Challenging the Center (Santa Fe Bobcats)

by Jeanette Murray

  “You’re not coming to the game?” Man, that sounded needy. “I mean, just curious so I can arrange a ride or something.”

  Nice save, asshat.

  She smiled a little, as if she knew instinctively he was losing his cool over her. As if she was enjoying it.

  “I plan on coming, yes. So if you could arrange a ride, that would be lovely.” She smiled sweetly now, as if they hadn’t just been going toe to toe in a knockdown, drag-out argument. “I’m meeting my interim tennis coach early in the morning. Plenty of time to get back here and shower before going to the game.”

  “Okay.” He scrubbed over his head, hoping to clear the cobwebs the desire he had for her strung all over his brain. “Okay.”

  “And when you start repeating yourself, that’s my cue to leave.” She waved a hand and headed for his door. But as she reached for the doorknob, she turned to look at him over her shoulder. He froze in place, unable to move. “Just so you know, Bertha taught me a lot. If you only knew what you were missing.” With a wink, she disappeared out his door. He heard her own unlock and open before his was fully shut behind her.

  Son of a bitch, she drove him crazy.

  “Bobcat Buys Beauty’s Company.” Trey grinned as he wandered over to Michael’s section of the locker room. “Nice headline, bro.”

  “Bite me,” Michael said calmly. He’d already taken a ribbing that morning from his two older brothers—both of whom knew well enough it wouldn’t hurt him in the game to be poked at a bit—and his father, who simply found the entire thing hilarious. Their calls from his hometown in Oregon had already dulled the edge of anger over the whole thing.

  Brothers were good for that.

  And to think he’d once wanted to be just like them…

  “Hey, I get it.” Matt Peterson, defensive lineman and Grade A showboat, walked by and kicked a chair out to sit on. “She got herself into a mess, and you bailed her out. No big. It was a gentlemanly thing to do.”

  “Thanks.” Finally, someone who got it without him having to explain himself.

  “You didn’t have any, how might they say it…” Matt paused for a moment, shaking his head and sending his dreads bouncing around his shoulders. “Nefarious. That’s a good one. You didn’t have any nefarious plans for the tennis chick.”

  “She’s not a chick, but no. No moustache twirling for me, thanks.”

  “So you wouldn’t mind if I found her and made some advances.”

  Michael’s eyes narrowed into slits, and he turned his head very slowly to the side, taking in Matt’s easy pose. “What?”

  Matt grinned, showing off his pearly white smile in his dark face. “She’s hot, regardless of whether you’re stuck with her playing Big Brother, Little Sister or whatever. She’s an adult. I figured you wouldn’t care if I asked her out. No nefarious plans, I swear.” As proof, Matt held up his hands, palms out, shit-eating smile on his face.

  Trey snickered, then kept walking toward his own seat.

  “Not going to help me at all?” Michael called out.

  “Dig your own grave,” was his friend’s reply.

  Assholes. He was surrounded by them.

  “I’m going to say this once because you’re a good guy, Matt. I know you’ll respect me when I tell you this.”

  Matt leaned closer, eyebrows raising in curiosity.

  Michael scooted in until their heads were nearly touching and lowered his voice to just above a whisper. “If you ask her out, I will rip your heart out through your throat, stuff it up your ass, and kick your lifeless carcass into next week.”

  Matt cracked up, standing and slapping a hand on his shoulder. “Roger that, oh wise mentor man. Lambert’s got it baaaaaad,” he sang softly, shuffling away in his shower shoes toward his own locker.

  Assholes. Assholes everywhere.

  Chapter 12

  Kat walked into the tennis center, prepared for anything. And yeah, okay, nervous as everloving hell. Michael had loaned her his SUV, which had shocked the hell out of her when she realized it in the morning. Driving a car that didn’t belong to her had been intimidating.

  But more than that, she was worried about what was to come. It had been a long time since she’d gone coach shopping. Even temporarily, she was hoping this person could give her an edge on the court beyond what she’d already learned at this point. Peter had sounded… skeptical when he’d called with the information. But she also got the impression that beggars couldn’t be choosers, and she should take what she got.

