Playing Hard (11 page)

“There’s beer in the fridge. I’ll take one of those.”

That earned him another studied look. But no more questions. She just went back to the kitchen, returning a few minutes later with two plates of lasagna and salad balanced on one arm and two beers in her other hand.

“Nice skills.”

“I used to waitress during high school and college,” she said. “Comes in handy sometimes.”

Beers and food were distributed with easy efficiency, which made him think she’d probably done pretty well as a waitress. Then, to his delight, she sat next to him on the sofa.

He sipped beer and watched as she started eating. Two pieces of garlic bread had taken the edge off his shaky appetite. But the beer tasted good. Cold and sharp.

Amelia forked up salad for a minute or so, eating enthusiastically.

“Long time since lunch?” he asked.

She nodded while she chewed, then swallowed before putting her fork down. “Busy day. How about you?”

“Well, the highlight was the trip to the surgeon, which gives you some idea about the level of excitement I’m dealing with.”

“Must be frustrating,” she said. She glanced toward the dark screen of the TV. “Not watching the game?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Understandable…” She hesitated a moment. “Do you mind if I check the score on my phone? It’s Finn’s first play-off series.”

Muscles along his jaw tightened—it should have been his first time—but he managed to nod. “Just don’t tell me. I’ll find out later. One of the guys from the team will call me if it’s good news.”

“Okay.” She made no move to put down her food.

“You’re not going to check now?”

“We’re eating. Or rather, I’m eating and you’re not.” Her frown was directed at the untouched food on his plate.

“I’m fine. I already ate garlic bread.”

“Exactly two pieces,” she said. “Are your meds—”

He held up his left hand to cut her off. “I’m eating okay. Just not super hungry yet, which my very expensive surgeon tells me is normal. As does my equally well-qualified boss. So I’m going to enjoy some of this beer first and you can eat your dinner.” He took another swig of beer. The alcohol was already making a good warm burn in his stomach, which told him that it wouldn’t be wise to have another. He didn’t drink a lot during the season and between that, not eating much, and, he guessed, the various meds he was taking, he didn’t want to end up wasted.

Her lips pressed together. “Okay. I get it. I’m not your mom. No nagging.”

“I like that you’re worried about me. Just letting you know that you don’t need to be.”

That earned him a smile. “Yeah, okay. But you know how I told you Finn’s sister is a worrier?”

“Yes.”

“Well, maybe a little of that rubbed off on me.”

“I figured that part out already.” He smiled at her. “But you have plenty of other things to worry about, I’m sure. Like whatever is keeping you so busy at work.”

“It’s Wall Street. Long hours.”

He tipped his head at her. “I thought we talked about this. I want to know about your day.”

She reached for her own beer. “If you insist.” She took a swallow. Hitched a shoulder slightly. “Right now my major project is developing a new model for predicting movements in currencies in Southeast Asia.”

He had no idea what that might involve. But he liked how smart she sounded when she talked about her job. He didn’t like that other guys had apparently made her feel like she was boring. So he was happy to let her explain it to him. “And how exactly do you do that?”

“You really want to know?”

“I do.”

Which earned him a very approving smile and then a ten-minute lecture on the project and hedging and capital management for banks, most of which he didn’t understand. He kept a vague eye on the stock market but he left the management of his money largely to the financial advisers that Alex had pointed him to when he’d asked about it. What was good enough for Alex was good enough for him. And so far the reports he received every month had proven that theory right. The new guys were better than the advisers he’d had before.

But understanding a profit-and-loss statement was a long way from understanding the stuff that Amelia was talking about. Not that he cared. He’d known she was smart from the get-go. What mattered was the way she looked so happy talking about it. It made her big eyes glow behind the retro glasses. He’d had a dream about her and those glasses the night before. The hot librarian—or hot economist, really—look worked for her. And stripping her out of her hot economist clothes had definitely worked for his subconscious. He’d woken sweaty and horny—though rolling over in bed too fast to reach for his bedside lamp when he’d woken and banging his ankle in the process had killed the horny part.

