Players to Lovers (4 Book Collection)

by Ketley Allison

  I remember how his gang of buddies looked at me. What they think.

  Paige always made fun of me for caring too much. Being too much of a people pleaser. Yet here I am, changing Lily on autopilot, my mind distracted by the guy lying on the couch in the other room, clearly in pain.

  But did that give him an excuse to be a dick to me? Hell, no. And as soon as I finish wiping one human’s bum, I’m not about to kiss another.

  The meeting at the cafe went well enough. I was lucky Pierce, the owner, was open to another artist. I was even luckier to have Pierce express interest in the artwork, a few pieces of which I showed him on my phone. I was lucky Locke took pity on me and let me stay for a while longer with Lily.

  This past week, I’ve been really lucky.

  Maybe, it’s time for it to run out.

  “Baby,” I whisper, and pull Lily close so I can smell her sweet smell. She coos, grabbing for my hair.

  Laughing, I pull back. “When are you gonna talk to me, huh? Or grow some teeth?”

  She grins at me, displaying her full, pink, toothless mouth.

  “God, I love you.” I hold her tight until she demands I don’t and balance her on the floor, taking her hands.

  “How ‘bout we show Dad your catwalk?”

  “Ahbahdahba.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Keeping a hold on her like a puppeteer, I prop the nursery door open with my foot while Lily and I toddle out.

  We come into view before Locke notices, and I take in his dark frown, his thousand-yard stare into the wall, and I want to know everything he’s thinking.

  Does he regret having me here? Is he gearing up to ask me to leave?

  “Hey, Dad,” I say with forced cheer.

  Reluctantly, Locke uses his neck, but when he lands on Lily, she can’t help but crack through his barriers.

  “Look at you!” he says, propping himself up. He covers it well, but I notice the grimace and wonder, again, why he won’t take any medicine for it.

  “Walk to Daddy,” I say to Lily, and let go.

  Tentatively, she takes a few steps and watching Locke’s face go from depressed to brooding to ecstatic, I want to kick myself for not showing him sooner.

  “She’s got her sea legs!” he says, and claps when Lily does. “C’mere, little sputnik.”

  She screeches and walks faster, then topples to her hands and knees.

  “Whoops,” Locke says.

  It pains him, but he moves his legs off the couch, then gets onto the ground with her, worsening the strain.

  Jesus Christ, I’m an idiot. I can’t do anything right, not even cheer him up properly without forcing him to use his knee.

  “The coffee shop was a dumb idea,” I blurt out.

  Locke glances up. “What?”

  I gesture to the front door. “The art display, all of it. It’s so stupid. I don’t know what I…” I shake my head, resist the urge to cover my face with my hands. “What am I doing here?”

  To prevent further injury to Locke, I scoop Lily, bring her to the door, open it, and jerkily drag the stroller in. Locke’s attempting to stand, using the ottoman as a prop. “Carter, wait. I need to process what you’re saying.”

  “See?” I say with high-pitched strain. “I come into your apartment, clearly interrupting your quiet time, and when I notice you’re sad, all I want to do is make it right, and what’s better than a baby fresh off her nap? But instead of making anything better, I hurt you further.”

  “I don’t…” He shakes his head as if dislodging cotton balls. “Speak slower.”

  “All I’m doing by being here is creating hurt. For you, for Lily. For me.”

  Locke huffs out a breath and rakes one hand through his hair as he falls back onto the couch. “You’re not creating a problem by being here.”

  The whole thing comes out as a sigh. “Yeah, you’re really convincing me right now.”

  His hand falls from his head, and he asks the ceiling, “What is it you want from me?”

  “To…to…” I have no idea. I left the cafe feeling pretty good about the present, falling into a routine and looking forward to having dinner with Lily and Locke. Locke. He’s an unexpected addition in my happy family imagination, but I don’t mind it. I want to hear his lame jokes over dinner and watch him spoon-feed Lily when she’s finished flinging pasta at the walls. I want to see him laugh over something I said and look at me a little too long over his forkful of food that I made.

