Fighting to Dream (The Elite Book 2)

by Flockton,Nicole

  She breathed deeply and immediately regretted it, as her senses were assailed with the fresh woodsy scent of his cologne. Perhaps he had been onto something by keeping his distance from her. Or perhaps she needed to control herself. The guy was a habitual flirt. He was toying with her now. He switched it on with the flick of a switch. No wonder there were plenty of girls who lined up to share his bed. His reputation as a player around the locker room was well known.

  Deciding two could play at this game and she would get what she wanted—Drake in the treatment room—Tamara placed a hand on his chest. The sensation was akin to placing her hand on a solid piece of granite. Hard muscles flexed beneath her fingers. Tamara fought back the desire to run her hand down the front of his shirt to feel the rest of the six-pack she knew existed beneath the cotton.

  Talk about taking a leap into the fire. There was no backing away. She never quit. And she was damn well not going to let Drake know being this close to him had her hormones skyrocketing, like mercury in a thermometer on a hot summer's day.

  Tamara tapped her finger against Drake's rock hard muscles. "Sure, we can take this to my place. How about the treatment room?"

  He smirked at her quick reply. "If that's the only way to get you alone, then lead on."

  "Glad to see you're finally seeing things my way."

  Tamara turned and headed back down the hallway. She detoured into the office allocated to all the US Athletic trainers and grabbed her notes and treatment bag.

  "Why don't you get on the table," she commented as they walked into the treatment room. Fortunately for her, another couple of athletes getting treatment occupied the room, so the chance of Drake actually trying anything was slim.

  She placed her bag and folder on the small table by the bed and went over to the sink to wash her hands. As she went through the motions, she thought over the possible issues causing Drake to have fresh problems with his knee. It could simply be he’d aggravated the tendons around his joint. Or he'd done something worse, like tear his ACL or meniscus. Any signs of either injury and she'd have to send him for an MRI. She knew her chances of Drake agreeing to that were slim to none. In all honesty she didn’t suspect his injury to be that serious, but she had to consider all options.

  Tamara turned back to the table and observed him—facing forward, gaze fixed to the front of the room, and a look of what she could only call despair etched across his face. The flirtatious guy from the hallway had disappeared. In his place sat a man who wondered if his Olympic dream was seeping away with every second that passed.

  She placed a hand on his non-injured knee. "It's going to be fine, Drake. Whatever is wrong, we will fix it."

  The muscles beneath her fingers tensed as he startled from her interruption of his thoughts. Immediately a look of cocky indifference dropped like a mask over the despair.

  "Of course, it's going to be fine. You're making a big deal out of nothing."

  Tamara could argue the point that everything wasn't fine, but knew the more she labored the point of his injury, the more he'd object to seeking treatment and do further damage.

  "Great. Now how about you let me take a look."

  "I'm at your mercy. Lay your hands on me," he winked.

  Her scandalous heart skipped a beat again. Suddenly, she hoped the issue with Drake's knee proved to be minor. The last thing she needed was to spend endless days with the guy, potentially doing more than fixing his knee.

  3

  Drake held his breath as Tamara probed his knee with gentle fingers. He involuntarily tensed when she hit a tender spot. Her lips pursed, and the feeling of dread he'd been trying to keep at bay took up residence inside his gut.

  He dropped his head forward and took a deep breath. "It's bad, isn't it?"

  "Not necessarily."

  "But…"

  "I can only tell so much by feeling the muscles and tendons."

  "And what is your touch telling you?"

  Tamara pressed around his knee for a few more seconds before slowly moving down his calf. He felt a slight twinge again, but he knew that was normal after a practice session. His muscles always tightened. After a rubdown, they loosened up again quickly. He'd avoided his usual rubdown today because, even though he’d told Len and Tamara he would meet her in the treatment room, he had hurried through his shower in the hopes he could just go back to his room, elevate his knee and put some ice on it.

  "My touch is telling me your calf muscle is still tight, and I'm betting if I rubbed my hand down your other one, the muscle would feel exactly the same. Which can only mean one thing," she paused and raised an eyebrow at him. "You missed your after- practice muscle manipulation session. Am I right?"

  Drake never blushed. Not even when his dad had bragged and paraded him out to his friends when he returned from his medal-winning world championship trip. But one question from Tamara York and his cheeks were flaming red like those of a boy getting caught reading his dad’s Playboy magazines.

  To his chagrin Tamara laughed, the sound unexpected but welcoming. The corner of her eyes crinkled, and he found himself wanting to kiss them smooth.

  Whoa. Where did that come from?

  Sure, she was good looking and under different circumstances, he’d follow through on the urge to kiss her. But he had to remember where he was and who she was. And dealing with TJ chewing out his ass if he made a move on her. Nope, not on his Olympic to do list.

  "I have my answer right there,” she said, and it took him a second to remember what she was referring. “You’ve already admitted you were hoping I'd forget I asked you to meet me here. Missing your after practice rubdown session isn’t wise, you know. Don't you realize that by not getting treatment on your knee, you could actually be doing more harm than good to it?"

