Hoops

by Patricia McLinn

  C.J. stopped just inches from her and stared down. He’d never seen her like this before, and he was willing to bet she’d never looked like this before. She’d never looked more beautiful. Sweat ran from her temple down to the side of her cheek and throat, then disappeared under the collarless neck of her blouse. Her hair was mussed and wild. Tendrils clung to the dampness around her face.

  He’d stayed away from her for months, playing at being only colleagues. He’d sat beside her on a dark bus, looking into her eyes as they glowed in the light of a passing truck—tiger’s eyes softened by concern—and fought the ache he seemed to always carry for her. He’d welcomed her presence at the games and pretended it didn’t drive him nearly mad.

  Then some fan had marched in with a clutch of news-print in his hand, saying he worked at the Tribune and had seen the proofs of this story. Accusations in oblique headline style. Coyly worded questions. Facts and figures that didn’t add up. And her name coming out at him as if it were in boldface. He hadn’t even seen what the article said about her—just her name.

  He’d seen Frank’s hunted look, and something had exploded in him. Was it four months of evasions and secrets? Or four months of frustrated longing?

  Vaguely he was aware of her looking up at him now, her eyes opening wider, their color turning to an amber glow. Impulsively he reached his fingers to twist a curl at her temple.

  Some stronger instinct pushed his mouth to follow. Exploring, learning, his tongue reached out to touch the dampness of the skin beside her eye. With a groan deep in his throat, he tasted the saltiness, and something more, a tart sweetness that was hers, that came from inside her. His tongue followed the dampness, replacing it with its own mark, tracing it in her hair, along her temple, over her cheek.

  Just below the point of her jaw, he found the hammering of her pulse. He could hear her breath, sharp and shallow. His lips closed on her skin, tasting, teasing. The heated air around them seared each breath, but no matter how he burned, he needed more and more breaths to fill his lungs.

  He fired kisses along her jaw, her chin, her cheek, her forehead, tormenting himself with the nearness of her mouth. Then he pulled back just enough to see her eyes again. The amber fire in their depths gave one answer. He needed another.

  Urgently he pulled her hands off her hips. The ball’s hollow bounces echoed away from them in the silent gym. He slid his hands up the soft material of her blouse, gripping her arms to raise them to his shoulders. She hardly seemed aware when her arms continued the motion, winding around his neck, drawing them closer.

  But it wasn’t close enough to satisfy him. One hand on her back, one on the curve of her hip, brought them together along the lengths of their bodies. He saw the realization of his desire blaze into her eyes.

  He watched her struggle with emotions she couldn’t master. He waited—dreaded—the moment when the mask would slide into place over the vulnerability. But it didn’t.

  She made no attempt to deny her answering heat. He saw it there in her eyes, felt it in the slight tremor of her body. Now he allowed himself to bend over her to cover her mouth with his, swallowing her gasp into his own. Her lips parted under his, their tongues meeting tip to tip, sliding together, then parting to explore farther.

  They were moving, turning around and around in a slow waltz of desire. His fingers wound in her hair, gently tipping her head back into his wide palm to leave his mouth open passage to her throat. His lips and tongue caressed it, tasting, nipping. His mouth dipped lower, seeking below the neckline of her blouse. His fingers met hers, fumbling to open buttons, push aside silken straps and clear his way.

  Slowly, slowly, they were moving toward the cool, smooth hardness of the floor. He knelt over her, looking at her hair, a darker fan on the warm brown of the wood that cradled it. He dragged his sweatshirt over his head, feeling jolts of desire as her fingers trailed up his chest in its wake.

  He slid one knee between her legs, then bent to her bare breast, encircling the taut nipple with his mouth’s gentle heat. He could feel the smoothness of her palms as they skimmed over the ripples of his shoulders and spine, pressing him closer and closer to her.

  His hand found the hem of her skirt, reaching under the silk of her slip to caress the silk of her thigh. He moved up to brush his bare chest against the aroused peaks of her breasts, then claimed her mouth once more. His hand circled higher and higher, edging the skirt up.

