Trying to Hate the Player: A Sweet Romantic Comedy (Love on the Court Book 2)

by Tia Souders

  Jinny gaped. Never mind her heart beating rapid-fire in her chest. The man was delusional.

  “I would never throw the Kimball Olympics. I was choking. I practically perished rooting through the flour just so that I could beat you. I snorted more powder up my blowhole than a crack addict. I’m lucky I’m still alive.”

  She leaned forward and poked a finger into the concrete of his chest. “In fact, I may still drop dead at any moment from flour inhalation. All because I wanted to win. Because I wanted you to leave.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, but Emmett stepped closer, ignoring her body language that told him to back off. The warmth of his body soaked into her skin, warming her from the inside out.

  “Well, it’s a good thing I’m here now, then,” he whispered. His gaze dipped to her lips, distracting her.

  “What? Why?”

  “So I can give you mouth-to-mouth and revive you. You know, when you drop dead from all the inhaled flour.”

  “You’re super hilarious.” Her voice shook, betraying her.

  When Emmett laughed, she pushed at his chest, but she had all the strength of a toddler. “Seriously, I’m glad my loathing of you is amusing.”

  “I don’t think you hate me as much as you say you do.”

  “Of course you’d say that.” Jinny rolled her eyes, but her throat bobbed.

  “You know what they say. There’s a fine line between love and hate.”

  “From where I stand, the line is looking pretty thick. It might as well be the Berlin wall.”

  Emmett grinned, dipping his head closer. “Ah, but the Berlin wall came tumbling down.”

  “If you don’t step away, at any moment, I could puke all those brownies I ate all over you.”

  The warmth of his breath cascaded over her mouth. “I’ll take my chances.”

  He reached a hand out to her, cupping her cheek, and her breath snagged in her throat. “I think you want me to kiss you,” he murmured.

  She tried to scoff, but the noise that escaped her throat was a feeble squeak. “What makes you so sure?”

  “This.” He slid his hand down the curve of her jaw to her neck, pressing a finger gently over her racing pulse. “And this,” he said, gripping her trembling hand in his.

  The synapses in her brain fired, but the messages crossed. He was going to kiss her. And a part of her—the part inexplicably leaning into him, staring up at him from under her lashes—wanted him to.

  He leaned even closer, a breath away. “And this,” he whispered, and then his lips were on hers.

  Jinny’s breath caught. Her heart leapt in her throat as he brushed his mouth over hers softly, slowly. He raised a hand to her cheek, brushing his knuckles against her skin, down her neck, until he rested his palm on her clavicle. The contact ignited a raging fire inside her chest.

  “Where the heck did they go?”

  Jinny heard the sound of Dean’s voice, but her brain had stalled.

  “I think I saw Jinny head to her room,” Callie said, and it sounded as though she was right outside the door. In one swift second, Emmett’s lips vanished from hers.

  She stood, blinking, one hand clinging to the bedpost while the other held nothing but air. Her brain reeled as the sound of footfalls jolted through the fog.

  Trying to catch her breath, she inhaled when Dean and Callie appeared in the doorway. She tried to suppress the blush rising to her cheeks. Across the room from her, Emmett admired the trophy she had placed on her desk.

  Callie’s eyes widened, a knowing look on her face, as she caught sight of Jinny. Luckily, Dean was a bit more oblivious. He stared between them then broke into a smirk as he took in the direction of Emmett’s gaze. “Admiring our handiwork, are you?”

  “It sure is something,” Emmett said, staring at the trophy.

  Jinny met Callie’s eyes, silently communicating, we’ll talk later.

  “Anyway,” Emmett said, turning to Dean. “I just came up here to confirm my Monday appointment with Jinny before I left.”

  “Man, you don’t have to go so soon. Did Jinny force you out?” he asked, shooting a glare in her direction.

  Jinny raised her hands but promptly dropped them when she realized she was still shaking.

