Players to Lovers (4 Book Collection)

by Ketley Allison

  “Shut up, Royle,” one of the guards says. He pats his baton at his waist like he wants to use it.

  I utter the words I’ve longed to say to him, ever since he walked out of my teenaged bedroom and left his old self, his better self, behind. “I’m sorry we weren’t enough for you, Michael.”

  The door he came through slams shut behind them.

  I breathe jagged, uneven breaths.

  “Jesus Christ, Sophie,” Ash hisses. “We need to get you out of here. Now.”

  A trickle runs down my legs and has me halting mid-step. Its warmth pools against my shoes.

  “Ash?”

  “We’ll talk in the car, bombshell. I want to get you out of this shithole faster than—”

  “Ash?”

  “What?”

  “My water broke.”

  “Fuck.”

  30

  Sophie

  “Is my baby going to have a Georgia birth certificate?” I shriek as Ash careens the car through the prison gates. “I don’t want it to be born here! It’s why I left!”

  “Babe, I don’t think we have a choice.” Ash is leaning against the wheel like an old granny who can’t see but drives like a professional racer. “Can you GPS the nearest hospital? Where the fuck are we? Where the fuck can we give birth?”

  “I was joking about the prison’s medical center,” I say, sobbing through my fear as I search for my phone. “I don’t want a baby there. Please don’t make me give birth in jail.”

  “Not on my fucking watch,” Ash mutters. Brakes squeal as he hightails it out of the prison’s property and finds the highway.

  “I don’t have my hospital bag!” I yell. “None of my essentials! Oh God, what have I done? Why am I here?”

  Ash does double duty, breaking the law while tapping into his phone and driving at the same time. He brings it to his ear.

  “Carter?” he says.

  “Carter!” I wail, and it’s a combination of needing my friend and my first contraction. Holy Jesus hellfuck.

  Ash glances over, so white he’s almost translucent.

  I hear the tinny sound of Carter’s voice through the earpiece. “Is she in labor?”

  “Yes. You need to grab her things and meet us at—”

  “Are you still at the prison?” she asks.

  Astor must’ve told her about this trip. I had to explain to my mom what I was doing, to my friends who specifically came down here to visit me, but I was too cowardly to do it myself. One text to Astor, and it was fixed. I got you, she’d said.

  And seriously, what the hell does it matter now? My body’s about to rip into two perfect halves.

  “We’re driving out of the prison right now,” Ash says. “I need you to—yes, okay. Fuck, thank Astor for me. We’re on our way—”

  “Uuuuuuuuggh,” I moan. The contraction’s still happening. It’s taking so long. I think I’ll curl up and die now.

  “Grab her things. Meet us there. Take my fucking plane, I don’t care. Just get here ASAP,” Ash says.

  “Get her to a fucking hospital!” are Carter’s last words.

  Ash clicks off. Throws the phone somewhere in my footwell.

  Eyes on the road—good thing he’s back to not killing us—he searches for my thigh and squeezes. “Lean back, honey. Put the chair all the way back. Astor told me the nearest hospital. We’re going there now.”

  “Ambulance,” I try to say through my haggard breaths. The pain is over. For now.

  “No time. It’s faster to drive. There you go. Drink some water.”

  He shoves the lukewarm bottle that’s been in our car for hours to my chest. His hand is shaking.

  “I don’t want water,” I whimper. “I want an epidural.”

  “Almost there, bombshell. Hang in there a while longer.”

  We make it to the hospital in a blur, but my contractions are two minutes apart, maybe shorter. None of us can hold a phone long enough to use the timer.

  I tend to twitch and seize during each encounter with these cramps.

  “What kind of word is contraction?” I say as Ash hefts me out of the car at the emergency entrance. “Why don’t they just tell us the truth? Bear-trap teeth ripping your organs to shreds is more apt.”

  “I’ll call the dictionary people,” Ash says as we drag ourselves through the sliding doors, “As soon as the bear-trap teeth ripping your organs to shreds are done with you.”

  “Fucking hell,” I grit out. “Here’s another one.”

