Game On

by Collette West

  I remember how Kurt taunted Jilly for years, making his life miserable whenever their paths would cross. I knew that when I singled Kurt out at Vinny Wargo's party. He wasn't just some random target. I wanted to hurt Jilly the surest way I knew how. I thought it'd provoke him enough to act so that Jilly'd finally give me a sign that I was the one he wanted, that I was worth fighting for. But instead, it just made him run in the opposite direction.

  All through high school, I was on the outside looking in. For once, I wanted to know what it felt like to be with the cool, popular guy. The one who drove a shiny, new truck and looked good in a tight pair of jeans. That's why I started seeing Kurt after Jilly took off to play in the minors. It was my way of coping with Jilly's flat-out rejection of me. I needed something to lessen the blow. Kurt knew how to make my body feel good, and I thought I could trick my heart into believing that what we had was real. Some people become habits, and Kurt became mine, filling the gaping hole in my life when Jilly left.

  I knew as soon as I graduated college that I was out of here. I was going to New York—not because it was necessarily the best place for me, but it's where Jilly was. All I wanted to do was apologize for what I'd done to him and let him see how much I still cared about him because Jilly knew what it meant to commit to something. He worked his butt off to get where he is today. He didn't have to go out and get drunk in order to have fun. He was too busy working his way into the major leagues.

  Sure, Jilly's more serious than a lot of guys his age, but he always knows how to make me laugh. He's a big guy, but he never makes me feel intimidated around him. He's doesn't say a lot, but he doesn't have to. His heart speaks for him. After spending some time with him in New York, I know that he's the same Jilly I remember.

  He didn't change.

  I did.

  Dating a loser like Kurt. Thinking I could write smut about the Kings. Turning Jilly's life upside down.

  I deserve to be sentenced to a life in Jersey. Even if Jilly doesn't want me anymore and there's no way we can still be together, I'm still glad that he got out of here when he had the chance. Because the only thing I ever wanted was to see him go out there and make something of himself.

  And boy, did he ever.

  Chapter Twenty

  Jilly

  The Kings are supposed to be sending someone to pick me up from the hospital, but it sucks having to sit in the lobby with my arm stuck in a bulky, mechanical brace.

  I haven't seen anyone since my surgery. I've been pretty much in isolation except for the hospital staff that always seemed to be hovering around my bedside, checking my stitches, or handing me yet another tiny, plastic cup of pills to swallow. It's clear that the Kings want a return on their investment, making sure I received the best care possible. And don't get me wrong. I'm grateful, but it would've been nice to have heard from at least one of my teammates.

  "What do you say, Bruce? Ready to go?"

  At first, I think I'm seeing things. I'm just sitting here, killing time, waiting for some hired driver to arrive. I certainly never expected Chase Whitfield to show up.

  I stand, careful not to jostle my arm even though it's encased in a thick layer of padding. "Whit, what are you doing here, man?"

  "Well, I heard through the grapevine that you were being released today, so I thought I'd swing by and see if you needed a lift," Chase says like it's the most natural thing in the world.

  Before there was a slight murmur of interest from those passing by, but now that the greatest New York King of all time has arrived, the people walking in and out of the hospital are coming to a dead halt. If we don't get out of here soon, someone at reception is going to have to call security because no one's moving on down the hall. Oh, no. They're huddling around like, at any second, they're going to pounce, and then we'll never get out of here.

  However, I think the alternative frightens me more. To say that I'm apprehensive about going anywhere alone with Chase Whitfield is an understatement.

  He probably can't wait to start grilling me in private for what Hailey did. Not a single member of the Kings has reached out to me since Tony escorted me off the mound after my UCL snapped. There weren't any get-well cards, phone calls, texts, or emails from concerned teammates who just wanted to check in and see how I was doing. Nope. All I got were the Halperts' flowers with the florist's handwriting on the card. That's about it.

  So why is Chase here? The leader of the team. The guy everyone listens to and respects. The most iconic player of our generation. Then it dawns on me. There still must be one person who has my back.

