Playing Dirty

by Alix Nichols

  “Boitel’s play today reminds me of the infamous Russian defender Aleksandr Dolgushin,” he says. “Dolgushin was so savage in the field that Italian players, followed by everyone else, dubbed him assassino.”

  Toward the end of the game, one of the refs begins to pay closer attention to my ex. He ends up awarding Julien a penalty foul and two major fouls that send him to the ejection corner. Except that doesn’t really help Montpellier, what with water polo exclusions lasting only twenty seconds. As for penalties, the southern squad would need a dozen of them at this point, all successfully converted, for a chance to win.

  Which, obviously, isn’t going to happen.

  As the final seconds disappear on the clock and the horn signals the end of the game, Uma and Sam scream in celebration. They throw confetti all around them—including on me—and do a wave routine.

  “Paris just got very close to their coveted trophy with a 15-6 demolition of the Montpellier team,” the commentator says. “They are ready for the finals. They’ve been ready since this season began.”

  Uma and Sam finish their thing and sit down.

  “Julien won this game,” she says, beaming at me.

  Now is a good time to break the news to her. “I’m not here to support Julien.”

  She blinks.

  “I’m with Jean-Michel now,” I say. “The substitute hole-set.”

  “Oh.” She blinks once more, turns to Sam, and smooths his hair.

  To say I’ve astounded her would be an understatement.

  “Are you coming to the dinner tonight?” Uma asks, avoiding my eyes.

  “Rain check,” I say. “Have a stomach bug.”

  The truth is that spending two celebratory evenings within the same week in the company of my ex-fiancé and wannabe boyfriend, as well as the rest of their team and their spouses is too much, even for a thick-skinned bitch like myself.

  I need a breather.

  After texting Jean-Michel that I’m not feeling well, I sneak out of the aquatics center and head to the hotel. Once in my room, I read, watch some TV and order room service.

  Someone knocks just as I’m finishing my salad. With a sigh, I head to the door. Must be Jean-Michel hoping to convince me to spend the night with him. When I told him on our first date ten days ago that I was still recovering from Julien’s betrayal and would need time, he was all sympathy and understanding. “Of course,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’m not the insensitive lech some people paint me to be. Take as much time as you need.”

  That was a lot of bull as it turned out.

  Jean-Michel began to pressure me to “give it a shot” as early as our second date, and it’s been getting worse. What was it he said yesterday…? Ah, yes. “I’ve been patient enough, babes, and you aren’t an underage virgin.”

  So, yeah, he is an insensitive lech.

  Then again, I’m in no position to trash him since I have no intention of having sex with him.

  “Yes?” I say at the door.

  “Will you let me in?”

  It isn’t Jean-Michel—it’s Julien.

  “We need to talk,” he says.

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “Oh, I think you have plenty to say to me.”

  The cheek of him! “Go away.”

  “Tell me,” he says, “why did you book a separate room if you’re here with Jean-Michel?”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “That’s not how I see it. The way I see it, you’re using him to win me back.”

  “What? No!” I swing the door open. “You’re so wrong about that!”

  “Am I?” He cocks his head and smiles.

  That infuriates me so much I almost spit in his smug face. “So. Very. Wrong.”

  “Really?” He marches past me into the room. “That’s a shame. As it happens, I do want us to get back together.”

  Huh? I spin around and stare at him.

  “I miss you, Noemi,” he says, all trace of smugness gone from his face. “Very much.”

  I blink, processing his words.

  Julien’s gaze rakes over my face and body, and caresses me, hungry and hot.

  “It’s ironic,” he says. “Twisted even. But here’s the thing—we belong together.”

  Yeah, right.

  “Can you forgive me?” he asks, a plea in his eyes. “Can we start over?”

  I furrow my brow.

  This was too easy, suspiciously easy. And sort of anticlimactic.

