Once Upon a Player

by Christina Phillips

  None of Katie’s friends are, though. And unlike Monica, who never allowed new girls to join our exclusive little clique at school, they’re fine about me hanging out with them.

  Hello, reality check. Why do I keep going round to Lucas’s, if I want to make a clean break from the past?

  So I can have a prestigious client in my portfolio.

  Riiight.

  I glance at my watch. “Oh, shit. I’m going to be late.”

  Mum’s smile drops a notch. “Another meeting with Lucas Carter?”

  “Yep.” I wriggle out of bed, leaving Mum still sitting there. And although there’s nothing going on between Lucas and me, I avoid her gaze because things aren’t nearly as platonic as I’ve insisted they are.

  Not that I think she believes me, anyway.

  “Violet, are you sure this a good idea?”

  Here it comes. To be honest, I’ve been waiting for it since I told her he wanted my help a couple of weeks ago. But even with all that time to figure out a great response, I still don’t know what to say. The last thing I want is for her to start worrying about me again.

  “It’s fine, Mum. He’s nothing like Geoff.” Why did I bring his name into it? Except it’s the truth, and Mum will know what I mean.

  I hope.

  “Bec’s always spoken highly of him,” Mum concedes. “And I’m sure he’s nothing like Geoff, but…” She stands up and chews her lip before taking a deep breath. “We don’t want you to get hurt again. Lucas is so high profile.”

  Don’t I know it. The parties I used to go to with Geoff were glittery, but Lucas lives in the A-list. At least when Geoff and I split up, it wasn’t splashed across all the gutter press.

  “Seriously, there’s no chance I’ll ever go out with him.” Obviously, I haven’t shared the fact he asked me out the first day we met. She was so sick that day, and then the moment passed. Besides, she’d only stress about it. “Once he’s back on the bench, I’ll never see him again.”

  During the last couple of weeks, Mum’s hired another cleaner and told me she and her partner/best friend Joy are going to ease back on the actual doing and concentrate more on the expanding.

  Thank goodness for that. Dad and I both think she took on way too much when she set up the business, what with her health issues, but she was determined to do it. At least now she won’t need to lug heavy equipment around as much.

  When I reach his floor, Lucas is standing by the open door to his penthouse, and my stupid stomach goes into freefall. Please don’t let me glow.

  He’s wearing an open-necked shirt and shorts, and although I know they’re by top designers and cost the earth, he could wear a black rubbish bag and still be irresistible.

  And that’s my professional opinion, is it?

  Yes, it is. I’m not going to let the inconvenient fact that I fancy the pants off him interfere with my professional integrity.

  So. There.

  …

  Lucas

  Violet smiles, and I forget that I’ve been pacing the floor for the last fifteen minutes and wink at her in what I hope is a friend-zone way. She’s wearing a cute white sundress, and her red hair falls over the shoulders of her distressed denim jacket, and she’s the sexiest girl I’ve ever seen. Yeah, so much for the friend-zoning.

  When she reaches my side, she doesn’t walk straight inside the penthouse. She pauses and looks up at me, and I shove my hands into my pockets before I screw up our friendship by sliding my fingers through hers.

  Seems like I spend half the time we’re together with my bloody hands in my pockets.

  “Hi.” Her voice is soft and breathy and doesn’t help with the whole friends only thing at all. “Sorry I’m late. I overslept.”

  “Big night, huh?” I follow her into the hall and push the door shut behind me. Her bare legs are tanned and perfectly toned, and I imagine them wrapped around me, complete with those sexy high-heeled, open-toe sandals.

  I swallow my groan and thrust the vision to the back of my mind. Don’t go there.

  “Just clubbing with the girls.” She strolls across the hall toward the sitting room, while a weird burning sensation eats through my chest. What the fuck? It’s no big deal if she went clubbing last night. None of my business.

  Did she spend the night with some strange guy?