  A metallic clank reverberated across their heated bodies—an icy shock of realization.

  Some instinct for self-preservation—or sheer blind luck— had led them to the corner by Dolph’s office, near her shoes and jacket. The bank of bleachers nearly sheltered them from view.

  The rattle of the padlocked chain on one of the foyer doors was unmistakable. C.J. urged Carolyn closer to the protection of the bleachers and curled his body above her. All the doors were firmly locked. Nobody could get in, but the move to shield her was an instinct too strong to ignore.

  Good God, he’d have made love to her right here on the gym floor, and she would have let him. What had he been thinking? He wasn’t thinking—that was clear.

  Desire hummed through him. He’d wanted her—wanted her that very moment—with a desperation he’d never experienced. But, damn, what had he been doing? How could he do that to her?

  A disgruntled voice seeped through the wooden doors. “I tol’ja there weren’t nobody in the gym.” A murmur responded, then the first voice offered, “Well, if you’re so certain, open ’er up, then.” Another rattle, less enthusiastic this time, came to them before the bare whisper of a sound drew the final rejoinder from the same voice. “Well, I tol’ja there weren’t!”

  The sounds faded into silence that grew wider and wider until it seemed to encompass the entire world. It held him and Carolyn as captives, chained to immobility by the quiet. Something had to break it. Sound. Movement. Something.

  “Carolyn.” The syllables forced past his frozen lips galvanized their universe.

  She sat up abruptly, pushing aside his protective arm, gathering her clothes to her with trembling fingers.

  “Carolyn, I—”

  “If you say—”

  Her voice shook badly. He held out a hand to her, but she slapped it away, hard. And he saw with astonishment that it was rage that shook her.

  “If you say y-you’re s-sorry,” she stuttered as she struggled to her feet, “as if it was all your doing, and I had nothing to do with it, I’ll kill you.”

  He cursed himself silently. He’d taken her mask away all right. He’d made it impossible for her to pretend her emotions didn’t exist, but she didn’t believe she could deal with these emotions.

  If he could talk to her, soothe the panic in her . . .

  On one knee he tried to hold on to her arm, to stop her from walking away with her blouse only half buttoned and her skirt awry. She backed away from his reach, snatching his keys from the bench.

  “I’ll buy rat poison, I’ll put the entire bottle in your Gatorade and I’ll watch you die a terrible death! With pleasure.”

  Numbly he watched her fumble a moment before fitting the key into Dolph’s door. She firmly rammed the wedge home to prop open the door, but he saw her hands tremble as she pulled on her coat.

  The slam of his office door behind her pushed the full realization of what had happened—and what had very nearly happened—into his brain. He rocked back on his heels and muttered an oath.

  Chapter Nine

  Anger carefully tended, kept other emotions at bay for hours. But in the time after midnight, enfolded by her terry-cloth robe, curled into a corner of the couch, Carolyn’s mind took a look at her heart.

  Like a boxer regaining consciousness back in the dressing room, she relived each individual blow that had combined to knock her out.

  It had started with the phone call. Even before Scott Gary had told her about the newspaper story. It had started with her disappointment that it wasn’t C.J. She’d wanted i
t to be C.J. She’d grown accustomed to hearing his drawl; she liked the sound of it.

  That was what made the pain of Scott Gary’s news, confirmed by the files in the admissions office, all the harder to absorb. Then had come the scene in Stewart’s office. C.J.’s rage. Stewart’s revelation.

  She drew her knees up on the couch and hugged the blue pillow tightly to her as some sort of armor against the hurt. But the hurt came from inside. The hurt came from knowing that people you liked and cared for didn’t trust you.

  She’d been conspired against. She stared unseeingly at the bookcase with the silver-framed portrait of her parents and the child Carolyn. No, she’d been excluded.

  Stewart, C.J. and Frank had decided she wasn’t understanding enough, not open enough. Go ahead and say it— not loving enough to see the value of a person beyond his academic credentials.

