Playing Hard

by Melanie Scott

“There,” he said. “Let’s eat.”

  “I think you need another lesson in fractions,” Amelia said. “That one I gave you when you were in elementary school doesn’t seem to have stuck.”

  “I’m bigger than you,” Finn said.

  “You’ve been doing nothing but lying around all day,” Amelia countered. “You’ll be busting out of those tight baseball pants if you’re not careful.”

  He grinned at that. She tried not to grin back. Finn and Em came from a background that included Polish, Irish, Spanish, and French ancestors. Whatever the precise mix was, it had produced good-looking specimens in this generation. Both Castros had skin that always looked slightly tanned, dark-green eyes, and dark-brown hair that was close enough to black. In Finn’s case it also came with a face chiseled to perfection by helpful genes—strong cheekbones and a square jaw that was a reminder of just how stubborn he could be. On Em the cheekbones were high and the face more angular but just as attractive. Both of them could charm the birds from the trees. Which was why Amelia was sitting here when she should be at work, making sure Finn ate and trying not to smile when he smiled at her.

  She ate her share of the pot stickers a little faster than could be termed polite and reached for the second carton—securing her share before Finn could devour them all. The perfectly cooked dumplings eased the hunger pangs, and her mood started to improve.

  Leaning back in the chair—and wishing that she was wearing something more comfortable than a suit—she studied Finn.

  He ate steadily but the fact that she had beaten him to the second batch of pot stickers told her he wasn’t feeling 100 percent.

  “Did the team doctor—what’s his name again—come to see you?” she asked when Finn put his empty bowl down.

  “Jones,” he said. “I thought you weren’t going to nag.”

  “Well, either you can tell me what happened and I can tell Em, or you can not tell me and deal with Em yourself when she gets sick of waiting for an update.”

  “You wouldn’t sic Em on a recovering invalid, would you?” He gave her his best puppy-dog eyes.

  Luckily she was largely immune to Castro puppy-dog eyes. At least when they came from Finn. Em was harder to resist, but that was because her puppy-dog eyes came with nearly twenty years of best-friend you-got-my-back-and-I-got-yours instinct built in. “I won’t need to sic her on you. She’ll do it herself. So what did the doctor say? Are they going to let you play?”

  “Doc Jones was here this morning. I have to get another checkup tomorrow but it looks like it,” Finn said. “We don’t have to fly to Boston, so that helps.”

  Flying with a concussion was a no-no, she knew that much. The Saints were playing the Red Sox for the division series. So that was lucky. Though part of her wondered if Finn should be playing so soon. Damned stubborn Castros.

  Finn slurped soup, and she suddenly felt exhausted. She’d gone home from the Saints’ party ready to call Em in the morning and announce that the Amelia-Graham-looks-out-for-Finn-Castro program was about to be canned. Instead she’d gotten a semi-hysterical phone call from Em telling her that Finn had been in an accident. The memory made her gut tighten. After all, it was only Tuesday, and the accident had been Sunday night. Or Monday morning, really.

  “That seems fast,” she said. “Only gives you one more day to rest.”

  He slanted her a look that suggested he wasn’t that interested in her medical opinion. “If the doc says I’m okay, I’m okay.”

  She held up her hands. “Fine. I won’t nag.” If she did, he’d just turn stubborn and decide to play no matter how bad he felt. So she’d leave the nagging to Em and just try to be supportive. Team Finn, as always. He was hurt, so she couldn’t bail on him. After the divisional series was over, maybe. It seemed unlikely that the Saints would make the championships. The Red Sox were far more experienced. Not that she was going to utter that traitorous thought to Finn.

  He was thrilled to be playing in the division series. It was his first time.

  “Are your parents and Em coming out for the game?” she asked.

  “Mom and Dad are going to come to the first Staten Island game,” Finn said.

  “And Em?”

  “She doesn’t know if she can get away. She’s got a case starting tomorrow. Some big fraud thing that’s going to go on forever.”