  Since she hadn’t clicked with the conditioning trainer he’d found for her, she was cautious, at best, about this. And more than that, why had Peter sounded so unenthusiastic about this pairing?

  “You Kelly?”

  Kat squinted into the darkness of the lobby, but her eyes weren’t adjusting fast enough to make out more than the general shape of the speaker. “Yes, Kat Kelly. I’m here to meet—”

  “Me.” An older gentleman walked around from the desk and approached. As her eyes finally adjusted, she took note of him. He wore a Hawaiian-print shirt with sailboats all over it, simple khaki shorts, and white athletic socks that went halfway up his calves to go with his tennis shoes. If he was younger than seventy, she’d have been shocked. “Gary Brustover.” He held out a hand, and after a quick second of surprise, she shook.

  The older man’s hand was curled oddly in hers, almost as if he couldn’t fully straighten it. When he took it back, she realized that he actually couldn’t.

  His eye caught the path of her gaze, and he held up the hand. “Arthritis, carpal tunnel, God knows what else. The hands don’t work like they used to. But this…” Gary tapped one curled finger against his temple. “This doesn’t forget. And my eyes are as sharp now as they were when I was twenty. Carrots, you know.”

  “Huh, really,” Kat said because she had no clue what else to say.

  “No, not really! Gullible people are a pet peeve of mine.” Gary narrowed his non-carrot-enhanced eyes at her. “Gullible people are a nuisance. You gullible?”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” she muttered, which made him laugh instead of offending him.

  “Right, well, I’m probably not your coach’s first choice. Or his third or fifth.”

  “I believe you were second to last, just above Donald Trump.”

  That set him off laughing again. Kat hitched her bag over her shoulder.

  “Look, I get that my coach wants to humble me, and that’s fine. But I’m in a do-or-die sort of situation now, so if this is a big joke, then—”

  “Who said we were joking?” Gary stopped laughing suddenly as if cut off at the pass. “Tennis is serious business. But you more than anyone should know you can have a little fun on the courts.” He turned to walk back toward the desk. “Or was that not you I saw online, dancing with one of the ball boys between sets at Wimbledon? Or doing the chicken dance in formal wear in someone’s pool?”

  “Chicken fight,” she muttered. Kat’s face burned, and she turned toward the Plexiglas that separated the lobby from the courts. A foursome of older gentlemen who looked to be Gary’s age were playing doubles on court two, and a man in his twenties was giving a semiprivate to two teenage girls who looked ready to drop into faints at how cute their instructor was on the closest court. The other courts—she counted five others from this angle—were unoccupied.

  “So I have some fun,” she said quietly. “I still take my training seriously.”

  “You’re not scared of losing, I’ll give you that.”

  “How do you know?” She let her bag fall to the floor. If they weren’t going to play, she’d rather not heft the weight around. “Maybe I’m terrified of losing. Who doesn’t hate to lose?”

  “Hating to lose and being scared of it are two different things. What I saw, in the few matches of yours I could find, was not a player who was scared of losing. Not the way you played. That wasn’t your problem.”

  The way she played wasn’t working. Kat shrugged and watched as
the young tennis instructor on court one demonstrated a two-handed backhand for his pupils. The girls just giggled.

  “Ninnies,” Kat muttered.

  “Yes, they are. If we had another female coach, I’d have given them to her. Then maybe they’d get something done.” Gary smiled a little. “That’s my grandson, Thomas. He’ll be helping me when we work. They’ll be done in a few minutes.”

  Kat knew this was the time she had to shit or get off the pot. Either accept Gary as her coach—interim—or stop wasting their time and leave. “What was my problem?”

  “Hmm?”

  Kat turned to him. “You said being scared to lose wasn’t my problem.”

  “It’s not.”

  She took in a deep breath for patience. It was like talking to Yoda. “So then what is my problem?”

  “You’re scared of being forgotten.”

  Her stomach clenched. That he saw through her bullshit so fast freaked her out more than a little.