What it hadn’t killed was the idea that he’d like to see what getting her out of those clothes would be like in real life. She wore another one of her curve-hugging serious business suits today. This time it was a deep blue that made her skin look like moonlight and her eyes look even bluer.

So he listened while she talked and tried to make intelligent noises and watched her. Hoping that what he was really thinking about didn’t show on his face. Particularly not when he wasn’t entirely sure how he would manage to do anything about those thoughts with a walking boot and one hand in a sling.

She talked on for another few minutes and then he saw her glance at her phone, lying next to her abandoned pasta.

“You really want to know what’s going on, don’t you?” he asked.

“Don’t you?”

“Part of me does,” he admitted. Between Amelia and the beer he’d almost finished now, the sting of missing out wasn’t quite so sharp.

“What about the other part?”

“That part is pretty pissed off that I’m not there. Go ahead. Turn on the TV. But how about we compromise and turn the sound off?”

“We can do that,” she said and reached for the remote. She found the game and killed the volume, then leaned forward eagerly, studying the screen. The Sox were batting judging by the image on the screen. He moved his gaze back to her, watching the play of light on her face. She watched for a minute or two, her focus intense, as if she could will the outcome of the game to go her way.

He knew the feeling.

Knew it was pretty futile, too.

“You care about Finn, don’t you?” he said as her expression fell when the Sox batter connected solidly and sent the ball arrowing out deep.

Amelia turned back to him. “Yes. Like I said, his sister—Emma—and I are best friends. Her mom and dad are like my second family, really. They’ve always been there for me.” There was a flash of something in her eyes that he couldn’t interpret.

“What about your own family?”

She shrugged. “My mom worked a lot. The Castros lived on the next street over from the apartment block where we lived. So once Em and I became friends, they used to let me hang out at their house.”

Her mom. Not her dad. “What did your dad do?”

Her expression went guarded. “Mostly he left,” she said, eventually. “When I was six. Which was why my mom had to work.”

“And the Castros looked after you?”

A nod. “They kind of saved me. Gave me somewhere to be. Cared about me. God knows what might have happened to me if I’d had to grow up with babysitters or being left home alone.”

He didn’t want to think about it. About a smaller version of her, vulnerable and alone.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she said quickly. “I love my mom. What she did for me. She always worked so hard to make sure we had a roof and food on the table. But that meant she couldn’t be around so much. But I had Emma and Finn and Eddie and Mari. They took me in. They never made me feel bad because my mom worked or we didn’t have a lot of money. And when my mom got sick—”

“Wait, your mom is sick?”

“Was. She had breast cancer when I was fifteen. But she made it through. I lived with the Castros on and off for nearly eighteen months when she was going through treatment. Whenever she was in the hospital. She had a few rough patches along the way. The Castros helped us out a lot. Mom couldn’t work for a long time and they let us use their garage apartment. Other stuff.”

What exactly was “other stuff”? There was obviously more to the story, but they hadn’t known each other long enough for him to push. “They sound like good people.” Which raised the question of how they’d raised a jerk like Finn but sometimes that happened. One thing was clear. Amelia was tightly wrapped up in that family. And felt indebted to them. She might as well be Finn’s actual sister. So he needed to be careful about this. Because maybe, if push came to shove and Finn really got his nose out of joint, Amelia might just pick family loyalty and walk away again. The way she had back in the bar.

“They loved me. That means a lot when your dad walks out of your life without a backward glance.” She looked away.

“Do you know why he left?”

A second shrug, this one with a defensive hunch that told him it still hurt. “My mom got pregnant, that’s why they got married. Turned out he couldn’t handle family life. Stuck it out for a while but then he bailed.”

“You don’t have any contact with him?”

“He sent a few birthday cards for the first couple of years. But no. I haven’t seen him since he left.” She shrugged again. “Which is okay, we did just fine without him.”

Just fine seemed like an overstatement. It had obviously been tough for her. She’d worked hard to get where she was. So she was okay. But that didn’t stop him wanting to punch the man. Dick move to walk out on a kid. Then again, if her dad was that much of a dick, maybe Amelia was right, maybe she was better off without him in her life. “I think you’re doing better than fine,” he said. “Look at you. Wall Street. Brain full of all kinds of brilliant ideas. He has no idea what he’s missing out on.”

