Players

by Rachel Cross

  Halfway across the park, Shannon hesitated when she saw an openmouthed Clarissa staring at the two of them from the edge of the dance floor. Oh, boy, was Shannon going to have a lot of explaining to do tomorrow. She made a furtive gesture to indicate she was leaving with Michael and then quickly looked away before her friend could protest.

  Michael led her to his truck. “Care for a drive?” he asked as if nothing unusual had just happened. He opened the passenger’s side door for her.

  “Where are we going?” she asked tersely, her voice sounding choked even to her.

  “Don’t know yet. Someplace where my brother isn’t.”

  She glanced back at the noise and lights of the fundraiser.

  “You can stay if you want.”

  His voice was neutral, and she couldn’t tell what he was feeling besides the urge to get out of there. “No,” she said, still feeling lightheaded after kissing him, even if it was only for show. “I don’t think I’m quite ready to face questions yet.”

  “Climb in, then.”

  She did, her pulse racing quite a bit faster than usual, and this time it had nothing to do with Drew. She watched Michael walk around the front of his truck after he closed her door for her, wondering at how unaffected he seemed by what had happened. If he was concerned about Drew’s reaction to seeing them together, he didn’t show it beyond a single glance back over his shoulder in the direction of the stage. And if he were at all self-conscious about kissing Shannon, there was absolutely no sign of that in his demeanor either.

  All right. She would play it cool then, too. Well, she would try, at least. So the man was a good kisser. It shouldn’t exactly come as a shock to her, given his long-standing reputation with women. And she had enjoyed it. Well, that was only natural, too, when one’s partner was so good at it. Inexperienced bumpkin that she was, even she knew a kiss was only a kiss. It didn’t mean anything.

  Except that he had come to her rescue during a painfully awkward situation. She had not expected anything like that from him. “Why did you do that?” she asked him as he got into the truck, wishing the words didn’t sound so awkward and stiff.

  “You mean back there?” Michael put the key in the ignition and started the engine. “Sorry if I caught you off guard. I was just trying to help.”

  Off guard was an understatement. “Yeah, I figured, but . . . ” She stared at him, and she knew the rest of her question was written all over her face. Why would you care?

  He looked at her, his gaze dropping momentarily to her mouth, and she knew she blushed yet again. So much for playing it cool. “I don’t like snobs,” he said finally, and he put the truck in reverse.

  • • •

  Without consciously planning it, Michael drove to the football field at McKinley High School. This time of day, with darkness falling and evening well underway, the school was long-deserted and empty. “I haven’t been back here in years,” he said, looking the old building over through his windshield. “Have you?”

  “No,” Shannon said very softly from beside him.

  He glanced over at her. She had barely said two words since leaving the park—and the kiss—behind them. He didn’t think she was offended by his actions. Startled, maybe, but not offended. It was clear to him the moment his lips met hers that she was as inexperienced in the area of kissing as she was in everything else that had to do with the opposite sex, but there was something indescribably sweet about that to him. And, anyway, she was a quick study.

  Right now she was studying their old campus with a very solemn expression on her face. Wary, even. She must have had at least one or two fond memories of high school, but if so, she didn’t seem to be remembering them now.

  Michael glanced up through the glass of the windshield at the stars that were coming out. “Did you ever go to the football games here?”

  “Me?” she returned, surprised. “No.”

  “How about the victory parties?”

  Shannon shook her head with a wry smile. “I heard those things could get pretty wild.”

  “Yeah, they could. That was kind of the point. A little wild oat sowing to celebrate things.”

  “Why do I have a feeling you sowed more than a little?”

  “Guilty as charged.” Michael opened the driver’s side door. “Come on.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Just getting a better view.” He got out and went up to sit on the hood of the truck. High school was not a time in his life he would really care to go back to, but there were times when he wished he could do a few things over. Just a few small changes, and he wondered if his life could have gone very differently.

  Michael heard the sound of the passenger’s side door opening, and he turned his head to see Shannon emerge tentatively from the truck. He patted the space next to him on the hood in invitation.

  She shook her head. “That’s okay. I’ll stand.”

  “Shannon?”

  “What?”

  “You’re shrinking again.”

  She opened her mouth as if to protest, but seemed to think better of it. “I can’t sit there.”

  “Why not?”

  In answer, she glanced pointedly down at her clean white dress.

  “Oh. Right. Just a second.” A few moments later, Michael pulled his leather jacket from the truck and spread it out over the hood. “There. No excuses now, right?”

  Wordlessly, she settled carefully next to him, not quite close enough to touch, and turned her face toward the stars rather than the field.

  “So, no football, no parties . . . what did you do in high school?”

  “Studied. Kept to myself, mostly.”

  “Because of catty girls?”

  “Maybe.”

  He waited for her to explain, but she remained quiet. “Maybe?” he prompted finally. “What did they give you a hard time about?”

  Shannon ticked reasons off of her fingers one by one. “I didn’t wear the right kind of clothes, I didn’t come from the right side of town, my hair looked like a Halloween decoration—”

  “Your hair is beautiful.”

