Players

by Rachel Cross

  “No,” his voice hardened. “It’s about watching the person you . . . care about . . . get hoisted up and swung around over a hard surface. It’s about fear,” he admitted, taking her hand and encouraging her to lie back down against his chest.

  “You don’t think about it, do you?” he asked, softly. “How dangerous it is.”

  She turned his jaw until he met her eyes. “I’m a professional, Shane. It’s not like I’ve never fallen or been dropped. And I have complete and utter confidence in my partner. I couldn’t do this if I didn’t.”

  “I know, Amy. But you have lasting injuries from falling and being dropped. We both know you do.”

  “I have some issues,” she admitted. But it was more than that and the shows today—the first ones since May—had taken more out of her than she cared to admit. She’d been too nervous to eat since Shane was coming and despite being in such great shape, she’d felt breathless out there. Her hip was also bothering her more than usual. The jarring landings had put enormous stress on her hip for years. The doctor she’d seen to get an anti-inflammatory shot before leaving LA had spoken of arthritis and a hip replacement in her future. He’d been the first orthopedist she’d seen who had used that language and warned her that one bad landing or fall could mark the end of her career—if the problems from chronic overuse didn’t end it sooner.

  Chapter Eighteen

  One month later, Shane paced in his lawyer’s office. His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it out to check the incoming text. Not Amy. It was from a number he didn’t recognize.

  Fun night with u at Excel—Erika

  He stared at the message, his heart racing with a combination of guilt and excitement. It was the brunette from last night’s outing with his hockey team. Only one person had his cell number, the player-coach, Jason. That idiot must’ve given the girl his number after he left the bar. The guy had been so drunk by the time Shane left, he might not remember doing it.

  He tucked the phone back into his pocket when Clay came to greet him.

  He read nothing in the other man’s expressionless face, but his heart raced, thundering in his ears.

  They entered the office and Clay shut the door. Something told Shane he’d better take a seat for this news.

  “I don’t know what to tell you. She hasn’t done the blood test.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she suspects it isn’t yours. Maybe she’s planning to hose us in the press after the baby comes. Normally in these situations, they want the money coming in right away. Her attorney had the balls to suggest she’d get the test after they received a payment covering her medical bills and living expenses. I refused of course. That smacks of blackmail.”

  Shane scooted to the edge of the chair and held the armrests with shaking hands. “Can we force her? This thing is eating at me,” he admitted.

  Clay shook his head. “I’ve sent a letter basically telling him to either submit the blood work or withdraw the suit. Her lawyer says she’s too busy or sick or whatever.”

  He snorted. “Bullshit.”

  “Either way, we can’t compel her to do it yet. We’ll have to wait and see. It’s not the worst news, Shane. My gut is telling me she’s hoping for money before the birth because she suspects it isn’t yours. But it could be she’s going to play it up in the media later to leverage more money. It’s a toss up.”

  Shane raked a hand through his hair. “This fucking sucks.”

  “I know. Hang in there.”

  “I can’t wait months for this thing to be resolved.”

  “She may drop it. You never know. In the meantime try to relax.” Clay stood. “I’ll keep you posted.”

  “Yeah,” he mumbled. He tried to put this bullshit out of his head but the more he tried not to think about it, the more his brain looped endlessly around the idea of a stranger potentially carrying a life he would be responsible for—and what that would mean to him and to his relationship with Amy.

  He needed to get laid. Maybe he’d fly out to see Amy. Where was she this week? Although he didn’t want her to think he’d be there at every leg, and he’d just returned from her Baltimore stop. And he had practice two nights a week and scrimmages. The hockey club dictated his schedule these days, which he didn’t mind. It was humbling to be outclassed by everyone from teenagers to sixty-year-old men. Humbling, but exhilarating. He was finally getting a chance to play a team sport, twenty-five years after he’d begged his mom to let him play soccer, and he didn’t want to give up those moments.