  She knew that part. But she suspected Em might surprise Finn with an appearance. Though if it wasn’t one of the two Boston home games or the first Saints game at Deacon Field, she might just miss out. The division series was best of five.

  A yawn suddenly overtook her, a reminder that she hadn’t had enough sleep in two nights. She fought it, shaking her head to wake herself up. She wasn’t up to baseball math or trying to plan how to get Em out here—even though she’d love to see her. She had to get back to work before her boss noticed how long she’d been gone. If she powered through the afternoon, maybe she could leave at a reasonable hour for once. Get an early night.

  “What are you doing this afternoon?” she said as Finn put his bowl down.

  He waved a hand at the TV. “Pretty much this.”

  More TV. Not what the doctor ordered. But Finn wasn’t good at doing what doctors ordered. Though she’d have thought, with his chance to play in the divisionals at stake, that he’d be toeing the line for once. Her stomach tightened again. He was getting his chance because Oliver Shields had been hurt worse than him in the accident. Oliver whose smile she hadn’t been able to erase from her memory despite her best intentions. She hesitated a moment; mentioning Oliver might just send Finn into one of his moods. But then she decided she didn’t care. She might not have completely given up on Team Finn just yet, but this seemed to be a moment when being Team Finn required calling him on his shit for once. If he hadn’t been drinking so much at the party, the accident wouldn’t have happened. “Have you thought about going to see Oliver in the hospital?”

  Sure enough, Finn’s expression turned cranky. “Shields? What the hell for? He—”

  She held up a hand. “He got hurt driving you home, Finn. Seeing how he’s doing seems the decent thing to do.” She nailed him with the look she used on the interns at work when they were being annoying. “Have you even talked to him?”

  Finn’s face went from cranky to sulky. “No.”

  “Well, you should.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re not seven?” she said softly. “It doesn’t matter if you don’t like him or don’t get along. He’s your teammate and he was helping you out. And now he’s missing the play-offs because of you.”

  “You’re just saying that because you want to jump him.”

  “I’ve met the man exactly once,” she said. “Nobody’s jumping anybody.” Unfortunately. She had to admit that Oliver was eminently jumpable. Though currently presumably out of action for a while … she dragged her thoughts back to the topic at hand. “I don’t seem to remember anyone passing a Finn Castro Is Ruler of the Universe Bill, so even if I did want to jump him it would be none of your business.”

  “The guy’s a jerk. And a player.”

  “Finn, I’ve been managing my love life on my own in New York for seven years now. I work on Wall Street. Not to mention I grew up around you and your jock friends. I can look after myself.” And everybody else.

  “I’m just saying, he’s not the sort of guy you want. You don’t want to end up like your mom.”

  She sucked in a breath, stomach twisting. “That’s not fair. Or the same situation by any stretch of the imagination.” Her dad had been a football player in college on scholarship. Until he’d gotten her mom pregnant, decided to do the right thing, and married her. Then bailed six-ish years later. Her mom didn’t like to talk about it. Amelia had always wondered if it was resentment over losing any chance to go pro that had killed their marriage and made him run. She knew her mom never liked it when she’d dated jocks in high school. And she’d made damned sure Amelia had had all the sex ed and bir
th control a girl could want.

  “I’m just saying. Hell, Milly. I know these guys.”

  “Because they’re like you?”

  “Maybe.” He winced as he shifted on the sofa, and her mood softened a little. But not completely.

  “It doesn’t matter what Oliver is like, I’m not trying to date him. So stop changing the subject. I know you don’t like him, but he’s on your team. And he’s been there a lot longer than you have. He’s a senior player and you’re new. Don’t screw things up. You told me he’s tight with the owners, right?”

  “Yeah, well, because Maggie Winters used to sleep with him, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth,” Finn said.

  Oliver had dated Maggie Winters? That information shouldn’t give her a pang in the chest, but it did. “All the more reason not to piss him off. You don’t want to get on the wrong side of your bosses,” she said a little more sharply than she had intended. She took a breath, tried to soften her tone. “Look, Finn, the Saints are a good shot for you. Their fortunes seem to be on the rise. The smart thing to do would be to see if you can catch a ride along with them.”