  I moan and bend over. Nurses rush over to guide me into a wheelchair, and once I’m in a hospital gurney and inspected, the doctor cheerfully announces I’m dilated to an eight.

  “Thank goodness you got here when you did,” he says. Dr. Wang is sewn on the breast pocket of his doctor jacket.

  A few minutes later, after Ash is muttering into the phone and I’m clawing at the walls for drugs, Dr. Wang comes back and tells me to push.

  “No epidural?” I moan.

  “You can do this.” Ash is at my side, and I ram my palm against his, ready to squeeze the life out of him. If he needs an amputation after this, so be it.

  “Do me a favor.” I’m gasping the words. “No positive reinforcement. I’ll punch a tooth out each time you attempt. And your mouth is too pretty to mangle.”

  “Noted,” Ash says, then asks the doctor, “do we push?”

  His head pops up from between my legs. His surgical mask is in place, but his eyes crinkle with a grin. “Go right ahead!”

  “That doctor is a masochist,” I confess to Ash, but Ash is too busy telling me to Push! Push! Push!

  The next hour is nothing but that goddamned push. I bear down, I use all the strength I have left in me, and then call for more. I’m like a beetle on its back, legs spread, arms akimbo, as plenty of staff scuffle around me, saying that word.

  Suddenly, a pressure comes. It builds in my belly, so full and substantial, I think I’m about to lose my organs. But, in less time than a breath, it stops.

  “A boy,” Ash says, and I hear him through the cotton ball tunnel my ears have created. “Sophie, it’s a boy!”

  “What?” I prop up on my elbows. I can’t see through the matted, sweaty tendrils of my hair. “What?”

  “We have a boy!”

  I don’t have to search for long. The nurse lays him on my chest while wiping him down. A wriggling, warm, pink little creature with the tiniest nose I’ve ever seen.

  “Oh my God,” I whisper. He becomes a blur as tears fill my vision.

  Ash cuts the umbilical cord. A lot of action continues to happen down below, the doctor still fiddling around down there, but I feel nothing. I see nothing but this boy. My child. My son.

  They take him away too fast, and I feel empty. But they have to clean him up, weigh him, check his vitals. Born three weeks early, they have to make sure he’s okay.

  Ash comes into my eyesight, holding my cheeks and staring deep. His cheeks are wet. I’ve never known this man to cry. Not when his father hit him, or his mother shunned him. Not when he was on the brink of losing everything. Yet, here he is. “Sophie, we have a baby.”

  “Yes.” I nod as I cry with him. “We do.”

  Soon, the baby is back in my arms, swaddled in a hospital blanket and donning a blue hat much too big for his tiny head. It keeps sliding down to his brows, hiding his crinkled lids.

  Ash crawls into bed beside me. He scoots the hat up with his index finger, and we laugh together. Cry together. Are fascinated by this baby as two new, dazed parents.

  We must’ve counted his fingers a dozen times.

  “Did you have a name in mind?” Ash asks.

  I twist to see his face. “Do you?”

  Ash shakes his head. “It’s not about what I want. You were alone, growing this little boy, for so many months. You deserve the choice. As a mother, as Sophie Addison, as a badass woman who just birthed a child with zero drugs, this is your name.”

  I tilt my head back and offer a tired,
genuine smile. “Truth time?”

  Ash tears his attention away from the baby. “Sure.”

  “I spent so much time calling him the weekly produce special, I never thought of a name.”

  Ash barks out a laugh. “You’re kidding.”

  “Well, I mean, some circled my head, but honestly, the veggies were sticking.”

  “You are not calling him Papaya.”

  “Did I say that was a vegetable?”

  “Or Cabbage.”

  “Caleb,” I blurt.

  “Huh?”

  “Caleb. It sounds right. It sounds good. I want to name him Caleb.”

  Ash glances down at the baby. He runs a finger down his cheek. “My son, Caleb. I like it.”

  My heart warms when he says, my son. “Caleb Whittaker.”

  Ash blinks. Says, as if he’s afraid, “Yeah? Not Addison?”