  Thirty minutes later, he entered his apartment and tossed his keys on the kitchen table. His phone vibrated again in his pocket—probably Jason responding to his text about not giving out his number.

  I want your big hard dick in my tight wet pussy until you cum inside me baby ( ; -Erika

  His breath quickened.

  • • •

  Amy, Kyle, and a dozen others entered the glitzy bar, leaving the heat and humidity for the chill of the air-conditioned building on South Beach. .

  “I love Miami,” Kyle admitted as he followed the group to the back of the club. It was early and the place wasn’t half full. One of the skaters had an uncle who owned the place, so whenever they were in town they hit Club Tropix.

  Amy settled on the couch in the roped off VIP section and checked her phone.

  Nothing from Shane, nothing all day. This was why she hated the long-distance thing. It required patience, trust, and a mellow attitude—three things she didn’t have in excess when it came to him.

  Kyle caught her and shook his head.

  “What?” she asked, defensively.

  “If you’re not talking to or texting him, you’re holed up in the hotel room reading. You don’t go out. You used to be more fun,” he complained.

  “I’m out tonight,” she returned calmly.

  “Yeah, but only because you want to keep an eye on the perpetually drunk newbie, Jilly. You should’ve ended it, doll. The long-distance thing is not for the likes of us.”

  Amy powered her phone down.

  Shane had been flying out twice a month to see her. And they’d been living it up in hotels, in restaurants and clubs with her friends all up and down the East Coast. Plenty of his friends joined, too. She’d met two of his TruAchord buddies, Gavin and Andy, when they’d flown in from New York to see her show in Virginia over the Thanksgiving holiday.

  Shane was attentive and thoughtful and sweet when they were together. But when they were apart? He was a sporadic communicator, and that kept her on edge, insecure. There was a lot of time between shows and traveling between cities—plenty of time to obsess. She’d thought her life was back under control when Enchanted picked her up for this last season, and then when Clay Langley had discovered all that endorsement money. But nothing made her feel as unmoored as this relationship with Shane. And she still had no earthly idea what do with her life post-Enchanted if this really was her last season.

  Four hours later, Tropix was packed and she was exhausted. They had two shows tomorrow; it was time to get back to the hotel. Jilly and Lisa, another skater, a veteran who had just ended a long-term relationship, were trashed.

  “Kyle, I’m going to load these two up in a cab and take them back to the hotel.” It was understood that the more senior skaters would keep an eye out for the junior ones. Amy herself had been in full rebel mode when she’d first gone on the road with Enchanted years ago. Fun as Rowena was, she was straight-laced. Going on tour the first time was akin to most eighteen-year-olds going to college. Kyle glanced over from where he toyed with a statuesque brunette’s hair. “I’m not sure Jilly will be receptive to leaving,” he said drily.

  The skater was in the lap of someone she’d met early in the night, a well-dressed guy who had been buying their little group drinks. The two of them had been conducting a drunken romance on the couch, but the show was moving into X-rated territory as Jilly ground in his lap.

  As the man
came up for air he signaled for another round and Amy caught the glint of a wedding ring on his finger.

  “Okey-dokey, that’s enough of that,” she growled, rising to her feet. “Excuse us a minute,” she added to Kyle’s sultry conquest, pulling him to his feet with one hand and grabbing her purse with the other.

  She gave Kyle a push in the direction of Lisa and she moved to Jilly.

  “Honey, come to the bathroom with me?” she asked.

  Jilly gave her a drunken grin with a nasty edge. “Ooo, look, it’s the princess.”

  “It is.” She turned her gaze to the married guy under Jilly. “Will you excuse us a moment?”

  Despite the drinks the man had put away, he didn’t seen drunk. He narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

  Amy gave an airy laugh and steadied the girl as she climbed off him. “I want to make sure she has everything she needs tonight,” she replied with a broad wink.

  “You want to make sure I have what I need?” He leered, rising from the couch.

