lex turned, just in time to take a walloping blow to the side of his cheek. He slipped, steadying himself against the wall, before bouncing free and headbutting the guy in the nose.

“God
dammit!
” The thug screeched. “By dose!” Blood was gushing from his nose, which was unnaturally bent and partially flattened. “You broke by dose, you fucking biece of shit!”

“I’ll break more of you if you touch this fucking woman again,” Lex snarled, digging the heel of his boot into the guy’s balls.

Whimpering, he clutched himself and collapsed down to his knees. Lex lifted his foot and delivered another kick, this time straight to the side of the guy’s head.

“That’ll teach ya,” he muttered to himself.

He whirled back around and untied the restraints on my wrists. Finally, I managed to tug the gag from my lips, gasping in fear and breathlessness. “Holy shit,” I exclaimed. “Holy fucking shit, oh fuck, oh god…”

“It’s okay now,” Lex whispered, drawing me close. His toughened fingers held my cheeks, and he gazed deeply into my eyes. “I’m here now. They won’t hurt you. I’ve taken care of them…”

The one on the ground had risen up again, and loomed menacingly behind Lex. He was ready to end this, once and for all…

“Lex,
wait!
” I fearfully gasped, staring over his shoulder at the attacker.

He turned, but it was too late. Lex took another solid blow to the head that sent him clattering against the wall, where his head collided with a sick thud. My rescuer crumped to the pavement uselessly, knocked completely out cold.

In that instant, my fingers graced a glass bottle. Before the thug could turn his attention to me, I snatched it up, smashing it upside his head. He took a step back in surprise as I lunged forward with the broken glass, but his foot caught, and he slipped backwards, smashing into a dumpster.

He had just started to get up when I saw it. The gun they’d held on me sat at my feet. I swept it up into my hand, pointing it at the asshole and screaming for him to stay on the ground. Bending over, I shook Lex by his blazer, smacking his face with my free hand. He was out cold, but blood was pooling from his head.

Oh fuck. Oh god, no…

“HELP! “ I screamed at the top of my lungs, clutching desperately to any semblance of hope. “CAN ANYBODY PLEASE HELP ME?!”

B
eing
a world-class football player meant that waking up in a hospital bed was not
exactly
a foreign experience to me. I’d taken my fair share of blows during the sport, on
and
off the field...

The first thing I noticed was that I was disoriented by the amount of space I had. The kind of treatment I was used to in England would have been cramped at best. Hospitals in London aren’t known for their open floorplans.

Here… I had space.

The room was fairly large by my standards, although the huge bed took up a substantial portion of it… but I had it all to myself.

A small television was mounted up on the opposing wall, and there was a wide window to my right, letting in some light to chirp up the place. To my left was a door, leading to either a closet or a bathroom – and beyond that, a larger door, naturally to exit the room.

That’s when I spotted the other human being in the room. Riley was fast asleep, curled up on some sort of padded storage bench beneath the window. As I shifted around in bed and found a way to raise the incline to my back, she stirred from her slumber.

“Oh! Lex! You’re… you’re awake,” Riley murmured, stifling her surprising burst of enthusiasm with a yawn. “How are you feeling?”

“My head’s a little off, but besides that, I’m chipper as ever,” I groggily answered, scratching my chest. I felt round things attached to my skin, connected to wires – so, the doctors had given me electrodes.

“You won’t want to mess with those,” Riley warned, her eyes drifting down to my scratching fingertips. “They were rather adamant about that.”

“
They
being
who
, exactly?”

“The doctors,” Riley told me.

“Right. Speaking of, what am I doing in a hospital, precisely?”

Riley looked saddened. “You… took a few blows to the head, and you were knocked out.” Her eyes glanced down to her lap, where she wrung her hands together while adding: “There was a lot of bleeding.”

“For a head wound? Not surprising at all,” I commented, feeling for the lightly throbbing gash on my scalp. My fingertips grazed it – not too bad, all things considered. “I’ve taken a few before. They always look far worse than they actually are. Lots of blood with those buggers. Scares the Devil right out of you.”

“Well… we’d better wait to see what the doctor says, anyway.”

I nodded absentmindedly, considering those words. “Where is the doctor, anyway?”

“He’s supposed to be making his rounds in thirty minutes,” Riley responded, rising from the bench, “but I’ll go check with the nurse’s station anyway. You’ve been out for a while, so we didn’t know when you might come back.”

“How long’s
a while?
”

“A day and a half.”

I grimaced. “Oh boy.”

Riley stepped out, and I reached over, digging around the items scattered across the end table for my phone. I didn’t see it, which concerned me – particularly since I knew that Jess was going to be
pissed.

I spotted my blazer, hanging with my pants on a nearby wall. Shrugging off the blankets, I was able to barely reach it with my electrodes in place, and fished around in my blazer pocket.

