by Croix, Ada
“I went once,” Violet chirped in once Allie lapsed into silence. “I would love to go back. Where do you guys live?”
The two shared a glance over the table. “This spring we’ll be in an apartment near the training facility.” Blake was looking over her features and Allie had no idea what he was finding.
“We’ve got a place right by the water, three stories with balconies,” Ivan said to Violet. “You can hear the ocean at night.”
“That sounds divine,” Violet sighed as she skewered at her salad. “I’ll have to see if I can get on the planning committee for any events you hold out there.” She slanted a suggestive look up at Ivan.
“I guess you’ll have to,” he agreed, unconcerned, as he spun pasta onto his fork.
Allie just bit her lip.
Blake seemed to be laughing at her, but at least he did so quietly.
She found her eyes straying to the other tables. She had missed Marc standing up, but now his chair was empty. There was no reason that it should bother her. As if to prove it, she put on a brighter smile for Blake.
“You know what I think, Allie.” Violet looked away from eye-fucking her chosen target long enough to play a toe under the table at her friend’s foot. “I think we should invite them to be on our trivia team.”
“Oh, they wouldn’t want to play. I’m sure they have … to sleep.” There was something a little panicked in how Allie looked between everyone at the table. “You know what their call times are like in the morning.”
“Miss goodie-two-shoes,” Violet teased fondly. “It’s really not scheduled to go that late. All the staff have to be up in the morning, too. Say you’ll be on our team?” She implored Ivan with another bat of lashes. “Unless you have something better to do.”
Ivan was biting. “That could be interesting.”
“Uh huh,” Violet beamed around a coy nip at the tines of her fork. “And what about you, Blake? Teams of four.”
Allie gave a wide-eyed look across the table and aimed a kick at her friend. She couldn’t find Violet’s feet, though. They were probably hooked over Ivan’s ankle.
“I’m game,” the other player said with a shrug.
“Perfect. I’ll give you my number.” Violet rocked farther against Ivan, as if she needed more space to tug her phone free from the purse crumpled at her outside hip. “We can meet in the lounge room in your hall.”
Their hall. Allie glanced again to the table to her left, but Marc was long gone.
08
The dorm’s recreation room was packed when they got there. They were running a little late—despite the fact that they were just going down the hall, Violet had insisted that they both get dolled up. The lack of seating seemed to suit Violet just fine. Without enough chairs, Violet simply had to sit in Ivan’s lap. Allie perched more demurely on the arm of the recliner that Blake had managed to claim.
After the first round of questions there was a break so that people could make a last run to the dining hall. Violet suggested that the four of them use Allie’s car to make an off-site run instead of joining everyone in the line on campus.
“We might miss the next game,” Allie pointed out.
“We’ll make the third one.” Violet shrugged, careless. “Come on, let’s go up to our room to get your keys.”
As she trailed the other three up the stairs to their floor, Allie could see Violet whispering in Ivan’s ear. It made it even less of a surprise once the plans changed as soon as they got to their room.
“Allie, you know, I don’t actually feel very hungry.” Violet took a seat on her bed and flicked a glance towards Ivan. Hungry was actually exactly how she looked. “I think I’ll stay here.”
“Yeah, me too,” said Ivan neatly on cue.
“Oh. Okay.” Allie felt like an idiot as she fought her arms awkwardly into the sleeves of her jacket, her car keys jingling in its pocket. She could sense Blake’s blue eyes on her but tried desperately to avoid them. “I’ll just … We’ll just meet you back at the trivia room.”
If Blake and Ivan needed to come to some understanding, they must have done it entirely through a silent bro code because Allie didn’t hear a word more from either of them. She wasn’t exactly sticking around, though. Allie snagged her purse off the desk and beat a hasty retreat out the door.
Panic welled up in her stomach as she listened to Blake’s steps following her down the stairs. Allie couldn’t imagine going into town with him all by herself. She was still groping for something to say when he caught up with her, his arm reaching past her shoulder to hold the door closed.
“You know, we could just go back to my room. It’ll be empty.”
Allie turned to the side, putting her back to the wall so she could tilt a look up at Blake. She blinked in startled stupidity. “W—what would we do there?”
That won a dimpled smile from Blake. He was ridiculously handsome. He knew it. He prowled closer and corralled her in the prop of his arms against the wall. “I’m sure we could figure something out.” Something that started with him leaning down to kiss her.
Gasping, Allie pitched forward with a ducking aversion of her face. Her forehead collided with his shoulder. Maybe it wasn’t the nuzzling Blake was going for, but she burrowed against his chest and fisted her hands in his shirt and groaned into the heat of his solidity. She supposed she should be flattered by his attention, but it felt like even more of an accident than when she found herself in a similar situation with Marc. “Oh my gosh, what is happening.”
“You’re fucking up my shirt.” At least bemusement was winning out over irritation. For now. It was a fine line in the low of Blake’s voice. “Allie?” He reached for her shoulder to try and coax her back where he could reach her.
Allie shook her head violently, stretching out his shirt in her fists as she resisted. “I’m not … I can’t … Blake, it’s against the rules.”