  "Gayle put you up to this, didn't she?" I watch him, knowing that she had to be the one who arranged all this. "She found out when I was being released."

  Chase nods, tossing my overnight bag over his shoulder. "Yeah. She figured it'd be a good chance for us to talk."

  Great. Gayle wants Chase and me to 'talk.' But she knows just as well as I do that, when Chase Whitfield speaks, you listen. I might be hot shit, but Whit outranks me big time. Yeah, I'm good, but I'm still putting my time in. He was great for years. It's the reason he is who he is. The man. The myth. The legend.

  So I'm taken aback when he leads me toward a junker of a pickup he has parked right outside the door. "It's Grey's." He shrugs by way of explanation. "Yeah, I have a buddy, Noah, who usually carts my ass around town, but sometimes, I like to drive myself. C'mon. You read all the New York Warriors books, right? Don't you remember reading about Grey's truck?"

  Chase laughs, and I exhale. Okay, maybe he's not going to chew me out after all. He's handled a lot of miscues during his career. It's possible that he's even chill enough to brush off Hailey's brutal portrayal of him as a womanizing, insensitive jerk.

  He drops my bag in the truck bed before getting behind the wheel. I hoist myself up and awkwardly cram myself into the passenger's seat, trying to navigate with one arm. Chase waits for me to get my seatbelt on even though someone's already behind us honking at him to move—not surprising since he's idling in the middle of an unloading zone. Maybe he should've sent his driver.

  "Only in New York." Chase chuckles again, oblivious to the fact that he thought he could park right outside the front door of a hospital just because he's Chase Whitfield. "One minute, they love ya. The next minute, they're telling you to, 'Get the fuck outta here,'" he says with an exaggerated New York accent.

  For some strange reason, he's in a great mood. Grey must have woken him up on the right side of the bed this morning. But I don't want to hedge around the issue. I want to get everything out in the open as quickly as possible.

  "Listen, man. I know what Hailey did wasn't cool and—"

  "Bruce, I'm fine with it. Really." Chase glances over at me, and I appreciate how he's always one of the few to call me by given name. "I admit that, at first, not so much. Not because I give a rat's ass about what Hailey said about me. I'm used to it. I can take it. But whenever someone mentions Grey, that's when I take it personally."

  "I understand, man," I respond, my eyes trained on his profile to let him know I mean what I say. I know the code. Wives and girlfriends are off-limits.

  "Hold on. I'm not finished yet," he continues, smiling again. "I was all set to give you a piece of my mind when I found out who R.D. Bukater was. But I know that Grey really hit it off with her the other night and I wanted to talk to her first before I approached you and said something out of line. And boy am I glad I did, because you know what? Grey wasn't even mad. She was…how can I describe it? Doing a happy dance around the penthouse?"

  "You're kidding me." I watch Chase carefully, needing more confirmation that I just heard him right. Grey wasn't mad?

  "I couldn't believe it either. Turns out, she's seriously into these books. I guess, to her, finding out that Hailey was the writer was like if we discovered we were distantly related to Babe Ruth or something," Chase says, trying to explain Grey's reaction to me in a way he thinks I'd understand.

  "Grey's really okay with some
of the things that Hailey brought up…about her past?" I question Chase further, although a lot more tentatively, knowing that it's such a sensitive subject.

  "Hailey guessed at a lot of it. Yeah, there's some truth, some fiction, some blending of the two. You can tell she hyped up certain things to make them more dramatic than they actually were. I guess it's sorta like when Hollywood makes a movie about somebody. They're gonna amp up the more interesting parts and leave out the boring stuff," Chase relates, knowing full well that there probably will be a movie made about his life someday.

  "Yeah, I guess that makes sense," I reply, hardly believing my good luck.

  I don't like what Hailey did or the way she went about doing it, but if Chase and Grey are okay with it, then who am I to argue?

  "Grey's been trying to get in touch with Hailey, but she can't seem to get ahold of her. Bruce, have you really had zero contact with her or is that just the line you're feeding the guys?" Chase asks, driving right by the cross street to my apartment. "Because today, after our little chat, I intend to set them straight and tell them to back off. You have my word that, by the time you rejoin the team next year, it'll all be water under the bridge."