There you are…

I slunk back into bed and began to text Jess. My eyes fell upon the logo for the hospital, which had the words “Saint Peter’s General Hospital” emblazoned around the edges, and notified her where I was, and that I was fine.

I hit
send
and slipped the phone back onto the end table before Riley popped back into the room.

“Doctor Wright will be with you shortly.”

Shortly
apparently meant
later than originally told
, because it was almost forty-five minutes before he finally appeared. A comforting man in his mid-thirties, Doctor Wright apologized for the delay and began to examine me during some small talk.

I kept my answers brief, and my tone even.

“Everything
seems
normal,” he commented finally, wrapping up his investigation. “Looks like you lucked out. Minor concussion, and you’ve got that gash there, but I don’t see why it won’t heal up nicely. You don’t even need stitches for it. I’m going to go ahead and clear you for release. Shall I go ahead and file for the paperwork?”

“Please do so,” I agreed.

He left us to our devices, and I turned to Riley. “How long have you been here?”

“Since you saved me.”

“Saved you?” I didn’t remember much saving.

“The… rapists, in the alley,” she cautiously reminded me. “I was going to be assaulted and probably left for dead, but you found me… you came for me, and you rescued me from them.”

I faintly remembered something like that, but it was incredibly faint.
Did I?
I flexed my knuckles, feeling them ache. It was the kind of ache from battering them against the skulls of predatory, low-life scum.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

Riley smiled softly. It was maybe the first genuine, sincere smile that I’d seen out of her. “Yeah. I think I’m pretty great.”

“Fantastic to hear, love,” I smiled back.

“Listen… how long are you going to be in America?” Riley asked me, hovering near the edge of my bed. She looked pensive, tentatively awaiting my answer.

“You know, I’m not quite sure… weeks, probably. I can’t stay too long, the season starts back up in a month and a half… and I’m going to have to keep in shape, regardless of where I am.”

“Oh. I see.” She looked crestfallen.

“Listen, a month and a half, that’s a long time, right?” I replied, sensing her withdraw back into herself.
Dammit, it took
this long
to get her to retreat out of that shell… the last thing I need is to lose her now.

“Well, not really, when you think about it,” Riley told me. “I’d actually say that it’s not a whole lot of time at all.”

“I want to see more of you,” I blurted out, surprised by myself. Riley was apparently startled as well, as she looked at me curiously and with a rather analytical gaze.

“Do you?”

“Yeah,” I reiterated. “Only if you think you can handle it.”

“I can handle myself,” she retorted, “with the notable exception of last night. Call that the exception that proves the rule.”

“You know… I like you,” I confessed. “The other night was fantastic, and I hope to experience more of those… And less nights that end in a hospital bed…”

Riley hesitated, looking at me with a clear conflict of emotions in her head. Finally, she looked me in the eyes with a startlingly vulnerable gaze, and she spoke: “…Yeah.” Adding a nod, she continued: “I think I’d like that.”

I nodded back, letting a small grin curve up the corners of my lips. “I think I’d like that too.”

The door popped open not five seconds later, and a very flustered Jess was upon me like wildfire.

“Lex, what the
fuck?
Can I not leave you alone for
fookin’
five goddamn minutes without you disappearing on me? And this time… this time, you’re in the
hospital?
”

“It was for a worthy cause,” I replied, taking Riley’s hand. Her fingers flinched, but she kept her hand in mine.

Jess glanced back and forth between us. “So… are one of you going to start talking about why my friend is in a hospital bed right now, or am I going to have to threaten to beat him halfway to death with a brick to get answers?”

“Riley was cornered by a spot of trouble,” I answered simply. “I took care of it. Might have gotten a few scrapes in the process.”

“He’s being modest,” Riley elaborated.

“Am I… am I hearing that right?” Jess laughed as she turned back to me, almost in hysterics. “Modest?
You?
Do you even know
how
to be modest? You couldn’t even find it in a dictionary, yeah?”

“I was dragged into an alley,” Riley told her with complete conviction. “There were two of them, and I couldn’t fight them off. Lex found me and fought them off. If he’d been fifteen seconds later…”

Jess went completely silent, staring at me. She looked a very compelling mixture of shocked, appalled, and downright horrified.

“Lex… is this… is this
true
?”

“More or less,” I shrugged.

“
Cor blimey,
” she muttered, holding her head in her hand. “I’m gonna need a stiff pint after hearing
that…
” She turned to Riley again, looking at her as if for the first time.

I had to remind myself that, besides a fleeting occasion, it
was
the first time.

“You look like hell,” Jess finally told her. “You look like you haven’t had a good night’s sleep in… a day? Two? What, have you been
here
the entire time?”

