Keeping Score

by Sara Rider

  The whole thing made her furious. Yeah, the cover would be a massive ego stroke, but it was more than that. Growing up, there were too few Asian athletes to look up to. She wanted to be a role model for the little girls like her, not a disappointment.

  Getting out of the hotel for a few hours would do a world of good, mostly because it’d get her away from Alex’s constant scrutiny.

  She came out of the bathroom and did a little twirl in front of her roommate. “What do you think?”

  Lainey was sitting on her bed looking at a tube of lipstick like it was an alien space pod. She’d recently bought it in one of her rare impulsive moments. “Isn’t that what you wore to dinner last night? And almost every other night this week?”

  “Yeah, but that was in Memphis, so it doesn’t count. This outfit was made for Miami.” Packing light was an unfortunate necessity for surviving road trips, but the sun and vibrancy of this city made her excited to wear the bright yellow sundress for the fourth night in a row. “You want some help with that lipstick?”

  “It’s just so . . . red.” Lainey swiveled the stick up and down a few times, her expression growing more pained.

  “And it’ll look amazing with your skin tone.”

  “What if it looks like I forgot to wipe my mouth after eating a mountain of spaghetti?”

  Jaime laughed at Lainey’s earnestness. “That’s a reasonable thought considering your T-shirt is covered in sauce stains, but the shade is completely different.”

  Lainey looked down at her chest and fell backward onto the bed. “Ugh. This was my last clean shirt.”

  “You can borrow one of mine. If you agree to wear the lipstick.” She rummaged through her duffel bag and emerged with a simple baby-blue camisole, then grabbed her makeup supplies from the bathroom while Lainey changed.

  “The key is to not apply too much.” She returned to the room and sat on the bed next to Lainey with her slender lipstick brush in hand. Makeup was one of Jaime’s first true loves. She’d never been much for traditional art, but the creativity and experimentation that came from the first tube of Revlon she bought on her thirteenth birthday was an incomparable joy.

  She applied a thin coat onto her friend’s lips, then handed her a single tissue. “And most importantly, blot.”

  “Thanks.” Lainey stood up and inspected herself in the mirror. “So, are you going to tell me what’s going on with Alex?”

  Jaime choked on her own breath, coughing and sputtering like a dying steam engine before she managed to find her voice. “There’s absolutely nothing going on with Alex and me. He doesn’t even like me, and the feeling is more than mutual,” she said as convincingly as someone wearing a tinfoil hat spouting off a conspiracy theory.

  “I didn’t mean what’s up with Alex and you. I meant what’s up with him. He’s been quieter than usual. Gabe mentioned something was happening with an athlete he used to treat, but he wouldn’t tell me much more than that.”

  Jaime shook her head. She needed to stop acting like a drug smuggler in a customs search. “Shouldn’t fiancée rights to juicy gossip trump bro code?” Lainey’s soon-to-be-husband was good friends with Alex. Alex had spent three years on the physiotherapy team for the Surge, but Jaime was pretty certain he’d been with a few other professional and college teams in his career.

  “Apparently not. But since you seem to know everything about everyone, I thought I’d ask you.”

  “Sorry, can’t help you. I want nothing to do with him. He’s the reason I haven’t played for three straight games with no end in sight.”

  Lainey turned to her, exasperation evident from her pursed lips down to her tightly balled fists. “Avoiding him is the worst thing you could be doing right now. You need to work with him to get better if you want to get back on the field. We need you, Jaime. LA is only six points behind us right now. If we lose any more games, we’re going to lose our lead heading into the championship. Heck, we might not even get into the play-offs!”

  “Trust me. I know what I’m doing, okay?” Please drop the subject. She didn’t want to admit to Lainey that things were looking a heck of a lot more complicated than a simple sprain. At this point, she wasn’t even ready to admit it to herself. Being around Alex was like getting caught in a geomagnetic storm. Electric charges saturated the air. All her senses went on the fritz until she couldn’t tell up from down. He made her want to trust him. To open up to him, even though it was the most dangerous thing she could do.

