Play Maker (15 page)

I
t was
a good thing I was such a good employee. I never, ever took sick days so I had plenty of goodwill saved up. Even so, I was surprised that Manager Steve let me take two days in a row off from work. Maybe he wasn’t such a complete sleazeball. Or maybe he felt bad for always groping and leering at me. Either way, I wasn’t going to complain.

Even though I probably could have used the small tips I might have gotten on a weeknight, I still was glad I had taken these days off. Last night had been great fun for everyone – especially Mikey, who had not stopped talking about it all morning. And it had been fun for me too, that is until James gave me the ultimate cold shoulder. But I was over it. And I was over him.

While I planned to spend most of the day with my brother, I decided to take advantage of my time off and make a dent in my always growing to-do list. I left Mikey with my mom in front of the TV and went to the grocery store, where I loaded up on our usuals and replenished my dwindling supply of doublemint gum. When I got back to the house, chomping away on a fresh piece of gum, I noticed there was a very new, very expensive car parked behind my mom’s car in the car port. I could only hope the driver would move it before my mom needed to go anywhere. I hated calling tow trucks to get rid of cars that occasionally blocked her in.

But when I got up to our apartment, I found no one where I had left them. Instead, my mom and Mikey were gathered around the kitchen table where James was sitting. I almost dropped my groceries on the floor. Everyone turned as I entered. James smiled. The bubble I had been blowing popped, and I could do nothing but stare at him with gum stuck to my lips and cheeks.

“Hi,” he said, getting up from the table. “Let me help you with those bags.”

I took a step forward and immediately tripped, spilling groceries all over the floor and hitting my knee hard on the cracked linoleum.

Immediately, James was at my side, gathering up the food that had rolled away.

“Are you ok?”

“Uh-huh.” I waved him off and got to my feet, feeling totally embarrassed. I felt even worse as I limped over to the counter with my half empty bags of groceries. James came over with the rest of the bags and put them down. Then he gently guided me to a chair.

“Let me look at your knee,” he said. “Do you have any bandaids?” he asked my mom.

She nodded and went into the bathroom.

Before I could stop him, James had rolled up the leg of my jeans.

He let out a whistle as the injury was revealed. It wasn’t bad, but it was bleeding.

“Nasty scrape,” he said. “When it comes to entrances like that, you’ve really got to stick the landing.”

I gave him a look and he gave me a smile.

My mom returned with bandaids and hydrogen peroxide.

“This is going to sting,” James warned before he placed a cotton-ball dipped with the stuff on my cut.

I winced as the disinfectant hit my raw skin.

“Your sister is very brave,” James told Mikey, who was watching with wide eyes. Then he leaned forward and blew on my knee. His soft warm breath made my entire body tingle. His eyes locked onto mine, burning with heat. I was starting to feel pretty hot myself.

I pulled away and took the bandaids from him.

“I’ll take it from here,” I told him. “Thanks.”

He nodded and rose to his feet. Then, to my complete astonishment, he began unpacking the groceries and putting stuff away.

“Where do these go?” he asked Mikey, holding up boxes of mac and cheese.

Mikey pointed.

I just stood there, watching the two of them empty the grocery bags, putting everything in their correct places, including the reusable bags. What was going on? Why was James here? He returned with a wet dish cloth.

“You’ve got gum on your cheek.” He gently took the cloth and cleared the sticky doublemint off of my face. I was so confused. What had happened to the cold, standoffish James from the other night?

“Thanks,” I said. I had been so sure I would never see him again. “What are you doing here?”

I saw my mom wince at my bluntness, but James just smiled.

“I actually wanted to apologize for last night. And to take you to lunch,” he told me. “Maya told me you had the day off.”

“I do.” I looked over at Mikey, whose attention had returned to a pile of wrapped boxes on the table that he was digging through. Those hadn’t been there when I left. They looked out of place on our dingy kitchen table. The wrapping paper looked like it cost more than this week’s grocery haul. “But I had planned to spend the day with my brother.”

James nodded, his disappointment clear. “I understand.”

I heard the ripping of wrapping paper.

“Doctor Who!” Mikey exclaimed, holding up the box. “Lego Dimensions!”

He looked so happy, but my heart sank. Our TV and blu-ray player were the last big purchases I had made, and even that had been second-hand almost two years ago. There were no bells and whistles like a lot of the newer ones had these days. We didn’t even have cable. What was he going to play this video game on?

