Players to Lovers (4 Book Collection)

by Ketley Allison

  “You need to sleep, Locke. And do it well. And recover. And promise me, promise me, you will be there for Lily, always. That you will do what it takes to never leave her without a father.”

  Carter doesn’t have to say the last part. Because she no longer has a mother.

  “I promise,” I say.

  Carter notices the rough edge in my tone, the trembling of my fingers in her hand, and she backs up. I don’t want her to go, but I’m aware of her destination. She’s going back to Lily, and I want to be there with them. I want the three of us together.

  When Carter says some kind of good-bye and walks away, I watch her retreating back, and think, I want to do whatever it takes to be there for you, too.

  32

  Carter

  I’m a bitch.

  There’s a sick lurching in my belly every time I step forward, out of Locke’s hospital room, and into the group of people waiting to see him.

  “How was he?” Ben asks, flying out of his chair.

  “Is he doin’ okay?” Asher asks beside him. He lifts off the wall where he was menacingly leaning, crossing his tatted arms.

  “Did he seem alert?” Easton asks, standing in the middle of the waiting room, holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee.

  These three men barrel down on me. At any other time and if I were any other woman, I might’ve shrieked and run away.

  “I yelled at him,” I say instead.

  “You what?” Ben asks. Asher’s brows jump.

  “I yelled at him for being so stupid,” I repeat, then burst into tears.

  “Oh, boy,” Asher says.

  “It’s…don’t worry…” Ben says awkwardly.

  Easton comes up next to me and squeezes my shoulder. “Totally standard. It’s the only way we usually communicate with him, too.”

  I turn and bury my face in Easton’s leather, sobbing. “He can barely breathe in there, and I’m making him explain what happened, bringing up Lily as if he isn’t beating himself up about it, and you can see it, see the guilt all over him and how much he blames himself, and there I am, yelling that he’s an asshole—”

  “There, there,” Ben says behind me. He offers an awkward pat in the space where Easton isn’t rubbing my back.

  “This is stressful on all parties,” Asher pipes in. “Wait’ll his sister unloads on him.”

  “Yep,” Ben says. “He’s gonna have more bruises than he came in with.”

  “Hear that? Your yelling was nothing,” Easton assures. “His family will strip his skin off.”

  I raise my face from Easton’s chest, my cheeks hot in certain places and sticky with tears in others. “His f-family? As in more than Astor?”

  “Yeah, Astor and their dad are stuck on the FDR. Some kind of car pileup.” Ben glances at his phone. “Believe me, I’m hearing about it.”

  “He has a dad?” I say it before I think it through, breaths still hitching.

  “Uh, yeah,” Asher responds, but he’s regarding me in a where did this chick come from sort of way.

  “Locke doesn’t talk about his family very much,” I say as an explanation. And, I remember, neither do I, so maybe I deserve the lack of information. But it’s curious his dad hasn’t met Lily.

  “Probably with good reason. After his mom—”

  A cutting look from Ben shuts Asher up.

  “Anyway,” Asher says instead, “you’ll meet Papa Hayes soon.”

  I’m not pondering it too much. Now that I’ve collected myself, all I want to do is get back to Lily.

  “Text me when Astor’s here?” I ask Ben. “I’m going to be with Lily.”

  “‘Course,” he says before pocketing his phone. “You’ll probably see Astor before I talk to her. She’s going to pick Lily up.”

  “Pick up?” I ask dumbly.

  Ben shuffles uncomfortably. “Yeah…she’s been calling the hospital. Lily’s ready to be discharged. To family.”

  Familiar sickness grows in my stomach. “Right.”

  “Uh…you can stay with Lily until then. Astor requested it,” Ben says like that can lift my spirits.

  I can now go see Lily because Astor, Lily’s aunt, granted me permission.

  When would my heart stop tearing? Every time I think it’s reached the point of no repair, there’s another rip, a further shred, to an already tattered organ.

  “Let her know I’ll meet her in Lily’s room, then,” I say in a more professional tone.

  “Yep.” Ben’s not looking at me anymore.

