Players to Lovers (4 Book Collection)

by Ketley Allison

  Fuckin’ Ash.

  Throwing on a pair of athletic shorts I find tangled at the end of the bed with some … hmm … particularly lacey dental floss, I clomp out of the bedroom toward the tantalizing smell of breakfast after sex.

  “Hey there,” the blonde says as she hears my approach. “Sit down. Food’s ready.”

  My stomach rumbles its approval. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “Well,” she purrs. “Since you showed me such a good time last night, I wanted to show you the same kind of appreciation. I’m a great cook.”

  “Are you now?”

  I attempt to peer around her to the frying pan, but frankly, if I move again I’m at risk of passing out like a fucking damsel in front of this lady.

  “Why don’t you tell me?” she says with a smile while she turns and raises a wooden spoon to my mouth.

  It’s cheesy, creamy, and just the right amount of mushy to make me want to hurl.

  “It’s—it’s good,” I choke out. I find a glass of orange juice beside me and down it.

  “You don’t like eggs?”

  “I do. Love ‘em.”

  I hate eggs. Despise them with the ultimate death stare. They should be eradicated from this world along with mosquitos. But I can’t insult this girl before I ask her to leave. I ain’t that much of a jerk.

  “How’s your head?” she asks.

  “Huh?”

  “Your head,” she repeats, lightly tapping my temple. “You were saying last night how you took a really bad fall.”

  “I told you that?”

  “Uh-huh. But you assured me your other head was just fine.”

  Okay, yeah, I believe that.

  “I smelled bacon,” I say.

  “Here.” She puts the entire plate of crispy, still-sizzling bacon in front of me, and I’m a happy clam. When I crunch down on one I think, damn, now I’m really going to feel shitty for kicking her out when she makes the best crispy bacon this side of Manhattan.

  I wonder if she works in a restaurant, or is some kind of chef, especially considering I met her with Ash. It’s then my mind fires up its backup battery, reminding me she better not work with Ash or be any sort of semi-permanent fixture in my inner circle. That would’ve been an incredibly amateur move on my part last night.

  Damn, I truly wish I remembered what went on.

  But she has to go. To be real, there’s only one blonde I have room for in my life, and she’s in the form of a one-and-a-half-year-old.

  Speaking of…

  I check my watch and curse when I realize I only have about forty-five minutes before I’m meeting Locke, Lily, and Carter in Brooklyn.

  “I’m sorry to do this, but I really have to roll,” I say to the blonde.

  She shrugs and takes the pan off the heat. “Okay.”

  My chin jerks back. Could it be this easy? It’s never this easy.

  “I put my number in your phone,” she says with a wink, and fuck-damn, she peels off my shirt she’s wearing and stands in front of me bare-ass naked. “You should call me.”

  Or fuck you on the kitchen table right now.

  Priorities, Benny-boy. I’m seeing my honorary niece today, and nothing, not even a great pair of tits and an excellent ass, could keep me from it.

  “Will do,” I say, honestly impressed. “I’ll for sure remember you.”

  She smiles and pats my head affectionately. “You can’t even recall my name, but that’s okay. Hot Piece worked for you last night, and it works for you now.”

  “Hot Piece? That’s what I called you?”

  “Often.”

  She sashays away, her plump ass-cheeks molding firm with each step. “Where did you come from?”

  “Daddy’s Girls, down the road.”

  “I … hang on a second.” I stand and follow her to the bedroom. “You work at the local strip joint?”

  “Sure do, B-Daddy.”

  I fucked a stripper? Holy hell, what did Ash give me last night? And why did I want to be called B-Daddy?

  “It’s Penny, by the way. My name,” she says as she steps into her thong and shimmies it up her hips, making her tits bounce.

  There we go. That’s why I fucked a stripper.

  “Uh, nice to meet you.”

  “Uh-huh. Finish those eggs of mine, and the bacon. Too good to waste.” She pulls on a hot pink, velvet dress. “Oh, and you should also call back that guy who keeps calling you.”

  “Guy? What guy?” I round the bed, lifting the covers so I can find my phone.

