Players to Lovers (4 Book Collection)

by Ketley Allison

  Every word is caught behind my tongue.

  “The GPS on my phone said this would take about five hours.”

  Aaaaand of all the things to say, I pick that one.

  “I’ll help pay for gas,” Sophie says.

  “That’s not what I—ah, fuck.” I smack my hands against the steering wheel, the frustrated sound startling her. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “It’s okay.” Sophie resumes staring outside at the blurred, boring, edge of an interstate.

  “Sophie. Look at me.”

  She does. Even at a glance, I can’t read her expression. “I’m not a patient man. I don’t know if I can handle three hundred minutes of awkward conversation.”

  “You were patient enough to stay the night,” Sophie says softly. I can’t risk my eyes leaving the road for long periods, but I can’t help but sneak quick glances at her. “Something I didn’t expect.”

  “I meant what I said yesterday. I’m not proud of it, but Dad’s letter was a wake-up call. I’ve had enough. I can’t keep pushing people away, thinking they’re better off.”

  “You have few friends. You hide your skin behind monsters. And you specifically avoid talking about your family. I knew all this before I met you. Getting pregnant was unexpected, but your reaction, the decisions you made—”

  “Were fucking selfish. Don’t excuse my behavior because I came off as a bad boy.” I clench my jaw, then release long enough to say, “The accident was ours. Both of us.”

  “It isn’t an accident anymore.”

  “No. You’re right. Papaya is part of our DNA.”

  “You know their nickname.” I don’t see her smile, but I sense it in her voice.

  “I’ve kept up with all your names after Cantaloupe. Lettuce, Butternut, Cabbage, Papaya…”

  “Butternut was my favorite.”

  I tear my eyes from the road. “Apron had a special that week. Curried butternut squash soup with toasted pine nuts and crème fresh.”

  “You did?”

  My grip tightens on the wheel. “Every week. Cantaloupe sorbet. Salade Lyonnaise. Cold noodles with kimchi. And this week, prime rib seared with papaya butter.”

  “Ash, I had no idea.”

  “Neither did I, until I started connecting my morning internet searches on baby sizes to the dishes I was selecting with the chefs. My subconscious knew—no, my passion knew—what I wanted before I did.”

  She grows quiet.

  “I have a lot of work to do,” I say. “To make up for all the times I wasn’t there. I’m willing. That’s what I want you to believe—I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”

  “For the baby?” she asks.

  “Yes. I was an idiot. I believed having the kind of father I did meant I’d fuck-up kids of my own. It didn’t occur to me that by willfully leaving this kid without a father, I could fuck them up just as bad. Worse. Abandonment and being alone are the same, whether or not a parent stands directly beside you.”

  “I believe you.”

  “You do?”

  She nods. “And I’d never do anything to prevent you from being in this child’s life.”

  “Okay.” My hands relax against the wheel’s leather. “That’s good. Great.”

  “But Ash, you don’t have to force yourself to be with me in order to be a part of it.”

  I want to slam on the brakes so I can really look at her, but I can’t. We’re on a fucking highway. “That’s what you think?”

  “I love that you want to be a dad. We’re all trying at parenthood. I’m learning nobody can raise the perfect child without a few screw-ups. But you don’t have to feel like you need to compromise your life, your dreams, by being with me in order to do it.”

  It’s at this moment I finally understand. How all this time, I’ve been talking about the baby. Focused on fatherhood, which, yes, is highly crucial. But I’d forgotten something just as important. I hadn’t been talking about her. Sophie. My bombshell.

  I say, low in my throat but loud enough for her to hear, “Good God, woman, if you think I don’t want you in my life, then I have a whole lot of making up to do.”

  Fuck it. I pull over on the highway.

  Sophie braces in her seat. “Ash—”

  I throw the gear in park, lay my hands on both sides of her face, and kiss her.

  Air. She tastes like fresh goddamned air. I’ve been polluted all the days I didn’t have her.

  And now that she breathes life into me, the black is chipping off. The organ is turning a healthy red. My heart is beating.