  This is fucking nuts. I haven’t even kissed Violet, and I’m consumed by the idea she might’ve hooked up last night. I never care about stuff like that. At least, I never have before.

  “Oh, wow.” She turns at the door to the sitting room and gives me another of those gorgeous smiles that haunt my dreams.

  Carter, you need to get laid.

  “You’ve been busy.”

  And she’s talking business. She always talks business. It doesn’t matter how many bloody sparks fly between us, she’s never gonna act on them.

  It’s got nothing to do with her not being ready to move on yet. It’s because I’m a footballer, like her ex.

  The irony isn’t lost on me.

  I join her and survey the room where I’ve tried to integrate some of my stuff with the show home furnishings. “It’s just a temporary fix. You do your thing, that’ll be great.”

  She admires the few antique pieces that Dad gave me on my twenty-first, part of the collection of Queen Anne furniture that Mum inherited from her grandparents’ ages ago, and which I haven’t yet shifted to a permanent spot. He gave Harry some, too, although the wingback chairs always looked more at home in his Grade II listed apartment than my rented flats.

  “This is beautiful.” There’s a thread of awe in her voice as she kneels and runs her fingertips over the faded material of the ottoman. “And in such good condition.”

  “Not meant for a high traffic area.” I glance at the rug, which is now hanging on the far wall. “I’ve always kept the chair and ottoman in my bedroom.”

  “Uh-huh.” She nods, but the skeptical expression on her face belies her response. Your bedroom’s not a high traffic area? Really?

  I’m not sure why that stings, especially since she didn’t even say it. She might not have even thought it, but considering my so-called playboy rep, it’s not much of a leap.

  Not far from the truth, either.

  Violet clears her throat, which basically confirms my suspicion. “Well, anyway, I agree. These are too valuable to stay in here where they could get easily damaged. Your bedroom, or maybe the spare room, would be perfect.”

  “My room.” I grip the back of the chair as childhood memories of Mum sitting in the chair in the evenings, reading her academic journals, flood through me. It’s been six years since she died, but sometimes it feels like just the other week. A familiar hollowness fills my chest, and I shove the harrowing images of her lying, ghostlike, in that hospital bed to the back of my mind where they belong. “Family heirloom.”

  She gives me a probing look, as if something in my tone gave away more than I intended. I’m not even sure why I told her that. In the past, some girls have commented on the chair, but I never felt the need to explain its origins.

  But that’s the thing with her. I can talk to her as easily as I can Yolanda, except I want so much more with Violet.

  What do I mean by that? I only do casual. But I can’t get it out of my head.

  Do I want what Harry has with Alice?

  Chapter Seven

  Lucas

  A couple of hours later, and the place is unrecognizable. Violet moved with a calm determination, going from room to room, removing objects, holding up color swatches, and measuring floors and walls like there’s no tomorrow. After taking some photos for her portfolio, she gives the chair and ottoman a lingering glance. I moved them to the door, so they were out of the way, and neither of us suggested seeing how they looked in my bedroom. Seems that room is off-limits when it comes to Violet’s professional expertise.

  “I suppose I better get going. You’ve probably got heaps to do today.”

  Only my usual daily
physio session this afternoon. There’s plenty of time to stroll into the Village and have lunch first, but there’s no way she’ll agree to go with me. Especially, if she met some guy last night.

  Fuck, maybe that’s the reason she’s rushing off now, to meet him.

  Why do I fucking care?

  I could go out with the lads tonight and a dozen girls would be more than happy to spend the night with me.

  Yeah, sure. Except I don’t want a girl who looks at me and sees United’s brightest star. I want them to just see me.

  The way Violet does.

  I’m seriously losing it. “Just stuff. What about you? Doing anything exciting?”

  “If you call slogging over my assignment exciting. Well, I mean I enjoy it, but it’s still a lot of hard work pulling it all together.”

  Not seeing another bloke, then. “You know what they say. All work and no play.”

  “I did play last night.”

  Like I need reminding. “Where did you go?”