  Gary nodded toward court one where the girls each had a basket and were collecting balls. “Let’s go. We’ve got our work cut out for us.”

  “Curbside service!” Aileen sang out as Kat pushed through the doors of the apartment. Her whole body hurt. Gary and Thomas had thrown the entire weight of their knowledge—not to mention the power of the ball machine—behind them and given her a run for her money. At times, she’d been certain she’d seen disappointment in Gary’s eyes.

  For whatever reason, that had pushed her harder than anything else. More than the Russian cursing Peter had tossed her way or the fear of being left in the dust. Something about disappointing that crazy Hawaiian-print-wearing kook of a coach pushed her to be better. Want better.

  “I wasn’t expecting you to have to take me.” Kat winced as the door closed behind her and they walked toward the parking garage. “Michael just said I’d have a ride to the game.”

  “And here it is. Don’t worry, marshmallow breath is compensating me well.” Aileen grinned as she pointed toward a nice four-door sedan. When Kat opened up the passenger door, she noticed a car seat in the back.

  “You’ve got a kid?”

  “Sometimes,” was Aileen’s mysterious reply. Kat didn’t push.

  “Marshmallow breath,” Kat said after a moment. “Michael?”

  “Oh, yeah. A few seasons ago, I was doing one of those stupid Hidden Talent fillers for my old job. Not the greatest.” Aileen grimaced as she pulled out of the parking garage. “I had a lot of shitty assignments at my last place. Nothing that challenged me or anyone, really.”

  “Marshmallows,” Kat prodded.

  “Right, anyway, so I had to find Bobcats to do this stupid Hidden Talent segment, and a few of them good-naturedly stepped up. Michael was especially great,” she added with a grin, “proving he has a big mouth and can stuff over thirty marshmallows in there at one time.”

  “That’s… wow.” Kat absorbed that for a moment, then felt her smile start to grow. “Michael Lambert, cutting it up with marshmallows.”

  “He’s a funny guy.” Aileen made a turn, then glanced over quickly before looking back to the road. “He really is.”

  Funny probably wasn’t the first adjective she’d have put alongside Michael Lambert’s name. Dedicated, resolute, maybe even persistent. But funny…

  It was nice, she realized.

  “You can look for it online, it’s still there.” Aileen grinned.

  They pulled into the parking lot and joined the crowds walking in. “I’ve never been to a game before. Any NFL game,” Kat clarified, as clearly she wouldn’t have been to a Bobcats game given she just got to town. “Football wasn’t really my thing.”

  “You don’t know what you’ve been missing then.” Aileen hooked elbows with her, and they walked in, Aileen showing tickets for the both of them. “Michael arranged it,” she said, cutting off Kat’s protests that she pay for her own ticket. “Don’t worry. Now, a lot of the time I sit in the press section, but today I’m hanging with you in the family seating. Let’s go.”

  Kat followed along, refusing to admit just how eager she was to see Michael in action. The athlete in her wanted to appreciate the athlete in him. Just another dimension to this… their… whatever they had started.

  And, she silently realized, she wanted to see him in those tight football pants.

  Michael sat on the sidelines, waiting for Seattle to get done pussyfooting around with the football and just hand over possession. Someone bumped into him, and he turned to see Trey standing beside him. Unusual because Trey usually sat down on his own bench and started going through the playbook meticulously. The man was a machine.

  “What?”

  Trey gave him a funny look, then trained his eyes back on the field. “What, what? Can’t a guy stand by his friend?”

  “Not when he normally sits on the bench by his lonesome. What’s wrong?”

  “Maybe my ass is sore,” Trey shot back, then sighed. “I’m tired of sitting on the bench. I did too much of it when I was hurt.” As he said it, Trey lifted his left leg a few inches and rolled his ankle.

  Michael wondered if it was subconscious.

  “How’s the new mentee going?”

  Michael grunted and watched the Seahawks inch forward on the second down. Hold ’em, D. “It’s fine. I’m not really a mentor, you know. It’s just… I don’t know.”

  “Babysitting?”

