Night Games

by Lisa Marie Perry

  “You didn’t come up in my shop and sit in that chair and think you were going to walk out of here with your hair lookin’ like that, did you?” This from Georgiana.

  The other stylist—Boo—vanished but reappeared not a full minute later with a thick binder. Her own hair was neat, with a deep side part and single short braid. “I do a few hair shows—just came back from Atlanta. Met Usher out there, too. Take a look at my handiwork, then decide whether you want to try a change. Nothing permanent, just something new.”

  All around her, people were choosing relaxers and highlights, hair extensions and thermal treatments, braids and finger waves. Charlotte appreciated the state of her hair, that it had natural shine and bounce and didn’t require much maintenance. She ran six mornings a week and sweat came with the territory in her job, so stopping in once a month at Martha’s preferred celebrity spa for a trim usually suited her fine.

  But what was wrong with wanting something new?

  Charlotte stopped perusing the album halfway through, in awe of the unique, futuristic hairstyles Boo had created. “Braid it, please,” she said, then arched a brow at TreShawn. There. I’ll take your dare and raise you one.

  “Then let’s shampoo you and get this party started,” Boo declared, clasping her hands together with giddiness in her eyes. Immediately she unwound Charlotte’s updo, revealing nearly two feet of loosely curled tendrils. “Ever straightened all this?”

  “Relaxer in college. It turned out to be a mistake.” Cloudy memories in the recesses of her mind intruded, and she swallowed to regroup. “Anyway, I did the Big Chop and left it alone after that. Jojoba oil’s my lifesaver.”

  TreShawn sat with a sullen look for the next several hours, conversing in friendly tones only to Georgiana and Boo and a few men who’d come in for fresh linings. Clients came and left, and darkness had already settled in the sky before Boo finally turned Charlotte to face TreShawn and Georgiana.

  “Boo, you’re badass.” TreShawn, who’d been showing Georgiana YouTube videos on his smartphone, now studied Charlotte with a grin—one free of malicious intent and snark.

  Charlotte took her feet off the styling chair’s rung, planted them on the floor and whirled around toward the mirror. Badass couldn’t quite do justice to the transformation. Cornrows curved delicately across her scalp, with the ends of the braids falling together down her back in dozens and dozens of straight, skinny dark ropes. One braid, on the left side, close to her ear, was outfitted in a string of dark red beads. It gave the style a dash of playfulness but was no less exotic. Beautiful. Tough…

  “Trippy,” Charlotte whispered, running her fingers through the ends of the braids.

  “It’s like those Bo Derek cornrows she wore back in ’79,” Georgiana said with approval. “Or was it ’80?”

  Boo angled a handheld mirror behind Charlotte’s head so she could view the back. “What do you think?”

  Charlotte had come here to prove a point to TreShawn but wound up with a surprise of her own. “I found my new salon.”

  *

  In Desert Luck’s parking lot, Charlotte grabbed her duffel, hopped out of the Suburban and was halfway to her Fiat before she noticed TreShawn hadn’t driven away. He’d put up a fuss with her every step of the way today, and she’d expected him to flee like a bat out of hell at the first opportunity. Turning, she moseyed back to the passenger-side door and motioned for him to lower the window. “What’s keeping you?”

  “Habit. My uncle said when you drop off a chick, wait till she’s safely inside before you take off.”

  Charlotte didn’t take offense to being referred to as a “chick.” He hadn’t meant to be derogatory. “Appreciate it, but I’ve been fending for myself a lot longer than you, TreShawn. I have a nice uppercut. I’m talkin’ ‘Mortal Kombat’ style.” At his grunt of laughter, she pointed to the building where a handful of straggler players and security guards were exiting. She waved and got mostly curious looks and one or two waves in response. “Plus, I’ve got security. So enjoy being free from me. I’ll be back in your face soon enough.”

  “All right.” With that, the Suburban pulled out of the lot and Charlotte felt a degree of acceptance that today she’d done the best she could for the struggling young man. Tomorrow he’d be back at the facility to fight his demons all over again.

