Kickin’ It

by Van Dyken, Rachel

  Matt spoke up. “She’s been a wonder to teach, scored a couple goals on me, and I have her training with Jagger and Slade next week.”

  He did?

  “You do?” Erik blurted.

  “I figured why not train with the best if you want to be with the best team. And I have to be honest with you guys, we’ve gotten a lot of interest and it’s still early. Her heart is in Seattle but we may be tempted by a sweeter offer.”

  Erik stared at us like he was trying to figure out if we were bluffing.

  Billy stood. “Well, I think that’s that. We’ll stay in touch. Not sure if we can beat Seattle’s offer, but I like to give second chances and I love some raw talent.”

  Second chances? It wasn’t a second chance if you never got a first. Matt started rubbing my thigh.

  “Thank you.” I didn’t stand, I felt paralyzed.

  Erik stood just before Matt did, his eyes on our side of the table. I didn’t drop my hand in time, although Matt jerked away fast enough.

  Was I overthinking it?

  Would he say something?

  Why was he in a position to ruin my life again?

  I scooted out after Matt and shook Billy’s hand and begrudgingly did the same to Erik, only he refused to give it back right away.

  No, he had to kiss the back of my hand, linger over it, and then whisper, “It’s wonderful to see you again, little all-star.”

  I almost puked in my mouth. “Y-you too.”

  They left amidst more handshakes while I followed behind Matt. After they left the hotel, Matt turned to me, anger in his eyes.

  “Matt, I can ex—”

  He put his fingers up then motioned to the bartender. “I’m going to need bottles of Skyy, Hennessy, mixers, and what the hell, toss in some Tanqueray.” He slid the bartender two Franklins. “Charge it to our room, it’s under Kingston.”

  “Number?”

  Matt pulled out his keycard. “Penthouse suite 10021.”

  “Right away, sir.” The bartender took the money, and Matt took my hand.

  “Should I check into my room?”

  Matt stopped walking, looked at me, then grabbed his phone and dialed. “Willow, the penthouse suite, I’m assuming it has a connecting door to Parker’s room?”

  Silence.

  More tangible anger on his end.

  In fact, his face was turning a nice shade of Will Kill Willow Later red.

  “Fine,” he barked, and then I was getting tugged toward the elevators.

  With shaking hands, he slid the keycard in and hit the top-floor button.

  “I know you’re angry,” I whispered with tears in my eyes. “At me. I don’t even know what you’re thinking, except—”

  Matt hit the stop on the elevator, scaring the shit out of me. “Did he touch you?”

  I nodded.

  Matt braced my shoulders with his hands. “Did he hurt you?”

  Another nod as a tear slid down my face, kissing my mouth.

  And finally, the question I knew would follow. “Is that why you punched him on national television?”

  I burst into tears.

  All over his nice shirt.

  All over my pretty dress.

  In a hanging death trap, almost twenty floors up.

  And he held me.

  He held me against him and let me cry.

  I didn’t realize we were moving again until the doors opened to a beautiful hallway with one door.

  He slid the card again and helped me in.

  I wiped my cheeks just as another knock sounded.

  “God, that better be alcohol,” Matt muttered under his breath as he opened the door and let in one of the wait staff.

  They’d basically brought him an entire bar, even more than what he requested.

  Matt tipped him.

  The waiter left.

  And silence fell again.

  I was afraid to look anywhere but Matt’s face, afraid I’d miss something, maybe even afraid that I’d miss the disappointment that I needed to see in order to stop falling for him like I knew I was.

  I needed the rejection so it wouldn’t hurt when he stopped touching the back of my hand to make sure I was alright, or kissing my cheek just because.

  His back was turned to me as he started filling cups with ice. “Have you taken any anxiety meds in the last twenty-four hours?”

  “No,” I choked out.

  “Good.” He shoved a drink in my face, unbuttoned his shirt a few buttons, sat next to me on the fancy barstool, and said in a low voice, “Tell me everything.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  PARKER

  Everything?

  I gulped down half my drink. “Where do you want me to start?”

  “At the beginning, where most stories typically start. I think I already know how things ended . . .”

  “Things.” I snorted and looked down at my shaking hands. Matt took the drink from me and grabbed them, encompassing them with his warmth as he scooted his barstool closer.

  The hotel room was filled with that static silence that buzzed around a person’s ears and made them want to shiver a bit with the emptiness. I choked back a sob as I finally met Matt’s eyes and started my story. “Everyone loved him, the coaching staff respected him, my teammates all but worshipped him. We always used to joke about how hot he was.” I shuddered. “Lots of the girls even said they’d paid for private training, which just made us roll our eyes, but it was all speculation. He was a flirt and charismatic.”

  “He’s a douche,” Matt said in a cold voice.

  “Yeah.” My voice cracked. “He’s that too.”

  Silence descended again as Matt waited for me to say more, but I’d rather have hurled myself from the penthouse window. I didn’t want Matt to look at me with disappointment, not after all of the pride I’d seen in his eyes.

