The Game of Love (12 page)

“So.” God, was she fifteen again? No, she hadn’t done this at fifteen. This was uncharted territory for her, the star football player walking her to her door after sharing a pizza. She threaded the keys through her fingers, not sure what else to do with her hands.

An awkward silence followed where she looked anywhere but at him.

“Is your mom gonna flicker the porch light soon?”

“What?” She looked up, confused, and found him chuckling. “I don’t live with my mom.” Was he making fun of her?

“Yeah, it was a joke.” He shook his head. “You know, throw back to high school when you walk the girl to her door after the date, and the parents are waiting just inside to make sure she’s making curfew. And if you stand out there neckin’ too long, they flip the porch light to warn you to get your butt inside.” He chuckled at the memory. “Your parents never did that to you?”

“I didn’t date in high school.” Awesome. Just what everyone wants to admit.

“Why? Don’t you dare tell me you were an ugly duckling who just swanned in the last year. I won’t believe you.”

Her shoulders, which had crept up close to her ears, lowered, and her hand loosened its grip on her keys. Her palm stung where the metal had dug into her skin.

“No. I just was too busy with tennis and school.” Practice after practice, conditioning and strength-training before and after. No weekend free for friends or fun. Her parents’ eyes were always on the prize.

“Well, then. We’ll just have to make up for lost time, won’t we?” He dropped the smile and put his hands on her upper arms. “Christina St. James…I have a question for you.”

Oh God. What was he up to? She let her eyes flutter shut to brace for impact. “’Kay?”

“Will you come to my football game on Friday?”

“Huh?” Her eyes shot open. His big grin was back. He looked like a seventeen-year-old asking a girl out…if you ignored the hard bulk of his chest and shoulders and been-there-done-that look in his eye.

“The football game on Friday. It’s a home game. I know your girls have been to a few of our games but I haven’t seen you yet.”

Meaning he looked for her. He noticed her absence. She’d been there, supervising the concession-stand work, but she’d purposefully stayed away from the field.

The thought that he’d been watching for her spread through her, melted her reserve like warm butter. “Football game. Friday.”

“Never been to a football game either?” His voice lowered to a gravelly hush. “Well, like I said. We’ll make up for lost time.” He bent down and kissed her. “See you Friday?”

Dazed, all she could contribute was, “Yeah, Friday…” before he turned and went back to his car.

She walked inside, shut the door, leaned her back against it and concentrated on the rise and fall of her chest. It felt like he’d stolen her breath. And her heart. She was pretty sure he had taken a small piece of it with him.

She’s here.

He fought to keep his focus on plays, strategies and keeping control of his players’ tempers.

He knew she was keeping Katie company while Jared performed his AD duties in the skybox. She wore a navy blue hat over her shiny hair, which cascaded around the shoulders of her bright red coat. She stood, and he could see the jeans she wore hugging those long, toned legs of hers. She smiled and clapped her mitten-clad hands together a few times, delighted with whatever Katie had shared.

She was at his football game, and she was happy. The thought permeated his mind, giving him a pleasantly warm buzz. Things became muffled, like he was hearing underwater as his vision tunneled to focus on her. She looked his way and gave him a smile and a wave. He lifted his hand to wave back.

“Coach!”

Brett whipped around. Twelve faces stared at him through helmet masks. “What?”

They looked at each other, then Will Bradley said, “We’re waiting for you to call a play, Coach.”

Fuck.
He’d been so caught up in watching Chris he’d blanked on his responsibility. That wasn’t acceptable. Brett shook his head, desperate to put his full attention on the game. On the fight for the win.

“Forty-two, right. Don’t get fancy, just run the play the way we know how. Hands in.” He counted down and they all yelled “Break!” before the players sprinted to their positions on the field.

He couldn’t focus on the game if he didn’t have his total concentration centered on the field. The team deserved his best. With great reluctance, he turned his back to the stands and hunched his shoulders against the biting wind, ready for a bone-crushing battle.

Did he have to look so cute down there? The fabric of his shapeless windbreaker and khaki pants molded to his muscular frame every time the wind blew. More than once he grabbed for the red baseball hat with the school’s mascot on it before it flew away. It was almost comical, how he battled against an invisible foe.

But what amused her the most was how animated he was. One minute he was still as a statue, his jacket fluttering around him. The next he jumped up and down like he was trying to smash the ground with his feet, yelling at the ref about some unfair call. He waved the clipboard—permanently attached to his left hand—back and forth so fast she wasn’t entirely sure the biting wind she could feel on her cheeks wasn’t from him. As players came off the field, he slapped backs, called instructions, grabbed facemasks to get attentions. He shouted out plays to those on the field, pointing wildly and making hand gestures that probably made sense to the quarterback, but just looked vaguely obscene to her eye. At one point, when a Northeastern player made a break for the end zone, Brett actually followed in his wake on the sideline, fist pumping the air as the athlete scored.

He was just like her. He felt every tackle, gloried in every touchdown, was enraged with bad calls and inwardly whimpered when a player had to be carried off the field.

