Players to Lovers (4 Book Collection)

by Ketley Allison

  I rest a hand on my forehead, closing my eyes for a few precious seconds.

  “Lily.” Carter comes forward, resting a hand on my upper arm. “Locke isn’t the only one she’s healing.”

  I drop my hand. “Healing? Who says I need fixing?”

  Carter angles her head. “You know, every time I saw you before tonight, you used to play with your engagement ring. Spin the diamond around, feel the ridges as you spoke, rest it against your lips as you thought. These past few times I’ve seen you, you haven’t touched it.”

  I glance at her through slits of vision. Sometimes, I don’t enjoy how perceptive she’s becoming. It’s like she’s starting to know me well, and I’m not sure how I feel about another woman recognizing my every flaw. “I’ve been stressed.”

  “Mike hasn’t been around.”

  “Oh, not you, too.”

  “Astor, I’m not them.” Carter raises her chin in the direction of the floors above us. “I’m not going to dismiss what’s going on. You’re either fighting with Mike or you’ve broken up, and neither are wonderful scenarios. You’re hurting. Please, talk to me.”

  “I…” I shake my head.

  Carter sighs. “Fine. If you won’t talk to me about it, then I’m going to have to go to Plan B. And you’re not going to like it.”

  I back away suspiciously.

  “I’m going to hug you.”

  “It’s really not necess—” Too late. Her surprisingly strong arms are around me, and despite the bulk of my coat, she’s got a good, boa constrictor grip.

  Thankfully, she doesn’t hold it for long. She squeezes for about the length it takes for me to soften and submit to her concern, before she lets go.

  “One thing I hated when my best friend, Paige, died,” she says, “is the amount of people saying, ‘I’m here for you if you need me.’ The sentiment was there, obviously, but it was so clear that people didn’t know what to say after that. And they have no idea what an empty promise it is. Did they think I was going to call them up and say, ‘I need you here for me?’ No. I felt alone, adrift, and was afraid to call anyone, because I didn’t want to depress them or make them more uncomfortable than they already were.”

  My car’s pulling up outside, but I look back at Carter. She’s hitting notes in my memory like a conductor drawing out the crescendo in his orchestra.

  “My one remaining friend, Sophie, she was different,” Carter says. “Every morning, she’d send me a text and say I’m downstairs with two cups of coffee. Come visit whenever you’re ready. I’ll wait for a few hours. If you don’t come, that’s okay, too. But I’ll be here tomorrow. And the next day. I’ll wait for however long you need.”

  Carter’s eyes are shining, this time with bittersweet tears.

  “So, this is what I’m going to say to you,” Carter continues. “Tomorrow, I’m going to have lunch around your office for an hour or two. You can take a break, come meet me if you want.”

  “I might be busy—”

  “If you can’t, that’s okay, too, Astor.” Carter smiles. “I’ll wait for however long you need.”

  My lips are moving, but I don’t know what to say. No one has ever given me this kind of offer before, of patience. A willingness to accept my personality for what it is but be available anyway.

  “Thank you, Carter,” I say, and mean it. I head to the clear glass door to exit.

  “You’re welcome.”

  I pause at the threshold, my hand on the glass, pushing the door open and letting in an ice-driven wind, but I say to her through the chill, “My mom.”

  Carter’s brows rise, probably jarred by the fact that I’m creaking open the door to my soul, just a little. “Yeah?”

  “When it comes up in conversation, that she’s dead … I’m so tired of making other people feel okay that they haven’t lost theirs.”

  Carter’s lips part with a gentle smile. “You never have to do that with me. Tell me all of it. Every painful, sad, grief-stricken detail, and I won’t ever make you feel bad for it.”

  I give a closed-mouth, tentative smile back. I wave goodbye and turn and shove my beanie on my head before she can see any tracks of water down my face.

  15

  Ben

  I’m doing something stupid.

  It’s incredibly obvious as I stand in front of a fifty-story luxury apartment complex in the Financial District, one hand holding a plastic bag steaming out its scent so passersby think I’m an incredibly large delivery boy.