  “You’re an expert on baseball now?” he snapped.

  No, but she was pretty good on the ways Finn liked to screw things up. “I just think—”

  “Milly, you need to get this straight. The only thing that I’m interested in when it comes to Shields is the fact that he’s out of action. Because that gives me an opportunity. And I’m going to take it. So don’t expect me to be sitting in his hospital room being buddies. We’re not friends. We never have been. He’s been in my way all season—and rubbed my nose in it—and now he’s out of it.” He looked at her, scowling still. “Hell, don’t look like that. I didn’t want this to happen to him but it has. So I’m going to take my shot. You can bet your ass he would if our positions were reversed. He’s had fifteen years in the spotlight. Now it’s my turn.”

  She actually couldn’t speak for a moment. Hell, she’d known Finn could be single-minded about baseball. It came with the talent, she supposed, that driven kind of focus to get where he wanted to go. But she’d never seen him be so cold-blooded about it. Even if Finn didn’t get along with Oliver, being so ruthlessly determined to take his place was … well, pretty crappy, actually. Still, there was no point trying to talk sense to him when he was in this mood. Instead she stood and picked up her stuff. “Look, I have to get back to work, and your head must hurt. I’m going to go. I’ll talk to you later, okay?” She waited. Hoping he’d say something even vaguely apologetic.

  He didn’t respond, just lay back on the sofa and reached for the video game controller. And in that moment, she decided she wasn’t going to be having such an early night after all.

  * * *

  His hand hurt like a son of a bitch. Oliver shifted himself back up the hospital bed, which only set off an answering throb in his bandaged ankle, and hid his wince. He’d spent the last two days since his surgery half stoned on morphine but was determined to make do without it today.

  Which wasn’t improving his mood any.

  But fuck, he had a right to be pissed. He was missing the play-offs. Might miss the start of the next season.

  All because Finn fucking Castro couldn’t handle himself and some moron in a Hummer had decided that red lights didn’t mean “stop,” they meant “gun through the intersection and take out anything in your path.” Both Finn and the Hummer driver had walked away from the accident with bruises, a few cuts, and concussions.

  It was Oliver who’d woken up in a hospital bed after surgery to be told that a piece of metal had sliced up his right hand, and his chance to finally play in the divisional series after fifteen fucking years of professional baseball was over. The sprained ankle—Lucas had told him he was lucky that he hadn’t actually broken it—and various other cuts and grazes were just the icing on the cake.

  He played first base. He needed his damned hand to work.

  Lucas hadn’t been able to tell him that it would recover fully. The slice had been deep. Apparently the surgery—Lucas had dragged the best microsurgeon in the city out of bed—had taken hours. Nerves and tendons sewn back together. But that didn’t mean they were going to be as good as new. And without full function, more than his chance at playing in the divisional series would be gone.

  Lucas had told him it was too early to panic; he had to wait and see.

  Maggie, white-faced, had told him that the police were charging the Hummer driver with half a dozen offenses. Alex, who’d been there with her when Ollie woke up, told him that if he wanted to sue the driver, the Saints would pay.

  Oliver didn’t care about money. He cared about losing his career. And ever since that moment of waking up, even during the times he’d been delirious on morphine, he’d felt nothing but rage.

  Rage and flashes of pain, and then the drugs would suck him back down into sleep full of dreams that he couldn’t remember but made him wake up gasping each time.

  Which was why he wanted to ditch the drugs. Or at least wean himself onto something less heavy-duty. It had been three hours now since they had taken out the morphine drip and his hand was starting to complain. Loudly.

  But he wasn’t going to ask. Not just yet.

  Drugs weren’t going to help him recover sooner. Not soon enough to make any difference anyway. He was missing the play-offs. Nothing to be done about it.

  He felt his good hand curl at the thought, resisted the urge to smash it against the bed frame. Just. Instead he dropped his head back on the pillow, closed his eyes, and yelled “Fuck!” in as loud a voice as he dared, not wanting to have three nurses come barreling through the door to pester him.