  In fact, Easton’s arm has dropped from my shoulders and Asher’s back to wall-leaning.

  It’s a miracle they allowed me in Locke’s room in the first place. Incredibly shocking they didn’t scream, Imposter! as soon as they saw me race into Locke’s room while shouting for security.

  I slump. Mean thoughts won’t get me anywhere. And these guys have been nothing but polite so far. Their loyalty lies with Locke and the Hayes family. That’s how it should be. I’m a stranger dancing along the edges of their group, connected by a baby they’re only just getting to know.

  If I were them, I’d be cautiously polite, too.

  “See you,” I say quietly, then walk away from them.

  Nobody tries to stop me.

  Nurse Avery politely doesn’t discuss the information that I’m not Lily’s mother when I get back to the room.

  Lily’s asleep, and Nurse Avery explains they’re letting her go a little longer now without waking.

  “You should catch some shut-eye, too, honey,” she says softly as she rounds Lily’s hospital crib.

  She pats my shoulder as she departs, and that very act of kindness nearly sends me into a fresh round of tears.

  For the moment, Lily’s not being taken away, and I must remember that. Stay strong in it.

  I take a seat in the chair next to her crib, staring at the small rises and falls of her chest, and can’t help drifting off myself.

  A light jostle wakes me, and I blink my eyes open to see Astor standing above me. She’s clad in a black suit, probably rushing out of her office when she heard about Locke’s accident.

  An accident I should’ve called her about.

  “Astor, I’m so sorry,” I start, and she shushes me, glancing at Lily.

  I nod, and with her help, get out of the chair and step outside the room.

  “I didn’t call you the instant I learned what happened,” I say to her once the door to Lily’s room is shut. “I can’t believe I didn’t.”

  “There was a lot going on. You wanted to get to the hospital,” Astor says, and now I feel guilty for making her reassure me when it’s her brother and niece staying overnight at a hospital.

  “I got a phone call as soon as Locke was admitted,” Astor says. “I’m annoyed it took me this long to get here, but that’s not because of you. It’s because of fucking car idiots on a small island called Manhattan.”

  “You’ve been filled in?”

  Astor nods. “Ben told me everything. My brother…what a moron. As soon as he gets enough oxygen in his lungs, I’m depleting them again.”

  Her words are harsh, but the worry is obvious in her expression.

  “If it helps, I’ve already yelled at him,” I say.

  Astor smiles, but it’s wane at the corners. “Good girl.”

  “You’ve seen him?”

  “Not yet, I…” she trails off and fidgets with her ring. “I fucking hate hospitals. Want to get a coffee in the cafeteria? Locke’s sleeping and I don’t want to wake him, so…”

  “Lily needs the rest, too. Okay, let’s go.”

  I follow her to the cafeteria a few floors down, where we pour ourselves some old, syrupy coffee. I sweeten mine with a ton of cream and sugar, hoping that’ll make it taste better. I notice Astor does the same.

  “I worry about him, you know,” Astor says as we find seats. Being this late at night, the cafeteria has maybe two other people. I don’t need to ask her who she’s talking about. “All the time.”
/>   “I haven’t known him long,” I admit, “But maybe ‘reckless’ should’ve been the rest of the R in his middle name.”

  It makes Astor smile. “Instead of Robert? I’m sure he’d take it in a second.” Then, she looks back down at her coffee. “Ever since we were kids, he was always such a risk-taker. Being the first to sled down a hill full of snow, right onto a busy road. The only one to jump off a bridge into the water with unknown rocks below. He was…unstoppable. All the time. It’s exhausting.”

  “I can only imagine.”

  “I was always the cautious twin. The logical one.” Astor rolls her eyes. “The smart one, because I wasn’t dumb enough to risk my life on a daily basis. Until one moment managed to cut everything loose and prevent him from ever taking risks again. Losing his knee.”

  I chuckle darkly. “Or so you thought.”

  “Exactly! For him, trading bone for metal only meant he should be doing more. I understand he thinks it’s for Lily— he's strong and tough and unbreakable because that’s how he believes fathers should be.”