Riley nodded. “Yeah.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I didn’t know how to reach you, I don’t know where he’s staying, and I didn’t think he had anyone else nearby who could care for him. Besides… he’d just saved my life.”

Jess tried to hide it, but I could see how she beamed. She couldn’t resist making quick, fleeting eye contact with me.

“Listen, I know that it’s been a rough couple of days for you… Riley,” she started. “But I thought my only friend in this country was laying dead in a ditch somewhere. If it’s not too much, can I have a couple of minutes alone with him?”

Riley turned to me. I halfway expected her to be indignant, but she looked somewhat relieved. “I could use a bathroom and some coffee. Do you need anything from out there?”

“I think I’m good.”

“Alright. I’ll be back in ten.”

She nodded cordially to Jess as she left us in the room alone. As soon as the door clicked, I tossed the bedding off and made my way towards the connected bathroom.

“This is perfect,” Jess commented over the sound of my filled bladder of piss hitting water. “She adores you now. Not hard to see why.”

“Why do you sound so pleased with yourself?” I asked warily, washing my hands in the sink.

“You saved her life, Lex. This is
exactly
the kind of publicity we need you to have. I’m already writing the bylines now… maybe I can whip up something to send over to the boys tonight…”

I popped the door open and began walking uneasily back across the room to my clothes. “Absolutely not.”

Jess reacted as if she were a behaving child, and I’d just ripped her favourite toy from her and slipped it well out of reach. “But why not? Surely there’s a police report or something, I don’t even really need to ask her anything else. She just told me everything I needed to know to finish your write-up…”

“You’re not exploiting what happened to her in order to make me look better,” I explained sternly.

“But
nothing
happened, thanks to your timely and heroic intervention,” Jess protested. “And besides, where the fuck is
this
Lex coming from? Used to be that you’d take
anything
that made you look better.”

“I don’t follow,” I replied, slipping some of my possessions into my blazer and slacks pockets.

“The Patrovo Corporation contract, you
ruddy
idiot,” Jess hissed. She nodded towards the door. “You
need
shit like this to make you look better in their eyes. Has Alistair Pritch ever saved anyone from rape? Who knows! But now
Lightning Lex Lambert
has! All of a sudden, you’re right at the top of the pile, where we both know you deserve to be.”

“Not like this,” I reprimanded her. “Absolutely
not
like this. I forbid it.”

“You
forbid
it?”

“I do,” I snarled, stepping closer to her. “You are not to exploit this woman to further your agenda of representing me.”

“For God’s sake, exploiting her is why I told you to go find her again! You
pay me
to do this
,
” Jess retorted. “The agenda feeds me.
That
agenda. The agenda that
keeps the British public pleased with you.
Did you forget that you’re a loose cannon? You
need
me to pick up after you, Lex! Without me
doing my job
, you’d never get that sponsorship in your wildest dreams!”

“I am not telling you to not do your job,” I hissed, practically dribbling acid around my lips. “I am telling you that you leave Riley Ricketts out of it. Are we clear?”

“You’ve got it bad for this one, don’t you?” Jess asked. I could see some revelation unfolding in her eyes.

“I’m not letting anyone – you included – take this traumatic thing she’s experienced and force her to live it publicly, going through it again and again,” I told her. “It’s not the right thing to do.”

Jess shook her head. “She’s gotten into your brain, man. You
never
troubled yourself with what the
right
thing to do would be. You’re changing.”

“So what if I am?” I demanded.

“I’m not saying you’re changing for the
worse
, Lex,” Jess clarified, her tone softening as she looked into my eyes. “I’m saying that it’s for the
better
. Whatever you two have, whatever you’re doing… you need to capitalize on this.”

“You’re not exploiting–”

“Not me,
you
,” she told me. “Don’t you
dare
let this one slip away from you, Lex. You need her. She’s going to show you how to be better than who you are… and even when this thing between you both ends, you’ll come away from it a stronger, greater man for it.”

I thought on this as we heard a knock at the door. Jess mouthed the words, “Think about it,” and then walked over and let Riley back into the room.

“Oh, you’re… up,” Riley commented.

“I think it’s time we get out of here, don’t you think?” I flashed her a smile. “We could both use a clean, soft place to sleep.”

“That sounds good,” Riley nodded.

Jess suddenly realized that she was the third wheel, and clasped her hands together. “Well. I think that I’ve taken up enough of your time now… it’s good to see that you haven’t dropped dead somewhere,” she laughed nervously. Her eyes darted back and forth between the two of us, and she took herself a deep breath.

“Jess, calm down,” I commanded her lightly. “You’ve been itching to see more of New Orleans. Take a guided tour! Hit some pubs, yeah? Get your tourist bullshit out of the way.”