  She didn’t waste more time getting in her own car and hitting the road—except for the few minutes she took scanning the vehicles in the lot, curious—no, hopeful—that she’d see a certain man’s James Bond–sexy Mercedes-Benz coupe among the remaining cars. When she didn’t, she continued on to Vegas and resolved to put Nate and her questions about where he might be at this moment out of her mind.

  Despite the late-night hour, her parents were wide-awake to greet her when she slipped inside the Bellagio villa.

  “Joy to the world. The prodigal daughter has returned,” Tem said, her voice saturated with sarcasm as she unfolded her slim figure from where she’d sat curled up on the oversize sofa in a couture summer dress. Little things like how she refused to lounge around in comfortable clothes even in her own living quarters just to keep up appearances were what made Charlotte sometimes think of her as a paper doll—beautiful but nonetheless two-dimensional.

  Marshall, seated on the coffee table in front of his wife, turned to study Charlotte over his big rock of a shoulder. “Something wrong with your phone?”

  “Pop, Ma, I’ve been working.” Oh, how she regretted the defensiveness, the uncertainty in her tone.

  “This late?” her father asked, rising to his feet and turning to face her full-on.

  “Well. You could say I put in overtime.”

  Tem squinted, as if she suddenly no longer recognized her eldest daughter. “Your hair… What happened…? You…” She grasped Marshall’s sleeve, wrinkling his shirt. “This is a joke, right, Marshall? You and I—we just got Punk’d.”

  Jeez. “It’s not a joke. I was looking after a player and got my hair braided, spur of the moment, and it’s not a big deal. Besides, I like it.”

  “Me, too.” Martha poked her head around one of the large potted tropical plants near the full bar. She was disheveled from sleep but no less interested in what all the commotion was about. Exactly like how it’d been when they were children and Charlotte was reamed out for some misdeed or another. Danica and Martha would pretend to hide out so they wouldn’t catch their parents’ wrath, but the two would manage to linger close enough to eavesdrop on every word of their big sister’s castigation and punishment.

  “Go back to bed, Martha,” their mother said dismissively, as if Martha was five and not twenty-two.

  “Fine.” With a huff, Martha took heed. As she stomped off, she added in a singsong loud enough to stir the dead, “Charlotte, you look h-h-hot.”

  “Ignore your sister,” Tem told her, a queen giving precise orders. “A frivolous girl like that you take with a grain of salt. Come now, Lottie. Why did you stand up Chaz Lakan? Didn’t you get my message?”

  “Ma, I had work to do.” And okay, perhaps a tiny part of the reason she’d leaped at the chance to watch over TreShawn Dibbs was that she’d wanted a solid excuse to turn down another unwanted setup with a man she had zero interest in—professionally and especially personally. “If you want me to succeed in the job you hired me to do, then please don’t throw obstacles my way. Fighting off obnoxious man after obnoxious man is a distraction I don’t want.” She already had her hands full with a smokin’, chiseled, wicked man who was the best—and worst—kind of distraction.

  If she was going to get any sleep at all that wasn’t disrupted by the memory of Nate teasing her with a view of his physique in the staff locker room, then she’d better get started on it now. “I’m going to bed.”

  Marshall halted her with a frown. “You’re this dedicated, huh, Lottie? You’re all in? Great. Then I expect to see this level of dedication from you always. Nothing less.”

  Charlotte bit the inside of her che
ek to keep her angry response to herself. As if she needed yet another reminder that just because Marshall and Temperance Blue were her parents didn’t mean they wouldn’t take pride in being the bosses from hell. They would dangle what she wanted most—her career—in front of her and take glory in watching her jump to get it.

  “Another thing.” Tem sidestepped her husband and smoothed her hand down Charlotte’s head, from her crown to the ends of her braids, lingering on the red-beaded one. “I told Chaz that you’ll have dinner with him next week at DiGorgio Royal Casino. When you meet him there, be the woman he expects to see.”

  Because what people see, their perception of me, is all that matters, right?

  “Your friend Krissy O’Claire sent a congratulatory bouquet. It’s in the kitchen. She turned out to be a good egg. Isn’t she engaged?” Not expecting an answer, Tem tapped Marshall’s wrist and together, as one, they moved past their daughter toward their sleeping quarters. “Good night, Charlotte.”