  I nod along because that’s precisely what I’d yelled at Locke.

  “But with a dad like ours, how could he think that? Our childhood was all about Mom because our dad was never around. And when he was, it was always to push. To be perfect, to never show your faults. Whereas Mom…” Astor’s tone cracks. “She was the softness. She cried in front of us, lost her shit at us often, broke things in the house, mended us when we needed it. She was our everything. And she was human. Unlike Dad, who thought any sort of flaw was a weakness. You can guess who Locke took after.”

  I take time to allow Astor’s words to sink in. “You said was. Your mom was.”

  “Yes. She died when we were twenty-one.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it. “What happened?”

  “Cancer,” Astor says blithely. So quickly, I’m barely given time to stiffen. “Ovarian. She endured about four years of treatment before she died.”

  “Locke…” I’m doing all I can to get the words out. “Locke never told me.”

  “No? Well, he wouldn’t.” Astor’s gaze drifts off, but she’s still speaking. “It was a really tough time for our family. He didn’t do so well when she died. That’s about the time he started to become more successful than he’d ever dreamed and also the moment he discovered booze. Dad loved it, of course. Both of them loved throwing themselves into anything that didn’t require grieving over Mom.”

  “God, Astor…” I’m listening to her, but I’m thinking about Paige. How often I threw her cancer in Locke’s face, how many times I said he didn’t understand. How many times did I say it?

  “It’s fine now, honestly. Mom wasn’t…she wasn’t okay in the end. But you know that, with Paige. I think it was the first and only time I understood death to be the better choice.”

  “Yeah,” I say. Astor brings a lot of memories to the forefront. Of Paige, frail in bed, unable to hold Lily anymore, but reaching for her anyway. Of the moment Paige said good-bye to Lily, the real, forever good-bye, because Paige knew before anyone else that it would be her last moments with her daughter.

  I love you, Lily-belle, I love you so much. And I’ll be with you, always. Carter can be the mean one to yell at you and discipline you. I get to be your angel.

  Paige was trying to make me smile with those words, but instead, she made me sob.

  And Astor, I’m sure, has similar memories rocketing through her mind.

  “Locke fell out with me at that time. Preferred his friends instead. Shit, they were such assholes. All of them, all throughout college. The women they banged…the bets.” Astor pauses to take a sip from her coffee, grimaces when she remembers where it came from. “I tried to chalk it up to Mom, to how he dealt with the grief, but no one can be that much of a dick and think they can get away with it.”

  “Did you confront him?”

  “Fuck yes. Often and always. Especially when I saw how much he drank, how loose he was with any attractive woman that passed him by. It was unhealthy and sick, in a way—” Astor cuts herself off, drags her stare back to me. “I’m sorry. This is all really insensitive of me to say, what with…”

  “Paige?” I sigh. “I’m well aware of Locke and Paige’s relationship, or lack thereof.”

  “I can’t believe they bet on her,” Astor says, shaking her head.

  The cafe goes silent. All sound funnels away from my ears and instead, there’s a clogging, cloudy weight against my head. “What?”

  Astor freezes with the coffee cup halfway to her mouth. “You didn’t know?” The cup hits the table with a clonk. “But Carter, you just said…”

  “Bet?” I grind out. “Paige was a bet?”

  “Um…” Astor pretends deep interest in the tabletop.

  “You’re a badass lawyer, Astor. You can look at me while you explain exactly—everything—you know.”

  On a deep inhale, Astor says, “Locke should be the one telling you this.”

  “He’s unavailable at the moment. And lucky for him, too weak to be punched in the throat. Tell me. Now.”

  Astor splays her hands. “I don’t know all of it. Once Locke learned about Lily, he confessed some of it to me, mostly because he was trying to convince me he actually could be the father. I was ready to sue the shit out of you,” Astor says succinctly. “For what, I wasn’t sure of at the time, but I was mighty pissed at you for coming to Locke’s door and saying he had a baby. I thought you wanted money or fame or some kind of payoff…yeah, I was ready to raise my fists.”

