Qualified: A Sports Romance

by Croix, Ada

“I guess you were checking out the main floor.” Kelsey gathered Allie into an elbow link so that she could lean quieter words into her ear. “And Marc.”

  Glancing aside, Allie could see her roommate looking over the tall water polo player thoughtfully. She wondered if Kelsey saw anything different about the man rumored to hold the Hat Trick title, or if this was merely an oft-repeated image of Marc taking a girl home from a club and Allie just happened to be standing in those changeable shoes for the night.

  Marc returned Kelsey’s look flatly. “Do you know where Allie’s purse is?”

  Kelsey’s smile widened. It took her a second to nod. “I was calling you, and we heard it vibrating,” she said to Allie.

  “Oh my god!” The indignant voice rose up to interrupt them from the thick of the crowd around the bottle service table.

  Allie looked towards the motion of people standing. In her periphery Marc was stiffening his shoulders and rolling out a pop of his knuckles.

  “Isn’t this fucking rich.” It was Natalie stalking towards them from the knot of older players. They must have all come back while Allie was downstairs. “You do have fucking balls, Marc. No one can deny that.”

  “We’re leaving as soon as Allie has her purse.” Marc hardly granted Natalie a glance. Instead he focused on Allie’s roommate. “Where is it, Kelsey?”

  Allie had her attention stolen from Natalie, too, but it was because Blake was standing. How many times had she told him she wouldn’t risk her job for a player? His eyebrows had risen to a high loft at Marc’s words. She felt revealed as a liar. And an idiot. If all these people who had known Marc for longer thought he was bad news, why should she believe anything different?

  “Let’s get you your purse, Allie,” Kelsey murmured as she tried to lead the way while giving wide berth to Natalie’s path.

  It didn’t work. “Sweetheart, you don’t want to go anywhere with him.” Natalie spat the words towards Marc but her steps swerved so she could grab at Allie’s arm.

  Allie tried to twist her wrist free but she was no match for the athlete’s strength. If this was supposed to be for her own good, she didn’t know why the other girl’s grip was so cruel. It’s really the girls’ teams that are the worst, she remembered Adam telling her. Natalie’s nails dug into her flesh. Allie let out a pained noise.

  Marc moved so fast that she could hardly put cause and effect together. “Nat, let her go.” He dug his thumb along the water polo girl’s forearm in a way that popped her fingers loose from Allie.

  It also yielded an angry screech from Natalie’s lips. “Don’t you tell me what to do, Marc Belmont.” She fought him with a furious push against his chest. “You shouldn’t even be here.”

  Marc’s step back seemed calculated to lead Natalie away from Allie. It also left his ex off balance as she hurled her weight at him with one shove after another. “They should have never let you back on the team.” Her hands struck in concert with her words. “Everett is fucking soft in the head. You should be sanctioned. And benched. And fucking … thrown out of the country. No one wants you here. No one!”

  Blake was trying to help Kelsey collect Allie and usher her towards the couches. “Come on, I’ll have the bouncers deal with it.” He must have meant it to reassure Allie.

  Allie was too horrified to look away. “Where is my purse?” Some other girl could have whispered the question because Allie couldn’t break her stare from Natalie’s attack.

  “We all know it’s just a matter of time,” the older girl was railing onward. “I don’t care how many fucking shots you score, because you’re fucking selfish and you’re going to drag this team down because you can’t keep your fucking dick in your pants or you goddamn nose out of trouble and everyone else is going to be stuck cleaning up your fucking messes and they don’t deserve it. Look at you.” She shoved so hard Marc was actually pushed back a step. “You’re fucking drunk right now, aren’t you? Running your game on some college-girl med staffer. Maybe you have found another brain cell to rub together with that lonely scrap of grey matter echoing around in your thick skull. Are you betting that she can help you cheat past your drug tests? How do you think she’s going to do it, if she’s stupid enough to fall for you?”

  Marc shifted from deflecting Natalie’s arms to grabbing at them, a growl clenched between his teeth. His eyes darkened. He caught hold of both of her forearms and hauled her around so he could shove her down to a seat on the nearest couch.