  That was definitely not how he wanted to think of it. “No, not babysitting. She just aggravates me and turns me around. I’ve never had the problems I have with her with any of the guys on the team. Because they actually listen to me. But does she? No.” He felt his blood start to boil just thinking about it. “She can’t stay out of trouble for five goddamn minutes. It’s not too much to ask, is it, to get a job where dancing on a bar isn’t a requirement? I—”

  “Shut up,” Trey muttered, gripping Michael’s forearm hard and staring at the field. “I’ve got a feeling.”

  Knowing Trey as well as he did, Michael sharply looked toward the field. They watched as the clock counted down on Seattle’s time, the call, the hike, and Stephen Harrison busting through the offense to sack the unsuspecting quarterback.

  “Ouch,” Trey muttered while Michael let out a massive whoop.

  “Shut up. There’s no crying over spilled quarterbacks,” he said with a grin, slapping Trey’s shoulder as the special team ran out to receive the punt. “That could be you next down, so don’t feel too sympathetic.”

  “If I get sacked, it’s because they made it through you,” Trey shot back, glaring at him as he put his helmet on.

  “So be nice to me,” Michael suggested, his grin growing as the whistle blew and they jogged out for their first play of the game.

  Kat wriggled in her seat as the offensive team—was that what they were called?—took the field. She knew Trey Owens was number sixteen; you had to live under a rock to miss that. But it occurred to her at that moment she had no clue which number Michael was.

  She leaned over to ask Aileen quietly, when the redheaded woman turned and said, “Sixty-one.”

  Kat blinked. “What?”

  “Michael is number sixty-one. Find Trey, and Michael is right in front of him.” Aileen smiled and bumped her shoulder lightly. “You seemed a bit lost.”

  “More than a bit. I’m not really a ‘team sport’ kinda gal, you know.” Kat watched as the team lined up in some sort of formation and then crouched down low. “Oh my…”

  “Exactly.” Aileen grinned and rubbed her hands together. “Believe me, this lifestyle comes with some perks, and the uniforms are just one part of it.”

  Kat watched with curiosity as the offense bent into a forward crouch. Though from her angle she couldn’t see him well, she picked out Michael and trained her eyes on him. The ball was between his hands on the ground in front of him, and then suddenly it was gone, and he crashed into the defender coming directly at him.

  Kat winced and sucked in a breath through
her teeth at the sound, the assumed pain and feel of two bodies that size knocking together with such force.

  “Yes, it hurts, and no, they don’t notice it until later. Usually after the game. Adrenaline makes a hell of a painkiller.”

  Kat just nodded, absorbing Aileen’s words without taking her eyes off Michael. Get up, please get up without a limp or a broken anything.

  But he popped up off the turf as if he’d simply fallen off a bicycle instead of having a massively bone-crushing experience—that he was about to repeat in thirty seconds.

  “Why do men do this?” she wondered out loud. “It’s completely confusing to me.”

  A woman Kat estimated to be in her early thirties turned around and gave her a confused glare, part Why are you here? part You’re crazy, now shut up. Someone didn’t take to someone else criticizing her husband/boyfriend/special someone’s way of life very well.

  “They swear it’s an adrenaline rush. Frankly, I get that from eating a pint of Rocky Road in one sitting, but nobody asked me.” Aileen laughed as they set up for the next play. “Okay, watch as they… Oh there it is. Trey audibled based on something Michael called out. So now they’re shifting for the snap. Watch. Michael has fantastic hands.”

  Kat caught herself just before murmuring, “I know.” The ball whizzed out of Michael’s hands and directly into Trey’s open palms, and Kat let out a quick sigh of relief before sucking in her breath at the body-jarring tackle Michael put together for the guy rushing Trey. The two bodies fell in a tangle, and Kat’s hands hurt from clutching the armrest of the stadium chair so hard. When he didn’t pop up like he had on the last play, she felt her palms start to sweat.

  Get up, get up. Don’t be hurt. Come on, Michael…

  “Hey, it’s all right. Calm down.” Aileen rubbed her forearm gently. “He’s fine. Look, they’re just tangled up. He’s not down for the count or anything serious.”