  Annoyance at her probing chased away his momentary embarrassment and the desire to get a little closer to her. He didn't answer to her. Well, not really. Her job was to ensure his physical conditioning. His mental wellbeing was up to him. And he had no plans to share any of his thoughts with her.

  "I'm here and you're doing your examination. How I got here doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, does it? Why don't you tell me what's wrong and what I need to do, and then we can go our separate ways?"

  Her eyes flickered with hurt and her mouth firmed into a thin line "Fine. From what I can tell, it doesn't appear serious enough for me to want you to go get an MRI. But that doesn't mean if you don't take care, it won't lead to something worse."

  Relief swept through Drake. He knew what she was about to tell him. Ice and rest. Rinse and repeat. Most of the emphasis would be on the rest portion of the instructions. Unfortunately, he was at the Olympic Games. He didn’t have the luxury of time to rest until it felt better. The Opening Ceremony kicked things off tomorrow. Less than two weeks later, he would be racing.

  "Right. I know the drill. You want me to rest as much as possible."

  "Yes. Although…" her words trailed off.

  She sucked her bottom lip beneath her bright white teeth. The action, though totally innocent, had his blood firing and heading for a direction he didn't want Tamara to see.

  He shifted off the treatment bed and planted his feet on the ground, hoping she didn't pick up on his body's reaction. "Okay, great. Thanks. No doubt I'll see you at my next practice."

  He escaped out of the room, ignoring her calling him back. As he strode down the hallway, he chanced a glance over his shoulder to find her standing in the doorway. He fully expected to see her making her way after him. When she shook her head and disappeared back into the room, he breathed a sigh of relief at having dodged a bullet. He didn't think he'd be so lucky next time.

  * * *

  Excitement buzzed through Drake and everyone around him like an electric current as they waited for their cue to enter into the main stadium for the Opening Ceremony.

  "You ready for your moment of glory?" he asked his best mate, Mitch.

  "I think so. I'm trying not to t
hink about dropping the flag. That would go down in Olympic history wouldn't it?"

  Drake laughed. "It would, but it won't be from you. There's no way you'll drop the flag."

  "Let's hope so. Carrying it is a pretty big honor."

  "And one you deserve. You're headed for your own personal glory these games, Mitch."

  Mitch's chances of winning gold rated a lot higher than Drake's. Of course, Mitch was entering numerous events while he was only entering one.

  That is if his knee held up.

  He'd spent most of the day holed up in his room, icing and resting the damn thing. He'd been vaguely surprised Tamara hadn't knocked on his door to check up on him—or at least to blast him for walking away from her.

  And maybe a bit disappointed she hadn’t. He'd quite enjoyed sparring with her in the treatment room. She didn't appear to fall for his flirting. In fact, she’d shot him down more than once when he'd tried some of his tried-and-true lines on her. It made her more appealing to him.

  No. No. No.

  Hadn’t he worked out the last thing he needed right now was to get involved with Tamara York. There was too much riding on the next two weeks. His focus had to be on nursing his knee so he could make it through his heats and the finals. Plus making sure TJ and Len didn't notice he carried a possible injury.

  "You never know, dude, this could be your Games," Mitch said, pulling Drake out of his thoughts.

  And that's what best mates did. They boosted you up when you didn't believe you had a hope in hell of even achieving a fraction of their success. That kind of support was one thing about Mitch that he admired, no matter how much success he had. Despite how much the press followed him around and wrote him up, Mitch was as down-to-earth now as he had been when they'd first met as kids.

  "Well, if it isn't, I'll be okay with that."

  Though dad might not be.

  He didn't voice his thought. Mitch knew the hassle he had with his dad, but he didn't want to bring negative thoughts down on his friend on one of the biggest nights of his life.

  "I know you will be."

  Drake nodded, and before he could say anything else, the announcement was made for them to enter the arena.

  "This is it, Mitch. Let's go show Rio and the rest of the world just how good the American team is."

  "For sure." Mitch raised his hand and Drake high fived him.

  Live in the moment.

  That was going to be his mantra and he planned to live by it for the next two weeks. And if one of those moments happened to be with Tamara, who was he to argue with fate?

  4

  Tamara sat on one of the brightly colored plastic chairs, the same chairs that had been filled with people cheering and celebrating the opening of the games the previous evening. At this early hour, the stadium sat eerily empty, bar the person running around the track. As she studied Drake’s gait, she could see a slight hitch in his movement around every fifth or sixth stride.

  It had gone against everything in her to let Drake walk away from her after their session in the training room. She had been confident that he hadn't seriously hurt his knee, but to be on the safe side, she had wanted to do some massage on the surrounding muscles and some manipulations to relieve the pain he was experiencing. Only he hadn't given her a chance to explain what she wanted to do to help him.

  Today she wouldn't let him walk away without listening to her. For reasons only known to Drake, he wasn't keen on letting his injury be public knowledge. An unavoidable result if he didn't let her help him.

  As Drake changed from a run to a walk, she made her way down the steps and headed to where he would see her when he left the track. She could only imagine that when he saw her he wouldn't be too happy about it.

  Tamara reached the walkway to the tunnel out of the arena at the same time Drake did. He dropped his water bottle when he spotted her.