  Natalie yelped, startled to silence when Marc loomed over her.

  There was another high pitched sound. Allie didn’t realize that it was coming from her until after her hands had already lifted to cover her mouth. Somewhere, a fallen glass crunched under someone’s shoe. Everything was going terribly wrong, faster than she could register what was happening. It was worse than one of the presses in front of the cage.

  Blake got to Marc first, stepping between his teammate and Natalie to break the hold Marc had on her arms. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, man?” He shoved Marc back with a stiff bridging of his fingertips.

  The other guys were pouring around the couch. A swarm of muscle in dress shirts. Allie saw Ivan headed to Blake’s side while Troy aimed for Marc. Chad and Vince seemed preoccupied with keeping the man Natalie had been sitting with from joining the fray, but Austin the goalie was leaping right into the middle of everything.

  They weren’t fast enough to stop Marc from grabbing fistfuls of Blake’s shirt. He took a quarter turn with enough strength to pull the younger player off his feet and slam his back into the nearby wall. “You keep asking for a piece of me. Well here it is, Blake. Welcome to my fucking business.” Marc punctuated his words by rattling the wall with his teammate.

  For a second, those impossibly blue eyes went wide and Blake did nothing more than drag at Marc’s wrists. Then something changed, resolve tightening across his brow. He threw his shoulders to weigh the drop of one of his folded elbows at the stretch of Marc’s, bringing the taller man in closer. With his other arm Blake swung a punch at Marc’s face.

  He missed.

  Marc didn’t.

  With his dropped hand, Marc slammed a fist into the soft beneath the float of Blake’s ribs.

  Blake coughed out in pain, sagging against Marc as he doubled over. Marc may have been winding an arm back again, but it was hard to say. By then the rest of the team was piling onto them.

  “You’re a fucking animal, Marc.” Natalie was back up from the couch and screaming.

  “Easy, cool it.” Austin looked like a traffic cop inserting himself between Blake and Marc, helping peel everyone apart by spreading his arms in a push against their chests.

  “His hand.” Allie’s words were muffled by her still-lifted palms as she sagged in the catch of Kelsey’s hold.

  Marc seemed mostly subdued by Troy hanging off of his shoulders like a toddler refusing to walk.

  It proved to be just a lull until Blake got enough breath back to snarl at the older player. “I’ll fucking end you, Belmont.”

  “Oh yeah.” Marc dragged Troy a few feet across the floor. “What’re you gonna do, Blake? Good luck buying my fist out of your face.”

  Ivan had a struggle on his hands as he tried to keep Blake corralled against the back wall.

  “I’ll have you dragged out of here by the police on an assault charge, that’s what I’ll fucking do,” Blake sneered. Already the bouncers were starting to converge. The man from the stairs added his strength to Troy’s as they pinned Marc’s arms and dragged him back. “Good luck keeping your contract with a fresh criminal record.”

  The threat seemed to register more clearly with the other members of the team than with Marc. Allie’s throat was choked shut, holding back cries she had no business spilling.

  “Shit.” Austin looked between his two teammates, stepping over to Marc and grabbing a hand in his collar like possession could trump the law. “Come on, Blake, let me put him in a cab home. Let’s not do this tonight
.”

  “You swung first,” Marc continued to argue. He was still glowering darkly at Blake.

  “You fucking threw me!” Natalie chimed in shrilly.

  Marc turned the weight of his gaze onto his ex. He wasn’t struggling, but the angered lock of his muscles seemed to anchor him in place against the efforts of the men restraining him. His teeth were tight with loathing and his words growled out deliberately. “You were hurting Allie.”

  Allie didn’t know she could feel worse until all the attention slid her way. She was frowning so hard it hurt between her eyes. Her mouth worked without making sound as she rubbed reflexively at her claw-marked forearm.

  “Right,” Austin called everyone back to order. “It’s a clusterfuck, and it’s ending. We’re going home.” He said the last with a stare into Marc’s eyes.

  The bigger man bristled a moment, straining against the constriction at his arms, but then relented with a curt nod.