  Somehow, I again felt Erik’s eyes on my skin, his lingering peppermint breath as he tried to kiss his way down my neck. I reached for my drink again then rested my hand on Matt’s. “It snowballed, that’s the only way I can explain it. One day he was teasing me, accidentally touching me and apologizing for it, and I just didn’t think anything of it, you know? I was a senior then. He’d never touched me before, but he started asking me to stay late after practice. It was when a lot of teams got interested, so he said I needed to put in twice the amount of work.”

  I couldn’t look at Matt’s face, but I felt his heavy breathing, his anger as it swarmed between us, ready to strike out at any time.

  I exhaled. “It was late, the trainer had left, and Erik said I needed to make sure that I stretched, so he told me to lie down on the table. When I did he joked about me being too sweaty and said to take off my shirt since I was still in a sports bra. It made sense, I was drenched and uncomfortable.” I could still smell the antiseptic in the air, see the yellow lights as they flickered overhead as I lay back, and I winced. “He started stretching my legs, nothing unusual, but his hands moved higher and higher until I kind of, I don’t know, flinched against him.” Nausea rolled in my stomach. “He held my legs down and then laughed when I struggled. I jumped down and finally pulled away from him as he backed me against the wall. He said I should stop saying no, that nobody else ever did. And then he said he could help my career.” I hung my head in shame. “And a part of me was afraid that he was right. That he could make or break me. I shoved him away, told him I wasn’t like that.” Tears welled in my eyes. “And you know what his answer was?”

  Matt’s grip on my hands tightened. “That I was. He said I was like that as he gripped my ass, and then I felt—” Matt bit out a curse. “I felt him against me . . . completely aroused. I hated myself in that moment because a part of me wanted to have his attention when everyone else wanted it, but it was fleeting.” I paused. “He said I looked at him a certain way, and I wondered if I did something wrong. Was it because I wore my hair down and he yelled at me to put it up? Was it because my shorts were too short? Did I lead h
im on or do something wrong? And then he slid his hands under my bra and told me I wanted him. I was so damn confused, so when he kissed me . . .” It felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. “When he kissed me, I kissed him back—briefly—and then he started undressing me more.” Matt leaned toward me like he was ready to either pull me in for a hug or reach for more alcohol. “And the worst part is, mentally I was fighting him, I was telling myself it was wrong, but I was afraid that if I didn’t give him what he wanted, he’d ruin my career. I realized then that he’d probably done it to other girls, but at the time I just thought that they’d had disrespectful attitudes.” I reached for my drink again. “It was over fast.” I downed its contents. “I don’t know what I expected, not what he said . . .”

  “What did he say?” Matt’s voice was low, dangerous, predatory.

  I finally looked up into Matt’s furious gaze. “He said he thought it would take longer to break me and laughed at how easy it was—how easy I was.” Tears spilled over my cheeks. “And then he left me alone with all the evidence of what we’d done still on my body. He shut the door. And the next day I was called into the assistant director’s office for behavior issues with my coach and sent to therapy. I found out later that he was sleeping with the therapist and three other girls from the team, and when I approached the AD about it weeks later I was too late, he’d beaten me to it. Erik made up stories about how I’d been sending him love letters, how I was obsessed with him, how I got angry when I didn’t get my way.”

  “That fucking bastard!” Matt rose to his feet. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Why didn’t I tell you?” My eyebrows shot up. “Are you serious? Since when has anyone ever been on my side? Believed me? Plus, it’s not like I could go to anyone and say it wasn’t consensual, because it was! I still did it! I still let him—” I looked down at my shaking hands. “I still let him touch me, take advantage of me, see? It’s better to be angry. Fear only makes you do stupid things you can’t come back from. At least anger gives you the power back.”

  Matt hung his head and grabbed my glass, filled it up again, handed it back, and asked, “Is there more?”

  I snorted. “Oh yeah, the jackass pursued me the rest of the season . . . constantly cornering me, taunting me. I rejected him every time. I talked to the AD again and one of the girls from my team, but they believed him over me. He’d poisoned the well, and whenever people saw us together they assumed the worst, that I’d done the cornering, the seducing. And the morning of the championships, he—” I hugged my arms around my waist and tried to tuck myself away from the world.

  Matt chugged his drink and pulled me into his embrace, surrounding me in his protective warmth, rocking me back and forth as my teeth started to chatter.

  “It was raining,” I whispered against his chest. “I ran back into the locker room, the game wouldn’t start for another two hours. He was waiting. He pulled me into his office, called me a cunt and numerous other things. I stood there and took it, asked to leave, and he—he hit me when I refused to have sex with him.”

  “He hit you?” Matt’s voice was so on edge I wasn’t sure if I was safer out of his arms or in them.

  “Yeah. He tried to pull my shorts down, I kicked him in the shin, ran out of the locker room with him chasing me literally onto the field, and when he called me a slut in front of the entire team, I lost it. I just . . . punched him. I didn’t care who saw, didn’t care that it would ruin my entire life, because in that moment all that mattered was that he’d feel the same embarrassment and pain he’d caused me. The media was already camped out, they saw it all.”

  Matt rocked me back and forth. He ran his hands over my hair, and then he said something I had no idea I needed to hear until that moment.