He was a coach. He was one of the good ones, the passionate ones. The ones that gave a damn about their players off the field, as well as on.

And she was falling disgustingly in love with him.

The crowd stood and cheered as another field goal passed through the uprights, but the devastating realization kept her firmly planted in her concrete seat.

Time to reassess. She wasn’t completely in love, right? As if she could honestly see the answer if she concentrated hard enough, she closed her eyes. Nope, not completely in love. All right, so there was some wiggle room to avoid disaster. She would just…figure something out.

Maybe she could avoid spending time alone with him.

She was jarred from her thoughts when Katie grabbed her upper arm and shook. “They scored! They scored! They’re ahead by one!” She jumped up with the rest of the crowd, taking Chris with her.

Chris glanced around the people in front of her to find Brett. His kicker took a flying leap and jumped onto his back like a monkey. Brett—sturdy as an oak tree—barely moved with the impact. He threw his head back and laughed, unfazed by the attack and just as excited as the player.

One look at him and all her female neurons sat up and said, “Oh, that looks good. Get that one,” like they were at a freaking buffet. No, avoiding that man was not an option.

She would just be careful. She’d hang mental Post-it notes on her brain, reminding herself to not get too comfortable with him.

“Hey.” Katie bumped her shoulder. “You got really quiet. What’s up?” Before Chris could turn and answer, Katie looked from her to Brett, then back. “Oh. I get it now.”

The knowing smile said she really did get it. Damn.

“Not up for discussion.” She turned to face the field again. It was hard to freeze her out on this, but Katie wasn’t an impartial third party.

“Ooo-kaaa-aay,” Katie said, her voice taking a sing-song tone that let Chris know she was accepting the “not up for discussion” line…for now.

After the final seconds ticked down on the clock, the cacophony of noise from the stands signaled a victory for the still-undefeated Northeastern in the season’s closest match-up yet. Spectators poured out of the stands like sand in an hourglass, but she stayed behind with Katie, waiting for Jared to finish up his duties.

She waved to some of the tennis girls as they headed out into the parking lot to socialize. Most of the coaching staff had stayed behind, though.

A shrill whistle blasted through the quiet stadium, and she looked down to see Brett standing at the fence separating the field from the track, waving to get her attention, making a “come here” motion.

Another shoulder bump from Katie. “Go on, you know you want to.” That tiny push was all the motivation she needed.

As she crossed the track, she wondered if she was about to love or hate the conversation they were going to have. “Good game, Coach,” she called as she came close to the fence.

“I’m pretty pleased with the result myself.” He glanced at the scoreboard again, as if to reaffirm that they’d won. “It was a good match-up. We’ll see these guys once we get into Sectional play.” When Chris paused a foot away from the fence dividing them, he motioned with his hand. “Come over here.” His voice was so soft, it was almost lost in the wind.

She walked up to the fence, the grass spongy beneath her feet, working hard to control her breathing. “So. This feels very Molly Ringwald movie-esque.” It was the best comparison she had to “normal high school.”

“Hmm.” He made the noncommittal noise, and she knew he wasn’t listening. Instead, he took her hand and drew off her mitten, his own bare fingers surprisingly warm against the thin skin of her wrist.

“Hey, my hand’ll get cold.”

“Your mittens are cute.”

“My mittens are…” What? He’d lost it. The euphoria of winning the game was giving him a buzz. Of course the feel of his fingertips brushing circles around the inside of her wrist was making her kind of loopy herself.

“I usually give the guys about ten to get changed into street clothes and then we do the post-game wrap-up and final words, then they’re cut loose.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Her mind registered what he was saying, but she struggled to keep her eyes open while he drew circles over her pulse point, around her palm. Had her hand been cold only a second earlier? A nice flush was creeping through her entire body now.

“After they’re done, I was thinking you could come back to my place and celebrate. One of my sisters-in-law is currently in this make-your-own-wine phase, and I haven’t tried her latest creation.” He made a face. “I have a feeling it’d be best to drink it when there’s someone to call for an ambulance in case of accidental poisoning. And in the event we survive, we can wash it down with some real drinks.”

“Mmm.” Okay, so it wasn’t a real reply, but honestly, it was all she could come up with. It was either that, or
Don’t you dare stop doing that.
Comparatively, “mmm” didn’t sound so bad.

“That sounds like—”

“Coach St. James?”

Chris turned around. “Brittany, what’s wrong?”

The teen stood with her hands in her black coat pockets and her eyes on the ground. Two teammates, Katelyn and Amelia, stood a foot behind her with concerned looks on their faces. “Can we talk?” the normally outspoken girl mumbled into her scarf.

“Talk? Do you mean now?” She glanced at Brett, who suddenly developed an avid interest in the scoreboard. She took a few steps away from the fence to give Brittany her full attention. “What’s wrong?”