  I feel a pat on my ass and see Penny holding it.

  “Thanks,” I say, but I’m already focused on scrolling through my missed calls. I don’t enjoy receiving unknown phone calls, even less so from men, since everyone I need to speak to doesn’t usually call me incessantly in the dead of night or early mornings. Text messages are more my jam.

  “You spoke to him a little in the car back to your place. Aiden, I think his name was?”

  A cold chill rushes down my spine. “Aiden? You’re sure that’s the name you heard?”

  She shrugs. “Pretty sure. Anyway, be seeing you around, B-Daddy. Always a good time.”

  Penny rises up on her toes and pecks me on the cheek, likely leaving a bright pink mark, but I’m not considering the stain, or the fact that always a good time means we’ve fucked more than one night, because the name she flicked off her tongue like it was nothing … means everything.

  “See you ‘round,” I mutter, my phone already to my ear.

  He picks up the moment Penny saunters out of my apartment.

  “Ben? Jesus, took you long enough.”

  “Yeah, I was … busy. What’s up?”

  “I don’t think I should tell you over the phone. We should meet.”

  “It’d be more dangerous if we meet, Aiden. You’re not even supposed to have this number.”

  “I know, I know. But this is … urgent.”

  “Then spit it out.”

  “I really think we should—”

  “Aiden. Fucking. Tell. Me.”

  My heart’s pounding louder than my words, and I’ve been told when I become angry, I go guttural. And I’m getting angry.

  He sighs. “It’s about your parents.”

  He’s not talking about my adoptive mom and dad. “You found something?”

  “More than something, Ben. Just know I would’ve appreciated giving this news to you face-to-face. The killers have been found.”

  I want to sit down, but I can’t. If I sit on my bed, I’ll just fall back, splaying out, and it won’t be like it is on the field. No one will yell at me to get up. Crowds won’t heckle from the sidelines. So, I’ll simply stay there, reverting to the four-year-old me, unable to move, covered in blood and stench and ash.

  My next words come out as an illicit, low-toned growl. “What did you just say?”

  “Your parents’ murders have been solved.”

  6

  Astor

  I’m meant to meet my brother, his daughter, and his girlfriend, Carter, this afternoon in Brooklyn, and I honestly can’t get out of bed.

  Last night was rough, to say the least. The left side of the king-sized bed is cold, because Mike didn’t sleep there—won’t ever rest there again.

  This is a good thing, I remind myself as I sit up. The ache will go away. The feel of cold sheets on my skin will dissipate. The draw of nestling into a warm body during the rising dawn before a busy day will become a forgotten memory.

  I throw off the sterling gray Egyptian cotton (Mike’s choice) and pad into our attached bathroom, outfitted with matte stainless-steel attachments and plush cream fabrics (my choice), turning on the tap and splashing cold water on my face. I can’t avoid my reflection, so I face it dead-on and categorically go through exactly what make-up I’ll need to appear confident, carefree and happy to my brother’s small family.

  The acne that riddled my cheeks and T-zone for my entire young adulthood is long gone. I owe the top
dermatologist in New York City for all the lasers, creams, and sharp utensils that were employed to give me a flawless complexion—with enough pore-refining foundation applied. If one looks closely, the scars are still there.

  I stretch the skin on my cheeks. Perhaps I should go back to him for the new stress wrinkles cropping up. Maybe there’s a discount for women who dump cheating men.

  Lotions, cosmetic cases, and perfume bottles clack together as I rifle through my vanity drawer for the right things. The routine in applying make-up and blurring imperfections has become second nature, almost needed, ever since college. There isn’t much I can do about my body—still skinny, still boobless—but with the barrage of YouTube videos and Instagram influencers, I’ve managed to gain confidence through color. My hair is highlighted just so. My eyes defined in exactly the right way to make the blue irises pop, and my thin lips are accentuated enough to appear mildly plump. Thank you, Kylie Jenner.

  Through a lot of expensive treatments and practiced tricks, Acne Hayes is long, long, long gone.

