by Amelia Hart
"It's not how things are done. And maybe she already knows."
"Not her," said Carlos with absolute certainty, and Luke felt his mouth twist. He would have said exactly the same thing exactly the same way this time yesterday.
"You never know with people. You just never know." And wasn't that the truth?
He turned away from the unpleasant sight, and Carlos followed him, falling into step at his side. "Hey dude," he said tentatively, scratching at his head. "I just wanted to ask, do you still get nervous? Before the games I mean."
"Hmmm. What?" he said, distracted. "Uh, sometimes. Not so much, though. First season's the toughest. You'll settle into it. Use the nerves. If you let them they help you focus."
"It's wringing me out."
"Try not to think about the game itself until the last minute, or you'll peak too soon. Just go through those visualizations Coach was talking about. That helps with the focus too."
"Isn't there, like, stuff you can take to help with energy and playing better?"
"What do you mean?"
"Have you ever heard of . . . of Adderall?"
"Say what?" said Luke, trying not to react too big. Man, he hated how quick they got to the new kids. It made him sick.
"Adderall. Like, I've heard there are some guys who use it to play better, you know. And I was wondering if you'd heard about it too. Like, is it any good, or are there any, you know . . . side effects or stuff like that?"
Luke aimed for casual. "First off, no, I haven't heard about it personally. Pretty much everyone knows how I feel about performance enhancing drugs. If someone's using they aren't likely to tell me about it. Second, you don't want to get messed up with that stuff. Chemicals might improve something today but you've got no idea how that's going to be down the road. Don't do it to yourself, man. It's totally not worth it."
"But I want to do the best I can for the team, you know? I don't want to let anyone down."
Luke had heard that line before on other days, around other teams. Combined with that revolting thing he'd just seen in the executive box it made his gut clench, so maybe his answer came out a little less diplomatic than he'd have chosen. "Listen, you got picked for this team because you have the skills to be on it. You just do the best you can, you train hard, you play hard, and no one is going to be disappointed. You've got to think about all of your life. Not just this one moment of it, and don't listen to idiots who won't have to live with the aftereffects like you will."
"Okay, well, I hear you. I mean yeah, that's a good point."
Luke knew from the way Carlos spoke the young man wasn't convinced. He took a deep breath, then let it go. As passionately as he believed what he'd just said, Carlos was a grown man and he'd make his own choices. Drug-taking was rife in the industry and if a player wanted the stuff he could have it, no questions asked. Stamping and screaming about it, being a zealot, was a quick road to being ignored on the subject altogether, or shut out completely.
He broke into a jog, heading towards the end of the field, to the changing rooms, Carlos close enough behind to hear his breath, and the thump of his shoes hitting grass. They caught up with Big Joe still walking. The man could move quick when he wanted, but most of the time he was slow as syrup. That's how he could take the opposition by surprise the way he did. Then bam, he'd run right over them.
"Hey Joe, you seen that?" asked Carlos, dropping to a walk. He flicked his thumb over his shoulder towards the box, behind them now. Luke slowed too, unusually ready to listen to the gossip. Joe took one look where Carlos was pointing then shrugged.
"Yeah," he said, dispirited. "Mr King gave Mrs King the heave-ho. Got himself a newer model."
Luke suddenly felt like he couldn't breathe. "What?"
"He was introducing that one around yesterday. His girlfriend. Everyone was being all polite and then Mrs Otis says nastylike: 'And your wife, Mr King?’ And Mr King doesn't like that and he just squints at her like this and says 'I've called it quits.' Mrs Otis she walks away like he's not even worth talking to anymore."
"So you're sure it was him that left her?"
"Well look at him. It's been less than a week since Mrs K was here with him and everything was cool. Now it's the girlfriend. If it was Mrs K who'd pulled the plug he'd be moping around. Not sticking it in some twenty-year-old he's probably been banging for who knows how long."
Carlos looked as sick as Luke felt. "Poor Mrs King," he said softly.
Aw, hell.
Hell!
She hadn't been cheating on her husband. She'd been trying to get over her cheating husband. And she'd picked him to do it with.
What had he done? Turned her down, that's what.
Idiot!
When he would have given anything, damn near anything for a solid chance to woo her, he'd gone and messed it up in the worst way possible.
She hadn't seemed mad at him. She'd looked perfectly friendly, but the churning in his stomach echoed the dread on his mind. No woman liked to feel rejected. Not for any reason.
She sure hadn't stuck around after that. Friendly or not, she was gone the next instant.
Instinct told him he'd completely screwed it up.
His fingers were jammed into his hair, clutching it so hard they were nearly pulling it out by the roots. He could have groaned out loud. Would have, if he'd been alone. He clenched his teeth around the sound of pure, unadulterated, aching frustration.
So close. He'd had her.
She was the star of every fantasy he'd had in the past year, more, since he'd first met her. Every half-remembered dream that had woken him from sleep, hard and reaching out for someone who wasn't there. Her, not there, and him cursing himself for an idiot to go and fall for the wife of his boss.