She lifted her head and Chris’s heart ached for her. Mascara ran down her face and clumped her eyelashes. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her nose looked like she’d blown it too many times. Chris could see that despite the girl’s misery, she was struggling to hold on to her normal attitude. “If you’re too busy—”

“Her boyfriend broke up with her,” Katelyn broke in.

“Yeah, and he was a real ass about it,” Amelia added.

“Shut up!”

“All right, all right. Calm down, we’ll talk. I’ve always got time. Just give me a moment and we’ll talk. Go wait in bleachers for me, okay?”

Brittany gave another sniff and nodded, then Katelyn and Amelia linked arms with her and walked to the bleacher steps together. She watched them go with mixed emotions. She was sad for Brittany, that she had to discover heartache at a young age. But at the same time, she felt pleased and proud that the girl had come to her for help.

He pushed a ball of wool into her bare hand—her mitten—and she heard a low, “Go,” accompanied by a gentle shove on the back. She didn’t turn around to apologize to Brett. He would understand.

One long, emotional, hormone-driven sob-fest later, Chris dropped down onto her couch with a bone-weary sigh.

Her phone rang, and she smiled. Lunging across the couch for the cordless phone on the end table, she gave a breathless laugh and said, “Hey, Brett. Sorry I left you so fast.”

There was an electric pause. “Who the hell is Brett?”

The harsh voice had her stomach plunging like the big drop on a roller coaster. “Dax?” She shot up to sit on the edge of the couch cushion. What the hell was he doing calling? How did he…Right. Mother had given him the number.

“Don’t fuck around with me, Chrissy. Answer. Who the fuck is Brett and why the hell would he be calling you at eleven at night?”

She took another gulp of air. She tried to tell him to shut up, to go to hell. But she couldn’t talk around the ball of anger and fear lodged in her throat.

“Chrissy, come on.” His voice had taken on a whiny edge. “You know you love me, babe.”

No mention of him loving her, of course.

“Just give us another shot. I’ll come down there, help you pack up your stuff, even. You can move back into my condo. We’re good together. Chrissy…” When she still didn’t answer—couldn’t—he yelled, “Why aren’t you answering me? What, are you waiting for this Brett dude to come over and fuck you?”

Something snapped deep inside her, and the ball of fear and anger dissolved, giving her her voice back.

“Don’t
Chrissy
me. I hate that name. And no, we’re not good together. I’m good for your image. You’re not good for toilet paper. I was the perfect woman for you, wasn’t I? Never put up a fuss while you were sinking your puck into other women’s nets. Quiet and simple, right?”

She was on a roll now. Her left hand strangled the couch cushion. “I helped balance out your bad-boy persona for the press. Oh yeah. I was good for you. But you know what? You were shit for me. Don’t call me again or I’ll file harassment charges.”

She jabbed the power button on the phone so hard the rubber pad stuck in and she had to use her fingernail to dig it back out.

Shaking fingers dropped the phone onto the coffee table, the clattering sound barely registering as she let her head fall into her hands. Her heart was going to burst. It was like those racehorses she’d heard about, who ran so hard their heart exploded in their chest.

She had no clue how long she sat there before the ringing once again cut through her mind. Without even bothering to look at the incoming number, she lifted her foot and used it to slide the phone off the table and onto the floor like a snake.

“Katie, I need your help.”

“Brett?” Katie croaked into the phone, sitting up in bed. She rubbed a hand over her face, combed her fingers through her tangled hair. Ew. Bed head and drool. Winning combination. Oh well. Jared had seen worse.

Brett was silent a moment. “Were you sleeping? It’s like ten in the morning.”

All right. That did it. Her voice smoothed into honey-coated sarcasm. “Brett. Honey. It’s a Saturday. I spent a good portion of last night sitting in the freezing cold with my temporarily fat butt on concrete stadium seats. And I was woken up about fourteen times in the night by a two-inch foot in my ribs. Could you at least say ‘Good morning’ before you jump up my ass?”

“I’m sorry. You’re right. How’s Cletus the Fetus?”

Katie sighed the sigh of a weary sister. “Cletus, as you
insist
on referring to the baby, is fine. Now, since I know you didn’t call to talk about my gestating, what did you do to Chris?”

“Do? What do you mean what did I do? Nothing. Why? What did she say?” He sounded like a student being told he’d overslept for his final exams.

Ah. Payback. Sweet, but too short. She gloried in the moment for only a second. “Nothing. I haven’t talked to her since she abandoned me to talk to you after the game last night. But you’re clearly not calling to get my momma’s biscuit recipe, so what’s left that I could help with but Chris?”

“You’re bossy.”

“I know. Spill.”

“I called last night to see how things went with the fight in the parking lot—”

“Oh, I know! Jared heard about that but he’s pretending he didn’t because if he did hear about it officially he’d probably have to take some sort of action, and he doesn’t want to do that when nobody was actually hurt. Plus, with the team just getting their feet on the ground and showing some growth he thinks it would be counterproductive to punish them. But at the same time he’s afraid he might get pressure from the administration to do something since he is in charge of that sort—”