  “No shit,” I say. “I’d think the same thing if some girl, out of Locke’s many lines of girls, claimed he was their baby daddy. Except I didn’t. And I’m not.”

  “You’ve slept with him.”

  I gulp, but that’s all I’ll give her. “You’re deliberately changing the subject. Tell me about him and Paige.”

  Astor sighs and falls back into her chair. “It was some party, right? That you and Paige were at? The four of them saw you two—and remember, I did say they were some royal assholes in college—still are, by many degrees. And apparently you were mooning over Locke, or staring at him from afar—I’m really uncomfortable telling you this, by the way. I’m using Locke’s words, but still…”

  “Keep going,” I say through the ramming of my heart.

  “So, the guys dared him to bang your friend. They were mean like that. Those four, they got any girl they wanted”—Astor frowns at this and appears to look deep inside herself. I think, Ben, but I don’t stop her—“and, therefore, they enjoyed upping the odds on one another. Or making some sort of lame play like they did with you and Paige. Complicating things, you know. I guess in your case, they wanted to instigate a fight between you and your friend.” Astor softens at my expression. “Like I said, they’re cocksplatters.”

  I clear my throat, spin my coffee around in a jerky circle. “So, I was…Paige was…we were really nothing to him. To Locke.”

  Astor rubs her lips together as she regards me. “He was younger then.”

  “It was only two years ago.”

  “A lot’s happened since,” Astor says, and she doesn’t need to expand. The injury. Locke’s fight for sobriety. Lily.

  “How much did he get for her?” I ask.

  Astor takes a big gulp of bad coffee.

  “How much?” I repeat.

  “A grand,” she responds.

  “So that’s what Paige was worth, huh?” I stand. “That’s what Lily amounted to?”

  “Carter, that’s not fair. Sit down, I’m not your enemy—”

  “I’m going home—to Locke’s place, not my home because I have to be here to make sure Lily is…to have Lily—” I start breathing heavily, and Astor gets up from her chair.

  “Easy. Easy, Carter. Sit back down.”

  “I can’t…I’m…” Tears build up.

  “I know,” Astor says. She brings her chair around to sit by me and rub between my shoulder blades.
/>   “I was so scared today,” I whisper through a sob.

  “Me, too.”

  “Lily’s already lost so much, and she’s too young to even know. But Locke…if Locke…”

  “Listen to me.” Astor twists my shoulders. “Locke isn’t going anywhere, okay? Neither am I. Lily will always, always have a family.”

  I swallow. “Lily wasn’t born from a love story. I’m aware of that—have come to terms with it, anyway. But it breaks my heart to be told that she’s the result of a bet for cash.”

  “That doesn’t mean Locke won’t love her. He already does.”

  I scrub at my eyes. They’re hot and wet. “Right when I think…the second I get comfortable with Locke, he railroads me with something like this. A crucial piece of his past he’s hiding.”

  “I think…I think he’s not telling you everything because he’s afraid of you.”

  I snort.

  “I’m serious, Carter. Your opinion means more to him than I’ve seen in a while. Not since his coaches. Not since his mother. Maybe you need to see past the details of his secrets to understand the why. He doesn’t want to disappoint you. He wants to be perfect for Lily. That kind of pressure, especially with his kind of history, is not easy.”

  My spine bows.

  “For the longest time, he’s considered himself a failure,” Astor says. “Then you brought Lily to him. And Locke finally understands that his hardships amounted to something. Her. That baby girl.”

  Astor’s words hit me hard, but I can’t shake the unease. “All I’ve ever hoped for is for him to be honest with me.”

  “Give him time.”

  I shake my head sadly. “There’s not enough left.”

  “He’s not this perfect, athletic Hercules everyone made him out to be in college,” Astor says. “He’s flawed. Human. Stupid. But he loves that little girl and is destroying himself over what happened this afternoon.”

  I believe it. Locke, lying in a hospital bed, whiter than the sheets surrounding him. Clear agony etched in each grimace, but it isn’t only due to his physical pain. He hurt his baby. Accidentally, but she was hurt.

  “We all love her, Carter. She’s in good hands.”