“Is that what’s worrying you?” Blake tilted in to murmur closer to her ear. “We won’t get caught. And if we do, I’ll take care of it. You don’t have to worry.” He was so confident.
She was worried about getting caught. But if she were going to take such a risk, he wasn’t the player that most tempted her. “I don’t … I don’t date athletes.”
“Who said anything about dating?”
Allie snapped her gaze up and pushed him away hard. “I’m not like that.”
“You mean like your friend?” Blake continued on placidly as he found new balance a step away. “There’s something to be said for someone who can drive directly to the goal. Don’t you think?”
Like Marc, is what Allie thought. Dominating in the pool. How he held her that first night in his room after the airport. “I have to go.”
It was a near thing, but Allie broke away from the half-hearted catch Blake made at her arm. She rushed through the door and didn’t look back when she made it outside where the chill of the night air stung her face. Her breath panted out in plumes as she fumbled her keys into her car door’s lock. She kept imagining that Blake would appear behind her, would grab her, but it didn’t happen.
Once she was inside with the car warming up, she took a minute to hide her face in her hands. “You’re losing your focus, Allie,” she berated herself. She didn’t know what she was doing. She didn’t know where she was going. She just knew she needed to get away from that building. Putting her car into gear, she left the grounds and headed for downtown. At least there she could kill time in the comfortable solitude of a corner at Starbucks.
09
There was comfort in the familiar sameness of the coffee shop that was a clone to the one she had spent so many hours in during her more innocent years in community college. Allie almost didn’t want to leave once she got there, no matter how tired she was. But Violet had mentioned trying for the third round of the trivia game, so after finishing her tea Allie shrugged back into her coat and started to steel herself for seeing everyone she’d run out on. It was miserably cold for the
walk back down the block towards the parking garage. Burrowing her face into her scarf, Allie walked with her eyes cast down at her booted feet and wondered if her life was going in the right direction.
The noise of drunks spilling out from the Irish pub made Allie vaguely aware of people in the way on the sidewalk. She curved away from the raucous conversation, giving them plenty of room. She was completely oblivious to the silent presence looming until she walked right into a living wall. “Pardon,” she gasped breathless and looked up … and up.
“Allie?”
It was Marc. He had seen her coming, but hadn’t done anything to prevent the collision. He just stood with planted feet. His hand had gone out to steady over her shoulder.
She felt the heavy weight of his grip crushing through the down of her parka. All that strength. It held her up as Allie swayed on her feet. She nodded her head dumbly.
“What are you doing here?” Marc asked. “I thought staff had that party tonight.”
“I was … the trivia night.” Allie stammered. “I kind of lost my team.” She looked down at her shoes. Her shoulders jerked into a shrug. “We were supposed to get something to eat,” she recalled with a deepening frown. “Except everyone else kind of … so, it’s just me.” Allie shook off her moping and fixed a smile she didn’t feel up at Marc. “Anyway. What are you doing? I bet no one kicked you out and made you come out here.” Her mouth slanted rueful.
The smallest curl of a smile peeked at the edge of Marc’s lips. “You think I do anything I don’t want?”
Maybe it was that glimpse, that suggestion that he might be joking with her. Allie snorted with her own unthinking humor. “You’re telling me you want to give blood samples.”
Maybe Allie shouldn’t have said it. That hint of a more easy-going disposition disappeared from Marc’s expression. Something was a little narrower about the dark of his eyes as he studied her.
“I’m sorry,” Allie murmured into the fluff of her scarf, hiding her wince inside its folds.
After a moment more, Marc turned his glance out to the street. “I was going to get a taxi back.” He shifted his weight. “We could share.”
“Oh, it’s okay, I drove,” Allie answered reflexively. Only after did she look up to meet Marc’s gaze and realize the rudeness of her hasty reply. Allie felt her developing trainer’s eye evaluating him. He shouldn’t be out in the cold like this.
“I mean. Do you need … would you like a ride?”
Marc still seemed unsatisfied as he considered her. “It’s fine.” He took another step towards the curb. “I can make my own way.”
Allie shifted forward an indecisive step before turning full to face him. “Marc?” Her gloved hands were curved tight around her purse strap. “It’s really no trouble.” She gestured down the street towards the garage.
“Don’t do me any favors.” There was something stiff and dismissive through his shoulders as Marc towered over her. But he was still paying attention to her. “What do you want, Allie?”
Allie opened her mouth. Closed it. She pulled on a helpless smile. “I want to get out of the street?” She loosened the nervous grip of her fingers to swing her arms out in a shrug. “Come on.” She dared to bat her hand at his elbow. “I’m going back anyway. Ride with me.”
Marc looked at her for a second longer before nodding. His stride was long when he joined her and she had to be quick to keep up. She found herself fighting to prevent her steps from wandering into collision with his side. It was cold, the wind blustering through the spaces between buildings, and the solid bulk of his frame offered shelter.
For long strides Marc walked in silence. Allie worried she had made him angry. She peeked at him around the corona of her hair where it had been worked to frizz around the edge of her knit cap. His gaze was distant, taking in the city street around them and the faint gleam of snow in the moonlight that made the rising mountains visible in the distance.