  “No. That’s not my heritage anymore. His true name is Caleb Whittaker. And he will have that last name, always.”

  Ash leans his forehead against mine. “Bombshell?”

  My lashes flutter against his skin. “Yeah, heartthrob?”

  Ash chuckles at the newly minted moniker. But keeps his nose on mine. “My whole life has changed in less than a second. I want to raise this boy. I’ve never loved anything, anyone, so instant and deep. And I need you by my side. I love you, Sophie. I want … our family.”

  “Ash,” I whisper. I stare into his indigo eyes. “I love you, too.”

  I feel his smile against my lips before he kisses me, soft and warm, tender.

  “I want to move to New York,” I say to him after drawing away.

  “Seriously?”

  “I want to fight for Caleb. For your restaurant. For our lives and our happiness. I want it all.”

  Ash holds my cheek. “And I want it all with you.”

  I turn, kiss his palm. Caleb whimpers in my arms, and I shush him, warming my lips against his cotton hat. “And I want you to make me smoothies every morning.”

  Ash laughs. “Should’ve known you figured out it was me making you those smoothies.”

  “Who else would think to put a pinch of salt on the top?”

  The door to my hospital room flies open, drawing us apart and startling Caleb. But, after the intensive labor we both had, conks right back out.

  “Where’s the baby?” Carter cries, her long, brown hair flying in all directions. “Where’s that baby?”

  “Right here,” I say, and Carter rushes over, batting Ash out of the way and cooing over Caleb.

  “Holy. Holy. Papaya’s here!” Carter says.

  “Thank fuck that’s not the name,” Ash says as he climbs out of the bed.

  Astor comes up behind Carter. Her eyes are soft on mine. “Congratulations, Mama, on not giving birth to an inmate.”

  I laugh an exhausted laugh. “It was a close one. His name is Caleb.”

  “A boy!” Carter immediately tones down her excitement for the sake of the baby. “You have a boy.”

  “Caleb,” I supply.

  “Beautiful,” Carter whispers, and she lets him curl a hand around her finger.

  “Caleb Whittaker.”

  I wait for Carter’s surprise. Astor’s disapproval. Ash’s defense. But none comes.

  I’m surrounded by friends, have created a new family, and all negative thoughts drift away. Genuine awe remains, with the instinctual need to protect, and I settle against my pillows.

  Goodbye, Michael. The boy who didn’t want to be saved.

  Hello, my Caleb, the boy who changes lives.

  And Ash.

  He catches my eye, takes my hand and kisses my forehead, standing by my side as our friends ooh and aah over the newest addition to our cross-stitched group.

  The boy who found love.

  I truly hope you enjoyed Craving You. Sophie holds a special place in my heart.

  Ready for Easton’s story? PLAYING YOU is available for preorder! Grab it here at its special preorder price.

  Keep reading for a special sneak preview of PLAYING YOU …

  Easton

  They wait in the dark.

  The floor thrums beneath my feet. I chug an iced-over water bottle while pacing, my other hand running through my hair.

  “We ready?” Rex asks from his seat, legs splayed and his palms on his thighs, ready to pounce.

  “Hell yeah.” Mason flips his guitar around to his back, the diagonal strap creasing his basic white tee. He claps his hands and rubs. “We got an amphitheater to attend, pretties. A fucking crowd of ten thousand people.”

  “Shit.” I say it under my breath, but body language gives me away, loud and clear.

  “East, don’t freak on us now.” Our bassist, Wyn, claps me on the back as he passes by and shoves a whiskey bottle in my hand. “Liquid courage, my friend.”

  I toss the empty water bottle somewhere in the corner. The liquor takes its place against my lips.

  “There we go,” Rex says approvingly as he stands. “Let’s fucking do this.”

  A third of the bottle’s finished before I peel it away, throat burning. But then the fire turns into a heated coat, a tropical balm on my nerves.

  I follow the guys out of our dressing room, propping the liquor bottle on a side cabinet as I head out the door and down a dark corridor painted black. Pictures adorn either side, but I’m not focused on the rock bands of the past. I want us, what we’ve been waiting for.