Yeah, he could have groaned. He could have wept.
It was like destiny that she'd picked his favorite club, of all the places she might have chosen. Like they'd been meant to meet there that night, for the first time away from the team and everything to do with her husband –– her ex husband – just the two of them.
Heaven had handed him a free pass. And he'd rejected it. Why, why had he not dragged her outside where they could actually talk, and asked her what was going on? He could have been a friend to her. He could have let her cry out all her sorrows on his shoulder.
Then he could have comforted her. Comforted her and then some. Helped her forget that son-of-a-bitch who wasn't fit to touch her. She might have let him. He'd seen it there in her eyes. She hadn't hidden it from him. She didn't want to be alone that night. And he'd sent her away alone or . . . or on to a different club.
He must have made a sound because the other two looked at him.
"Dude, you okay? You don't look so good," said Carlos.
"He's short on sleep," Big Joe answered for him. "Go have your shower, check into the hotel and go to sleep, man. You got to be ready."
"Yeah, I . . ." he had to make a better effort than that to sound normal. "I think I'll do that. I'll catch you guys later." He started jogging again, anything to get away, to get to someplace where he could just think.
Think it through, and figure out what he was going to do now, how on earth he was ever going to make it up to her and convince her to give him just one more chance.
CHAPTER FIVE
It was noon.
She should get up.
She should put down the novel she was trying and failing to read, drag herself out of bed and go and wash those dishes.
Exciting thought.
Thinking of them had been bugging her all morning. Among other things, but it was the dishes that were most purely annoying, most potentially easily fixed. They annoyed her because she had deliberately left them. A pitiful collection of little frying pan for scrambling eggs, bowl and fork for mixing the eggs and plate from which to eat them.
See, she could even enumerate them. Leaving them unwashed was supposed to be a small symbol of independence; of not needing to meet any standards of tidiness exce
pt the ones she herself set. But it turned out she'd so internalized Dan's rule of 'a place for everything and everything in its place' that now it was her rule.
She gave up, got up and stalked through to the kitchen, all gleaming appliances and granite counters. An expanse of space for creating magic, he had told her with a fond pat on her bottom when they first inspected the place eight years ago. She had created magic there, it was true. When she'd finished her training as a financial planner, she had picked up the occasional gourmet cooking class. Dan liked to eat. She liked to please him. It was a natural fit.
She had to stop thinking about the man. Grrr. She turned on the hot water, pulled out the rubber gloves.
She could always think about Luke Barrett for awhile, though the memory made her wince. She had tried not to, but like the dishes, it was inevitable. She felt so embarrassed about it this morning. All she wanted was something good, easy, undemanding, with a man she could trust enough so that she could let go of the white-knuckled grip she had on life and enjoy herself for a small while. Even for just the night. Just a little light entertainment.
As soon as she saw him she realized he was perfect for the task. Polite, respectful, perhaps not to bright but one did not need clever for a good time, if she understood modern dating philosophies right. Sexy as anything but not so promiscuous she had heard of his exploits. It had been the purest luck finding such a catch her first time out fishing.
It was natural she had thought him interested. That erection of his had been hard to miss. So his body had been interested, just not the rest of him.
That stung, more than a little.
Still, it was his loss. Other men fit those criteria. While she had not found another last night she might if she went out again. Despite the discomfort, the awkwardness, she had felt pulsatingly alive. And that was the point: To live her life. To carpe that diem. That club was too dark and noisy, so she would try another. Would that be tonight, or would the previous failure be allowed to frighten her off for the time being? No, the life lived in fear was the life half lived. That could be a motto to keep her from falling back into old, stale patterns. Perhaps she would take Caroline with her.
Even if her approach to Luke had been an embarrassing failure, there had been one benefit: she knew with absolute certainty her sexuality had not withered for lack of nurture. In fact it had been astonishingly easy to find a man who could make her wild with desire.
Really it made her question what she had experienced with Dan, and with her high-school boyfriend Jacob before him, if Luke Barrett could get her so worked up with a bit of dancing and an almost-kiss. Perhaps she was some closet hedonist, and she was on the brink of finding out.
The thought was exciting. She was so tired of being sedate, rule-abiding Floss King who did everything that was expected and was utterly proper and conventional. Far better to try out a few different personae to bring balance and self-knowledge to her choices as she went ahead into single adulthood. Maybe into parenthood. An early midlife crisis. Ideal to get it out of the way now rather than later. It struck her as very well organized.
Though she snorted at the thought, and paused in her scrubbing of the pan.
Even when I'm being wild and reckless I'm doing it in an organized way. I've trained myself too well. Or been trained, she added darkly, before pushing the thought away. There was nothing inherently evil about good organizational skills.
It's just when I seize on them obsessively in an attempt to control a life over which I actually have no real say that they are unhealthy. And that was a genuine insight, worth noting down.
She finished the pan then made her note, pleased with her progress for the hour. And while she was at it she resolved if she should ever happen to run into Luke Barrett again she would be coolly, flawlessly polite, and make it clear she held no grudge but there was also no opening for him to fill in her life. She would find the next hunky male and finish what she had started with him.