  After a gasp, Sophie’s lips part, and I ravish for more.

  She moans, her fingers weaving around my neck, digging in, pressing me closer, begging, and I have to stop myself from tossing her over the gearshift and onto my lap.

  “Ash.” Sophie molds my name against my lips.

  I pull back, breathing hard. Her chocolate eyes are all I can see. They’re glossy with passion and … something else.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “You’re insanely pregnant. We’re going to see your brother on Death Row. You have enough to go through right now, and I can’t keep it in my pants. Terrible timing.”

  She settles back in her seat. Smooths her hair.

  I rev the engine and get us back into traffic. While we drive—call me a pussy, I don’t care—but I’m afraid to look at her. I just felt her up when she’s about to pop any minute. When she’s about to see her brother, a mass murderer, for the first time in almost ten years.

  Her hand comes down on mine on the gearshift. I spin my palm to entangle my fingers with hers. I don’t even think about it.

  She says, “It’s the perfect time. Thank you for that moment, Ash. In the midst of all the chaos, that’s the kind of centering I’ve been craving.”

  I don’t want to hope.

  “So…” Damn it. Still a pussy. “Can we give this a shot?”

  “We can take it slow.”

  I squeeze her hand, but my smile isn’t as subtle.

  “Ash,” she says. “I said slow.”

  “Absolutely.” I have to let go of her hand to merge into the far lane. “I’m not saying I’ll be perfect. Hell, I have a lot of learning to do. But I want to try. With you. With Papaya. I want us to try.”

  “What about your restaurant? Your life in New York?”

  “I’ll tell you right now, if Apron’s done, it’ll crush my heart, but I’ll get back up. My father won’t win. I’ll open a restaurant here. I’ll get popular with the college crowd.”

  I refuse to tell her how hard it will be. I want to calm her, to convince her we can make this work, despite the obstacles.

  She senses it, anyway. “Oh, Ash…”

  “Don’t feel bad, Sophie. I’ve been hustling my entire life. I’m not afraid of work.” I look away from the road so I can see her when I say, “I want to be with you.”

  She says, in a tremulous voice, “I want to be with you, too.”

  “Okay, then.” I find her hand again. “Let’s start there.”

  She sits back. Laughs with a full heart. Holds tight. “I’m in. We’re really doing this.”

  “Yeah, bombshell, we are.”

  “Ash?”

  “Mm?”

  “I have to pee.”

  29

  Sophie

  Driving up to the prison’s gates, I rethink my motivations for seeing Michael.

  We said our goodbyes, even if I didn’t know it, a long time ago.

  He made the decision to leave his family.

  Michael decided to break us and corrupt the foundation our parents stood on. Raised us on.

  Yet…

  Michael is going to die in three weeks. Soon, there won’t be a Michael to debate seeing.

  It’s with that in mind when Ash parks the car, and there’s only the tick of the cooling engine between us as he asks, “You sure you want to do this?”

  I say, “Yes.”

  He helps me out of the car. My cen
ter of gravity isn’t what it was, and after more than five hours in a car, I’m way more unstable, despite all the pee and snack breaks.

  “I called ahead.” I’m talking more to hide my nerves than to impart necessary information as we walk to the visitor’s entrance. “They’re expecting me. And Michael approved the visit.”

  “That’s good.” Ash turns his head. “Right?”

  I don’t answer.

  Before we make it to the doors, Ash puts a light palm against my chest, halting us.

  “This place isn’t for the faint of heart,” he says, studying the grim, gray facade. “And you’re pregnant. Very. I wasn’t sure before, but now I’m incredibly unsure whether you should be doing this in your condition.”

  “He only has a few weeks left,” I say, but I’m finding it hard to move again. “There’s no other option.”

  “But what if you…?”

  “Go into labor? I hear they have a great medical center here.”

  Ash pauses. “That’s a joke. Funny. You suck at jokes.”

  “Let’s keep moving.” Before I lose my nerve.

  Papaya picks the perfect time to somersault, and I’m soothed by the innocent twists and turns.