  Perhaps they were right. Perhaps she’d grown rigid about how she thought things should be. At Ashton, in her life. About what she wanted—thought she wanted. Oh, God, she didn’t know what she wanted anymore.

  Yes, you do, whispered something at the edge of her consciousness. C.J. You want C.J.

  She wanted the feel of his hands skimming her skin. She wanted the power of his mouth claiming hers. She wanted the weight of his body pressing into her softness. She was done with denying the longing. Not even anger could defend against wanting him.

  And no amount of reasoning could change that.

  She’d thought she had very good reasons to deny the fierce tug of desire. But the past few months had proved that the differences in their interests, their worlds, their backgrounds didn’t prevent their working well together. They respected each other’s individual abilities. With all the obstacles, they’d become friends.

  When all the other reasons blew away, what she really had was fear. But fear of what?

  C.J.? He wanted her. She hadn’t encountered this type of man before, but she wasn’t naive. She knew his desire for her was real. And knowing it fed a warmth deep inside her.

  There had been a desperation to his kisses, to his touch, that had shocked and thrilled her at the same time—he was desperate for her. Her light touch had set his hard muscles jumping, the feel of her lips on his brow had closed his eyes in pleasure, the movement of her body under his had sent his pulse hammering.

  Was it his reaction that had frightened her? Remembering his instinctive move to protect her body with his own, she shook her head. No. She trusted C.J.

  It was herself she didn’t trust. This went beyond the physical pleasures she’d known before. She was just as desperate for C.J. as he was for her.

  Fright and exhilaration rushed over her at the same time, just as when she’d taken a long-ago roller coaster ride as a child with her grandparents at the state fair. What terrified her was that taking this ride required letting go. No holding on to reason. No clutching a safety bar of analysis.

  She’d concentrated so long on honing her brain to reach her goal—a professor at Ashton University—that she’d had no training for roller coasters. In her code professors didn’t ride roller coasters. But Stewart had called that code rigid. And that code had stopped Frank and C.J. from confiding in her. And had caused C.J. to apologize—apologize!—for their passion.

  Could she let go of the rigid code?

  She wanted to let go. Good Lord, how she wanted to. But what if it cost her all the respect and reputation she’d worked so hard to gain? Worse, what if, at the moment of letting go, her hands refused to open?

  * * * *

  The sun rose on Friday with no answers.

  Heavy-eyed, Carolyn called the athletic department secretary to say that she would miss the daily meetings with the players and the group study hall that afternoon. She would also miss accompanying the team when it left that night for road trip games on Saturday and Monday.

  Then she switched on her answering machine and shut out the world. A shower refreshed her but brought her no closer to sleep. The doorbell rang just before noon. It rang twice before she moved from the couch. When she opened the door, a packet addressed to her fell in, and she saw a messenger bicycling down the drive.

  Opening the packet, she pulled out Frank Gordon’s complete academic records. No message, no explanation, but she recognized C.J.’s writing on the envelope.

  She spent more than an hour studying them, checking back from one sheet to another. Stewart was probably right about Frank, she thought as she stood up and tried to stretch the kinks out of her neck and shoulders before going to change into jeans and a sweater. Right about his background masking his potential, and right about what Ashton could do for him. But wrong not to tell her.

  With all the information that now covered the couch and coffee table, she could have helped Frank more. He could have come even farther in the past four months if she’d had it from the start. Even now she would change his program. He excelled in mathematics and science, but his verbal skills lagged behind. He needed basic intensive work there. She grabbed a pen and legal pad and started making notes.

  When the doorbell rang in mid-afternoon, she answered it automatically. Frank Gordon stood there. “Professor Trent, may I talk to you?”

  “Of course, Frank. Come in.”

  His obvious discomfort deepened to something bordering on panic when he saw his records spread out. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come. It looks like you’re busy,” he said miserably.

  “No, it’s all right, Frank. I think we need to talk.”