  “All right, Blake?” Austin glanced across to where Ivan had let go of his friend. Blake was straightening out his shirt with angry jerks. The blond jumped his narrowed look from Marc to Allie and then turned away with a dismissive flick of his hand. “Just get him the fuck out of here.”

  That almost set Marc off again, but he now had four times his mass circled around him to assure he didn’t get loose.

  Natalie didn’t want to let things go so easily. “You’re just going to let him walk away?”

  “Shut up, Natalie.” Austin wasn’t having any more arguments.

  “Candace, will you get my coat and meet us downstairs?” Troy yelled over the music as he shuffled with Marc’s detention unit towards the stairs. “We’ll need to call a car.”

  “I’m on it, babe,” Candace chirped from where she’d been hiding out behind the other couches.

  Allie stared dumbly after the knot of men leading Marc away, the eager butterflies in her stomach transmuted to a sickened roil. She’d seen the guys be rough in the pool before, but that was the closest she’d ever been to an actual fight. It was scary to think she’d been willing to surrender herself into arms capable of such violence. Even if it was done in her service.

  “Did you want to go too?” Kelsey asked just for her ears while she pet Allie’s hair comfortingly.

  Allie still couldn’t make her voice work. She turned her gaze to find Blake. He was standing over one of the tables, pitching back his drink and talking to Ivan. His eyes met hers for a moment but didn’t hold.

  “M—maybe.” The word stuck on her lips. Allie was still trying to blink away her shock.

  Allie’s purse must have been near Troy’s coat, because Candace walked over to offer it as she made her way out to the stairs. “Here you go, hon. Exciting night, huh?” Ruefulness made her smile wan. “Sorry you got caught up in that. And they’re supposed to select for sportsman-like behavior.” She glanced a moment in the direction the guys had departed.

  “Yeah.” Allie’s voice was still blanched. Her gaze went to Natalie. The older girl was making absolutely no move to apologize to her. “I think I should probably go,” she said to Kelsey.

  “Okay.” Kelsey finished neatening Allie’s hair behind her ear and linked arms with her. “We’ll walk out with you, Candi.”

  28

  Leaving the party behind, the three girls drifted together to the stairs where a new bouncer had taken up the station. They smiled faintly at him as they passed to start their descent. Below the crowd writhed in an ever-changing kaleidoscope of interactions.

  “Why did Natalie say Marc needed help with drug testing?” Allie blurted over the music as she watched people dance down below. The shape of his mouth and pressure of his fingertips still felt imprinted on her skin. Being with him was a dream she was scared to believe in. She worried that the nightmare that followed might have been a better glimpse at the truth.

  Candace sighed and shook her head before turning her chin back to answer. “It’s one of the rumors. From his time in college.”

  “I wouldn’t worry too much,” Kelsey recommended with a pat on her arm. “If it was a problem, they wouldn’t have him on the team now. You know better than us how strict the anti-doping committee is.”

  “But there was something.” In her wooziness Allie was like a dog with a bone. “Is that why he didn’t finish school? Because of drugs?” She planted her feet halfway down the stairs, realizing she had no idea who Marc was.

  Her roommate was elbow-linked at her side, but it took Candace a second to realize they’d stopped. She returned the three steps to them, sharing a look with Kelsey before reaching to squeeze Allie’s other hand. “You’d have to ask Everett, babe. No one else went to college with him.”

  “But weren’t Chad and Vince …?”

  “They were all on the national team in two thousand four, but not from the same university.” Kelsey shrugged a shoulder. “I guess that year in Athens is where Belmont picked up his reputation for partying hard. He’d left school and gone pro by Beijing. All I know is that’s why Marc and Natalie grabbed so many headlines in two thousand eight. She was the fresh-faced All Star and he was the dropout who had trouble keeping the fighting in the pool and himself out of hot water.”

  “Do you know what happened with Simon?” Candace asked about the old men’s team captain.

  Kelsey tilted her head, non-committal. “I never knew them that well. Simon and Chad and Natalie … they were always really keen on building their personal brand.” Her elbow bonked into Allie’s breast as she put air quotes around the phrase. “I always had the sense that Natalie was a stealth bitch.”