  When we enter, I show my ID, Ash shows his, and after a search and the storing of our belongings in a locker, we’re immediately escorted by two guards down a hallway.

  I’m shocked at the silence within these walls. Movies and books taught me about the screams, the banging of metal mugs on iron bars, the hollers and cat-calls and wails of the imprisoned echoing through the concrete complex.

  None of that happened.

  The guards took us into a private visiting room, and I hiss in a breath at the thought of sitting across from my brother, with a sole table between us. That hasn’t happened in…

  My worries are unfounded. A single metal stool is set up in front of a glass partition. There’s no phone to communicate with the other side. Instead, a round, metal speaker is fitted into the glass.

  “Take a seat,” one of the guards, the burlier one, says to me. He says to Ash, “You can stand behind her.”

  Ash nods his assent and pulls out the stool for me.

  I notice, on the other side, that what will be Michael’s stool is bolted to the floor.

  I sit, hands folded, extremely uncomfortable. My attention keeps shooting toward the door Michael will come out of. It’s going to be any second. He approved my visit and knows I’m here.

  Noises draw my chin up. Multiple footsteps.

  I search for Ash’s hand behind me, and he presses his against on top of my shoulder. I grab it, my grip sweaty and tight.

  Another guard comes in first. He’s huge—like, massively disproportionate to regular people. He takes up the entire doorway as he walks through, so I can’t see Michael behind him, but I hear the clink of chains.

  The guard steps aside, but Michael doesn’t come next. It’s another large guard, and then another. It reminds me of a twisted version of a clown car, and I clamp down on a nervous smile. I don’t think these guards appreciate grins.

  At last, Michael comes through, and I tense.

  Shackled, wearing a white jumpsuit with a black lapel, he’s a skinnier, taller version of me. The same brown eyes crawl up from their focus on the scuffed floor and hit mine. The same lips draw up into a smile. His teeth are yellowed.

  Michael is oddly pliable as the guards sit him down and attach his chains to something on the floor below us. The entire time the guards work, he maintains his study of me. I don’t believe he’s even glanced in Ash’s direction.

  “Sophie,” he says, and his voice sounds identical to the morning he made me tea, gave me the thumbs up, and said farewell.

  His jaw juts out more than before. My brother has lost a ton of weight.

  “You shaved your head,” I say. My voice is rough, parched with emotion.

  Michael moves as if to run a hand over the velvety stubble but can’t while in chains. “It’s easier this way. Less chance of catching lice.”

  I nod, like this is perfectly normal conversation.

  “Who’s the muscle?” Michael jerks his chin to Ash.

  “He’s here for support,” I say.

  Michael surveys Ash, up and down. “He looks like he belongs here more than I do.”

  “Yes, except he hasn’t murdered fourteen people in cold blood.”

  Michael’s eyes cut to me at that statement. “Is that what you’re here for, sis? To see if I want to make penance? Say sorry? I hate to tell you this, but enough people have come and gone the past eight years to ask me the same thing. Pastors. Priests. Mom. I have no answers.”

  “You don’t feel guilty?”

  This isn’t the way I wanted the conversation to go. There’s no point to asking him why, when he wouldn’t do it at his sentencing hearing. He wouldn’t even glance at the victims’ families in the court’s pews behind him. Why should he treat me any different?

  Michael shifts in his stool. Chains rattle. “My guilt has been adjudicated. I’m set to die on September 29th. There’s my penance for you.”

  I part my lips to say I’m disgusted with him. My voice has other ideas. “Are you afraid?”

  “Of dying?” He looks to the ceiling, as if the fluorescent lighting could help him sort through his thoughts. “I’ve had a lot of time to come to terms with it. It’s lethal injection, so hey, I’m being put down. Like a dog. It’s what the people want.”

  I think back to last night, when I stupidly searched for death row procedures in Georgia. The last inmate executed, his last words were, it hurts.

  “Where’d my brother go?” The question rips from my throat.