  “Aphrodite’s. It’s not that far from here.”

  I’ve heard of it, although I’ve never been. When we go clubbing, we always go A-list.

  “Do you recommend it?”

  She pulls a face. “It’s not a celebrity hot spot. But my friend Katie goes there a lot, so I thought, whatever.” She shrugs. “I’ll probably go again, but not every week.”

  “What d’you like doing, then?”

  “Lots of things.” She sounds defensive, which isn’t how I want her to feel at all. But before I can pull my foot out of my mouth, she adds, “Well, there were heaps of parties and stuff when I was with my ex, and before I started going out with him, I was still at school, so I couldn’t get into any of the clubs. I suppose that makes me kind of boring.”

  There’s a stricken look on her face, like she believes she could ever be boring, but I’m more fixated on what she’s just revealed about her prick of an ex.

  “How long were you dating him?”

  She blinks like she doesn’t understand what I’m talking about. “Just over a year.”

  A year? I’d been thinking a couple of months, although I’ve no idea why. She never gave any hint of how long she was seeing her ex. Somehow this revelation makes it less likely than ever that she’ll ever want to go out with me.

  “That’s some commitment.”

  “It was at the time. More me than him, obviously.” She gives a dismissive sniff but doesn’t look as though I’ve crossed a line by asking her about it. “It took a while for me to realize, but I’m definitely better off without him. His ego was unbelievable.”

  “Sounds like you’re over him.” More importantly, not on the rebound.

  Give it a rest, Carter.

  “I wouldn’t take him back if he crawled over broken glass and begged me.”

  “Been a while since you’ve seen him?” For fuck’s sake, since when have I been a masochist? The last thing I want to talk about is her ex, but I have this weird compulsion to discover all I can about him.

  Liar. All I want to know is that Violet is totally over him.

  “Not since the night we split up. And that was in April last year.”

  Bloody hell. That was fifteen months ago. If she’s still against dating footballers after all this time, she’ll never change her mind.

  “His loss.” I grin so she doesn’t guess how much I mean that. I need to change the subject before I tell her that her ex is a fucking moron for ditching her, since that might cross the friends only line. “When’s our next appointment?”

  Appointments are what Violet calls these meetings, almost like she has to continually reinforce the fact they’re purely professional.

  Projecting, again?

  “Oh.” She whips out her phone and checks the dates. “We don’t have any more scheduled, as we’re waiting on the decorators.”

  Violet suggested repainting the acres of white walls so the effect is less stark, with a couple of feature walls as focal points, and the decorators are due to start next week. It hadn’t occurred to me our professional relationship was almost at an end.

  “Guess you’ll need to check on their progress.”

  “I could do that.”

  She’s still holding her phone and gives me a sideways glance.

  “Do you want to make another appointment?” There’s an oddly diffident note in her voice, as though she’s not sure if I’ll want to see her again since we’ve now finished the virtual makeover.

  I should tell her there’s no need for her to come back. Make a clean break, go out with the lads, and find a gorgeous girl who wants to fuck my brains out tonight. Wanting a girl who isn’t interested in my celebrity status might be different, but when my career is the major reason why she won’t even go out for a drink with me, the novelty soon turns shitty.

  “Sure.” What the hell?

  “Just to check, you know, the colors and everything. In case you decide you want something else.”

  “Sounds good.” So much for a clean break.

  “Hmm.” She concentrates on her phone, as though her calendar is the most exciting thing in the room. “If you like, I could always call you instead, see if you need me to come round to sort out any…problems.”

  I’m more than capable of sorting out any problems, but is that what she’s really saying? My sister and her mates have a whole language of subtext. In my experience, it seems to be universal when it comes to girls. Normally I don’t even try to decode it, since I’m all about having shallow fun without complications, but all my usual crap deserted me the day I met Violet.

  “Okay.” I sound guarded, but I’ve no idea what she wants me to say.