  Except, what I walked into was the exact opposite. Locke, angry, alone, and wallowing. Lily, asleep and unable to create an amusing buffer between us. He’s angry at me. Locke’s angry at my presence.

  And that doesn’t just hurt. It destroys.

  “I’m taking her for a walk,” I say instead, even though I’ve already mentioned it to Locke. “We’ll be back in an hour or so.”

  “Shouldn’t you stay?” But he doesn’t mean it. I can tell. His eyes are hooded, and he appears to be ten seconds from passing out.

  “Nothing more needs to be said.” I can’t look at Lily for this part. “I’ll start looking for flights.”

  Locke jerks upright. “Carter—no. How I acted before, I was an ass. I don’t want you to leave.”

  “But I have to,” I say and hate how I tremble. “This isn’t real. We’ve been play acting.”

  “What about all these paintings?” He motions to my stack. “Your plans here? You don’t need to leave. We’re having a fight. That doesn’t mean I want to kick you out.”

  I pause with my hands on the stroller’s handles. “We’re having a fight?”

  “I…are we?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I’ve never fought with a guy before. My parents, sure. Brother, definitely. But to fight with a guy would mean having some kind of relationship with one, and for the most part, Paige and I kept to ourselves in college.

  Well. Present company excluded, of course.

  “Look, my sister wants to take you out,” Locke says.

  “Huh?”

  Lily’s making impatient sounds, so I start pushing the stroller in a rocking motion.

  “Tomorrow night. So you can’t leave.”

  I’m pretty sure Astor hates me. “I don’t know if that’s…”

  “Enough to keep you here? Believe me, I know. Astor’s a lot. But deep down, she’s soft and squishy and won’t bite. I promise.”

  I lift my chin. “I wouldn’t say she’s—wait. You’re trying to distract me.”

  He grins, and even when laced with a grimace, it’s disarming. “Is it working?”

  No, but you are.

  My shoulders relax. “I don’t want to be a burden.”

  “Do I look like a guy who’d lie down for a chick?” Locke asks with emphasis.

  “Uh…”

  Locke gives me a flat stare. “Not that kind of lie down. Look, I’m no doormat. If I didn’t want you here, I’d tell you. I’m moody, though. Can’t help you there.”

  Lily’s frantically turning herself into a human pretzel to escape her harness.

  “I’d better go,” I say.

  “Yeah.” Locke waves us off. “Go. But make sure to come back, okay?”

  I offer him a small, deflated smile as I push the stroller through the doorway. “I’m not going to abscond with your baby.”

  “I don’t just mean the baby.”

  The door’s almost shut, but I catch a glimpse of his face as he says it, and in those brief seconds, I detect nothing but irritation.

  It makes no sense, his words coupled with his expression, but I’m coming to understand that about Locke. The conflict and layers and constant upkeep it takes for him to keep pretending everything in his life is okay.

  I lift the stroller the way I saw Locke do it—surprised by the lightness—and descend the staircase sideways. Lily smacks at my face and tries to palm my nose. I blow a raspberry at her, but I’m thinking about the man I left behind, and how I’m coming to learn
that sometimes, it’s not kindness I crave.

  Seeing Locke angry is upsetting. But understanding its impact unearths a sexual lust coiled beneath my bones.

  I’m used to emotional charge. Usually in the roller coaster form of grief, thinking everything will be all right, like when the treatment’s working and Paige has more energy, before the crash of devastation when told there’s nothing more that can be done.

  But this ride with Locke…the leap from anger to happiness to sweetness, then back to anger, in such a short amount of time, has me wanting to lift my dress and deal with the overdrive in an entirely different way. I want to straddle him, to massage and kiss and tame him.

  I shudder as I drop Lily’s wheels to the ground.

  Maybe…

  I can keep looking forward to dinner.

  Lily and I spend some time at the nearby park, and I’m pushing her on the swings while she ogles the bigger kids making expert use of the playground.

  “One day, honey,” I say.