  “Sorry, is this a bad time?” a voice came from the doorway. Female. One he didn’t immediately recognize.

  “Go away,” he growled.

  He heard a sigh but no sound of the door closing again. Then another sigh and footsteps came closer to the bed.

  “I said go away.”

  “I heard you,” his unknown visitor said. “But I wanted to say something first.”

  “If you’re a reporter, I’ll have security here in about three seconds,” he said, still keeping his eyes closed. He knew exactly where the call button was. He’d been bargaining with himself to delay picking it up and asking for a painkiller.

  “I’m not a reporter,” she said.

  “Are you a doctor?”

  “No. Economist.”

  His eyes flew open. Milly the economist? What the hell was she doing here?

  He blinked as he turned his head, the lights in the room dazzling him for a second, but when his vision cleared, it was definitely her. Milly of the big blue eyes and wicked laugh. Here in his hospital room.

  Wearing a very sleek suit in a greenish-brown shade that made her hair—pulled back in a bun that was far more orderly than the style she’d worn at the club—look more red than blond.

  “Do you remember me? I’m Milly—Amelia—Graham. We met at the party.”

  “Yes. What are you doing here?” he said, confused. Maybe he should pinch himself. Maybe he’d fallen asleep and was having another very weird dream. But if he was dreaming, surely she would be wearing something far more seductive than a suit. And she wouldn’t be carrying a brown paper bag with lollipops printed on it.

  She moved closer to the bed, extended the bag. He sat up—carefully so as not to jostle his ankle too much—took the bag, and peered inside.

  It was full of candy. Sour gummies. Cotton candy in a tin. Chocolate of several different varieties. Red Hots. Tootsie Rolls. Jolly Ranchers. “Candy?” he said, still confused.

  “I broke my arm a few years ago,” she said. “When I was on painkillers, I didn’t have much of an appetite because they made me nauseous, but candy was okay. And I didn’t know if you liked flowers.” She paused, surveyed the room, which was brimming with the flower arrangements that the Saints, his manager, his family, and apparently every other person he’d ever met in his life, had
sent. As if flowers could help. “But apparently you do.”

  He frowned. “People keep sending them. I keep asking the nurses to take them to other wards. But then more arrive.”

  “Sucks to be popular,” she said with a tentative smile.

  He put the bag on the tray table thing beside his bed. Then changed his mind and grabbed for it again. She was right, he wasn’t eating much. Even in the fancy part of the hospital that Lucas had gotten him into, the food had done nothing to lessen the queasiness from the drugs. Even ginger ale—which he loved—hadn’t helped. Maybe gummy bears would work.

  “So you’re a gummy bear man?” Milly said.

  “As long as they’re the sour ones,” he replied. He realized that opening the pack of candy was going to be difficult with one hand and used his teeth instead. Once he’d managed that—the whole process a lot more awkward than he would have liked—he put it down on his tray table. “Want one?”

  “No, thanks,” she said.

  He ate a bear, studying her. She looked … nervous, he decided.

  “You gonna tell me why you’re here?” he asked.

  Her shoulders slumped a little, then straightened again. “I came to say sorry,” she said.

  “Sorry?” He was confused again. “What do you have to be sorry about?”

  “Finn,” she said. “If I hadn’t let him chase me off at the club, then you wouldn’t have gotten into this accident.”

  Well, he couldn’t argue with that. Fucking Castro. He started to scowl involuntarily.

  “You came to see me to say sorry for Finn?” Finn who hadn’t been to see him at all. Finn who was already home. Who still had two working hands. “Did he send you?” His frown deepened.

  “No,” she said, in a very definite tone. A frown appeared on her face. “No. In fact I didn’t know you’d been hurt until yesterday when I finally got the full story about what happened.”

  That sounded about right. “And how is Finn?” He made himself eat another gummy bear.

  “He has a mild concussion. He has to rest for another twenty-four hours, then they’ll assess him again before the…”