  But, hey, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I’m going to deliver my punch line and enjoy my revenge. And get this whole stupid, obsessive, and unhealthy thing between Julien and me done and over with.

  “No,” I say, stepping toward him so he can see the determination in my eyes. “As in, not in a million years.”

  11

  Julien

  I touch her hand. “Sweetie, please—”

  “Don’t call me that, you jerk!” She yanks her hand away. “You lost the right to call me that when you dumped me. Did you really expect me to forgive you just because you asked nicely?”

  “No,” I say. “I didn’t expect to you to forgive me straightaway. I expected you to call me names—which I deserve—and get all steamed up until this part—”

  I grip her nape and press my lips to hers.

  Damn, how I missed this!

  How I need this.

  Noemi’s scent and the feel of her soft lips beneath mine wreak havoc on my senses. They make me tremble with desire. I suck on her bottom lip, nip lightly, and pull it into my mouth.

  Her lids flutter shut, and she moans softly.

  I jerk her closer.

  She opens her eyes, plants her palms on my chest, and pushes.

  In response, I tighten my grip on her nape and stroke, massaging the back of her head with the pads of my fingers. She loves it when I do this. Noemi’s lids fall again, and she stops pushing me away.

  That’s it, sweetie, don’t fight it. Let your body decide. Let me give it what it craves.

  I sweep my tongue over her lips, coaxing her to open her mouth. When she does, I push my tongue inside.

  Yesss.

  As I reacquaint myself with the sweet depths of her mouth, she begins to kiss me back. Her body melts into mine just the way it used to. Emboldened, I slide my other hand down her side and over to her ass. Cupping her buttock, I squeeze lightly, and she moans again, telling me what I hope to hear. What I know in my heart.

  She’s starving for me just as much as I’m starving for her.

  “Noemi,” I breathe into her mouth.

  She catches my tongue and suckles it, an expression of bliss and abandon on her beautiful face. My sweetheart! Tearing my mouth from hers for a moment, I take in her deliciously flushed cheeks and her swollen lips. I lean in and grind my hard-on against her tummy, making her remember it, nudging her to hunger for it as she used to.

  She’s mine.

  I relax my hold, my mind aflame with all the exquisitely intimate, hot things I will do to her—and she to me—once I shut the door.

  But I don’t get a chance.

  She draws back, stomps in frustration, and jabs my chest with her finger. “Get out of my room!”

  “Noemi, please don’t—”

  Jean-Michel’s voice comes from the doorway. “Do it.”

  I turn toward him, moving deliberately, slowly. “Or else?”

  “Or else I’ll crack your skull open,” he says. “I’ve been burning to do that ever since you joined the club.”

  Jean-Michel is a former MMA fighter and the biggest guy on the team—bigger even than Zach. He always arrives early to work out so he can spend twice as much time as everyone else lifting weights. Which he never reracks when he’s done, by the way.

  Jean-Michel stretches his neck and balls his hands into fists.

  Seriously?

  In two big strides, I’m in the doorway, shoving his shoulder.

  If he has an ounce of sens
e in his bird-sized brain, he’ll step back. A fight between two teammates, so close to the finals, isn’t something Lucas will appreciate.

  But Jean-Michel doesn’t budge. “What do you think you’re doing here, huh?”

  “Talking with Noemi,” I say as calmly as I can.

  He glares at me. “You piece of shit, just because they chanted your name in the arena today, you think you can do anything now?”

  Ah.

  This isn’t so much about Noemi as about him being a substitute hole-set, while I’m the main hole-D. That’s why he’s hated my guts since the day I joined the club.

  “Listen,” I say. “Why don’t you let me finish my conversation with Noemi, and then you and I can go have a beer and a chat?”

  If we end up fighting, at least it will be in an alley outside a bar and not in the hotel where the entire team can witness our lack of discipline.

  Something flashes in Jean-Michel’s eyes.

  Could it be hesitation? I hope it is. And I hope Noemi approves of the restraint and moderation that I’m using with her fake boyfriend.