  Emmett gave Dean some lousy excuse she couldn’t hear through the buzzing in her head and asked if they’d walk him out. Grateful for the moment alone to compose herself, Jinny flopped back on her bed but kept her eye on the doorway.

  Her gaze caught Emmett’s one last time as he retreated from her room. She expected to see his knowing smirk, to tell her he knew how much the kiss affected her. To tell her that he won. Instead, his lips pressed into a tight line, and his eyes blazed the color of warm brandy. This was far from over.

  When he disappeared from sight, she wrenched the pillow off her bed and pressed it over her face, suppressing a scream.

  How in the world was she supposed to face him on Monday after that?

  * * *

  After five minutes of splashing cool tap water on her face and wrists, Jinny weaved her way through the party-goers to find Callie sipping a wine cooler while her mother talked wedding dresses. Apparently, she was helping Callie alter her mother’s dress to make it uniquely hers.

  Jinny stood behind her mother, trying her hardest to follow the conversation. Something about lace and silk and taking in the skirt to make a mermaid tail. She had no idea why they were talking about mystical sea creatures. In her altered state—she’d call it post kiss—her brain had short-circuited.

  She was only mildly freaking out as she wrung her hands, pacing behind her mother. She didn’t want this ooey-gooey warm feeling inside when she thought of Emmett. Things were perfectly fine before they’d kissed. She was happy hating him.

  His voice eclipsed her thoughts. You know what they say. There’s a fine line between love and hate.

  No. He was wrong.

  So what if he was a good-looking guy? Just because she admitted he was attractive didn’t mean she had feelings for him. And, okay, maybe there were times when she enjoyed their verbal sparring. Some may even call it flirting. But not her. It meant nothing.

  She did not have feelings for him. Just like she did not want him to kiss her.

  Right.

  Callie glanced back and forth between Jinny and her mother. Finally, her mother took notice and glanced behind her.

  Jinny stiffened. Her mother’s scrutiny was often brutal. She’d see right through her.

  “Did you run that nice young man off already?” Her mother’s gaze flickered through the yard, taking quick inventory.

  “You’re dead to me, you know that?”

  Her mother stood and chuckled, then patted her on the shoulder. “Oh, honey. You’re too funny. You were the same way as a child. When you liked someone, instead of writing them love notes or drawing their name on your notebook, you’d torture them. Chased them around the playground and threw rocks at them. I always thought it was kind of cute. But, then, I always thought you’d grow out of it, too.”

  Jinny gaped. Before she could insist she had zero feelings for Emmett Hall, other than pure unadulterated hatred, her mother walked away.

  “Did my mom just hit me with an epic burn?”

  “Pretty much.” Callie grinned.

  Lunging toward her best friend, Jinny gripped Callie’s arm and pulled her away from the table, out of earshot of any nosy family members—of which there were plenty.

  “He kissed me,” she hissed.

  “I knew it! Oh my gosh. Tell me all about it. How was he? I bet he’s a good kisser. He has those really full, luscious lips.”

  “Ew.” Jinny straightened and pulled back. “Aren’t you engaged to my brother?”

  “Doesn’t mean I’m blind.”

  Jinny huffed. “What am I going to do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was everything I thought a kiss with Emmett wouldn’t be.” Jinny paced in front of Callie. She needed some way
to expel the nerves clustered at the base of her spine and the pit of her stomach.

  “I’m not following.”

  “It was soft and gentle. It was like…kissing a dang butterfly’s wings. It was the kind of kiss that makes your stomach swoop and your breath catch. The kind of kiss you want to lean into, to grasp with both hands and hold onto. The kind of kiss you give to someone you’ve wanted to kiss for a long time. Not the kind of kiss you give to prove a point.”

  Callie gasped and pressed a palm to her mouth, her eyes glittering with amusement.

  Jinny grunted. “That’s not helping!”

  “Sorry.”

  “And now I hate him even more because I won’t be able to unkiss him. I can’t just go back to BK.”

  Callie scrunched her face. “BK?”

  “Before Kiss. Haven’t you been listening?”

