Players to Lovers (4 Book Collection)

by Ketley Allison

  Always a people person, Lily loved being held, by anyone. She had a smile for everyone, even those who didn’t smile back. She smiled for me.

  Oh, God. Oh god, oh god, oh god. Lily, I miss you.

  My heart hurts. My eyes burn, and I put pressure on them, refusing to cry in a strange city in a comforting cafe, alone and drained.

  “Black eye for Carla!”

  I peer through my fingers. Seems independent cafes also get names wrong.

  “Thank you,” I say, and go about pouring in cream and some sugar. I flash back to Lily grabbing for sugar packets in restaurants, and both Paige and I laughing in exasperation as we push all potential choking hazards to the other side of the table.

  I take a seat, coffee steaming and too hot to sip for the moment, so I call my roommate instead.

  “Hey,” Sophie says as she picks up.

  A few weeks after Paige died, I realized I couldn’t afford a two-bedroom apartment alone and advertised for a new roommate. To prepare, I’d had to box up the remainder of Paige’s stuff. The first time I stepped into her room, I’d doubled over in the doorway, the smell of her hitting me before anything else. Lavender continued to scent the air, despite the last few weeks of her in that bed becoming sicker and sicker, moving around less and less.

  “So, I talked to him,” I say to Sophie now.

  “Wow.” I picture Sophie getting comfortable on our shared plaid couch Paige and I had pilfered from an elderly lady’s garage sale. “How’d it go?”

  “As expected, I think. He’s shocked, kind of appalled. Doesn’t want her.” My voice cracks at the end.

  “Don’t come to that conclusion just yet,” Sophie says, so calm and controlled. I’d advertised for a new roommate, but it turned out I didn’t have to because my co-worker, Sophie Addison, small in stature and blunt in nature, had a lease running up and was looking to move. We met for coffee, and we clicked, despite my noticeable, newly-minted, anti-social tendencies. She loudly accepted, and it was obvious she was perfect. So great, in fact, that I’d confessed everything to her within two days of her moving in.

  And she’d taken it all with the same carefree tone she was using now. I joke she should be a bomb diffuser instead of a data analyst. Not much gets to her.

  “I know that. I do,” I reply. “But part of me was hoping he’d jump right in, save Lily, and I’d get to see her one more time.”

  “Give him the space he needs. You just told a manwhore he’s a baby daddy. It’s a lot to process.”

  “Yeah.” I use my free hand to wipe under my eyes and sniff. “It’s why I’m calling. He asked me to stay on a few days.”

  “That’s great. It means he’s thinking it through.”

  “I guess that’s what it takes, huh? A few days of deciding whether or not you want your daughter.”

  “Don’t judge him. He didn’t wake up this morning—”

  “I’m trying so hard not to, Soph. But you need to see this guy.”

  “You think I haven’t looked him up? Of course, I have. He’s up on my laptop right now.”

  “Okay, good.” I straighten in my seat, prop my elbows on the table. “So, you understand exactly what I mean.”

  “I understand where Lily got those gorgeous eyes. And gorgeous smile. And general gorgeousness.”

  I resist the urge to literally go grrr into the phone. “Being good-looking does not equal father material.”

  “Of course it doesn’t! I’m only going off what I see, and oh boy, he’s a hot piece of ass.”

  “A slob. He’s a slob,” I correct. My free hand is waving around, and I’m really getting into it now. “His entire apartment smelled like sex. It was eight in the morning, and he didn’t have a shirt on, no wait, didn’t even have a towel on—”

  “Hold on, you saw him naked?”

  “Not the point, Soph.” And it certainly wouldn’t help my case if I told her that yes, he’s gorgeous all over. “And a girl—this girl—stumbles out after him, dressed from last night. He’s not the type to offer breakfast. Just Ubers. And you know what? I don’t think he knew her name.”

  “Carter, we’ve established he’s got pretty boy problems.”