  Except when Ben’s around. At that point, I can’t stop the awkwardness from building, the memories from assailing, and before I know it, I’m back to the knobby-kneed, wide-eyed, pimple-faced Astor who couldn’t make it past sophomore year before being utterly and completely humiliated in front of the entire college campus.

  Everybody saw it. That picture of me, my pale skin whiter than the sheets barely wrapped around my body, with Ben fully clothed to my right. He even had his sports bag slung across his shoulder, like he was running from the pathetic seduction attempt from his best friend’s ugly sister, and that was exactly what all the memes had said.

  * * *

  ERMAGERD, FERK ME.

  ARE ZITS CONTAGIOUS?

  AVOID THE CRATER.

  STDs to the FAAAAAAACE.

  RUN, BEN, RUN!

  BIG BEN POPS BIG ZIT.

  Anything you can think of, it was said. It was photoshopped. There was even a GIF, where the pimples on my face all popped at once, animated cartoon puss flying everywhere, while Ben’s cartoon dick shrank like a leaking balloon.

  Some were clever. Most were annoyingly lazy. All were hurtful.

  The worst part was, Ben didn’t say anything. Didn’t find me or ask if I was okay, or even stop the picture from circulating. He took my demand to heart and fucked off forever. I just wish he hadn’t. Every girl hopes for a guy to fight for them, and I was no different back then. Despite what I said, regardless of the fury and curses I unleashed, I wanted him to come back.

  But he stayed as far away as possible, and I didn’t try to find him. I was too embarrassed to do anything about it, except cry and delete any picture I found from my browser history. It made every encounter since incredibly awkward, considering he is Locke’s best friend and won’t physically go anywhere any time soon. Therefore, I made our meet-ups less. It sacrificed my relationship with Locke, but I couldn’t think of anything else to lessen my humiliation. I couldn’t look at Ben. Couldn’t remember what happened between us, since it was all a game to him despite meaning everything to me.

  How do you come back from that kind of heartbreak? You harden yourself to it, that’s what. Calcify the edges, cement the emotion. Basically become so full and heavy, any locking of eyes renders nothing but deadweight.

  That’s what we’ve become, Ben and me.

  I didn’t tell Locke about what happened. If he knew about it, he didn’t approach me, especially since I wasn’t coming to him first. That’s the Hayes way. Bury secrets, deal with scandals privately, never show emotion. Until the death of our mother, we played by those rules just fine.

  And after we watched her die a slow, cancerous decay, well … the embarrassment of my small internet fame became obsolete. Nothing compares to losing her. I’d become a new person by then, a harder one. A lot of people call me cruel and callous—my ex-fiancé included—but there are others who love it. My clients, for one. The partners in my firm. I’m smarter. Quicker. More apt to sin than abide by anyone’s sainthood. And there is no chance I’m ever going to be destroyed like that again. Not by Ben, not by anyone.

  The mere memory has me glowering at the mirror, since my own mind, annoyingly traitorous on a good day, has reminded me that I’m in quite a similar position now.

  “No,” I say to the put-together, smoothed down, flawless Astor Hayes that is my reflection. “It’s not the same. It won’t be.”

  I give my hair a last comb-through with my fingers, loosening what the flat iron has pancaked into submission. It’s a Saturday morning. I can’t be Lawyer Astor when I join my family for brunch. I’m pretty sure I’ve freaked Carter out enough with that kind intimidation, especially with my height, so now I’m trying a nice, approachable tactic. I do like her—and nobody’s more surprised by that than me.

  Carter Jameson is a special person, for a great many reasons. She saved my brother, brought me a niece, and has never asked for anything in return. She just is, and it’s been a while since I’ve met anyone like her.

  So, if my pin-straight bob scares the shit out of her, I’ll try a few waves and bounce. Especially considering I’m down a fiancé during this family gathering. This might be the perfect time for change.

  Outwardly, anyway.

  Twenty more minutes, and I’m ready in a simple pair of jeans and a cream cashmere sweater. As usual, February is a complete bitch in New York City, literally the worst month ever in the winter, and I’m not looking forward to the slushy, icy, chilling trek into Brooklyn with barely any subway access that my brother refuses to move out of.