Allie felt an odd flutter of anxiety as they walked into the dark of the parking garage. She wasn’t used to going anywhere at night with men. She told herself she was being silly. She had been working with Marc and his team for the better part of the week now. She’d jabbed him with needles and scraped him with sampling brushes. She tried to tell herself that he wasn’t any different from one of the resident gymnasts that she’d gotten to know well, nor any other of the many athletes that came through the training center. None of them made her nervous like this.
But all that she could think of when she unlocked the doors so they could get into her car was how good he had smelled that first evening when he’d tried to kiss her. It was ridiculous. It wasn’t even like they were on a date. She was just giving him a lift back from downtown.
Allie tried to ignore him in her periphery as she got the car started and headed out onto the route back to the training center. The way he braced his forearm across the window made it difficult not to notice Marc when she glanced to her sideview mirror. She could see his fingertips pensively pressing along the window’s edging as he watched the streets slide past in the night.
They were halfway back when he finally spoke. “It’s not like I have some weird … thing. About being your research rat.” Marc seemed annoyed with himself for saying it. He frowned out the window.
“I was just joking.” She regretted it now. Allie could only flick her glance towards him briefly since she was watching the road. “I didn’t really think you did.”
Maybe that eased him somewhat, but it was hard for Allie to tell in the ever-changing shift of light and shadow that washed over the strong angles of his features while she drove.
“I want,” Marc said with steadier emphasis, “to be on this team.”
Allie blinked. It sounded like honesty. It was like she was compelled to ruin the moment. “You know, our human subject review committee … there can’t be coercion.”
“I told you,” Marc angled a look at her. That annoyed tension was definitely wound tight along his jaw. “I don’t do things I don’t want to.” Sniffing against the cold, he looked forward again and rolled his shoulders into a deeper slouch within his seat. “Everett gave me a list, and I chose this.”
“A list?”
The corner of his mouth twitched, but it was only technically a smile. “Yeah. The list of unselfish things. The coach is concerned that I’m not a team player.”
Allie still didn’t really understand and she didn’t know what to say. Certainly, from what she’d witnessed in her days working with the team, Marc was hardly a poster boy for camaraderie and team spirit. He was good enough that it wasn’t really obvious from their scrimmages in the water, at least to her eye, but Allie had come to appreciate how athletes who were competing at the international level measured their success and losses in fractions of seconds and millimeters. She stayed silent with the excuse of guiding her car into its parking spot.
“I like Everett,” was a positive truth that Allie dug up as quiet seeped in over the shutdown engine.
Marc shifted his chin in a fractional nod. “He’s the reason I got onto a university team. My high school coach used to play with him back in the eighties. Everett was really top notch.”
Allie could finally indulge in a curious search of his face. “I didn’t know that. You two must be close?” Not that she had seen any evidence of it.
Marc shrugged. “He’s less of an asshole than …”
Her phone buzzed, interrupting them when the lock screen lit up. For a moment neither of them looked away from each other’s eyes. Allie blinked first, towards where the screen peeked out from where she’d instinctively dropped it in her cup holder. Marc reached for it before she could.
“I guess I interrupted your plans,” Marc noted coolly as he passed it over.
Hey where are u + Blake
Can u pick up food?
Ivan is hungry
Allie curled her fingers to cover over the text as soon as she’d read it. As if it weren’t already too late. She lo
oked up and Marc was watching her. Something was a little further away about his expression.
“Thanks for the ride,” Marc said before she could think of anything to say. He shoved his door open and Allie had to scramble to get out so she wasn’t left behind.
“Marc …” Allie didn’t know what she was doing. She rushed so fast around the front of the car that she nearly ran into him again. He caught her, just as before, and everything went out of her head as the huff of her breath in the cold pressed their chests together. There was so much fabric, but all she could see was how the water sheeted off his skin when he climbed out of the pool.
Allie shook her head and pressed her eyes closed for a second while she tried to remember what seemed so important. “It’s not like that.” Like whatever had made him get out of the car so fast. She wanted him to understand, and she looked up into those fathomless dark eyes to try and see if he did. “I’m not … seeing anyone.” Color rose in her cheeks. Now she just sounded desperate. “I’m just here to work.”
“Right.” Marc let go of her. “You’re a professional.”
Allie bit her lip. Her hands were still clutched onto the puffy sleeves of his jacket.
“Do you ever do what you want, Allie?” His voice was a low rumble that set goosebumps prickling along her spine.
Her answer should have come easily. Allie had had the same dream for years. She wanted to go to medical school. It was everything she had ever worked towards. In that way, she wasn’t so different from the athletes here. It took a kind of blind devotion, a dedication of your life, to achieve such things. And that didn’t really leave time for much else.
So why couldn’t she make her voice work?
Maybe it was because she wanted to reach for him. Allie wanted to rock up on her toes, all that way since she wasn’t wearing heels like Violet, and taste those lips she’d only touched through gloves. She wanted him to wrap her in his arms and drown her in that scent of his—the stubborn tinge of chlorine lingering beneath the clean musk of his soap. She wanted …