  “Well she’s not so stealthy anymore.” Allie’s face twisted with unmasked disgust as she rubbed at the scratches on her arm.

  Candace’s bitten lip only held back her bittersweet laugh for a second. “Oh, Allie.” She squeezed her hand once more before giving a tug to urge them to keep going. “Let’s get you home.”

  Once downstairs, Allie stood inside the ropes with Kelsey and Candace while the girls got out their phones and tabbed open their Uber apps. “Do you think we can fit in one car?” Candace shared a glance with Kelsey then leaned over the ropes to find the boys on the street.

  With the time it took them to make it out of the club, the guys had gotten a chance to cool off in the dropping temperatures of the night air. They’d moved off a ways, probably directed down the block by the bouncers.

  The bouncers didn’t waste much time before prompting the three of them to complete their departure, anyway. “Ladies, I’m going to have to ask you to clear the way.”

  “Just a sec,” Kelsey said with a bright flash of smile to the bouncer before answering Candace. “It might be a tight fit. We can get our own car, Allie?”

  Allie was still feeling a little shell-shocked. She hugged her purse to her stomach, looking along the sidewalk to where she could see Marc’s shoes as he sat in a doorway. “I should look at his hand,” she decided after a shaky moment. Regardless of everything else, she’d feel awful if he ended up on the injured list because of her. “If you want to stay …” She looked back to Kelsey. “I’ll be all right.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Kelsey curled a hug around her waist. “I’ve got your back.”

  Candace was nodding too. “It’ll be all right, Allie. I’ll get an UberXL.”

  “Ladies …” The bouncer was trying to get them out of the doorway and away from the glares of the people still in line.

  “On our way,” Kelsey flicked a last smile at the bouncer as she took Allie’s arm to lead the way down the sidewalk.

  Marc pushed himself up from his seat on the curb once he saw them coming.

  “Please don’t let me do anything stupid,” Allie whispered to Kelsey as they closed the distance. After the fighting, despite the rumors, her heart still clutched with anticipation as she walked towards him. She thought, maybe, he looked worried about her.

  “If you insist.” Kelsey was scanning her eyes over Marc.

  “I�
��m getting a car for all of us,” Candace said to the guys as she finished clicking at her phone and caught up with them.

  “You all right?” Marc only had eyes for Allie.

  “I’m fine.” Allie was sure to keep her posture straight and her words professionally clipped. Her eyes dodged to Troy and Austin to see if they were watching. If they saw her as some girl getting played, chasing doe-eyed after Marc, she’d lose all credibility. “I need to see your hand.”

  Marc hadn’t quite been smiling at the sight of her, but those words darkened his expression to something more guarded. The approaching sway of his steps halted.

  Allie disentangled from Kelsey with a thankful squeeze and finished closing the distance. She swallowed against the conflicted churn of her stomach as she reached for Marc’s wrist to hold his knuckles up for inspection. “If you’ve aggravated the soft tissue before it’s healed …” she tried to scold as she prodded carefully along the heavy bones of his hand, feeling for heat and swelling. The cool of the night air mostly kept her blush at bay as she thought of how his fingers had touched her such a short time ago.

  “Are you going to bench me?” Marc’s voice was nearly monotone, but that didn’t completely hide how much more he was asking.

  Allie could hear his disbelief. And his anger. Her chest ached with the need to tell him that it would be fine, that she was on his side. But it wasn’t sensible. She should have known better than to get tangled up with him in the first place. Now both their dreams could be at risk.

  She could know all that, but it didn’t change the fact that she was too scared to look up and see what was in his eyes. Instead she glanced along the street to where a convenience store was lit up. “I’d like to get some ice,” Allie said to Candace.

  “We can have the car pick you up in the parking lot, once it arrives,” the other girl offered.

  Allie nodded and started walking. Marc shifted to follow her.

  She turned and put a palm up, backing away to avoid touching him. If she felt his heartbeat under her hand her resolve might melt. “No,” she said firmly. “No more chances for trouble from you tonight.”