  Night’s fallen, causing the wintry frost of New York City to become a dark ice pit of hell. Yet here I stand, my breath blowing out cold, puffy clouds, my face numb, and my ears prickling like a tiny elf is stabbing them with icicles.

  I don’t step forward through the doors and into the warm interior of the gold-washed lobby.

  “Excuse me,” someone says from behind, and brushes my shoulder as they walk by and cruise through the revolving doors. The person looks back once, twice, and the third time I cock a half-smile at their recognition.

  “Are you…?” he begins, but the doors are forced to circle by someone else stepping in, and off my wayward fan goes, tripping over his own feet as he tries to keep up with the swing.

  Hey, at least it wasn’t Mike.

  That’s the risk, isn’t it? I’m standing in front of Astor’s building, and at any moment, Mike could spot me.

  It’s not like I’m doing anything wrong. I’ve been around Astor plenty of times before and Mike hasn’t given a shit—his mistake, really, but he’s got the instincts of a trash panda, so no surprise there. If I see him, I can just say Astor wasn’t feeling well and I was bringing her a to-go bag of Ash’s cooking.

  I screw up my mouth into a sneer. The fact that I’m attempting to figure out excuses to say to fuckin’ Mike is more of a clue I’ve been standing out here too long than the frostbite forming on the tip of my nose.

  Onward.

  I’m through the doors and striding through the lobby like I own the place, in no mood to announce myself to Astor before I arrive, lest she employ a few deadbolts in anticipation. I simply nod to the on-duty security guards (always hardcore fans of football with those little TVs they got going there), smile widely and with a lot of white teeth at their stuttering recognition, and I salute them and promise a picture when I return.

  Which could be in the next two minutes.

  I have a feeling Astor is alone up there, in her thirty-sixth-floor apartment. Anyone with a clue could see how distant she was at Ash’s, but we’re all so wrapped up in the group atmosphere, it might’ve been hard to spot, had I not been close by and noticing her murderous glances at her ring finger.

  Not only that, but I gotta figure out what she knows.

  The latter is exactly what I tell myself as I ask Ash for an extra helping, letting him assume I’m going to demolish it later when back at my place. It’s the mantra I repeated as I plugged in Astor Hayes’s coordinates when calling a car.

  None of it has to do with concern and making sure she’s all right.

  Nope. Not a bit.

  I palm the bottom of the bag, ensuring it’s still retained some warmth during the dri—dammit, I don’t care if she eats it!

  The doors ding open, and I stalk through, scowling at my inability to do my own detective work. I should’ve called Aiden for pointers, except that would mean I’d have to tell him about Astor’s snooping, and fuck knows how he’d feel about that.

  Cool. Unfeeling. I’ll draw inspiration from the winter cloak over this city if I have to.

  I push the doorbell at the center of her door and cover the peephole.

  The light padding of bare feet sounds on the other side, and I envision her covering her slim, pert, lace-clad body with a satin robe, ‘cause why not?

  I imagine her peering through the hole, and, unable to see anything, say—

  “Who is it?”

  “Delivery,” I reply.

  Astor left Ash’s place without eating anyth
ing, not even the crud plate or whatever the fuck Ash called the veggies he had out on some platter. Odds were, she’d order delivery at some point, and it looks like I’m just in time, as I hear the locks click open. She has at least three, and I wait patiently.

  I’m unprepared for the bare arm to stick out through the crack, palm open.

  “Hand it over, asshole.”

  I step back, holding the bag out of the way like she can see it. “How’d you know it was me?”

  “Security called downstairs.”

  “But … I didn’t say whose apartment I was going to.”

  “I’m Astor Hayes, genius. Sister to Locke Hayes, the only other NFL-related person in this building. They did the math.”

  I still don’t like it. “It’s a fifty-story building. How the fuck do they know who’s who—”

  “Because I give them excellent Christmas bonuses and they like me. Now give me my food and go away.”

  “No. You’re not saying thank you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re not asking why I’m here.”

