Playing To Win: The Complete King Brothers Collection (A Contemporary Romance Box Set)

by Teagan Kade

  I have no idea why she’s so damn determined to see this through, but I can see Dad slowly giving in, the cracks starting to show. He’s a sucker for this shit.

  “Mmm,” he mumbles, kissing her forehead. I’m half tempted to signal Ms. Androgynous for a spew bag. “Maybe.”

  God, Alissa genuinely thinks she’s helping the situation here.

  I let Dad fill me in on what’s been happening at Crestfall, how the baseball season started, even though I’ve got no recollection of it at all.

  “Who did you say was pitching?” I ask, surprised I can’t recall the name when I’m sure I knew it this morning, but that’s my head for you—useless as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking competition.

  It’s just Dad and me. Alissa flitted off to the vending machine and has been gone for close to an hour. “Joe Pearson.”

  “Who?”

  I have a vague idea who he is, but I can’t drum up a visual picture of him in my head. It’s insane.

  Dad almost laughs. “Pitches for the Mules, your mortal enemy and all that?”

  “We don’t get along?”

  Now Dad laughs. “Fuck no, you don’t. And don’t worry. He got into a whole world of hurt for that little stunt.”

  “Joe Pearson,” I say aloud, trying to flesh him out.

  “Do I have a girlfriend?” I ask.

  “Onto the important questions, huh?”

  “Well?”

  Dad shakes his head. “Not that I know of. Better to ask your brothers.”

  I sit up straight. “I have brothers?”

  A look of shock fills Dad’s face until he sees the smile breaking on my lips.

  He reaches up to tousle my hair. “Real funny, kiddo. Let’s see how funny you think it is when you’re holed up with them again twenty-four seven.”

  I look to the plate of sludge beside the bed. “Hey, as long as there’s Uber Eats and Netflix, I’m good to go.”

  Dad smiles. “But no girls, got it? I don’t want some Crestfall hussy looking to lay claim to those missing months of yours.”

  “Give me a little more credit than that.”

  He stands and goes to walk off. “Stick to Pornhub, son. It’s a lot safer,” he says, turning back to me with a grin, “and cheaper.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  MAYA

  It’s a crisp summer’s day outside, a sky so blue above you’d swear it was upturned ocean. This marks the fourth time I’ve tried to see Titus and the fourth time I’ve been blocked by the Robocop who runs the nursing desk.

  ‘Family only.’ I’m getting sick of hearing that.

  I think back to the first time we met at Erin and Peyton’s engagement party. Erin and I go way back, but I hadn’t spoken to her in a while, never expected an invite. In truth, I thought I’d be escorted out by security, but it was Titus who answered the door. Took him about thirty seconds before he could actually speak, and that was that.

  “You understand, don’t you?” I tell the pigeon sitting on the bench seat beside me. Its head shifts left and right, so no, I don’t think it does.

  I take a deep breath and try to channel Chrissy, my roommate. She’d know how to keep calm at a time like this. She’d dial up some hippie yoga mindfulness hoodoo voodoo her folks taught her and instantly be the picture of peace. Me? I’m anxious at the best of times. With Titus up there in a coma for weeks now, unable to see him, it’s been the cruelest form of torture.

  “Talk to the pigeons too long and you’ll probably wind up in there, you know.”

  I hadn’t noticed Erin and Peyton approaching. I smile, genuinely pleased to see them, as if my thoughts alone summoned them here.

  Yeah, don’t give yourself too much credit, Ali Baba.

  I look to where Peyton was pointing, the psychiatry wing of the hospital. “If I have to sit through too many more English lit lectures this week, I just might.”

  “You’re still at the state university, right?” asks Erin.

  I nod. “Yep, last year.” I look down at myself. “Not exactly sporty enough for Crestfall Academy like most around here.”

  “It’s not all it’s cracked up to,” says Peyton, looking to Erin.

  The two of them are arm in arm, practically one person and the epitome of true love. It would be sickening if they weren’t so damn likable. Hard to believe not that long ago Peyton King was the poster boy for the bachelor life.