  Jilly pouted. “She’s with someone, babe, and you have me.” She tried to stroke the front of his expensive, pinstriped, button-down shirt but missed, tilting forward until Amy caught her around the shoulders.

  “Bathroom,” the girl muttered.

  Amy steered her to the back, as quickly as she dared.

  “I’m sick,” Jilly said, staggering into a stall.

  Amy followed, barely in time to whip the hair out of the girl’s pasty face as she vomited into the toilet.

  Could it be she was finally sick of this life? She had a responsibility to the younger skaters, but this tour she felt every minute of her age. Wasn’t she was getting too old to hold someone’s hair out of a toilet? Yet she’d been here with Jilly and others several times already this season.

  The two women staggered out of the bathroom a few minutes later, Jilly apologizing. “I want to go home,” she said tearfully.

  “We’ll go home,” Amy soothed. “Let’s get a cab.”

  “No, home. I’ve missed my brother’s birthday and I’ll miss Christmas,” the girl wailed. “And they’ll never make me lead princess. You’ll never leave, will you?”

  Amy stopped in her tracks in the hallway. Had Jilly been promised the lead? She had assumed Enchanted would eventually make Megan the principal due to seniority, but Jilly was a better skater. Was this why the girl was drinking so heavily? Guilt surged through Amy. It was past time for her to step aside.

  The guy in the expensive suit she’d pulled Jilly away from stood at the end of the dimly lit hallway, the strobe lights from the dance floor lighting him from behind to give his figure a menacing aspect. Or maybe it was his shadowed expression, lips pressed into a thin line. From this distance he looked cruel and determined.

  The hair on the back of her neck rose.

  “She’s sick,” she said, taking a few steps toward him down the hall. “I’m taking her with me.”

  He didn’t move.

  Amy stopped and leaned Jilly against the wall. The girl slid down it, giggling. “You can see she’s in no shape to—whatever.” She made a gesture with her hand.

  The man took two steps forward until he was in arms’ reach. “I’ve been buying drinks for you guys all night. If you think I’m going to let you cock-block me, you’ve got another think coming.” He jerked his head, indicating the exit door behind her. “You or her. My limo’s out back.”

  Amy dug through her clutch. When she withdrew her hand, he grabbed her wrist, squeezing so tightly she yelped.

  His eyes lit with excitement and he squeezed harder.

  Eyes watering from the pain, her bones grinding together under the bruising force of his grip, Amy relaxed her face into her best innocent expression. “What? This?” She opened her palm and revealed a pink lipstick tube. Her expression turned what she hoped was coy and he let her wrist go with a grunt.

  “Will I do?” she asked, stepping closer.

  He pinned her up to his body. Her stomach churned as he hauled her hips against the erection tenting his suit pants.

  Amy wrapped her hands around his neck as she pried off the stubborn top of the tube.

  She raised her face to him. He leaned in, his eyes half closed. When he was two inches from her mouth, she leaned back, took a deep breath and held it.

  Just before she depressed the spray directly into his face, she closed her eyes. She’d learned the hard way in Australia fighting off an overly amorous drunk at a backyard party that if she didn’t they’d both be incapacitated by the mist.

  He released her, roaring with pain, his hands clawing at his eyes. Blinded, he stumbled around in the hallway.

  Jilly sat against the wall, muttering to herself, barely conscious.

  “C’mon,” Amy hissed, her heart thundering.

  The man staggered toward them, fists rubbing his eyeballs, still bellowing, but it wasn’t easy to hear through the club music.

  She momentarily debated the exit door but remembered what he had said about his limo. Dark alley, potentially complicit limo driver. They were safer where there were more people.

  She got Jilly to her feet and stumbled forward, half carrying the inebriated girl in the direction of the music. She wove the girl across the dance floor and to the exit.

  Kyle was waiting outside, his arms wound around his date, kissing her and ignoring the drunken tirade Lisa directed at him. He raised his head at the sound of Jilly’s whining, took one look at Amy’s death stare and turned to the woman clinging to him, giving her a quick peck. “Maybe next time, babe. Tonight’s not looking good.”