  It isn’t the time to remind Sophie that I’ve known about his pretty boy luck long before this moment. He was the guy I’d had the biggest crush on during senior year at UF. A crush so big and unrequited that when Paige confessed to sleeping with him on her death bed, I’d felt a yank of jealousy. Such a messed up, fucked up, thing to feel when your friend’s breathing is slowing down in front of you.

  I wonder now if Paige deliberately didn’t tell me Locke was the father back then because she knew. That she worried if she told me, I’d become a jealous cone of silence, and she’d be forced to face her pregnancy alone. At the thought, the yank of jealousy turns into a boulder of loss.

  All questions I can never, ever ask her.

  “Her name, Soph,” I say now. “He had no clue. And I’m looking at him like, this is the guy Lily gets for keeps. Maybe she’s better in foster care.”

  “You don’t mean that,” Sophie says gently.

  “No. I don’t. I’m just so new at this and have no clue how to operate, and…and it’s not me. Despite my raising her, getting up in the night with her when she was sick and her mom couldn’t, giving her baths, taking her temperature, feeding her, loving her. I’m not enough. They’d rather give her to this…this cockpecker instead.”

  She snorts. “I’m sorry the law isn’t on your side, Carter. I truly am. But you are doing everything you can to give this baby the best life.”

  “By coming to a foreign, crowded, rude city, and begging a guy who can’t even remember sleeping with Paige to take on his kid.”

  “College is an…interesting time,” Sophie says. Cryptically.

  I frown into my phone. “What does that mean?”

  “It means some of us sleep with a bunch of people because we enjoy experimenting. You wouldn’t judge me for sleeping around. So, let’s not pull the trigger with Lachlan now.”

  “You’d at least remember names,” I mumble, then slurp at my cooling coffee.

  “Subject change,” Sophie says breezily. “So, you need to stay on a few more days. Got it. No problem.”

  “I’ll email work, tell them I’ll be back Monday.” I put a hand to my forehead and lean in. “Thanks for taking care of things.”

  “Always. Call me, text me, whenever you want, okay? I’m here holding down the fort.”

  “You’re the best,” I say, and we click off.

  My phone had blipped with a text when I’d been on the phone, so as I take another sip, I check my notifications.

  It’s an unknown number, one I’d…hang on…

  I bring the screen closer.

  One I’d sent a picture of Lily to? I don’t remember—

  * * *

  Can you meet me tonight? There’s a place close by.

  * * *

  Locke. And he’d sent himself Lily’s picture. I wasn’t sure whether to be pissed or bolstered by that. I decide on pissed. I reply.

  * * *

  Yes, but can you meet near my hotel instead? I’m exhausted, want to rest a little.

  * * *

  Locke: Sure. Where you staying?

  * * *

  I type Times Square, and it takes a curious amount of time for him to reply. And when he does, it’s a simple ok.

  Fine. I text back, wear more than a towel this time.

  I flip my phone over on the table and finish my coffee, glad I’d called Sophie, sort of glad Locke texted me so soon after I shit all over his bachelor livelihood.

  When I’m outside, I call a car via my app. It arrives within minutes, a nice perk to this overcrowded city.

  I open the door and get in on a sigh, beginning the long trek back to the middle of Manhattan, where the bright lights and the allure of rainbow colors are lessened by the light of day.

  6

  Locke

  That
evening, when I get to midtown, I find Carter waiting at an overly plump booth in the back of an insanely saturated, burns-the-retinas neon tourist bar.

  Stepping out from the subway into Times Square is brutal enough. But this girl expects me to navigate masses of people on the sidewalks—worse than any Los Angeles traffic jam—before walking down the most popular avenue known to the world—Broadway. Then completing my journey by entering a door with lightbulbs framing its exterior and a flashing jumbo shrimp on top.

  I’m conscious of the stares as soon as I step in, from the hostess to the teens scattered throughout the restaurant. All are squinting at me, then rushing to their phones for verification.

  News travels fast these days, infamy even more so. I’d always chased fame but was too dumb to understand it could come in the form of a dude twice my size sending my kneecap to the other side of the field just as efficiently as winning a Super Bowl Championship.