  And that’s why she’d come up with her own strategy for getting back her spot on the starting lineup. One he really wouldn’t like.

  Lainey hoisted up the straps on the cami until no hint of cleavage was displayed, then let them drop with a sigh. “Do you really think I can pull off a red lip? It’s not even dark out yet.”

  “How scandalous!” Jaime’s tightly hunched shoulders finally relaxed, thankful Lainey knew when to drop the subject and give her some space. “You just need the right attitude. C’mon. Work it with me.”

  Jaime popped a hip and pursed her lips exaggeratedly. Lainey copied her, giggling.

  “Hang on, we need music.” Jaime selected a random dance beat to play on her phone to set the stage for their pose-off.

  “Maybe this calls for the ‘naughty schoolgirl,’ ” Lainey said, biting her index finger with wide, innocent eyes.

  “Or the ‘I’ve been bad and I need a spanking,’ ” Jaime replied with her hands on her knees.

  They posed and sashayed with increasing ridiculousness until they were gulping air between laughs. After a few minutes, Jaime pretended to change the music but instead snapped a quick photo of Lainey in full 1980s supermodel pose.

  “You didn’t!” Lainey shot her a dirty look.

  “What? We don’t all have gorgeous, famous fiancés back home. I want to show my Instagram feed that I can score a hot date once in a while, too.”

  Her notoriously camera-shy roommate narrowed her eyes and lunged for the phone like a wild cat, knocking Jaime down to the bed and sending the phone flying out of her hand.

  “You’re going down for that, Chen!” They grappled for the phone in a fit of laughter. Lainey tickled Jaime’s side, making her squeal, but she still managed to get ahold of it first.

  “In your dreams, Lukas!” Using her lack of height to her advantage, Jaime slipped under Lainey’s shoulder and hit share. “Ha!”

  A rap at the door stopped them before the second round. They looked at each other, faces flushed, hair mussed, and chests heaving from the struggle, and broke out in laughter again. Another knock came, louder than before.

  “Must be Alyssa.” Jaime pulled the elastic out of her ruined ponytail and opened the door.

  Alex stood in the doorframe, looking stern with his arms crossed. His navy T-shirt clung to his biceps like they were being showcased for auction.

  “You’re not Alyssa.” Astute observation, Captain Obvious.

  “Everything all right in here? I heard screaming.” His hard face gave away no trace of emotion.

  “We’re just having a little fun. I can see why you confused it with terror, since you’ve probably never actually experienced fun firsthand.” She wasn’t about to be cowered by him, even if a small part of her did believe he might actually have X-ray vision when he stared at her like that. A man had to have superpowers to make a pair of jeans look that good.

  “Ready, ladies? Time to spend some money none of us have!” Alyssa’s sunshine-inflected voice rang out from the hallway. “Oh, hey, Alex. Are you coming with us?”

  Jaime opened her mouth to say no, but Lainey beat her to the punch. “That’s a great idea! We’re going shopping for Jo’s baby shower, and we’ll need some help carrying everything back to the hotel.”

  “I’d be glad to help.”

  Jaime tossed her head back and fixed her eyes on the ceiling until she managed to
repress the scream welling inside her. It looked like he was actually going to make good on his promise to follow her around like a police canine that had gotten its first whiff of blood. She gave him a hard look, trying to repel him with her mind, but he didn’t even flinch.

  She cracked her knuckles, needing a release for some of the frustration coursing through her body. “Did you tell him where we were headed?” she asked Alyssa through gritted teeth.

  “Nope.” Alyssa flashed a mischievous grin. “But I’m sure we’ll all benefit from his expertise.”

  Irritation pooled in Jaime’s belly like acid as she stepped back into the room to grab her purse, knowing Alex was watching her every move.

  “Are you really going to do this? Follow me everywhere?” she whispered to Alex as she locked up the hotel room door. Lainey and Alyssa were already out of earshot, having bounded excitedly toward the elevator.

  “Are you going to tell me more about your family’s medical history? Let me observe you doing some single-leg squats?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Then consider me your shadow until I figure out what’s going on with you.”