  She gurgles, then puts her fist in her mouth as I push her.

  “Before you know it, you’ll be big and strong and walking more than you’re falling, and—” The realization is like a throat punch. And I won’t be here to see it.

  “Ah!”

  Lily’s hands splay out as she cries, her bunny dropping to the soft tarmac at our feet.

  “I got it, honey,” I say, picking it up. “Now he’s got park dirt on him instead of just the sidewalks and subways of NYC.”

  She rips it from my hands and shoves a fluffy ear into her mouth, staring at me with beguile. I can’t help but stroke a chubby cheek as she chomps.

  Wallowing over my absence from Lily’s daily life does Locke a disservice. He more than tolerates me, maybe even likes me. There’s nothing to indicate he’ll keep Lily from me after…whatever this is…is finished and I go back to Florida.

  And this is exactly what I’m resolving on the way back to Locke’s place.

  There has to be stated terms, lines drawn. We can’t keep living in this fantasy where he’s the dad, and I’m the pretend mom and Lily is happy with us both by her side.

  For my sake, there has to be a finite end to this masquerade.

  “You’ll always be my heart,” I say to the top of Lily’s head as we stop at the door.

  I buzz up to the apartment, and instead of hearing the answering zzzzzz to tell me the door’s open, there’s silence.

  Could Locke have fallen asleep? I try again.

  The door bursts open when I lift my finger to attempt a third time.

  “Locke!” I say once a face appears.

  His cheeks are red from exertion—or, more likely, contained pain—and he gestures for me to get out of the way so he can handle the stroller.

  “You can’t keep doing this,” I say to him.

  “I’m just fine.”

  “I’m no doctor, but all you’re doing is ruining whatever work was done to repair your leg in the first place.”

  “Goddamn, you people,” he grunts as he lifts. “Let me be the judge of it for once.”

  “Don’t lump me in with your friends, whom I don’t even know,” I say as I follow him inside. Before he can yell at me, I’m lifting some weight off him, and we’re climbing the stairs together. “Though they’re right.”

  He doesn’t respond and is probably ignoring me, the way I’ve noticed he deals with most issues he doesn’t like, and when we make it inside his apartment, I’m instantly sidelined by the smell.

  “You cooked?” I ask.

  “Yes, I cook,” he says. He’s already unstrapped Lily and is carrying her to the kitchen. While limping.

  I walk up to him and lift Lily out of his arms. He’s annoyed but allows me to do it.

  Keeping Lily safely away from any escaping steam, I lift the lid of the pot on the stove with my free hand.

  “Pasta with red sauce,” Locke says, and I realize he’s peering over my shoulder, so close I can almost smell him over the scent of garlic and onion. “Also known as the only thing I can cook successfully.”

  “It smells delicious.” I step away, but not because the food isn’t enticing. Because he is. “But I would’ve been happy to whip up something. You didn’t have to go to the trouble.”

  “I’m aware. You like to pay your way. But I wanted to do something to make up for my attitude earlier.”

  I incline my head. “Is this apologetic pasta?”

  Locke’s lips do a down curve.

  I can’t help but breathe out a small laugh. “I guess it is.”

  “Yes,” he says. Begrudgingly. “Sometimes, I let other people’s opinions get to me too much.”

  Lily wriggles out of my hold. When she goes to open one of the bottom cabinets, I move to stop her, but notice Locke has already baby-proofed them. When I glance at him, he’s back to his arrogant smirk.

  “Didn’t trust me to hide the knives, huh?”

  Whatever vulnerability he was about to allow to escape has long vanished. I straighten. “One can never be too careful.”

  Locke busies himself pulling plates out of the top cabinets. “So, you’ll go?”

  “Go where? Back to Florida?”

  “No, out with my sister. She’s assaulting me via text. I have to give her an answer.”

  “Uh, sure. I guess.”

  “So that means you’re staying.” Locke smirks again, but there’s more behind it this time. It’s not just for show.

  “With no uncertain terms,” I state firmly.