  She grew quiet again. Self-conscious? Partly, he realized, but that wasn’t completely the reason. She was also trying to figure out what to do with his compliment. He wasn’t sure what to do with it, either, so he changed the subject. “Forget education. High school is all about status. Always was and always will be. Everybody wants to climb higher on the social ladder, and some people figure they can only do that by stepping on somebody else. None of it means anything, not really.”

  “Spoken like someone who was snugly at the top of said social ladder.”

  “If I was at the top, it was purely by accident. Hell, I didn’t even want to be on the ladder in the first place.”

  “No? Seemed like you enjoyed a little of the attention.”

  He laughed humorlessly. “You mean, because girls chased me? Yeah, sure. It’s just too bad they were chasing me for all the wrong reasons.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Status, sweetheart, status. They liked what they thought I could give them, they didn’t care about me.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Experience.”

  “Come on. You really think there couldn’t have been at least one girl who really and truly liked the real you?”

  “No one in high school knew the real me.” He wasn’t sure if anyone had since then, either.

  She played with the hem of her dress absently, considering his words. “Sounds a little cynical,” she said finally, without looking at him.

  “Cynical? Me? I’m the poster child for optimism.”

  The only response she gave him was a noncommittal sort of sound. “Sometimes I wonder . . . ”

  “Wonder what?”

  “I wonder if anybody ever really gets over high school.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Me, too.”

  Lying back against the windshield to get comfortable, Michael p
ut his hands behind his head and studied her. Maybe it was the starlight, or maybe it was the fact her hair was down for once . . . or maybe it was because she was still self-conscious about him kissing her, but there was something different about her manner. Something softer. He enjoyed her sarcasm, but he liked this, too. He reached out to run a few strands of her hair through his fingers, so lightly that he knew she was unaware he did it.

  “So what do you think Drew will say tomorrow?” she asked, clearing her throat with her face still turned upward.

  He let her hair slip free from his hand. “To me or to you?”

  “Both, I guess.”

  “He’ll want to kick my butt from here to kingdom come, I imagine. And you he’ll want to caution against getting involved with an SOB like me, or something to that effect. Actually, the whole thing could work to your advantage. Now he gets to swoop in and be your protector.”

  “Probably didn’t help your cause any, though, did it?”

  That thought had crossed his mind, too. “Can’t be helped now.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Michael shrugged it off. “Not your fault. I was the one who kissed you, not the other way around.” He kept his voice casual, but inwardly he was anxious. “Hopefully you can still get him to listen.”

  “I’ll try.” She hesitated. “I didn’t expect to see you there tonight.”

  “I didn’t expect to go.”

  She finally turned her head to look at him. “What changed your mind?”

  The truth was that he wasn’t really sure, so he spoke flippantly. “I’m just an impulsive kind of guy. If Drew hasn’t mentioned that to you already, I’m sure it’ll be on the top of his to-do list now.”

  Several minutes passed before Shannon spoke again “Michael?”

  It was the first time he could remember her addressing him by name. “Yes?”

  “Will you tell me why your family’s home is so important to you?”

  The change in subjects caught him off guard. “I already told you.”

  “No, I mean really.”

  For a moment he considered continuing to deny that there was anything more. He thought she would help him regardless, especially after tonight, but she would be disappointed in him. That possibility did not appeal to him at all. Against all odds, they seemed to be becoming friends, and he was reluctant to risk messing that up now. “I screwed up. Now I’m trying to fix things,” he said finally.

  “What do you mean?”

  He stared at the night sky, thinking back to his years with his family and feeling the shame that always went with those memories now. “I was a troublesome little punk as a kid—well, you may remember some of that firsthand. Chip on my shoulder the size of a house and always looking for trouble.”

  “I remember.”

  “I caused a lot of trouble for my parents back then. A lot of heartache. There’s a lot I wish I could take back.”

  “Lots of teenagers make life difficult for their parents.”

  “Yeah, but then they have time to apologize. I blew that.” He cleared his throat. “There was a car accident a few years ago. Took both my parents.”

  “I remember that, too,” she said softly.

  “Yeah, I guess it did make all the papers.”

  “So you’re doing this for them?”

  “That home meant a lot to my parents. Protecting it’s the last thing I can do for them.” He could feel her watching him in the dark, waiting for him to explain further, but he didn’t feel up to it. “So there you have it. Man, I was quite the bad seed in high school, wasn’t I?” he added more lightly, veering away from painful memories and praying she would let him.

  She did, for which he was grateful. “Kind of. I don’t remember a whole lot, though. My focus was more on your brother.”

  Drew again. He felt a flicker of jealousy that shouldn’t have been there.

  “But I remember the way all the girls mooned over you, of course. And I remember that you got in a lot of fights.”

  “Self-defense, I swear. I had a lot of angry boyfriends coming after me at the time.”

  “Did you ever consider not making out with their girlfriends?”