  She swirled around to unleash a torrent of emotions at him, but the words didn’t come when she saw how tired he looked. That’s when it hit her. If there was one thing she knew for sure about Alex, it was that he was allergic to fun. It was his kryptonite. She didn’t need any devious plans to throw him off her tail. All she needed to do was go about her business and he would run for the hills.

  “Well then,” she said, a smile finally curving her lips. “Let’s get a move on.”

  By the time they arrived at the store, Jaime had managed to shed most of her frustration. La Selva Lingerie was the perfect mix of sophisticated and slutty. The name was written in elegant, cursive writing on the store sign, but in the floor-to-ceiling windows below, live models posed in the delicate wares.

  “Hello, heaven!” Alyssa said with a growl. She pushed open the doors and sighed. “Come to mama!”

  Lainey laughed and followed her in. Jaime hung back and cast a smirk at Alex, who had just muttered a Spanish curse under his breath.

  “Coming in?” She raised her brow in challenge.

  The muscle in his jaw twitched, like he was fighting to not react. “I thought you were shopping for Joanna’s baby shower,” he said tersely.

  “We are. We’re just doing it Falcons-style. Everyone chipped in for a crib we ordered online, but we wanted to get her something she could unwrap and that would fit in her carry-on bag.” She flashed her smuggest grin. “So, are you starting to regret the whole creepy stalker thing yet?”

  He raked a hand through his hair, but the dark aviator shades gave nothing else away. “I’m a man, Jaime. There are worse things in the world than having to look at beautiful women in their underwear.”

  You don’t have to remind me, she thought uncomfortably. With his wide, muscular shoulders and lickably sexy jawline, there was no doubt about how much testosterone pulsed through his body. Her own traitorous body wouldn’t let her forget every time she got close to him. But even the toughest men ran screaming from lingerie shops.

  “All right. Let’s head in. Unless, of course, you’d rather wait outside?”

  “After you.” He stepped behind her through the open door, chest so close to her back she could feel the electricity pass between them.

  6

  WHAT THE HELL HAD Alex gotten himself into? He’d been expecting teddy bears and teething rings, not panties and push-ups. The last thing he needed was to be thinking about Jaime and lingerie at the same time. How her sweet curves would fit in some of the sheer, lacy designs . . .

  You’re a goddamn professional, Alex. Act like one.

  He forced himself to go over her clinical file in his mind. He’d read and studied the damn thing so many times in the last few weeks, it was seared into his brain, but he needed the reminder of why he was here in the first place: to help her. Because she was too stubborn to help herself.

  He’d lain off Jaime for a couple of days, watching her only from a distance, trying to give her a chance to cool down. Mostly because he felt like a shithead for grilling her so hard the other day when she was obviously scared to death of something. But delaying the inevitable wouldn’t do her any favors, either. His gut was screaming at him that Jaime’s inflamed ankle was a sign of a more serious condition. It could take months to get her in with a specialist, but the more information he had, the easier it’d be to find the right one.

  Reluctantly he followed Jaime and the other women to a far corner of the store that held the maternity lingerie. Unfortunately, “maternity” didn’t translate to “less racy.” He kept his focus on Jaime while they perused the racks like giggling schoolgirls, scrutinizing her gait and the way she compensated for the pain. His job was made infinitely harder by the fact she was wearing sky-high heels. The kind with only a thin strap across the foot for support, showing off her hot-pink toenails. As a physiotherapist, he wanted to burn those shoes, but as a man, the list of things he wanted to do with them was a lot more primal.

  “Hey, Alex, we need your opinion. Navy or pink?” Alyssa held up two sheer teddies in front of him. The blue one was covered in red kisses and the other bore the words “Hot Mama” across the cups.

  He cast his eyes upward. “Uh . . .”

  Alyssa didn’t take the hint. She stepped closer toward him and thrust the lingerie right in front of him. “Which do you think Jo will like better?”

  “Sure, yeah. They’re both nice.”