  I glance at her.

  She’s chewing on her bottom lip as she always does when she’s nervous. Suddenly, her eyes widen, and she yells, “No!”

  Jean-Michel’s fist slams into my face before I have time to dodge it.

  Sharp pain zings through my head. All goes dark.

  When it clears, I feel blood trickling from my nose and on my lips. It tastes of metal and rage.

  I square my shoulders. “You, fucker!”

  Lunging forward, I ram a fist into Jean-Michel’s stomach.

  He growls, shooting me a hateful look. A right jab lands on my midsection. He swings again, but I catch his fist in my hand.

  For the next few minutes we punch, block, sidestep, kick and grapple—two massive brutes stripped of civility and common sense.

  “Stop it, you morons!” Noemi screams at the top of her lungs.

  Zach and Lucas and a couple of other guys rush in and throw themselves at Jean-Michel and me, prying us apart.

  12

  Noemi

  The two idiots resist, thrashing and spitting profanities, but their teammates outnumber them. A uniformed hotel employee comes running, and Lucas takes him aside, no doubt to explain that the situation is under control.

  When he returns to my still-fuming “suitors,” Lucas’s jaw is set. “Consider this a warning. Brawl or even argue again, and I’ll suspend both of you for a month, regardless of what that would do to our chances in the finals.”

  The effect on Julien and Jean-Michel is rather spectacular. They stop thrashing and shut up. The tension that was palpable around them only a minute ago dissipates. Their teammates are still holding them, but they have relaxed their stances and their faces.

  “To your rooms now,” Lucas commands, his voice steely. “Take an Advil. Get some sleep. I want you sober and nonviolent at breakfast tomorrow morning. Understood?”

  “Understood,” Julien says.

  Jean-Michel nods. “Yes, Coach.”

  Zach, Denis, and the others cautiously let go of the two rivals who are remarkably subdued after Lucas’s intervention.

  Julien begins to turn around when his eyes glaze over, and he sways a tiny bit. It lasts only a second, and no one else seems to notice his momentary faintness.

  A wave of panic constricts my chest.

  Julien might’ve suffered a concussion, and that must be taken seriously. My little brother had one when he was a kid. He ended up spending several days in the hospital. A concussion may even be fatal if it causes bleeding of the brain, and the person doesn’t get immediate help.

  “We need to call a doctor,” I say.

  Julien wipes the blood running down his nose with the back of his hand. “We don’t.”

  Lucas turns to me. “I’ll have both checked tomorrow morning.”

  He turns back to Julien and Jean-Michel. “Chop, chop.”

  Thirty seconds later everyone has retreated to their rooms, and the hallway is quiet once again.

  Spookily quiet.

  I begin to pace my room as my mind serves up images of Julien collapsed on the floor next to the bed, unconscious. I wish the hotel wasn’t a sponsor of the French Swimming Federation and hadn’t given everyone a private room! The notion that Julien will spend the next ten hours alone with no one to call an ambulance if he passes out is so scary it makes my stomach flip. When my imagination concocts a scenario in which he falls and hits his head against the sink, suffering a second concussion, I reach the tipping point.

  With a sigh of exasperation and defeat, I grab my purse and head straight to Julien’s room. I’d spotted it when he plodded there after the fight. Putting my ear to the door, I listen.

  Not a sound.

  Please, let him be all right!

  Or at least alive.

  I’ll take care of him. I’ll make sure he pulls through.

  With my heart hammering in my chest, I knock. Quietly at first, then louder. I hear steps behind the door, and then Julien opens it.

  He’s holding a cool gel pack in his hand.

  “I just wanted to—” I begin.

  He points his chin toward the room. “Come in. Just give me a minute, and then we can talk.”

  Slowly, I step inside. He pulls the door closed behind me and heads to the bed, where he reclines, leans against a heap of pillows, and presses the cool pack to his swollen nose.