  “I was a horny teenage boy. That was not an option.” She gave an incredulous little laugh, and he liked the sound. “Half the time girls just made stuff up anyway about what happened to get attention, so I figured as long as I was going to get in trouble for it, I might as well enjoy it.”

  “I suppose that’s one approach,” she returned dryly.

  “Uh, oh. You disapprove, don’t you?”

  “Do you care?”

  More than she might have guessed. “Well, I don’t steal girlfriends anymore.”

  “Reformed, huh?”

  “More like ‘recovering.’”

  “Ah. On the wagon. Is there a twelve-step program for that kind of thing?”

  “No. I’m on my own.” Funny how words said so lightly could suddenly feel so heavy. They hung there in the air, and even if Shannon didn’t notice any change in Michael’s demeanor, he felt a subtle shift in his mood.

  But maybe she did notice, because he felt the fingers of her hand brush against his ever so lightly as if she wanted to give his hand a comforting squeeze but wasn’t bold enough to do so. He curled his hand around hers instead, wondering if she would pull away. She didn’t.

  “Michael?” she said after a minute.

  “Yes?”

  “I’ll talk to Drew again about the youth center. I promise.”

  He ran his thumb across hers. Her skin was warm and soft, and it occurred to him that it would be so easy right now to pull her just a little bit closer. And from there it wouldn’t take much to turn her face to his. Kisses had always been such casual things for him. Light. Fun. There was no reason to think that kissing Shannon wouldn’t also be fun, especially after the taste he’d gotten of it in the park. But something told him there would be nothing light about it.

  This was crazy, and he almost laughed out loud at himself. Weighing the pros and cons of kissing Shannon Mahoney right here, right now on the hood of his truck. What was he thinking? It must be some sort of mojo about the place, or maybe memories of making out with beautiful girls years ago at the football field that were putting wild ideas into his head. He liked Shannon, that was all. She made him laugh. She made him think about something else besides past mistakes. It didn’t mean he wanted her.

  Besides, she wanted his brother.

  And yet, his eyes focused on the silhouette of her mouth anyway.

  She nudged him then, and he quickly looked away before she could catch him staring at her lips. “Hey, look, Coach,” she said softly in what he knew was an attempt to lighten the mood a little as she held up their joined hands between them. “No shrinking. Proud of me?”

  He squeezed her hand and spoke with more lightness than he felt. “Very.” In spite of his attempt to be rational about the whole thing, Michael realized something that disconcerted him.

  Sitting beside this woman who dreamed of being with Drew, he envied his brother.

  • • •

  Shannon left her hand in Michael’s. He seemed to be in no hurry to take his hand back, so she told herself there was no reason for her to take hers back, either. Had he noticed the way her breath caught when he first touched her? She hoped not. She wasn’t used to holding a man’s hand, that was all, and it was a little embarrassing to have her inexperience constantly shine through. Now that she was over her initial startle, she admitted to herself that she liked the way it felt to have her fingers wrapped in his. He did it so easily, too, she knew he couldn’t be as turned around by it as she was.

  Everything seemed to come so naturally to Michael. She had heard a heaviness in his words and felt an impulse to say or do something to let him know that he wasn’t quite as alone as he thought he was, but then lost her nerve. He, on the other hand, showed no hesitation at all in taking her hand. Did he ever second-guess himself? Well, apparently h
e did when it came to his parents. She hadn’t missed the way he steered conversation away from them as soon as possible.

  And despite the way he used humor to try to cover the fact, she had a sneaking suspicion about something else. Michael Kingston didn’t like himself very much. And yet, oddly enough, she was liking him more and more.

  She had no illusions that the kiss in the park had been anything more than for show, but her mouth still tingled at the memory of it. She nearly touched her lips with her free hand but stopped herself just in time. Michael already thought she was naïve and inexperienced as it was. There was no need to prove him right any further tonight. One kiss, and he had her head all mixed up. She was attracted to Drew, not Michael, she reminded herself.

  After a long while, he squeezed her hand again, sending a tremor down her spine. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”

  The ride home was long and quiet. Shannon wanted to say something about the way he had come to her aid in the park with that kiss, but she couldn’t think of anything appropriately casual enough. Something easy and airy that would let him know she understood the true nature of what lay behind it—something that would prove she was worldly enough to know better than to keep thinking about it. Honestly she was.

  Nothing. Her mind drew a complete blank.

  Funny, but even though the kiss was the thing that had most knocked her off her feet at the time, it was the hand-holding in the school parking lot that left her the most bemused. Maybe because, innocent as it was, there was nothing about it that had been for show. She shouldn’t make more out of it than it was, but the problem was she didn’t know for sure what it was to begin with.

  Shannon glanced over at Michael. His attention appeared to be solely on the road, and if he was thinking at all about the same things she was, he gave no sign of it. There might have been a vaguely distracted air about him, but she might just as easily have imagined it. More likely, he was thinking about the future of his parents’ home and Drew’s possible reaction to what had happened tonight.

  He pulled the truck into her driveway and came to a stop in front of her house. “Home sweet home.”