  He cocks a brow, that one-sided move that few know how to do with such carefree arrogance. “Go ahead. Make them certain.”

  “We can’t keep going on like this. We both know that.” I follow him to the table, hooking under Lily’s arms on the way and settling her into the high chair. “This evening proves that.”

  “True.”

  “So, we need a timeline.”

  Locke places his palms on the wooden table, leaning closer to me on the other side. He ponders for a moment, his forehead going smooth and his stare drifting over my shoulder. He’s so close I can trace his cheekbones, maybe press a thumb to his lower lip, bigger than his upper, tantalizing enough to bite.

  “Lily’s first birthday is coming up, right?”

  His question has me drifting up to his stare, now hooded, his eye color darkened by his lashes, but no less compelling.

  “Yes,” I manage to say.

  “You should be there for that.” His voice has gone soft, husky, and I’m back to staring at those lips.

  Unconsciously, I lick my own. I hear a low growl in response.

  I’m damp in unspeakable places. I want to cross my legs, to brush up against pleasure, but I’m standing. The last thing I want to be is upright. Under him, on top of him, those are positions I’d prefer…

  I want to scrape my teeth against his jaw.

  “BAH!”

  We both startle apart, Lily appearing in the middle of us, smacking her palms on her plastic table.

  The very reason I’m forbidden to have this fantasy stares back at me. Paige’s daughter. Locke’s child.

  Because they slept together. Locke and Paige came together in the most intimate way. He hugged her curves, she caressed his body. They were naked, heard each other’s sighs, together.

  I’m lucky Lily is here policing the situation.

  Phantom cold water splashes against my cheeks and I stumble farther away. “Lily’s birthday. That’s in a little under three weeks. I can do that.”

  As much as instinct screams at me to leave now, to back away from Locke, I can’t leave Lily so soon. Locke’s right, I’d love to be here for such a milestone.

  “That’s settled then.” Locke’s scratching at his chin as if he’s also coming to terms with what we almost did.

  “Yep. Settled. I’ll get the pasta.”

  I scurry away, conscious of Locke’s stare on my back and look for a hot plate to set down the pot. Finding none, I bring the pasta and a ha
nd towel to put under the still-steaming pan. Locke watches me do all this with careful consideration.

  “Huh,” he says with a shoulder jerk like I’ve just come up with the solution for gravity.

  “You need a potholder,” I snap, then plop down on the chair and start serving Lily.

  I avoid his stare throughout dinner, and he doesn’t attempt small talk, other than trying to learn Lily’s language. Outside city noises are the soundscape to our dinner, but I prefer it that way. In fact, I prefer the solid, tangible, cold wooden table coming between us. And Lily herself, sharing Paige and Locke’s DNA, because of sex. Paige and Locke had sex.

  So many glaring reasons during this very dinner to stay far away from whatever inkling is stirring in my soul, enticing and seductive as it uncoils.

  Three more weeks will not give me enough time to fall in love with Lachlan Hayes.

  I’ll make sure of it.

  16

  Locke

  Three more weeks won’t give me enough time to sleep with Carter Jameson.

  I’ll make sure of it.

  It’s four in the morning, and I’m lying awake in bed, too aware of Carter in the next room. As far as I know, Lily sleeps through the night. If the baby stirs at all and Carter comforts her, I don’t know, because I’ve never had to get up and check.

  That will all change when Carter leaves. She’ll have to tell me what Lily’s habits are at night.

  Because Carter is leaving. It’s official now.

  I should be glad. Instead, I roll over and spear my shoulder into the mattress, punching at my pillow that’s gone too flat. Then my knee starts up, pissed I’ve moved it again.

  I think about the pills I’ve hidden away in an empty bottle of antifreeze underneath the sink, way in the back, behind the plumbing.

  Ben, Asher, Easton think I’m clean, and I am. To a point. Six months ago, I couldn’t see straight, happy to be buzzed within a cocoon spun from Oxy threads. No future, no decisions, only the simple act of popping pills and drifting away. And that felt pretty fucking good.