  The woman turned on her heel and strode back into the club without a backward glance.

  Kyle stepped to the curb and hailed a cab. One stopped immediately and he helped get the two girls into the vehicle. They rolled down the widows, veterans at cab etiquette with drunks.

  Kyle hopped into the front and gave the driver directions to the hotel.

  Once they had settled the girls into their respective rooms, turning over their care to their long-suffering bunkmates, Kyle brought Amy back to his room—his roommate was still out at a club while hers was asleep.

  “What happened?”

  “I had to pepper spray him,” she replied.

  “Goddamn it! You should’ve come to get me.”

  “He approached us as we came out of the bathroom. He had a limo waiting in the back.”

  “I wish I’d been there.”

  “I’m tired, Kyle.”

  “Me too, Ames.”

  She hesitated. “Not that kind of tired—I mean, that too.” She tried to sit cross-legged on the bed, but her hip had stiffened up. Instead, she pushed herself to lean back against the headboard. “I’m sick of it. Sick of life on the road. Sick of rescuing silly girls. I was so desperate to re-sign because I loved it so much—and I still love the skating, but the constant moving and the lack of privacy and . . . ” And the pain. The pain in her hip was constant. Relentless. It was one thing to have a few bad hours after a show, but this tour she hurt every day, even when they didn’t perform. The doctor had warned her that she’d have fewer periods of relief after the shot and he was right. She needed another. Tonight it was particularly bad, probably because she had spent part of the night hauling a drunk Jilly around.

  Kyle took her hand. “I’m getting there myself. Are you going to leave the show?”

  “After the chance they gave me? Hell no. But this will be my last rodeo.”

  “Are you hurting?”

  She withdrew her hand. “No.”

  “’Cause if you are—”

  “I’m fine.”

  “—your partner needs to know.”

  “I’m fine.” She stood. “I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

  Kyle walked her to the door.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Early the next morning, Amy took a long, hot shower, a thousand milligrams of ibuprofen and stretched, over and over. Nothing helped. She hadn’t slept. The ache had become
a stabbing pain, one that hadn’t subsided during the night. She’d been here before, and the only relief came in the form of a cortisone shot.

  She changed out of her yoga pants into jeans and a light top with a cardigan. Time to find an urgent care and beg for treatment. There was no way she could skate the program unless things improved dramatically.

  Just as she was about to leave, someone knocked on her hotel door. She looked out the peephole. Matt, one of Enchanted’s road managers, stood outside her room, scowling. Dread rose and Amy swung open the door.

  “We need you down in the conference room. There’s been a complaint.”

  “What kind of complaint?” she asked, coolly.

  “The police are here and they’re asking for you.”

  She closed her eyes. That guy from last night. He had money and entitlement written all over him.

  “Corporate is flying in from Los Angeles,” Matt hissed in her ear. “Looks like you pepper sprayed the wrong dude.”

  That did not bode well.

  She turned on her phone to see she’d missed two calls from Shane. She didn’t bother to play them; she didn’t have time. Instead she texted him.

  Trouble. Police here. Had to defend myself from a guy. Call you later.

  Ten minutes later, she entered the conference room, outwardly calm, but inside shaky, hungry, and in pain.

  At the table sat two uniformed police officers, a woman and a man.

  Amy seated herself next to Matt, pressing her lips together to hide her grimace of pain.

  “Miss Astor?” the uniformed man asked.

  She nodded.

  “A Mr. Trevor Dean came in this morning to make a report about your involvement in a pepper spray incident at Club Tropix last night.”

  She moved her hands from her lap to the table, threading her fingers together.

  The female officer gasped, staring at Amy’s arm.

  Her sweater had ridden up, exposing her inflamed, bruised wrist. She tugged the sleeve down.

  Both officers stared at her while she cast a nervous glance at Matt.

  The male police officer stood. “Sir, would you mind stepping out of the room?”