She blinked at him, looking startled. Then ducked her head. “How about I clear these plates away?” She was up and whisking his plate off his lap before he could say anything more. Crap, had he upset her? He stared at the screen in front of him. Just at the moment when the damned camera chose to zoom in on first base. Showing him Finn’s face, eyes intent on the pitcher, every inch of his body ready to move when the hit was made.

Fucking Finn.

Someone else who wasn’t above pulling the odd dick move. But apparently Oliver was going to have to learn to deal with Finn if he and Amelia continued down the path they seemed to be on. He shifted on the sofa, eyes glued to the screen. The Sox were winning. By a lot. Damn it.

“I thought you didn’t want to watch the game?” Amelia said from the doorway.

He looked up. “I was just waiting for you.”

“Who’s winning?”

“Not us.”

“Crap,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“Pissed off,” he growled, then tried to lighten his tone.

“Pissed off because you’re not there or pissed off because they’re losing?”

“Does it have to be one or the other?”

“So it’s both?” She was watching curiously.

“I’m thinking that’s a question that I barely know the answer to. It’s complicated.” He reached for the remote, turned off the TV, and slumped back on the couch. The loss of the light from the screen turned the room dim and turned Amelia into a backlit silhouette in the doorway. A silhouette that was killer curves and long legs and did very good things to his heart rate.

“Do you know what you want to do after baseball?” she asked.

It felt like she’d punched him. Just because she’d asked the obvious question. The one he’d worked very damned hard to avoid every day since he’d been seventeen. But she’d told him some of her truth, so he could maybe tell her part of his. “Not really.”

“You’ve never thought about it?”

“I’ve thought about it. Just never come up with a very good answer. It’s always seemed a long way off.” Until now. Now it felt far too close. Not that the feeling had brought any blinding insights into what he should do next with it.

“I guess it is a long way off when you’re seventeen. Seventeen-year-old baseball players think they own the universe.”

“What do you know about seventeen-year-old baseball players?” he asked.

She tilted her head. “Oh, I know a thing or two about jocks.”

He wished he could see her face. But she was hidden by the shadows across her face. “Because of Finn?”

“Finn isn’t the only jock I’ve known in my time.”

Something in the sudden purr in her voice caught at him. Set his blood racing again. That was flirting. Definitely. “Oh really?” He patted the sofa beside her. “Were you one of the good girls off under the bleachers with the jocks after the game, Amelia? Why don’t you come over here and tell me all about it?”

One corner of her mouth lifted. “Why? So you can relive your seventeen-year-old glory days?”

“Trust me, Amelia, seventeen wasn’t my glory days. I’ve learned a lot since then.”

Chapter Six

She had no doubt that he had. And no doubt, from the sudden heat between her legs, she wanted to know exactly what he had learned since then. What she wasn’t so sure about was how the conversation had taken this turn and how, with a few words, he’d managed to turn her from worried about his mood and what was happening between them to being a mess of wanting, ready to throw herself at a guy who was two days out of the hospital.

His eyes were very dark across the room. Intent. Watching her like he was concerned she might just vanish.

She wasn’t so sure that vanishing wouldn’t be exactly the correct thing to do here. Not to mention the smart thing.

But staring across the room at Oliver, waiting for her answer with those dark eyes and that damned beautiful face, she knew she wasn’t going to vanish.

She could no more have moved toward his front door and relative sanity than she could have grown wings and flown away.

So she took the only path left open to her. Toward Oliver. To danger.

To possibility

To recklessness.

She stopped when she reached the sofa. Looked down at him, not knowing exactly what happened next. Her pulse hammered in her ears so loudly that she was pretty sure even his neighbors could hear it. Otherwise the apartment was very quiet. Very still. He hadn’t closed his blinds, and the glow of the city lights came through the windows behind the sofa, shedding golden light softly into the room. It wasn’t enough to break the illusion of darkness, of the two of them suspended here together somewhere outside the rest of the world. Caught in their own private bubble. Nothing to worry about.