CHAPTER SIX
"So you're married, Felicity?"
"Yes." It gave her a twinge of guilt to lie, but she didn't feel like delving into the dynamics of the alternative with the doctor this precise second.
"Well you can tell your husband there's nothing at all the matter with you. Perhaps he'd like to come in so we can run some tests and see that everything's in good working order. There's a whole range of steps that can be taken to help couples now, and you're wise to get started while you're still quite young. Thirty-two is a fine age to begin a family. I see too many people who've put it off until the last possible moment and frankly, through her thirties a woman's fertility decreases rapidly. You've picked a good time, Felicity. Don't you worry."
"Thank you for that. I'll let my husband know." She nodded politely, took the sheaf of notes and pamphlets the woman offered her and backed out, feeling uncomfortably conspicuous as she paid her bill and exited the clinic. She had chosen a place in a different suburb where there was no chance of being recognized.
As she sat in her car, the watery sunshine coming through the windshield warming her lap and cold hands, she wondered briefly if she should tell Dan. It would be the right thing to do. The compassionate thing, to let him know he needed to get himself sorted out. Or that he might never be able to have children.
If she wanted him back she would do it. If she preferred to be with him rather than have a child.
She did not make the call. Instead she pulled her appointment book out of her purse and turned to a fresh page. 'Desirable Characteristics' she headed it up, then started a list.
Athletic.
Intelligent.
Attractive
She considered the last. Attractiveness. Was that shallow of her, to want to pass that on to a child? Attractiveness opened doors. She was absolutely certain Dan had chosen her first and foremost for her looks.
Not that that seemed like such a recommendation anymore.
She shrugged and left it on the list for now. Athletic. Intelligent. Attractive. The image of Luke Barrett popped into her head. Not him as he had been at the club – embarrassing – but at the stadium. The first time she had spoken to him he had been glowing with happiness over the promotion from the practice team at another stadium. Dan had spotted him and poached him.
He had been new in town, with the job he had always dreamed of, joy beaming out of him like the sun. She liked that about him: that he was so cheerful, and transparent as a pane of glass. She went to talk to him, ready to help out the new kid settle in, and asked him if he needed anything.
Sadly he was not very bright, stumbling to give her a straight answer, blinking his big hazel eyes at her like someone had just thumped him on the head. But the large, goofy smile he gave her warmed her anyway.
She had liked his old-fashioned manners too. A nice boy.
And yes, attractive. Also athletic, though not intelligent.
It puzzled her for a moment that he had popped into her head. But then he had certainly made an impression on her a couple of nights ago as a man, in a way she had not experienced in . . . years? Natural enough to think of him in the context of baby making. She ignored the heat under her own skin, cleared her throat and went back to her list.
Special talents?
Creative?
Artistic?
Tall
That one was a definite. She had never liked being five foot four. Delicately built was alright, but it did mean every extra pound stood out, so she had to always consider what she ate. So tiresome, when taller friends could cram in extra servings of this or that with a gleeful shrug because no one would notice the result.
So yes, tall. For a moment she imagined a teenage son reaching up high to a cupboard, to fetch her a tin she could not reach without a foot stool. 'Here, Mom,' he said in her mind, and his freckled face broke into a tolerantly superior grin. She would take it and give him that special smile that let him know how much she adored him, and he would turn away without thinking twice, taking it for granted h
is mother loved him more than life, of course.
It made her warm all over to think of it. She wrote carefully over her own writing a second time to emphasize it. 'Tall.' Once more she ignored the thought of Luke. Luke who towered over her, six foot four of professional athlete. Mmmmm.
She stared at the page for awhile. Not hair color. That did not matter. Nor eye color.
Healthy.
No genetic diseases
Other than that she had nothing. Really she was not fussy, which was peculiar, given how everything else in life needed to be just so to satisfy her. Not a child. A child could just be him or herself, just as they were made. She would contrive for a few advantages to help them through life. That was a parent's job, after all. That would be her job. But genes were a roll of the dice and she could get anything, no matter how she planned or carefully chose a sperm donor. Clumsy, slow, with a face only a mother could love . . . oh, she would love it.
Halfway down the page, leaving room for further inspiration on characteristics, she added 'Artificial Conception?' and 'Natural Conception?’ Then she drew a table around them with further divisions under each: 'Pros' and 'Cons’.
Artificial Pros:
Straightforward.
Tidy.
No interference from father
Artificial Cons:
Process unknown (research required).
Explaining to child
Explaining to family/friends
Cost
Involvement of strangers
Knowledge of strangers
She was a private person. It took her years to get to know people to the point she could open up about herself. The thought of an array of strangers knowing intimate details about her life, her plans, her body, was distasteful, even if they were professionals. The same went for broadcasting a plan to have her own child through artificial insemination. Again, others did it. Yet it was hardly conventional and not at all ladylike. There was a cold-hearted determination about it she found repellent.