  Thank you, internet.

  “We’ve got a rookie on the field, Lachlan Hayes…” I hear on someone’s phone as I pass.

  Jesus, kids are still watching that?

  I try to ignore the feel of the flashback on my leg, and the whispers following its path.

  I’m sweaty, but that’s nothing new. As I approach Carter, I lift up my shirt to dab at my forehead, showing off my abs. Usually, the sight is enough to soften any woman.

  I should learn. Not this one.

  “Hey,” she says, setting her phone down.

  I nod a greeting, sliding into the bright red vinyl and searching for some kind of manliness in the squeal of my ass against the plastic.

  The waiter hasn’t arrived yet, so there’s no break in the awkwardness. I say, “Are you homesick?”

  She unfreezes from her stare over my shoulder. “What?”

  “Are you missing Florida?” I include the entirety of this bar in my question. “Is that why we’re in some pretend wooden boat, filled with tiki lights and over-priced Pina Coladas?”

  Her stare hardens. Uh-oh.

  “I don’t know the area very well,” she says. Obviously. “And since this is next door to where I’m staying, I thought it was the best choice. It was either this or drinks in my hotel lobby.”

  “Probably the same price there, too,” I mutter.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Nothing.” I reach for a giant glass of water that was left on the table, drinking as if bored.

  “So, you texted,” she says, and I suppose my pathetic attempt at small talk is over.

  “I did.”

  I’m about to say more, but the waiter comes. Carter is—unsurprisingly—not hungry. She looks at me as she says to the guy, “But I’ll take a Pina Colada. It’s on him.”

  I smile back at her with all my pearly whites. “And I’ll have a beer.”

  “We only have Bud Light,” says the waiter.

  “Fine. That. And…hang on.” I cluck my tongue as I peruse the menu, viscerally aware of the woman across from me, her flames growing higher the longer I take. I smother a smile. Yes, the two of us are in a very serious situation. Yes, she’s the first woman who’s ever hated me outright. But there’s something irresistibly inappropriate about it like the devil tempts me to do bad things.

  I say, “Double cheeseburger with onion rings.”

  The waiter nods and departs. Carter looks like she’s about to throat-punch me.

  “What? I stress eat.”

  She taps her fingers against the laminate covered table. Unmanicured. Short, square nails. I’m used to seeing the sharpened, neon talons that have been leaving their marks on my back for months.

  “You’re not taking this seriously, are you?” she asks.

  I lose my grin. “I am, I promise. I have a bad habit of making light of tough situations.”

  “That’s a terrible coping mechanism.”

  I think of my father, then hold my hands up in a shrugging gesture. “Can’t help it. It’s inherited.”

  She plays with the straw in her water. “Fine. Let’s pretend for a minute. I’ll cater to your inappropriate banter. Why did you want to meet me?”

  “So soon after we met the first time, you mean?”

  “It wasn’t the first time,” she says flatly.

  Fuck. She’s right. There was at least one previous evening, in college, the night I apparently impregnated her best friend who has since died. She’s dead. I have to tread carefully because the sadness that emanates from Carter practically has a taste. It makes me uncomfortable and…sad for her. Like I want to do something about it and make her smile. And hell, I bet she has a smile that melts if she knows how to use it.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry,” I say, even though I know how lame it sounds.

  “You really don’t remember?”

  Her eyes lift from the table, so big and round and vulnerable. They’re golden up close, and they catch me like a scope. I clear my throat. Look away.

  “Sure, I remember.”

  “Liar.”

  “I do,” I say in defense. “All day, I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out when I could’ve been so careless as to not wear protection with a girl. See, I don’t do that kind of shit.”

  We both lean away so the waiter can place our drinks down, then I lean back in.

  “I make sure, every time, that I suit up,” I say.

  “Figures,” she scoffs, rolls her eyes.

  I find the hairs on the back of my neck are skittering like I’m annoyed. “Okay, yeah, I sleep around, Carter. So, what? Point is, I don’t do it recklessly.”