  “I believe you.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  MATT

  She sagged in my arms like she’d been carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, and I felt like the biggest dick in the universe for not seeing it sooner.

  The way she hated being backed into a corner.

  Her fear of darkness.

  The way she lashed out.

  Her behavior toward men in general.

  I should have seen all of it.

  From her attitude to the way she carried herself, I should have known. I was better at my job than that, not that I was trained to notice those sorts of things, but I’d still like to think I should be better. I’d let my own anger at my attraction turn me into someone I didn’t even recognize.

  And now I just felt guilt and a hell of a lot of shame that I’d possibly made her feel even worse about herself when all I wanted was to take all the pain and humiliation away.

  “I feel guilty for not telling Willow,” she said against my chest, her breath warm, her body hanging on mine like she couldn’t stand on her own two feet even if she tried.

  “Why haven’t you told her?”

  “Talking about it makes it real,” she whispered in a hoarse voice. “I just . . . I hate him so much, I hate him.”

  “Want me to send a guy after him? I’m sure we could make it look like an accident.” Her lips twitched while she wiped away another tear. “Think about it, we make it look like an accident, superglue his dick to his hand, turn on the puppy channel, and then pump his drink full of Viagra. Nothing worse than when a pug does it for you . . .”

  Parker burst out laughing against my chest. “Sounds like a plan, I’ll ride shotgun.”

  “Attagirl.” I hugged her tighter. “You aren’t the only victim in this, Parker . . . just think about what that means . . . and know that as your agent I’ll stand behind you no matter what you decide, but as your friend I encourage you to go to the proper authorities, because he’s just going to keep doing it until he gets caught. He’s a narcissist through and through.”

  “I still . . .” She pulled away and looked up at me, a mixture of hope and worry in her eyes. “I still let him,” she said, her voice cracking.

  “I’m going to ask you something, and no matter what your answer is, know there isn’t any judgment, alright?”

  She nodded.

  “Would you have let him had he just come on to you and not mentioned your career? Making or breaking you?”

  “No.” She said it quickly and then slumped forward, her forehead resting against my chest. “I’m a horrible person.”

  “No!” I gripped her by the shoulders. “You’re not a horrible person. You were put in a shitty situation with someone who abused his authority. That’s not on you, that’s on him.”

  “I wish I believed that,” she said with a watery smile.

  “Give it time.” I wiped the tears from her cheeks with my thumbs. “And until then, we drink.”

  “Matt Kingston encouraging alcohol consumption during training?” She laughed through more tears. “What happened to you?”

  “Parker Speedman,” I said simply, as if she should know she was the driving force behind a lot of my behavior lately. The sad part was that I knew in that moment, I would never act on any of my feelings, no matter how deep they went. I would die keeping them to myself.

  Because the last thing she needed was another man in her life to let her down.

  “Deadpool 2 sound good?” I grabbed the remote while she started refilling our drinks.

  “That’s it, huh? You’re not pissed? Shocked? Angry?”

  “I’m all of those things, but none of them are directed at you.” I stared at the remote for a few brief seconds as I felt her walk toward me. She set the drinks on the table.

  Our eyes locked.

  I saw disappointment there.

  I felt it in my own gaze too. We both knew that the invisible line we’d been dancing around was firmly back in place because right now she needed the professional relationship more than she would ever admit.

  And that’s all I could be for her.

  I gave her a sad smile and then sat on the cushy leather couch and grabbed one of the blankets
provided by the hotel.

  She sat down next to me.

  We enjoyed our drinks.

  We laughed.

  And when she began to drift to sleep against my shoulder, I squeezed my eyes shut and forced myself to stay in control. “Parker . . .”

  “Hmm?” Her eyes flickered open. “What time is it?”

  “Past midnight,” I murmured with a smile. “We should go to bed.” Separate beds.

  “Okay.” She frowned up at me and looked around. “Is mine through some weird hidden door or something?”

  “Bedroom.” I pointed to the opposite end of the penthouse. “I’m taking the couch.”

  “Wait, why are you on the couch?” Her heavily lidded gaze was slowly killing me inside, right along with her swollen lips and puffy cheeks. She was beautiful, so beautiful . . . My fingers trembled with the need to reach out and cup her face, trace her chin, kiss down her neck.

  “Because apparently the hotel was at capacity, so Willow only booked us one room,” I grumbled. “You need a good night’s sleep. Let me take the male species’ punishment tonight and wake up with a pain in my neck.” I flashed a grin. “I don’t mind, go relax. At least we have two bathrooms.”

  “God forbid we have to share and you find a hair by your toothbrush again,” she said with a smirk.

  “Very funny.” I glared playfully, and before I realized what I was doing, I reached out and twisted her hair around my finger.

  I swallowed slowly and looked away as the sound of our joint breathing filled the room.

  “Thanks, Matt.” Her voice was quiet, trusting. Damn it. Keep it under control!

  “Not all men are like him,” I said as I stood and helped her to her feet.

  “I know.” Her eyes locked onto me so hard I couldn’t look away. “And you promise you’re not mad?”

  I sighed. “I don’t know whether to lock you up away from men like him, or kiss you and prove that we aren’t all monsters.”

  Parker’s eyes widened a bit.