  She gestured for him to take a seat at the dining table. In the kitchen she poured soft drinks into ice-filled glasses and fixed a plate of cheese and crackers. She suddenly felt ravenous, and the players were always hungry. As she brought them in, she caught a glimpse of the clock. “Shouldn’t you be at practice?”

  “It’s all right. I talked to Coach. He said what you said—that we should talk. Coach said it was more important right now that you and I get things straight than a couple of hours of practice.”

  Frank swallowed. It was the longest speech she’d ever heard from him. Obviously he would have preferred untold hours of practice to making it.

  “You must have had a difficult time today with that article in the Tribune,” she probed gently.

  “It’s not so bad. Most people here have been real nice. Students and professors saying hello like they always do. It’s those reporters . . . But Coach is taking most of the heat. I wish . . .” But his wish was caught in a renewal of shyness.

  “Why don’t you just tell me about coming to Ashton, Frank. It’s a long way from where you grew up. In Pennsylvania, right?”

  He nodded. Slowly at first, then with gathering confidence, he told her about his parents, younger brother and two younger sisters: His family lived on a small farm in rural Pennsylvania that had been in the family for generations. It hadn’t been self-supporting for twenty years or more. His father had gone to work in the Pittsburgh steel mills. He hadn’t minded the hard work or the hour-and-a-half commute because it had kept the farm going.

  “The steel mill closed right before my senior year in high school.” Frank turned the glass around and around in his right hand. “We didn’t go hungry. We grew food on the farm and we’d hunt. Mom always has been good at making do, and nobody complained.”

  He glanced at her quickly, then back down at the glass in his big hand. “There were some tough times. Especially hard for my pap. It’s hard on a man not having steady work and seeing his family doing without. I wanted to try to get some sort of job, but pap insisted I stay in school and play ball.”

  “Perhaps he hoped you’d get a scholarship.”

  Frank nodded. “There were a couple of schools talking about giving me a scholarship to play basketball, but it wouldn’t have done any good. Even with them giving tuition, room and board there wasn’t any money for all the other costs of going to school.

  “When pap said he was selling the farm, I knew it was to get money for me. I told him I didn’t wan
t to go to school. I had it all planned. I’d join the army, then I could send money home. That’s the only time my pap’s ever raised his voice at me.” The glass in Frank’s hand made figure eights on the table mat.

  “Mom kept telling me how she and pap had discussed this, and they’d decided sending me to school was an investment in the future for the whole family. But how could I let them risk the farm that way? That’s our past. All of us.”

  Carolyn heard how the standoff had continued to strain the family until C.J. Draper had arrived at the tiny rural high school just before the end of the season. Frank’s high school coach had contacted everyone he could think of, trying to get aid for the best player he’d ever had. A friend of a friend had told C.J. about the situation, and he had stopped to see Frank play.

  Frank looked straight at her and spoke earnestly. “Coach had just come back from playing in that Italian league to take a job as an assistant coach with the pros. It wasn’t like he was one of those college coaches trying to recruit me. He didn’t have anything to gain by helping me. He just did it. He set it up so I could go to Transon Junior College near home on a scholarship and he got me a secondhand car from somebody and a construction job during summers so I’d have enough money for school.

  “I worked hard at Transon, Professor Trent, trying to catch up. I owed that to my mom and pap. I want to play pro ball. But if something goes wrong—like the steel mills closing for my pap—I want to have something else I can do so I can take care of my family. I thought, maybe I could build things, be an engineer . . .”

  His fingers tightened around the glass. “I know I don’t belong here. But when Coach said maybe there was a way, well, I wanted to come here so bad. I asked Coach not to tell anybody about me, about how I don’t have the grades or the scores like the other students. He said he had to tell Mr. Barron. But he promised he wouldn’t tell anybody else.”

  Both hands encircled the glass, and he stared into the dark liquid with the concentration of a crystal ball reader. “I think some of the guys think I’m slow. Brad and Ellis are always helping me. But they never say anything. I’ve been trying so hard, Professor Trent. I didn’t want to let anybody down. I didn’t want to make you unhappy or hurt Ashton.”