“That’s great, buddy,” I told him, coming around to the table and looking at the box. I felt so embarrassed in front of James, who probably hadn’t even thought twice about buying that gift. All of his friends probably had state of the art entertainment systems. Not a used TV balanced on the cheapest TV stand Ikea made. “But we don’t have anything to play it on. And we also need the Lego Dimensions starter pack,” I told him as I read the box’s fine print.

But he was already ripping open the next package. He let out a squeal – it was the Lego Dimensions starter pack that I had just mentioned. The last box, however, got the biggest cry of excitement. A brand new Playstation.

“Someone told me this was the best of all the Doctor Who video games.” James joined Mikey at the table. “You’ll have to tell me if they were right.”

Mikey was hugging the video game to his chest as if it was the most precious thing in the entire world. Not that I could blame him. I felt a twinge of guilt knowing that I never would have been able to buy that for him. And now James had just swept into his life, giving him everything he wanted. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he told James, who grinned at him.

“You’re welcome, mate,” James said, giving him a pat on the shoulder.

A part of me wanted to say that we couldn’t accept such a generous gift, but there was absolutely no way I was going to try to give it back after the way Mikey had reacted. Not just the excitement, but how quickly he had thanked James. And without any prompting. It wasn’t that Mikey was rude, he just sometimes forgot things that other people didn’t. Clearly something about James was making an impression on him. I tried not to worry about that. At least if James left – which he would do, because he was a huge soccer star who lived in the UK – Mikey would have this to remember him by. It was a very generous gift.

I noticed my mom had been fairly quiet, and I turned to find her arranging an enormous bouquet of flowers in our biggest vase. Glancing over at James, I found that he was helping Mikey get the Playstation out of the box. This guy was smooth. Real smooth.

I kept waiting for him to realize where he was. To notice how crummy our apartment was. Because compared to the hotel room he had been staying at for the past few weeks, our place was a dump. But if James noticed, he kept it well hidden. It was polite of him, but I couldn’t stop thinking of how different we were.

“Nice flowers,” I told my mom.

She was staring at them like they were diamonds. “They are lovely, aren’t they?” She had a hand pressed to her chest. I had a feeling any reservations she had previously held about James were now completely gone. In fact, I was pretty sure she would be making a move if I didn’t.

“Very thoughtful,” I told her, though I still wasn’t sure what the actual
thought
was behind all of this. What was James doing? I had really prepared myself to never see him again, so I really hadn’t expected to come home to find him showering my family with gifts. And such thoughtful gifts at that. He seemed to really understand Mikey, to genuinely like him and appreciate his quirks, and that meant the absolute world to me.

Mikey tugged at my arm.

“Game?” he asked, pointing at the Playstation. “I want to play!”

“I thought we were going to go to the movies, buddy,” I reminded him, surprised that he had forgotten. I had meant it to be my apology for missing our movie last week. Then again, he seemed to be completely focused on the new game and game console.

Mikey bit his lip as if he remembered but was torn between wanting to play his game and go to the movies with me.

“Can I make a suggestion?” James asked, putting his hands on Mikey’s shoulders.

I arched an eyebrow at him.

“What if I help Mikey set up the game and then you and I can go out for lunch while he plays for a few hours? And then all three,” he glanced at my mother, “or all four of us, can go to the movies in the evening. My treat.”

It was an incredibly kind and generous offer and the way Mikey was looking at me, his eyes full of hope, I knew I was going to have a hard time saying no. Not that I wasn’t curious why James wanted to take me to lunch. And kind of nervous, too. But nervous in a good way. Like, palms sweating, pulse quickening, kind of nervous. Anticipatory nervous. Because I had a feeling this was more than just an apology. I knew a guilt gift when I saw one.

I turned to Mikey.

“Will you be ok if we go to the movies later?” I asked, even though I already knew his answer. He could barely tear his eyes away from the game in his hands.

“Can I play my game?” he wanted to know, his priorities now completely shifted.

I sighed. “If James can set it up, you can play it.”

“Oh, I can set it up,” James said confidently. “Don’t you worry about that.”

“Yay!” Mikey gave me a hug and slapped his hand against the one that James offered for a high five. He then ran into the living room, clearing aside DVDs and their cases on the TV stand to make room for his new toy.