  She lets out a relieved breath and drops her phone into her bag. Does this mean she’s going to call?

  “Well, good.” She hitches her bag over her shoulder and picks up her portfolio. “I mean, I don’t mind popping round next weekend if there’re any last-minute things you want to discuss or anything. What about Friday afternoon?”

  I’m used to girls suggesting we get together, and I rarely need to think twice before agreeing or not. But this is Violet, the girl I can’t get out of my head, and for the first time ever, I don’t have a quick-fire answer.

  Is she still talking business?

  “Friday,” I repeat, mainly to give myself a couple of seconds to think. I’m not meeting Harry and everyone until the evening, and I can clear my schedule in the afternoon, but I’ve got a much better idea.

  “Oh, bugger, I forgot it’s your birthday next Friday.” Her cheeks go pink, and she swings her portfolio in front of her like a shield. “Sorry. Maybe I should just call you, after all.”

  I don’t need to ask how she knows it’s my birthday, since shit is always being splashed in the papers about me. If she reads the gossip columns, it’s common knowledge I’m hitting my quarter century. But my chick radar is buzzing, and there’s no way I’m going to wait until Violet calls before seeing her again.

  Even if she has no intention of moving out of the friend zone?

  “Nah, next Friday afternoon’s good.”

  “Are you sure?” She doesn’t look convinced. “I would’ve thought you’d be out celebrating with everyone.”

  “I’m meeting my brother and his girlfriend in the evening. Listen, you couldn’t do me a huge favor, could you?”

  “What favor?”

  I’ve asked loads of girls out over the years, but I’ve never had nerves spiking through my gut before. And I’m not even asking her out on a real date. I need to make sure she knows that, otherwise there’s no way she’ll agree.

  “Come with me, as a friend. It’s really low key, at his local. My sister’ll be there, too.” Jesus, could I make it sound any less exciting? I’m even fucking sweating. If I didn’t feel like such a prat, it’d be funny.

  “You want me to go out with you to a family thing?”

  I can’t tell from her voice whether she’s considering it or thinks it’s the worst idea ev
er. Since when did dating get so hard?

  This isn’t a date.

  Allll right, then.

  “Only my brother and sister. My dad’s not coming.” I can’t imagine my dad sitting in the beer garden of the Toad. “And a couple of good mates. I don’t know if any of the others are bringing a plus one, except for Harry who can’t exist without Alice. Like I said, you’d be doing me a huge favor.”

  “You’d rather take me, as a friend, than one of your real girlfriends?”

  I’ve never taken any of the girls I’ve gone out with to a casual family thing. Never occurred to me to even ask. It’s like my public life is a separate entity, where gorgeous girls drape me across their arms like a prized accessory, and the paparazzi is an occupational hazard.

  Yolanda is the only one who fits into both sides of my life, the same as I do with hers. If she wasn’t in the Bahamas this week with her current boyfriend, I would’ve asked her to come with me.

  I would’ve still asked Violet first.

  With anyone else, I’d respond to Violet’s question with, You’re a girl, and you’re my friend, that’s as real as it gets. But I wouldn’t be in this situation with anyone else but Violet.

  And I don’t think she’d appreciate me pointing out the bloody obvious.

  Just tell her the truth.

  “Yes.”

  She tucks her hair behind her ear, and although I’ve seen a thousand women do that before, I’ve never found it so damn sexy. Focus, Carter.

  “Okay then. I suppose I owe you one for letting me loose on your penthouse.”

  It’s not the greatest reason for her agreeing to go out with me, but I’ll take it.

  “I’ll pick you up from your place.” This isn’t a date. “Or do you want to go from here?”

  “I’ll come here. What time?”

  “About seven.”

  “Sure.” She nods and clutches her portfolio a little tighter. “So, um, it’s pretty casual?”

  “Dead casual. Seriously, if my brother wears anything but faded jeans and old trainers, it’ll be a miracle.” Although maybe not such a miracle, now he has Alice.