  The last thing I do before exiting my apartment is put on my engagement ring.

  I’m not ready to deal with those kinds of questions yet.

  I go the frugal path and take the subway to Locke’s place rather than a car. I get an impromptu steam inside my parka as I sat in the overcrowded car of the train among all the other winter-clad passengers, our down jackets and cotton peacoats with hats and gloves creating a cloying atmosphere in such a small space. Shoes and boots squeak against the wet floor every time the train brakes. Dirt pellets, giant pieces of salt, and melting snow rolls around with us. I wait for a rat’s whiskers to poke out between a seated person’s shoes.

  When I first moved here, clients wouldn’t know the deep-dives I took in what is basically New York City’s moldy sewer system. I’d always arrive fresh-faced, bright-eyed, and wrinkle-free, because I’d leave for my destinations two hours early, even if that meant descending into the subway at 4 AM. It gave me enough time to get all my curse words out, shove enough people out of my way, switch out my runners for heels, smooth down my hot, windblown hair, and shake hands with serenity.

  As a first-year associate trying to make it in a White Shoe firm, time worked against me. As a woman, time also worked backwards, making it crucial to nab any opportunities, even if it meant catching a train at Greenpoint in the dead of night to impress my supervisor with a fifty-page motion before he had time to arrive and make himself a cup of coffee.

  Why I decided to take the train this morning—on a weekend no less, when the schedule slowed exponentially, and tourists fell all over themselves because they can’t balance on moving trains—lies in the background of my thoughts, and I’m reluctant to bring it forward.

  Mike was always in the car with me.

  To rest against the black leather this morning, surrounded by interior silence while the city wails outside, would give me too much time to understand my current circumstance and just how much this career has made me sacrifice.

  Has it made me give up on love?

  Ugh. When did I become so unhappy?

  The conductor’s garbled announcement that we’ve reached the station hits my ears, saving me from myself. I stand, weaving my body around arms, torsos and legs, much like the Grinch on Christmas morning, until I reach the doors and stumble out into the cool(ish) air of the platform.

  I check my watch as I sprint up the stairs and onto th
e street. Late, as usual, but Locke is used to it and pretty immune to any excuses I come up with, especially if they involve words like motion and contracts and Mike.

  I don’t dwell on the implications and instead focus on the one true beam of light in my life: Lily.

  Locke’s daughter, my niece, who somehow has reached the ripe age of one-and-a-half within the blink of an eye. I feel like she entered my life yesterday and can’t believe the personality coming out of such a tiny rockstar. I’m proud to say that the second word she ever learned was no.

  When I reach the outside of Locke’s worn-down, crumbling brick apartment complex, I wonder why he isn’t utilizing the money he received by the NFL by getting his family a better place. A better area.

  “Hey, come on up,” Locke says through the speaker.

  I frown at the lopsided, dented metal he sounded out through after I buzzed.

  Throwing open the main door, I clomp up the stairs, kicking off any salt and snow my boots collected on the two-block walk over here.

  Locke’s door is cracked open in anticipation of my arrival, and I walk through, enjoying the waft of warm, humanity, and the food-smells it brings.

  Cinnamon. Cranberry. Pumpkin.

  Carter’s taken all the Autumn New York had to give and selfishly kept it in this apartment, while the rest of us are left to deal with gray, slush, and frozen garbage.

  “I could be anyone, you know,” I say in greeting while pulling off my boots. I whack them against the doorframe for good measure, dislodging any remaining filth and leaving them in the hallway. “You should at least ask who it is before you buzz me in.”

  “Nice to see you too, sis,” Locke says as he comes out of the kitchen, holding Lily.

  Maybe I should’ve led with the instant feeling of belonging stepping through this threshold gave me.

  “Where’s Mike?” he asks.

  “He’s busy,” is all I say.

  Locke’s expression remains carefully blank. “Uh-huh.”

  Lily claps her hands upon laying eyes on me, screeching, “Ah! AH!”