“Thank you,” I told James, who had pulled out the instructions for the game.

“If this is what it takes to get you to go to lunch with me, it is more than worth it,” he said with a wink. I felt my knees go wibbly-wobbly and I wondered what I was getting myself into.

I
was nervous
. Like, really nervous. It didn’t make sense, considering I had been alone with Nicole in far more intimate settings, but for some reason taking her out to lunch felt much more important than it should. But I guess it was. Because I was about to tell her that I wasn’t going back to the UK. And that I wanted to spend time with her. Because I liked her. My throat got a bit dry at the possibility that she would tell me to get lost. Not that I would blame her after how I had treated her last night. I was lucky she was coming to lunch at all.

We got outside and I saw Nicole pause at my car. My brand new convertible.

“This is
your
car?” she asked, a million questions written all over her face. I was betting she remembered that the last time I had driven her here, I had been in a much more conventional rental. This was a cherry red Tesla.

“I’ll explain over lunch,” I told her.

She just nodded and I noticed she was chewing gum. I couldn’t help but smile, especially thinking of how adorable she had looked when she came into the apartment with gum on her cheek.

We got in the car and headed west. I couldn’t stop glancing over at her. She looked incredible. How she could make jeans and a v-neck a revelation, I’d never know, but I also knew that if it was on her body, it looked good. Because what a body it was. I realized I needed to stop trying to look down her shirt or we’d get into a major accident. Not that anyone would blame me for being distracted by her amazing cleavage.

With the top down, her hair was whipping around her face like a blonde cloud and she had her head tilted up to meet the sun, her eyes closed. The sheer joy on her face made my heart twist. It was also the first time she seemed truly relaxed. I was glad I was here to experience it, because goddamn, she was gorgeous.

We pulled up to the restaurant and she shot me a surprised look. For a moment I thought I had made the wrong choice in picking this place, but then a smile spread across her face and she laughed.

“You like it?” I asked, making a note to do everything in my power to make her laugh.

“I love it,” she told me.

There it was again, that twist in my chest. Too late to turn back, mate. You’re in this to win it. But my nervousness had gone, filled instead with an anticipatory thrill. I helped her out of the car and led her into the restaurant, feeling like I was the luckiest man in the world.

We walked into the famous Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles and were taken to a table in the corner. It wasn’t exactly quiet or secluded by any standard, but I still felt like we were completely alone.

“I have to admit,” Nicole said, picking up the menu. “This is not at all where I expected you to take me.”

“Oh no?” I looked at my own menu, feigning nonchalance.

“Oh no.” She smiled. “I thought for sure we’d end up at one of those over-priced super fancy restaurants that serve peas on individual plates and give you flavored air for dessert.” She looked around the restaurant. “This place is far more my speed.”

“Mine too,” I confessed. “Besides, we have to see how these waffles live up to the ones at the hotel.”

Nicole closed her eyes and let out a soft moan of appreciation at the memory. I almost dropped my menu.

“Those were good waffles,” she said, opening her eyes.

“Mmmhmm,” my voice was tight. Almost as tight as my jeans, with my cock straining against the zipper. God, what I wouldn’t give to cover her with maple syrup and devour her like we had devoured those waffles.

But my extremely dirty thoughts were interrupted by the waitress who wanted to know if we had decided what to order. I hadn’t even taken a look at my menu, but Nicole plucked it out of my hands.

“Do you trust me?” she asked.

I nodded wordlessly. I probably shouldn’t, but I did.

“Two of the Herb’s Specials,” she told the waitress. “With cornbread.”

The waitress nodded and went to put our order in.

“You’ve been here before, I presume.” I leaned forward on my elbows.

“A long time ago,” Nicole confessed. “But I don’t remember enough to compare them to the hotel waffles.”

“I wonder if we should set up a rating system,” I teased. “Different categories to make this a serious competition.”

“I should have known someone like you would turn this into a competition,” she said with a smile.

“Someone like me?”

“Someone who makes a living out of being competitive,” she clarified.

“Actually—” This was the perfect opportunity to tell her about my change in plans, but before I could, she had flagged our waitress over.

“Can we get some crayons?” she asked. When I gave her a look, she turned over her placemat where it was clean and white. “To write down our waffle judging categories.”

“Well, what are the stakes here?” I asked as she started making columns for the two waffles.