  Erin takes a seat beside me, the pigeon fluttering away. “More pressing, what are you doing here?”

  The truth won’t hurt. “I came to see Titus, actually.”

  Erin and Peyton exchange a glance.

  “You did?” asks Peyton.

  I try to shuffle through what they know in my head. Erin definitely knows Titus and I hooked up, but she doesn’t know we’ve kept dating. We kept that very quiet. Peyton, well, I don’t think he knows anything outside of Erin, football, and looking like James Dean twenty-four seven. “I heard what happened and thought I’d stop by, but they won’t let me in. I bring my fingers up for quotation marks: ‘Family only.’”

  Erin jumps up. “Come in with us.”

  “Sure,” adds Peyton. “I know the nurse on the ward desk—a couple of the nurses, actually.”

  That gets him a sharp elbow in the side from Erin.

  “What do you say?” he goes on. “Beats sitting out here talking to yourself.”

  It’s precisely the opening I’ve been looking for. When you’re with Peyton King, the world magically opens up before you—any King, actually. It’s the Moses-parting-the-sea of surnames around here.

  “That’d be great,” I beam, trying not to look overly enthusiastic.

  I follow the lovebirds into the hospital, the nurse who’d given me so much trouble over these last few weeks simply smiling at Peyton’s request to let me join them. “Sure thing, darl,” she smiles, the three of us strolling past without a problem. I try to temper my excitement. It’s like I’ve breached the palace walls.

  What I’m not prepared for is the shock of seeing Titus for the first time in weeks. He looks paler than before, certainly a lot skinnier, but it’s him alright—awake, alive.

  Beautiful.

  Before I rush forward, Erin leans over whispering. “Heads up, he’s got a bad case of amnesia, probably won’t remember you right away.”

  My heart shatters. I had no idea.

  As if to confirm, Titus spots me between the other two. “Oh, hey there,” he says, smiling and sitting up in bed, unconsciously shifting the cowlick that never seems to stay in place for more than a minute off his forehead. “Do I know you?”

  And with those four words I’m crushed all over again.

  Control yourself, I tell myself. You can do that much.

  I’ve missed him. I’ve missed those crystalline eyes, the hard line of his jaw and broad shoulders. I know everyone sees the superficial, as do I, but I know there’s a sensitive side to Titus too, a side few have seen.

  I approach the bed slowly, resist my entire body willing me to rush forward and take him in my arms, tell him everything he’s been missing out on these last weeks.

  Instead, I stop a few feet away and smile. “We met at your brother’s engagement party. It’s Maya. Maya Riordan.”

  He nods, and for a second, I think he’s remembered me, but I see it slip away. “Maya. Cool, cool. You’re at Crestfall?”

  I bring my hands together in front of myself, have to look down before I fall to pieces. I want to start feeding him information about our relationship, anything that might trigger his memory, but I can’t with Erin and Peyton standing here. “No, I’m a senior at the state college. Like I was telling these two, I don’t have an athletic bone in my body.”

  ‘Want one?’—it’s what I expect him to say, but instead he looks just as lost as before. “So you’re the quiet, studious type,” he smiles. “Nothing wrong with that.”

  He’s killing me. “Something like that. I tend to go unnoticed, kind of blur into the background in m
ost places.”

  “Hey, you know what they say about shy girls…” says Peyton.

  I can hear the slap on his chest from Erin that follows.

  “What?” he whispers.

  “Shhh,” she says. “Can you shut that caveman brain up for like one second and let the poor girl talk.”

  Titus is laughing. “I don’t remember you being such an asshole, bro.”

  “You sure that ball’s still not stuck in your head?” Peyton replies, another ‘oof’ as he’s whacked by his beloved.

  I step closer to the bed and lower my voice, hoping to say something, anything that will cryptically alert Titus to us, but I’m interrupted by commotion from the doorway.

  “Well, well, it’s become quite the party in here, hasn’t it?”

  I turn around in horror and find Stone King and his wife—Alissa, I think?—entering the room. It’s practically the whole family. Only Nolan and Phoenix are missing.

  Stone elbows Peyton, kissing Erin on the cheek before spotting me. “Oh, and who do we have here?”