  Charlotte had anything but a good night and had wasted an hour of it dwelling on things she should’ve said to her parents in the heat of the moment but knew she never would. In their own way they were just ensuring that she was capable of surviving in a world that could be crueler and more unforgiving than they could ever be.

  Still, she left for camp in Mount Charleston just after daybreak. Utilizing the training facility’s jogging path didn’t do the wonders for her mind that her usual route at Cathedral Rock did, but she was ready to pour plenty of energy and concentration into the first full-squad day.

  Midway through morning warm-ups, invitation-only media personnel invaded the practice fields, and as columnists and photographers milled across the sidelines tossing comments and questions to anyone who’d pay them any attention, the coaches and players completed the drills uninterrupted.

  “Coach,” Charlotte said when Kip called a break and the sweat-drenched men scattered across the field. She sprinted over to him and lifted her sunglasses to the top of her head, though he kept his firmly in place. These were a pair of Diesel glasses. The Maui Jim glasses he’d broken earlier when their new quarterback, Brock Corday, botched a snap. “Those defense boys have been cooling their heels for a while. I want to try something.”

  Kip turned his face in the direction of the men chatting on the sidelines. “What?”

  “Yoga.” When he rolled his shoulders and seemed ready to shoot down the suggestion, she rushed on because taking initiative meant sometimes crossing invisible boundaries. Implementing yoga into the daily workouts and diving deep into head-injury and helmet-safety research were her immediate plans and she didn’t have time to waste. “Several teams in the league have incorporated yoga into their training routines. These guys are tough, yes, but they’re men, not machines. It’s not in their best interest for them to sit idle in the heat for long periods of time. They should use the elements. They should stretch and focus on strength as well as strategy.”

  After a moment he lifted a corner of his mouth. “Go get your boys. But run it past Whittaker first. Then maybe we can chat with the strength-and-conditioning guys.”

  “Whittaker…” she repeated, craning her neck to locate the head trainer, Whittaker Doyle, among the throng of people. And there he was, in a conversation with Nate.

  All of a sudden she was ten degrees hotter, feeling as though she were trapped in a steam room rather than the fresh outdoors of Mount Charleston, which offered cool gusts of mountain air that Las Vegas didn’t. She mumbled thanks to Kip and approached the men, reminding herself that she couldn’t realistically avoid Nate and it would be no one’s fault but her own if she let tension and nerves affect her professionalism.

  As she joined them, she tripped over the turf but maintained balance. Even so, Nate sprang to catch her biceps and murmured, “Cool?”

  Polite and collected despite the arousal that shot through her from fingertips to toes at the contact, she ducked away with a stilted, “Of course. I want a word with Whittaker.”

  When she shared her idea with the trainer and asked for his input, there was a skeptical pause before he replied, “What the hell, give it a shot. One shot, and we need to see results.”

  “If it works, would you support me in proposing yoga as a permanent part of the team’s workout regimen?”

  “I’ll consider it.”

  That was a start. Excited, she adjusted her sunglasses, grinning at both men. Well, she couldn’t alienate Nate without someone noticing. Only, he didn’t return the amicability—just watched her as if she were a puzzle to be figured out.

  “Will we see you on the court later?” Whittaker asked her.

  “The court?”

  “Nate’s idea. Basketball tonight—staff only.” The man frowned slightly in confusion, likely wondering why she seemed to be in the dark.

  Their truce wasn’t meant to be a one-way street. Nate wasn’t going to get away with ignoring her by excluding her from something as innocuous as a staff basketball game. “I’ll be there.”

  After convincing all but two of the available defensive players to try yoga, she was chased down by a cable-network sports reporter who complimented the statement Charlotte’s hairstyle made and demanded commentary on TreShawn Dibbs’s health all in the same saccharine sentence.

  “A few sources said you’d be an authority on Dibbs’s physical condition.” The reporter tilted her mic toward Charlotte, awaiting a response.

  “As a trainer I can share that we’re all committed to ensuring our team is healthy and capable. If you want further comment, please have a conversation with a member of the coaching staff. Otherwise, stay tuned for an official statement from Dibbs’s publicist or the Slayers’ PR department.”