  I survey him.

  He’s showered and changed into the hotel’s pristine bathrobe. His nosebleed seems to have stopped. But he still looks awful with the swelling and those big purple bruises under his eyes.

  “You might have suffered a concussion,” I say, standing next to him.

  “That’s unlikely.” He moves the pack a little to the side so he can look at me with one eye. “I don’t have any of the telltale symptoms.”

  I frown, still unconvinced.

  “But the dickhead might’ve broken my nose,” he says.

  “Does it hurt when you touch it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, it’s possible you have both—a concussion and a broken nose.”

  Smiling, he removes the cool pack from his face and sticks it in the minibar. He returns to the bed and sits down on the right side, stretching his legs. His nose is red and swollen, for sure, but it doesn’t look deformed.

  I guess that’s a good sign.

  Julien pushes half of the pillows to the left side and pats the bed. “Come sit here.”

  I hesitate.

  Wrinkling his brow, he squints at me. “Please?”

  “All right.” I plonk myself as close to the edge as possible. “But don’t read too much into this. And don’t kiss me again.”

  He shakes his head, pointing at his nose. “With this face?”

  I relax and sit back against the pillows.

  “There’s something I need to tell you about me,” he says, peering into my eyes. “About what happened after your eighteenth birthday party. I should’ve told you this long ago.”

  Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it. Because nothing he can say will change the way we are, the way we can’t stop hurting each other. If there ever was an us, it was shattered into too many pieces to glue back together. And no revelation about the past will change that.

  “Please don’t,” I say.

  He bunches his eyebrows.

  “Hold on to your secret, Julien.” I smirk. “You know me. Can’t promise I won’t use it against you one day.”

  His expression darkens.

  I force myself to smile. “It’s not like such a thing would be out of character, eh?”

  He looks away for a while and then turns back to me. “OK, no confessions. Let’s just do some small talk before you go back to your room. Would that be agreeable?”

  I nod.

  “How’s work?” he asks. “Still toiling away for your nasty boss?”

  “Not anymore.”

 
“Oh?”

  “I resigned three weeks ago.”

  “Good for you.” He nods. “Were you able to find another job?”

  “I’m starting my own practice.”

  “Really?”

  “Yup. As a member of the Paris Bar, nothing prevents me from becoming an attorney despite my young age.”

  “What kind of attorney?”

  “Defense.”

  He stares at me and tips an imaginary hat.

  “My parents lent me a bit of money to get started, which helped a lot.”

  “When do you expect to win your first case?”

  “Hold your horses.” I grin. “I just found an office space, and my website went up two days ago. I have yet to acquire my first client.”

  “Right.”

  “I mean, my first private client,” I add. “I’ve been doing some part-time work for a legal aid center.”

  “Do they pay well?”

  “Nope, but that’s not the point when you take legal aid assignments, is it? Some of what I do is actually pro bono.”

  “What happened to your colleague Melissa?” he asks. “The one your former boss was framing?”

  I tell him about my nanny cam stint but not without apprehension. Julien doesn’t exactly have good memories associated with that object.

  But, to my surprise, he doesn’t blink an eye. “So she got to keep her job?”

  I nod. “When I’m earning enough to be able to afford an assistant, I plan to hire her myself.”

  He surveys me without saying a word for a long, long moment before he takes my hand in both his.

  I draw my brows together but, since his gesture doesn’t imply anything erotic, I don’t pull my hand away.

  “You need to dump Jean-Michel,” he says.

  I arch an eyebrow. “Because you said so?”

  “Because he doesn’t deserve you.” Julien’s eyes bore into mine. “As recently as tonight in the bar where we were celebrating our win, he bought a drink for another woman.”

  I shrug. “So what?”

  “Noemi, I saw him flirt with her.” Julien shakes his head. “That’s the kind of guy he is. You don’t want him near you. Regardless of how things go between you and me, I won’t let him near you.”