  “Typical man.” Alyssa harrumphed. “Useless when it comes to important decisions.”

  “They make the navy one in nonmaternity, too. So let’s just get both,” Lainey said with a snicker. “One for Jo, one for Kara.”

  “Fantastic idea!” Alyssa marched to the cashier.

  “Gabe won’t forgive me if he knew I came here and didn’t pick something up,” Lainey said with a quick wave before disappearing behind a cluster of racks.

  “Well, since I’m here . . .” Jaime glanced wistfully at a lacy display a few feet away. He watched her riffle through the rows of frilly material, mesmerized by the delicate sweep of her wrists as she caressed the fabric. It was a striking contrast to how she was on the field. Tough. Feisty. Reckless. There were more layers to her than he previously believed. What would it be like to peel back each one?

  She turned around and plowed into him, as if she had managed to forget he was there. Her wide-eyed expression of shock turned into a look of annoyance. “You’re still here? Have you discovered a new cross-dressing fetish? It’s okay; it can be our little secret.”

  “The fun isn’t in putting the lace on, Jaime. It’s in taking it off.”

  That knocked the annoyed look right off her face. She cleared her throat and straightened her back. “Then you might as well make yourself useful and hold these.” He backed up a half step, but before he could fully escape, she thrust a half-dozen items into his arms.

  “This isn’t funny.”

  “Oh, it’s very funny,” Jaime said with a wry smile.

  Alex clamped his mouth shut instead of telling Jaime exactly what he thought of her sense of humor when a tall, older saleswoman with impossibly red hair approached them. She was dressed modestly in a button-up white shirt and a tight-fitting skirt, but her tiny waist suggested she had a long-standing relationship with her corset. Alex breathed a sigh of relief when the woman took the items from his arms.

  “It’s so wonderful when lovers shop together for lingerie! I’ll get a room started for you.”

  “It’s not like that,” Jaime said quickly.

  Maybe this was his chance for a little revenge. “Sounds great, dear.” Judging by the way her cheeks flushed and her lush bottom lip hung down in surprise, his tactic worked.

  A smile appeared on the saleswoman’s
face, the kind that said she’d heard it all before and wasn’t buying it. “Why don’t you select an item for the lady to try on? We have some exquisite satin bustiers over here. Or perhaps you’d prefer a vintage-style silk demi bra? We have a full range of colors available. You seem like the type that would prefer a deep red, yes?”

  “Hmm.” He stroked his chin, watching Jaime seethe from the corner of his eye. For a split second, he considered the racy number, but that was the kind of thing he could actually picture her wearing. Had pictured her wearing. Instead, he pointed to a rack with pale pink lace items that screamed innocent and pure. “How about one of these? Jaime’s a rather demure woman. A big fan of modesty and purity, if you know what I mean.”

  The saleswoman nodded with a soft smile. “I know exactly what you mean. Let me grab the proper size.”

  He managed to hold back his laughter when a look of annoyance spread across Jaime’s face. “Demure, my ass,” she mumbled, following the saleswoman to the fitting rooms at the back of the store.

  Knowing it’d bug Jaime to have him in the audience, he headed to the fitting room and the promise of a comfortable seat away from the sea of lace and satin. The saleswoman hung Jaime’s items inside one of the dark stalls and ushered her in. “There are mirrors inside, as well as a three-dimensional mirror in the main area, which is especially useful if you’d like a second opinion. I’m sure your boyfriend would be more than happy to help with that.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” Jaime said defensively.

  “Your fiancé, then? How wonderful,” the saleswoman said with a clap. “I’ll be back to check on you shortly.” She sauntered off before either of them could correct her.

  Jaime gave him a petulant look, then swung the long velvet curtain shut.

  Assuming he’d be waiting a while, Alex settled in by pulling out his phone and checking his email. Jaime didn’t disappoint him. Nearly fifteen minutes had passed since she’d gone into the fitting room. Fifteen minutes of listening to her sigh, squeal with delight, and grumble about when something didn’t fit right while he tried desperately not to picture her admiring herself half-naked in front of the mirror.