  I give a kind of curtesy, no idea why, but the Kings are kind of royalty around here.

  Stone takes my hand, shaking it. It’s like being gripped by the jaws of life. “Stone King.”

  “Maya Riordan.”

  “Maya, hi. You’re a friend of Titus’s?”

  Understatement of the century, but I miraculously keep my calm. “We’ve met, yes.”

  “Very generous of you to swing by, isn’t it, Titus?”

  “It is,” I hear behind me, my heart being tugged and pulled and battered all over again.

  Alissa, who seems so aloof I’d actually forgotten she was there, speaks. “I’m going to get a soda. Would you girls like to join me?”

  “Don’t worry,” says Titus. “I ain’t going anywhere.”

  “Sure,” says Erin, shrugging her shoulders and heading for the doorway.

  I nod and join her, think I need a moment of space to process this all.

  Erin and I follow Alissa down the hallway. She’s wearing what could very well be a ball gown, way OTT for a hospital visit.

  Erin leans over to me, our shoulders touching. “Pretty wild, right? Next thing you know she’ll show up in her wedding dress.”

  I can’t help but laugh.

  “Where have you been?” she asks. “Can’t say I’ve seen you around in months.”

  I reach up to scratch my neck, a nervous tick I have whenever someone asks a prickly question like this. Suffice to say, I’d be a terrible poker player. “Just… busy,” I reply.

  “You and Titus hooked up, didn’t you? After the party?” Erin asks.

  “Yes,” I reply simply.

  “I get it,” Erin nods. “You hardly seem like the one-night stand type, so I’m guessing you fell for him, for that crazy King charm, probably all worried about him with that Hindenburg-sized heart of yours, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I mean, I don’t think it’s too strange you came to see him. You’re just that well-meaning kind of person. Always looking out for others.”

  If only she knew.

  In lieu of anything else to say, I go with, “Thank you.”

  Alissa stops at the vending machine, fishing through her micro-purse for money.

  Erin stops too, turning to face me. “It’s sweet of you to see him, it really is. I’m sorry he doesn’t remember you.”

  We’re thankfully interrupted by Alissa, who seems to be struggling with the rather elementary task of feeding dollars into the vending machine.

  “Here, let me help,” says Erin, stretching her mouth out in an ‘eek’ expression to me.

  She helps Alissa feed in the bills, three cans of Coke dispensed in due course and handed out.

  Alissa has no trouble with that, downing the precious sugar-fest like it’s the last of its kind. Another ‘eek’ expression from Erin.

  Alissa exhales. “So. Much. Better,” she beams.

  Back in Titus’s room, Peyton has found his way onto the bed, elbowing his brother in the side. “Come on, you’ve got to have a favorite.”

  Titus rolls his eyes. “What do you think they’re going to do? Offer me a midnight sponge bath?”

  Peyton sniffs at the air. “You could use one, bro.”

  “Enough you two,” says Stone King, clapping his hands together and rising from a chair beside the bed. He kisses Alissa, who’s forced onto her toes to meet his mouth.

  Alissa smiles and looks to Titus. “Have you given any more thought to a tutor? Aren’t you coming home tomorrow?”

  Titus picks up the tray of food beside him. “And miss out on more gourmet meals like this?”

  “A tutor?”

  It just comes out of my mouth, everyone’s attention in the room momentarily directed my way. I hate being the center of the attention. I blush like a ripe tomato.

  Stone fills me in. “In lieu of a nurse, which Titus here so adamantly rejected, we suggested a home tutor, help him catch up of what he’s missed the last few weeks.” He lowers his voice, tapping his head. “Seems that ball knocked some common knowledge out of his noggin.”

  “I don’t need a goddamn tutor,” sighs Titus. He repeats it when he senses he’s being ignored.

  “Son,” adds Stone, “we’re only thinking of the best for you.”

  “I can think for myself,” he snaps back.

  “I’ll do it.

  It takes me a moment to work out I am the one who has said this. Again, everyone’s eyes are on me.

  Cue the spotlight.