  People dressed in muted clothing and headsets usher us through another hallway, the noises getting louder, the demand heavier, our footsteps drowned out by the vibrating calls.

  “All right.” Rex, our lead singer and guitarist, turns on his heel to face the group, grinning like a maniac. “Our destiny awaits.”

  He stands in front of a black curtain separating us from the audience, fluttering with sound waves. The noise should be deafening, and my bandmates adjust their earpieces against the penetrating rumble. I leave mine alone.

  We stand in a circle, fists bumping, and instead of a prayer, we scream at the top of our lungs, “Yell, motherfuckers! Rrrrrrah!”

  Open fists smack against backs, arms, tops of heads. Filing into a line, we each peel back the velvet curtain and step into the blinding, pulsing white light. This shit never gets old.

  We’re living, and we still get to see the light.

  I pull my drumsticks out of my back pocket. “Let’s. Fucking. Own it.”

  Rex spins, gives me the thumbs up, then grabs the mic. “What’s up, New York City!”

  The city roars its approval.

  Wyn swings his bass guitar to the front of his chest, taking his place to the right of me. Mase takes position with his keyboard on the left. I shake out my hair and step up to the drums, wielding my sticks and beating out an epic solo pattern to kick off our latest single.

  The audience—our fans—freak out as I unleash, and I think to myself: This is where I’m meant to be.

  But ain’t that the kicker?

  No one cares where you want to be.

  And life.

  Yeah, life.

  It’ll kick you in the ass and send you back … right where you belong.

  And set you up for a long, hard fall.

  1

  Easton

  The concert keeps wreaking its havoc in my mind.

  Thoughts of the music, the notes, the interconnection of all our instruments, sends shivers down my spine and stretches my balls tight. I twist the throttle of my bike, speeding faster down a deserted city street.

  NYC isn’t ever really empty, but there are certain side roads, the named streets like Crosby or Sullivan or Prince, that gift me with quiet at three AM and let my wheels take flight. They’re narrow, trickier than flying down FDR Drive, a straight tail of road all the way down the east side of Manhattan, but I enjoy the challenge, especially when I’ve retained some adrenaline, some fire, from our show.

  Nocturne Court is rising in the ranks, hitting number five in the top Billboard
charts this week. Throughout the years, we’ve gained a following, mostly through free bar gigs by begging the owner. Then came the paid gigs in obscure parts of Brooklyn. Social media is the master, though, and the reason for our recent celebrity status. We gotta thank the chicks obsessed with Instagram who populated those dank, wooden bars, and now faithfully attend our sold out concerts.

  It happened quickly, the rise. Last year, we caused an overflow in the venues where we played, even the ones we did solo, as most of the guys, including me, play more than one instrument and have decent pipes in our throats. Fire Marshals seriously cramped our style when bar owners decided they couldn’t contain us anymore.

  Turns out, that caution was needed, once I got a taste of what could happen with too many occupants. The rioting, the injuries, the mass panic. My friends were nearly hurt in the process, and it was then my band had a meeting, decided to get true management and a publicist, and suddenly, irrevocably, I’m here.

  Easton Mack, drummer of Nocturne Court, prince of the city before dawn, fans beating down my dressing room, tearing at my shirt and jacket, as I try to leave the concert halls, and screaming after me when I rev my bike and depart. There are even a few vehicular stalkers, hence my bumps and dives within the narrower, cobblestoned parts of the city, where one-way signs and threading side roads allow me to shake the determined drivers and regain the peaceful mindset I require after a particularly mind-blowing set with my drums.

  My bike dips and weaves with my chest as I round tight corners, speed through intersections, and own the island before screeching onto the ramp to the bridge and cresting over the East River to Brooklyn.

  The city carves its fame against the night sky, landmark buildings and skyscrapers lighting their dominance over the natural dark, its prolific image remaining steady as the bridge’s suspension cables flash by my vision. I accelerate until the lights become a blur, smiling wide, laughing within my helmet, unleashed and free.