  She sighs again, and I still can’t see her face. I’m talking to a fucking door with an arm.

  “Because Locke probably made you bring me food,” she says. “He never thinks I eat properly, since I don’t touch his weird athlete diet of kale and protein.”

  “‘Cause your diet of coffee and anger is so much better.”

  “Food. Now,” she grits out.

  “I’m not here because Locke told me to,” I say, keeping the bag well away from her. “I’m here because I want to make sure you’re okay.”

  “I’m fine.”

  My molars clang together at the way she says it. So quick, so flat, like she says it a thousand times a day and doesn’t know its meaning any more.

  “Let me in, Astor.”

  “No.”

  “Please. I’m freezing my balls off and if I go back out there without warming up some, they’re gonna crack right off.”

  “That’ll be a lament heard ‘round the world.”

  “A cup of coffee. That’s all I ask.”

  She wavers. I know she does, because her exposed fingers curl like she’s thinking, and I spot the dent in the finger where her ring should be.

  Astor’s arm retreats. The door opens wider.

  Naughty, dirty thoughts crash in at the exact wrong moment. She’s in an oversized grey sweatshirt that falls off one shoulder and hits her mid-thigh, her legs exposed, tanned, and flawless. They’re long—like insanely, impossibly long—with curving lines of muscle in all the right places. They’d wrap all the way around me if I lifted her up, palmed her ass, and rammed—

  “See, I’m totally fine,” she says. “You can report back to my brother that all is well.”

  The impulse to do her up against the door I’ve gotten to know so well disappears as soon as my eyes connect to hers.

  They’re rimmed in red, her cheeks abnormally flushed, and her lips cracked in places like she’s been picking and biting at them.

  “I’m coming in now,” I say, and there’s a rough edge to my voice. I don’t like the thought of her hunched over her computer, crying and chewing at her lips as she tries to figure out a boy who should’ve died with his parents.

  Surprisingly, she steps aside, but nabs the bag as soon as it’s within reach. Astor strides to the kitchen to the left of the small foyer, and I follow after kicking off my boots.

  I shed my jacket on one of her bar stools, unable to prevent the wide-ranging study of the place she shares with Mike.

  It’s almost as cold as the winter outside.

  There aren’t many pictures, very few knick-knacks, and a lot of stainless steel. It’s the kind of modern apartment my interior designer tried throwing on me because I was a single dude making a lot of money, therefore my apartment should reflect minimalist tastes with ugly paintings—a ridiculous proposal that had me firing her right after I fucked her.

  And looking around Astor’s crib, I can honestly say that my bachelor-driven, women-screwing, pet-free home is way more colorful and inviting than hers.

  Probably because you had your mom to help you out, and she didn’t.

  The unwelcome answer has me scowling further.

  “I didn’t ask you here, so stop staring at my laptop like you want to kill it,” Astor says.

  I blink out of my fugue, realizing I’m staring at her open computer on the kitchen counter, its eerie blue glow calling out to me even when I didn’t know it.

  I bend closer to the screen. “Whatchu got up on it?”

  She snaps it shut. “Privileged information.”

  “That’s your favorite word, isn’t it?”

  “Right up there with asshole and bastard, yes.”

  Astor unpacks the pasta I brought her, scraping it onto a plate. The resulting, garlicky, buttery scent must make her soften, because she says without looking up, “Thank you for bringing this.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She continues to putter around the kitchen, grabbing a mug, turning on the coffee machine, and while I enjoy every time she bends down to the lower drawers and I see a hint of my favorite cheeks, I get down to business as soon as she sits on the stool beside me and begins shoveling down food like a bear set loose in a trailer park.

  “Why’d you leave, if you were so hungry?” I ask.

  She pauses, swallows, and dabs at the corners of her mouth with a napkin. “I had a lot of work to get to.”

  “The SI Slaughters.”

  “Yep.” She takes another forkful. When she finishes chewing, she says, “What’s fast turning out to be your favorite mystery to solve.”

  “I’m worried about you.”