  The reporter gave her a shuttered look, clearly unhappy with Charlotte’s version of a give-nothing-away answer. Changing tactics, she inquired, “What is the workplace dynamic with rivals among the Slayers training staff? Are you and Nate Franco playing nice?” She added a laugh, but her demeanor came off as facetious.

  Charlotte was glad to see Whittaker waving her over but couldn’t resist having the final word. “We don’t play. We work.”

  Even engaging in a game of basketball with Nate was going to be less about play and more about working toward some level of compromise for the good of the team—and their careers. She had to remember the big picture….

  Which was excruciatingly difficult to do later when all she could see as she made her way to Desert Luck’s outdoor basketball court was Nate. Shirtless under the twilight sky, his gray athletic shorts revealing a pair of leanly muscular legs. It didn’t take much to imagine him naked. On the court. With her underneath him.

  Good grief. Charlotte dragged in a deep breath and tracked the off-key sound of a terrible Lou Rawls impersonation to one of the assistant coaches. About a dozen or so men had shown up, and upon her arrival the singing and cursing and sly talk and horsing around came to a stop.

  Don’t take it personally. Even though it’s personal. Because you’re a woman. The thoughts wouldn’t leave her. Not when she was chosen last out of the lineup. Not when the designated ref ignored her shout of traveling against an opponent. Not when she went in for a layup only to be swatted down like a fly.

  “Foul,” Nate growled as she hit the pavement and grunted from the sting across her torso where she’d been struck.

  Charlotte blinked, stunned to see him pushing past the wide-receivers coach, Royce Davis, to offer her a hand up. They were on opposite teams, but her men were more interested in mopping their faces with their shirts and guzzling Gatorade.

  “That wasn’t a foul,” Royce protested to Nate. “I blocked her shot. What she did was flop.” He glowered at her. “But if you want your free throws without any big bad men getting in your way, then let’s call it a foul and get on with the game.”

  “Forget it,” Charlotte said to Royce as she let Nate haul her upright. “No foul.”

  “Are you okay?” Nate asked, near enough
that he could drop his voice for her ears only. “Tell me if you’re hurt.”

  A sizzle danced over her flesh, and her mind spun. First he wanted to exclude her. Now he wanted to protect her. She couldn’t quite figure out how to handle him when he continued to nudge her off balance at every turn.

  “No harm. No foul.” When a teammate passed Nate the ball, she drove the point home by proceeding to try to strip him of the ball.

  Covering him was no easy feat. The man could move—pivot, fake, dribble. When he reared up to shoot, her arm tangled with his and his back met her front, two currents of heat colliding. The ball fell away in a succession of echoing bounces and others scrambled to rescue it from landing out of bounds.

  Charlotte was so close to Nate that she knew the second his body tensed.

  “That’s it,” Nate announced to the group in a strained voice, and was immediately answered with objections. “Play if you want, but I’m out.” Already he was walking away.

  Bewildered by his sudden change, Charlotte stood still on the court until someone tweaked her shirtsleeve on his way past her.

  “Hear the man? The game’s over.”

  Maybe the game on the court was over, but as for the one that was just between Charlotte and Nate that had no clear rules or definition?

  Far from it.

  Chapter 8

  Be firm.

  Easier decided than done when the person Charlotte needed to be firm with was her own mother. Almost out the villa door for an arranged date with Chaz Lakan at the DiGorgio Royal Casino, Charlotte froze in the foyer with the keys to her Fiat in hand. Even at this degree of frustration, she couldn’t justify walking out and slamming the door with Tem calling after her.

  “Lottie! The driver informed me that you canceled his services for tonight,” Tem said, sweeping into the foyer. “Is Chaz picking you up here?”

  Charlotte jangled the keys. “I’m driving myself. Thought it’d be lovely to have some semblance of control over this evening, which you thoroughly arranged without my input or permission. Ma,” she went on when her mother’s eyes narrowed in offense, “you have to realize it’s not healthy for you to set me up with men. I can throw a rock and hit a man. Really.”