  Callie chuckled, but covered it with a cough at Jinny’s glare. “Okay, just calm down. So, you kissed. What’s the big deal? Maybe it’s a good thing. Now you can put your differences aside and actually get along. Physical therapy can go smoother because you don’t have to totally hate each other’s guts. Maybe it’ll be more bearable now.”

  Jinny shook her head and placed her hands on Callie’s shoulders. “Oh, you poor, sweet, naive thing. You know nothing about the art of war. Emmett threw down a landmine in there”—she nodded toward the second story window—“and I stepped right on it. I fell right into his trap, and pblewww.” Jinny mimed an explosion with her hands. “He knew I was affected. This was all some sort of mind game for him, and now I have to face him on Monday with him having the upper hand.”

  “Why are you making this into a competition?”

  “Hey, he started it. The moment he said I was a sucky PT, he declared war.”

  “He never said you were a sucky therapist.”

  “No, but he implied it. He said I only got the job because of my father and Dean, and he questioned my abilities. The moment he did that, it was game-on to both prove him wrong and make him hate me so he’d move on. I wouldn’t be surprised if this were some kind of trick.”

  “Um…”

  “The way I see it, I have two options.” Jinny skulked to the table where Callie had been sitting and grabbed her fruity drink. Tipping her head back, she swallowed half of it in one go. “I can either address the kiss, which feels a little like admitting defeat, or I can ignore it. Pretend it never happened, like I was totally unaffected.”

  Callie groaned. “Oh my gosh, you guys are hopeless.”

  Jinny ignored her. She’d go to work on Monday and be the ultimate professional. She’d show him he had zero hold on her. What happened up in her bedroom would be the first and last time he ever got a piece of her.

  The kiss had been a mistake. He and his perfect mouth could find another woman to torture. She was done.

  Chapter thirteen

  Emmett

  Emmett leaned one arm against the floor-to-ceiling windows of his apartment overlooking the city. He stared at the view without seeing it. Any minute now, the pop and boom of fireworks would explode above him in the indigo sky. The same fireworks that would burst among the stars in the Kimball’s backyard.

  Would Jinny be watching? Would she glance up to the sky and think of him?

  He pressed his forehead against the cool glass and squeezed his eyes shut. He was a fool. One minute he was pushing her away, and the next he pulled her in.

  He never should’ve followed her up to her room. But she had been so sweet, so innocent, with her fresh face and pink cheeks from the afternoon in the sun.

  He knew the minute he took those stairs that it wouldn’t end without him making a move.

  He wished he could say he regretted it, but he didn’t. Not one bit. Whatever penance he had to pay for kissing his best friend’s sister, he’d gladly pay. Because nothing compared to the feel of her mouth pressed against his. The only things he regretted were the things pushing them apart—the wedges between them. He was responsible in part for putting them there. But what was he to do?

  If it were just Dean, he’d talk to him man-to-man. He’d explain his intentions. That Jinny wasn’t just another one of his girls. With her, he wouldn’t just be passing the time until someone worth knowing came along. She wasn’t a fleeting thing. She was the thing. Dean wouldn’t like it, but in time, he’d see his true intentions.

  But Dean wasn’t the only concern. Jinny had a job to do. How would it look for her if, weeks after getting the gig as team therapist, she were caught making out with one of her patients? She needed to prove herself to the organization, and he understood that probably more than anyone else.

  He could only pray he’d made himself valuable enough to the team. And if the Pumas kept him, he’d have to prove himself all over again next season. He’d need to show them that he could rebound after his injury and make a comeback. The last thing he should be doing is pursuing a relationship that might be controversial, especially while he was under the microscope. Garrison and Bannon would be watching his progress, his recovery. They’d want reports. How would it look if they discovered he was dating his physical therapist instead of taking his treatment seriously?

  Neither of them needed a relationship right now. Neither of them needed the distraction. What they both needed was to focus on their careers. To prove themselves worthy of the positions they’d been given. Otherwise, they were jeopardizing a lot more than their hearts. But something about her made him want to throw it all out the window.