  "You think it's gonna take a year?" I furrow my brow, realizing the long-lasting implications of this, especially if Hailey keeps writing more books.

  "They're just freaked out right now. I think it's because you knew her, Bruce. Like, really knew her. And it makes them feel like they don't know if they can trust you anymore. We say things around each other that we don't want other people to know—like, ever. They think you betrayed the brotherhood and all that. But they'll get over it. It'll just take some time," Chase remarks, getting in the far lane for the Lincoln Tunnel.

  "Hey, where are you going? You're not leaving the city, are you?" I shift in my seat as we lose the sunlight and plunge into the enclosed darkness beneath the Hudson River.

  "Road trip!" Chase jokes, but somehow, I don't feel like laughing.

  "Whit, c'mon. Stop goofing around. I just wanna go home and fall asleep in my own bed before the pain meds wear off." I feel all grubby after only getting a sponge bath from a fifty-five-year-old nurse from Eastern Europe before I left this morning. I'm not in the mood for his high jinks.

  "I am taking you home," Chase repeats as we exit on the New Jersey side of the tunnel.

  "Well, you have a terrible sense of direction, because my apartment's back that way," I respond, jerking my thumb over my shoulder.

  "Not that home," Chase answers cryptically. "Your real home."

  "Dude, you lost me." My head feels fuzzy, and I don't think it's because of the painkillers.

  He's talking in circles like he's on something. I know Kyle Roberts used to smoke pot, and right now, it's sounding like Chase might've hit up the stash he used to hide behind the loose brick down in the bullpen.

  "I'm taking you to your hometown. What's it called again? Buttheadsville?" he snickers, hearing me groan. "What? Heard that one too many times?"

  "Turn around and go back," I demand, not thinking he's being the least bit funny.

  "Oh c'mon, man. Relax. It's all good. I got you a place to stay and everything. You just had some hardcore surgery, dude, and you need somebody to take care of you while you recuperate." Chase is smooth, but I'm not buying his whole 'Mr. Innocent' act.

  "You're not dropping me off on the Halperts' doorstep. Do you hear me?" I raise my voice, and he stares at me like I've grown three heads or something.

  "Now why would I go and do a crazy thing like that?" Chase asks, a little miffed. "That's not where I'm taking you. Jesus, calm the fuck down, would ya? Are you forgetting about your buddy, Rick?"

  "How the hell did you find out about him?" I shake my head, rubbing my eyes to relieve some of the tension.

  "Umm, don't you remember that…interview you did with Gayle when you first came up? And how you talked about being homesick and how you'd go back to Buttheadsville on our off days and hang around his garage and tinker with your motorcycle?" Chase drives with one hand and gestures with the other, telling me about my past like I haven't already lived it.

  "No, I don't." I close my eyes and let the breeze from the open window ruffle my hair, desperately trying to clear my head.

  "Well, she has a memory like a steel trap, that one." Chase floors the accelerator and we rocket by three cars.

  "Christ, I haven't seen Rick in almost a year. Are you sure he's all right with me staying with him?"

  I didn't even tell Rick when I was getting operated on, ignoring his texts when he kept hitting me up for details.

  I'm mad at how all of this is playing out, and I slam my foot unconsciously against the floorboard, wishing I could apply the brakes from this side when Chase starts riding the bumper of the car in front of us.

  "Yeah. Rick was all gung ho about it, although he was a little peeved that you didn't let him know what hospital you were in. He told Gayle that, after your dad died, you don't like to come home as much, but he said you were always welcome under his roof." Chase maneuvers into the right lane, and I breathe a bit easier.

  "I just don't think it's such a good idea," I protest, aware of the real dilemma.

  Chase looks at me out of the corner of his eye. "Why's that?"

  "Because she's there, man," I mutter, running my hand over the stubble on my face.

  "Who? Hailey? I thought you said you didn't know where she was?" he questions me further.

  "I didn't say that. I said I haven't talked to her," I rephrase, harping on a stupid technicality.