  I say it before I pussy out. I’ve caught Astor in a vulnerable moment. She’s bleary-eyed, clearly tired and emotionally drained in a way I’m not used to noticing. Not even when her mom died, and I found it strange, then. How she bottles everything up, doesn’t bother anybody. It’s a matter of time before she breaks. And in an indescribable way, I want to be there if and when it happens, despite knowing I’ve contributed to it.

  Astor leans back as much as she can on a stool. “Mike and I broke up.”

  Now that, I didn’t expect. “Uh, what?”

  She nods and slides off the stool to get my coffee. “How do you take it?”

  “Um—that sucks. Oh, coffee. Just milk. Thanks.”

  She pours in the milk, the soft glug the only sound between us before she places the mug in front of me and resumes her seat. And eating.

  “So … you want to expand on that?” I ask.

  Astor shrugs her exposed shoulder. “He cheated. I caught him. End of story.”

  “That fucker cheated on you?”

  My roar is unexpected. Astor jolts, but recovers quickly. “Don’t be so surprised. I wasn’t. I tend to attract the jerks.”

  Oh, good one, Astor. I want to reply with a sarcastic snipe of my own, but the cracks in her armor are obvious. She’s covering heartbreak with insults, and while I’ll never know why she’s so broken up over that douche, I can at least be pleasant.

  “I’m sorry, Astor. Really, I am.”

  She nails me with her blues. “Which part?”

  “Huh?”

  “Which part are you sorry for? Leaving me naked and humiliated six years ago, or seeing me half-naked and humiliated now?”

  Damn. I should learn, never underestimate the blunt knife of Astor Hayes. “Both.”

  Her brows jump. “Wow. Good for you.”

  “You can stop with the sarcasm, Astor. I’m trying to be real here—”

  “In ways you weren’t all those years ago? Thanks for sacking up and finally apologizing—”

  “What the fuck?” I rise from the chair, but Astor is far from intimidated. “I’m trying to be your friend now, okay? I’m here because I’m concerned. You’re not yourself.”

  Astor laughs dully. “I’m in the middle of the biggest case of my career, my fi
ancé dumped me—or I dumped him, but he’ll never let you believe it—and I don’t have the balls to conquer either. I should scream at Mike, right? I should’ve let him have it and thrown him out on his ass, then burned his designer clothing in a pyre right there. Right fucking over there.” She points to the middle of the bare living area, where something extremely fluffy and flammable covers the floor under the glass coffee table.

  Astor’s voice is rising, and I’m unsure if I should stop her. Or even sit back down.

  “And just because I have Lily,” she continues. “Just because she’s a vulnerable, loving, innocent baby, shouldn’t mean I should feel so connected to a four-year-old boy who witnessed his parents be tortured and murdered, then be carted off into some unknown where he’s supposed to figure out what’s normal again. Without his dad. Without his mom.” Astor breaks on the last word, and she’s still pointing to the living room, but her hand is shaking, her finger is trembling, and she’s staring far off into a vacant area where the ghost of my old self is probably sitting.

  “Astor...”

  “I’m strong. I can get through this.” Fiercely, Astor locks her gaze on mine and stabs at her chest. She stands. “I’ll be able to find Ryan Delaney and expose him like my boss wants. Like I want. Because I’m not connected to that boy. He’s not a baby anymore. He’s not Lily. And I’m not weak.”

  “Is this what you’ve been doing?” I ask in a low voice. “While dealing with your breakup, you’ve been throwing yourself into Ry—into this boy’s life, trying to find him?”

  Astor sniffs. Hard. “If I don’t find him, someone else will.”

  “Astor, the kid is long gone. You’re not gonna—”

  “His parents could go on trial. I heard today. Everything about what happened over twenty years ago, all the gory details, will be made public. He’s the only witness, Ben. And if I want him bad, think of all the other people who do, too.”

  Astor’s breathing heavily, her broken bottom lip trembling. I’m doing everything in my power not to indicate that the kid she wants so badly, the lost boy who dreams in blood, is standing right in front of her.