  Maybe caution was overrated. Because when the distraction was Jinny Kimball, staying away was easier said than done.

  ∞∞∞

  Monday morning, he arrived at his session like usual. He sat in the waiting room on the edge of his seat. When Jinny appeared, his stomach twisted. She wore fitted pale-gray pants and a white blouse, paired with a stony expression. Her hair hung in loose waves, framing her face, and she must’ve been reading his chart before she came out to get him because her thick frames sat on the end of her nose.

  He stood and followed, telling himself to keep it professional. He needed to keep his focus on his recovery, on getting back to playing ball.

  She took him straight back to the fitness room, pausing just inside the doors. Hugging his chart to her chest, she glanced over at him. “So, week four post-op. That means some changes in routine. We’ll still be working on a normal gait cycle, but we’ll get you on the treadmill this week. And we’ll do some hamstring curls.”

  So, she wasn’t going to address the kiss. Okay.

  He tried to listen as she droned on about his treatment, but he found it difficult to focus as his eyes homed in on her lips.

  Maybe he didn’t want to ignore what happened. Maybe he wanted to address it.

  “Jinny, we need to—"

  “Have you still been doing all your at-home stretches and exercises?” she asked, like he hadn’t spoken.

  He sighed. “Yeah. I’ve been doing everything like you said.”

  “Good.” She glanced down at his chart. “In the next two weeks, we’ll even get you using some sports chords and add a little bit of weight.”

  Keep it professional.

  “Weights. Right. But don’t you think we ought to talk about what happened?” The fact that she was intent on ignoring what had happened between them made him want to address it.

  She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “You’ll even get to do some modified lunges. Let’s start with some stretching, shall we?”

  Emmett pursed his lips, staring at her a moment before taking a seat on the bench in front of her. He followed her instructions, going through the motions, doing the stretches, but his heart wasn’t in it.

  He should be happy she didn’t want to talk about it. Maybe she’d forgotten already. He seriously doubted it, but it would be best for both of them to put the kiss behind them and move on. Going back to sparring with her and irritating her was a lot safer than dwelling on how that kiss had been hot enough
to light the room on fire.

  Thirty minutes later, he was walking on the treadmill, focusing on his gait, and feeling a bit like a child. Frustration picked at him, spiking his blood. His leisurely pace was lightyears away from the intense sprints he did when training. His muscles yearned to feel the slap of pavement beneath his feet. His palms ached for the smooth leather of a ball, and he craved the sound of the net swishing when he scored.

  He glanced down at Jinny, watching her with narrowed eyes, trying to read her thoughts as she made notations in his chart. A small crease formed between her brow as she bit the end of her pen then made another note. When she glanced up at him, her big brown eyes sent shockwaves straight through him.

  She held his gaze only for a moment. Her mouth opened as if to say something when none other than Gabe popped into the fitness room.

  Emmett slid his eyes over to the intruder, and his expression hardened. He’d never had a problem with Swanson before. He had no idea why he irritated him so much now. Oh, wait. Yes, he did. The guy was desperate for Jinny. It made him sick.

  To make matters worse, every time Emmett was in session, Gabe happened to appear. He’d find any excuse to talk to her, and, every time he did, he found some small way to touch her. How many times had he asked her out during Emmett’s sessions alone? Talk about being indiscreet.

  Gabe made a beeline for Jinny, his Crest Whitestrips smile glinting under the fluorescent light. The muscles in Emmett’s legs coiled as Gabe reached out and touched Jinny’s lower back.

  Emmett clenched his fists. It was all he could do not to jump down from the treadmill and break the offending fingers. Luckily, she saved him the effort as she smoothly stepped out from under Gabe’s touch.

  “Did you get the memo about the trip?” Gabe asked her.

  “Yeah,” Jinny nodded, and Emmett could tell by the way she glanced away from him and moved her gaze around the room she didn’t want to talk about it.