  "But how do you…?" He glances quickly in my direction before turning his attention back to the busy interstate.

  "I called her parents' place and she picked up," I confess like I'm back in the eighth grade. "I hung up when she answered."

  "Dude, you pranked her?" Chase chuckles.

  "I didn't know what to say, all right? Being that I'm kinda still mad at her and all." The last thing I need is a Chase Whitfield lesson on how to talk to women. "I just wanted to make sure she was okay."

  "Yeah. That's cold, not letting you know where she was. I get that." Chase nods slowly, taking one hand off the wheel to stroke his chin. "But just because she's back home, too, doesn't mean you have to see her if you don't want to, right? Just kick back with your bro. Enjoy a little downtime until your rehab starts. 'Cause that's when the fun really begins."

  "You've been through it before, and you battled back. Tell me the truth. How much is it gonna suck?" I hit him up, knowing that Chase won't sugarcoat anything.

  "Honestly? I hated every single minute of it. Getting my knee back to where it was? Man, I had some pretty low moments there for a while. Everyone doubted me. I doubted myself. The aches, the pains, the loneliness. Yeah, it was a blast," he deadpans. "But that's just the behind-the-scenes stuff nobody sees. Wait till you have to start working your way back up through the minors."

  "But isn't that how you met Grey?" I ask innocently enough.

  "Yeah, I guess you could say it was a blessing in disguise. But would I wanna do it all over again? Hell no!" Chase says emphatically.

  "Wow. That bad, huh?" I grimace, thinking about what lies ahead of me.

  "But you're in a better spot than I was in. There's an established formula set up now for pitchers coming back from Tommy John surgery since so many guys've had it done. There's no more guesswork when it comes to getting the proper treatment. They'll know exactly where you need to be at each stage of your recovery. I'm sure they'll be monitoring the hell outta you, but that's a good thing. You'll know if you're seeing results or not." Chase is a wealth of knowledge, having been around the game for so long.

  "Yeah. They told me about the whole schedule they're gonna put me on when I get to the Florida complex. They're gonna start working on strengthening my arm through the fall and winter months, all the way to spring training. A lot of it went over my head, because I was only half listening considering I'm pretty much immobile for now. I'll worry ab
out all that when the time comes." I feel comfortable sharing my concerns with Chase, because he understands where I'm coming from.

  "Plus, chicks are gonna dig your funky-looking scar," Chase busts me, wiggling his eyebrows.

  "You're insane." I laugh at him. "Women already think I'm this big, scary thug. I'm sure having Frankenstein's suture marks is gonna have them lining up outside my door."

  "Dude, that's not what I'm saying," Chase goes on. "It's that sympathetic part of them that wants to take care of you. It's in their nature. It's what drives them. Listen, when I was hurt, all Grey wanted to do was give me some TLC, and we didn't even really know each other then. It's like being injured brings out that nurturing instinct in them or something. I'm telling ya, if you get within ten feet of Hailey, all she's gonna wanna do is tuck you in bed and play nurse until you're all better—"

  "Well, I'm not," I cut him off. "So she won't."

  "That's what you say now. But if you happen to bump into her—" he says, pushing my warning aside.

  "I'm not," I repeat. "I'm gonna stay as far away from her as I can. In case you've forgotten, the entire team isn't speaking to me because of what she did."

  "You're talking tough because you haven't seen her yet. The moment you lay eyes on her, you'll change your tune. You're a man just like the rest of us, Bruce. There's no fighting it once you've found the one." Chase sounds so certain, but I'm not so sure anymore. Things between Hailey and me just keep going from bad to worse.

  "Whit, the first time, she chose another guy over me. This time, she out-and-out lied to me. She's always doing things like this to sabotage our relationship so it'd self-destruct or something." My knee starts to bounce up and down just from thinking about it.

  "I don't know all the particulars, but let me take a stab in the dark. Round one, she knew the Kings signed you. It's not like you were sticking around. Maybe she was just trying to make peace with it and move on. Round two, well, that's obvious even to me." He grins smugly.

  "Enlighten me then," I snap.