  “Soph.” For the briefest moment, his uncaring, killer attitude falters. “I left a long time ago.”

  “Why did you do it?” I want to smack my palms against the glass between us, but the guards would pull me away before I got anything else out. Tears trickle down my cheeks instead. “Why, Michael?”

  “Sis, don’t do this to yourself. Don’t hold onto my bad habits. Look at you.” He points to my stomach, his hands shackled together. “You’re about to have a baby. I assume that’s your baby daddy behind you. Focus on that. Don’t let my dirty deeds taint your life any longer. I’m gone.”

  “You didn’t have to be.” I bare my teeth through salted lips. “We were a family. You were going to college, I was going into my senior year, there was nothing to provoke you into creating this nightmare and being the center of horror. You remember the Halloween when I really wanted to be a Disney princess, but since Mom always made our costumes in pairs, you had to be Prince Charming? But to make me happy, to get me to laugh, you chose a princess costume, too. I was Belle. You were Aurora. Where did that brother go?”

  “He’s still here.”

  I hold my breath at the thought that I’m getting to him. That his last words to me will contain regret, guilt, and I can know he’ll go to his grave wishing he would’ve acted differently.

  “I’m still Sleeping Beauty.” He grins. “Starting at the end of September, at least.”

  I’m so naïve.

  “If you’re such a cool cucumber,” I spit, “why do you call me every day? Why do you want to talk to me, despite my making it clear I don’t want to chat with a murderer?”

  “He’s a sociopath,” Ash mutters behind me.

  Michael catches the tone. Looks up at him. Then back at me. “Maybe I enjoy torturing you, sis. Maybe all those times I was the bestest brother in the world, I was acting. Playing a role, unable to come to terms with sickeningly sweet family values. Biding my time until I could unleash. Maybe I was tired of pretending and finally wanted to reveal my true self. And by calling you every day, by this number popping up on your phone, you could be reminded of that day. The day I ruled the world and made all of you my subjects.”

  He stops on a grin, then tilts his head hard in one direction, popping his neck.

  Is he saying all this to push me
away? So I won’t be sorry when he dies? Is he wanting to be so disgusting, I’ll hate him more than miss him? I can’t be sure, because I don’t know him anymore. I’m not sure I ever knew him at all.

  “Our parents couldn’t have created that in you,” I find myself saying.

  “Oh? Are we about to have a nature versus nurture debate? How fulfilling. Guard!”

  “No, you listen,” I say before the guard can reach him and take him away. “This baby inside me will not become you. Your legacy, or whatever you think you’ve accomplished in your malformed brain, stops here. The day you die, I will forget you. I will focus on this child and teach them how to be better. How to be stronger.”

  “And then they’ll do an internet search,” Michael adds with a smirk.

  “Yes, they’ll know who you are,” I concede, and stand as the guards bend down and unlock my brother. “I will make sure to tell them of your cowardice, how you wasted away your prime years in prison, pushed a sister who loved you away, a father who cared for you into a breakdown, and a mother devoted to a monster, to say an early goodbye to her twenty-six-year-old son. Because we have a new life to think about. A better one. And my child will live their gift in a way you never, ever will.” I curl my upper lip. “We’re free, motherfucker. We see trees. We breathe fresh air. And we’re moving on. From you.”

  Ash holds my arm. I’m shaking so hard, it’s visible.

  “Lovely speech, little sis,” Michael says as he stands. I hear the broken pieces in his tone before he covers it up. “I hope you feel better after this visit. I sure do.”

  “I feel lighter than I have in years,” I retort. “Thank you for making this easy.”

  “No problem,” he says as he turns his back on us. “Best of luck with my nephew.”

  “He or she doesn’t have a blood uncle.”

  Ash is prodding me to the exit, murmuring soft comments to try and get me to calm down, but I’m past the point of decorum.

  Believe it or not, Michael has broken my heart. Again.

  “Let’s hope he doesn’t have the killing gene.” During his last chance, Michael looks back, before they push him through the doors. “Or, maybe he will, with his guardian devil looking over him.”