“Since you picked this place, if the waffles here are better then you will be the winner. But if the waffles at the hotel are better, I win.”

“And what does the winner get?” I had plenty of ideas of what I would be happy to get from her.

Nicole’s smile was wicked. “If I win, I get to drive your new car back to my place. And if you win—”

“I get to drive it back to my place,” I added with a wink, thinking of all that we could do – all that we had done – in my hotel room.

But I saw the smile on Nicole’s lips slip, just slightly and she looked away, back down at the placemat.

I cleared my throat, knowing that she was still probably confused about my behavior last night. And while I couldn’t blame her, it felt like we had both been sending each other mixed messages since we first hooked up. Now it was time to clear the air.

“I wanted to apologize for last night,” I said, hoping Nicole would stop scribbling on the placemat. She did, putting aside the crayons. “I was an arse to you after the game and I’m sorry.”

“It’s not a big deal,” she responded. “We said we were keeping it casual, right?” But I could tell that she had been hurt. I didn’t blame her for not wanting to admit it.

“That’s no excuse for being a rude bastard,” I told her and she smiled. “I promise not to do it again.”

“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to invite me to more soccer games?” Her eyes sparkled with humor.

“Football.” I corrected automatically, even though I could tell she was teasing me. “And no, there might not be any more games, but I’d like to spend time with you.”

Her mouth dropped open.

I took a deep breath. “I like you,” I said bluntly. “A lot. And that scared the hell out of me.”

Her eyes widened, but the smile returned. “Thanks?”

I ran my hand through my hair. “I mean, what I’m trying to say is. Bollocks. I’m really cocking this up, aren’t I?”

She reached across the table and touched my other hand. “I’m listening,” she said softly, her gorgeous eyes full of encouragement, but also apprehension.

“I’m not going back to London,” I blurted out and saw her eyes widen. “I’m retiring from football and I’m staying in Los Angeles to work with a charity that focuses on helping foster kids.” All of it came out in a rush. “And I like you and I want to spend time with you. On a regular basis.”

There was a pause and I could see Nicole process all the information I had just thrown at her. I held my breath, not sure how she was going to respond.

She finally looked up at me, her eyes wide. “Are you saying you want to date me?”

It sounded so simple and so obvious when she said it that way. “Yes,” I finally managed to say.

“I don’t know,” Nicole said, drawing her hand back. My stomach sank.

“What don’t you know?” I had a hard time hiding my disappointment.

She bit her lip. “My life is complicated,” she told me. “You must see that. Mikey is, well, he’s wonderful, but he’s got special needs. And I’m the only one he has.”

“What about your mom?” I asked.

“She just came back into our life.” Nicole looked very vulnerable all of sudden. “She left when I was sixteen. Mikey was eight. She’s trying to make up for lost time, but it’s hard. She doesn’t understand his routines yet. She doesn’t know how to take care of him the way that I do.”

I could only imagine how hard it must have been for her to take care of her brother all these years. No wonder they were so close and she had been so worried about getting home to him the other night. My heart twisted a little at the thought of them on their own.

Nicole let out a breath. “But maybe I haven’t been letting her either,” she admitted. She seemed to be saying this more to herself than me. I squeezed her hand in an attempt to be comforting but it seemed to startle her out of her thoughts and she looked back up at me. “I just don’t know,” she told me. “I like you, I do, but…” she trailed off. “There’s a reason I wanted this to be a one night stand. They’re easier on me and they’re easier on Mikey.”

Another wave of disappointment washed over me, but I wasn’t willing to give up without a fight. She was worth it, I knew that for sure.

I wanted to be with her. There was no doubt in my mind. “Mikey is important to you and he always comes first. I understand that. But you and I, there’s something here. You know there is. Whether it’s just amazing, amazing, amazing sex—” Nicole smiled at that. I felt hope stirring in my chest. “Or something more.”

Our food arrived before Nicole could answer, but I could see the conflict all over her face.

“There’s something here,” I told her again. “I just want to give it a chance.”

She nodded, looking down at her food.

“Well then,” I rubbed my hands together. “Let’s see who will win this waffle contest to the death.”

“To the death?” Nicole laughed, some of the tension broken.

I raised an eyebrow, daring her to contradict me. “All waffle contests are to the death.” I lifted a fork and pointed it at her. “Do you accept?”

She raised her own fork and tapped it against mine. “To the death,” she agreed.