  “How many girls have you slept with?” She catches her bottom lip and picks up her cocktail. “Sorry. Not my business.”

  “Maybe it is.”

  She pauses with the straw between her teeth. “Excuse me?”

  “Maybe it is your business,” I repeat. “You’re trying to figure out if the best place for a baby is with me.”

  She has nothing to say to that. Probably because I agreed with her. I cover my twitch of a smile with a long pull from my bottle. I like getting to her.

  “Answer is, a lot,” I say after I swallow. “I don’t know how many. And I don’t know how I got your girl pregnant. So we’ll wait on the paternity results for that.”

  She opens her mouth to argue—

  “Don’t hate me for being smart about this,” I say before she gains momentum. “I’m waiting for the confirmation.”

  She closes her mouth. Thinks. “I understand. I wouldn’t go by my word alone, either. But does that mean…?”

  I take this moment to finish half my beer and avoid thinking about being under her study. Like I have to pass her test to be considered a good guy.

  “It means,” I say when my bottle hits the table, “the moment you showed me that picture, you knew what you were doing—the second you stepped foot in NYC. You were going to change my life for good, whether or not I decide to meet this baby. And how can I, as a man, as a potential father to this kid, go on living, knowing my child is growing up somewhere away from me?”

  Her shoulders smack against the back of the booth. Her features move with a supple wave of conflict before they settle. “I didn’t do this to ruin your life.”

  “Not saying you did.”

  The waiter passes by again, and I signal for another drink. “What I’m saying is, I’ll try.”

  She blinks at that. “Try? You can’t try as a father. It’s not a suit you don’t like that you can get re-tailored when it doesn’t fit you.”

  Finally, I can’t take it anymore. “What do you want from me?”

  “What I want,” she says, emphasizing by smacking her palms on the table, covering the mascot shrimp’s ahoy matey grin, “is for you to sack up and help Lily. And don’t get me wrong, I’m just as pissed as you are that shooting your wad in a girl gives you more rights than someone who’s been with Lily since day one, but that baby needs a home, and I’ll be damned if I lose her to some family that—”

  “Wo
n’t want you around?” I finish for her.

  She’d halfway risen from her seat at this point, and in small millimeters, she sits back down. But I did it. I got her. Hurt her.

  “What makes you think I’ll want you around any more than they would?” I ask.

  “I can’t…I don’t know that.” She covers her emotion with a sip of her drink, but her hand is shaking.

  It affects me, her fear, but damned if I’m going to submit to this chick who’s judged me before she even knows me. “You come into my city, my home, on fire with accusations that I’m a shit person who doesn’t deserve a chance with a baby I didn’t know I had. You reduce me to a sperm sample. You yell at me like I deliberately missed opportunities with my daughter.” I stick on the word daughter. “What the hell makes you think you have any better chance of keeping Lily in your life with me? Because that’s what it boils down to, doesn’t it? You don’t care that Lily could possibly go to a family who loves her—she’s young enough to be adopted and not grow up in foster care. All you’re focused on is your time with her. Your ability to stay in her life. Your selfishness.”

  Her mouth opens and closes, and I blink out of my rant long enough to notice that her cheeks are shining, that her giant goblet of neon yellow slush has disguised the fact she’s crying.

  Shit. Shit. I didn’t mean to make her eyes leak.

  “I…I don’t,” she chokes out in answer, and when she pins me with those gold-carved eyes, my fingers clench around my beer. “I don’t know any of that. And I deserve everything you just said to me.”

  Oh, fuck. Now she’s all trembly and agreeing with me. I’m an ass. I’m such a dick ass.

  “I love her like her mother did,” she continues, her voice husky. She massages her throat like it’s not supposed to sound that way. “And I miss her every day I’m not with her. Some lady in a suit shows up at my apartment and says Lily has to come with her, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Three days after Paige’s funeral. But you’re wrong in assuming I don’t want what’s best for Lily. I’m trying to do what’s right for her while also honoring my best friend’s wishes. Paige wanted you to have a chance with Lily.”