  I swallow before speaking. “I, I could do it,” I stutter, loathing being the center of attention like this. “I work in the tutoring center at college after-hours. It wouldn’t be any trouble.”

  “It would be at home,” says Stone. “You’re okay with that?”

  I nod, swallowing hard.

  Erin steps forward. “I’ve heard good things about her,” she says, winking in my direction.

  I appreciate the lifeline.

  “You have?” queries Peyton, cautious and clearly confused as to the subtext here.

  “Sure,” Erin smiles reassuringly. “Plus she’s local, they already know each other. You don’t really want a stranger in the house, do you, Dad, poking and prodding around?”

  “You’re right,” replies King Senior, clearly keen to hire someone and get on with it. “What do you say, Maya, was it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Would you be open to it? You’d be well-played… I mean paid,” he laughs, correcting himself.

  It’s almost impossible to contain my excitement, or is it nervousness? Both, most likely. “Yes, I’d be happy to.”

  I send a smile Titus’s way.

  “Titus?” asks Stone. “What do you say?”

  He’s staring at me, but I still sense no recognition there. It’s like we’re meeting for the first time all over again. “Alright,” he says simply. He nods at Peyton. “Better than spending all day with Nol and Phoenix.”

  Stone claps his hands together. “Great. That’s sorted. Now, we need to talk about ball. I spoke with your coach and he-”

  “Dad,” cuts in Peyton. “For fuck’s sake. Poor guy just came out of a coma. The last thing on his mind is baseball.”

  I can’t stand here looking at Titus any longer. I need time alone with him, but I can see it’s not going to happen with everyone crowded in here. Besides, I can’t justify lingering.

  “I’m going to head out,” I say. “It was nice seeing you again, Titus.”

  He doesn’t reply or look at me and already I can feel a hot wall of tears pressing at my eyes.

  “Thanks for coming,” winks Stone, standing in front of him and shaking my hand again. “I guess we’ll see you, what? Tomorrow morning?” He looks to Alissa for confirmation. She nods. “You know where the house is?”

  Do I ever. I nod. “Yes, sir.”

  “Great. Good.”

  Erin’s smile is a little more reassuring as I p
ass by, but the moment I’m in that hallway I can’t stop the tears any longer. I let them come, and race to get the hell out of there.

  *

  Chrissy, my roommate, is busy watching ESPN when I enter the apartment. She stops shoveling popcorn into her mouth, immediately sensing something’s wrong. She’s like that—an emotional Dachshund.

  I collapse into one the of the dining chairs and wipe at my face. “I saw him.”

  She sits up so fast she knocks over the popcorn. “Holy shit. You made it into Fort Knox, and?”

  She sees my expression.

  “Oh.”

  “Yes. He has amnesia. Doesn’t remember me at all. I may as well be Mary Poppins.”

  “Well, fiddle fucksticks.” She comes over and sits on my lap, pulling me into a tight hug. “He’ll remember. He’ll grab that perky ass of yours and, bam, memory back, baby.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to be that easy. He had no clue who I was, wouldn’t even look at me when I left.”

  Chrissy pats my hair down. “It’s going to be okay, M.”

  “Is it?”

  “Sure. What about…?”

  I shake my head. “No. Like, no no.”

  Chrissy seems shocked. “You didn’t tell him? A quick reminder?”

  “With half the Kings standing around? No. I never had the chance.”

  “Hmm.” Chrissy thinks on this. “Well, I’ve got a nice bottle of red with our name on it. What do you say?”

  “You know I don’t drink,” I smile.

  Chrissy just smiles on back. “Great time to start, though, don’t you think?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  TITUS

  It’s weird being home again. Less than ten minutes of Phoenix and Nolan, and I’m starting to think maybe hospital wasn’t so bad.

  Nolan tosses me an orange from the fruit bowl. I catch it one-handed. Back to normal, I think. That is, things flying in from nowhere at any point in time.

  “At least your hand’s still working,” winks Nolan, using his own in a jerk-off movement.

  I scoff and take a seat at the breakfast bar, peeling the orange. “I haven’t had to jerk off since I was in sixth grade.”