  "How were your times?" A nice neutral question to kick off the conversation.

  "What are you doing here?" His tone was anything but friendly.

  After their previous conversations, Tamara would've thought Drake realized that he didn't intimidate her. She wasn't going to get all defensive in her response. But she wasn't going to be all sweetness and light with him either.

  "I'm here because I'm concerned about you and your knee."

  Drake flung a hand at the track behind him. "Well, as you saw I was running fine, and my knee is good."

  "Really? Because to my eye it looked like it still caused you pain." Time to go for the kill. She knew full well he wouldn't appreciate it, but she had enough pussyfooting around him. Drake needed attention and help, and she was going to give it to him. Otherwise, she'd be negligent in her job, and that wouldn't do at all. "How about I mention to Len and TJ that you're injured and it would probably be best that you don't compete? Will that work for you? And considering they both asked me the other day to keep an eye on you, I'm sure they'll appreciate my insight."

  His eyes flashed daggers at her. She stood her ground. She could take anything he threw at her. After probably ten seconds, his shoulders slumped. "Fine. Yes, my knee is still giving me grief."

  A victory, even small, was a victory she was going to grasp with both hands.

  "Okay, now we're getting somewhere. The next question is, do you want to compete or not?"

  "Well, duh, of course I want to run. Why do you think I'm here in Rio? For a holiday?"

  “I don’t know. You came before the rest of the track team. Did you hurt yourself before we got here?”

  “I came early because I wanted to get familiar with the track. No other reason. And I was here like two days before you and the rest of the team arrived. I did a couple of light workouts, and that was it.”

  Studying his body language, there was no doubt he was telling her the truth. “Fine, but if you want to run and if you want to win, you’ll need to listen to me and let me treat you. This is what I’m here for. Let me do my job.”

  Indecision flitted across his face. He crossed his arms and rolled his eyes skyward, like a recalcitrant teenager being asked to clean his room. “Okay. What’s this going to entail?”

  She couldn’t help it. She laughed. “I’m not going to torture you, if that’s what you think. I’m talking icing, massage therapy and resting as much as possible.” At his second eye roll at the word rest, she swallowed a smile. His reaction wasn’t unexpected. She didn’t know one athlete who liked the word, no matter how much good it would do the injury. “If we follow this regime, it will keep your muscles around your knee loose. It will also allow me to monitor how it’s doing and hopefully prevent you from doing something more serious and requiring surgery. I’m confident that once you get back to the States and rest that knee without exercise for more than a couple of weeks, you won’t have any further problems and will be able to continue running.”

  “I’m assuming you want to start now.”

  “I don’t see why we can’t get a therapy session in today. Besides, you’ll need to go through your usual after practice regime. We’ll just expand on it.”

  He huffed out a breath. “Right, let’s go then.”

  His reluctance to seek treatment baffled Tamara. He indicated he was at the Games to compete. He was clearly injured, yet he didn’t want to do anything to treat what ailed him.

  Why?

  He gave her every impression that he took being at the Olympics seriously. Tamara didn’t know if his motives were genuine or he was trying to convince himself he wanted to be at the Games. It couldn’t be easy being best friends with Mitch Osborn. Especially seeing as the press constantly touted him as one of the top Olympians the U.S. team has ever seen.

  Was Drake jealous of his friend’s success?

  Tamara immediately dismissed the thought. She’d observed the two together. The way they joked around and acted, there was no way either one was jealous of the other. Even though she hadn’t officially walked with the team last night, she’d seen how happy Drake had been
that Mitch carried the US flag into the stadium.

  The walk back to the locker rooms was made in silence. Tamara figured the less she said the better it would be for her to get Drake to follow her instructions.

  “Why don’t you take a quick shower and meet me in my office once you’re done?” she suggested as they reached the rooms.

  “Would you like to join me to make sure I look after my knee while I shower?”

  Somehow during the walk from the track to where they now stood, Drake the Flirt had appeared. Or maybe a hint of sarcasm tinted his words.

  She rolled her eyes. How would he react if she did say yes? Not that she ever would, but the temptation to call his bluff and say, ”Sure,” was overwhelming.

  “Maybe next time.”

  Half a bluff.

  Tamara bit her top lip to stop herself from laughing out loud at the way Drake’s eyes widened before she turned and headed down the corridor to her office. Considering his reputation on the team as one of the biggest players, his shocked reaction to her joke surprised her. Surely, he couldn’t be all talk and no action? She didn’t think so. Many a time after a competition, there had been a girl waiting in the wings for him.

  And why was she admitting that she noticed these things? Did she need to be slapped on the head to remember her own rule—don’t get involved with an athlete, no matter how good looking. Or how tempting the idea could be.

  It would also do her good to remember that Drake wasn’t a safe bet in terms of relationships. Not with the way he chatted with anyone who walked past in a short skirt.

  So, why the hell had she engaged in flirting back with him? Maybe the best thing to do would be to talk to TJ and get him to oversee Drake’s treatment. Although she had a feeling if she did that, Drake wouldn’t be happy with her at all.

  Did it matter if he was happy or not?

  She opened the door to the office and groaned quietly when she saw TJ sitting at one of the desks in the room.