Playing Hard (3 page)

Amelia had hoped that being ditched by the Cubs would lead to him turning over a new leaf, but if tonight was an example of what he’d been doing all year, then apparently not.

Crap. Easing off on Team Finn might have to wait until the end of the season. And she definitely didn’t want to do anything that would set him off. Like having a fling with a guy he hated.

So she, Amelia Graham, would take one for the team and not break her rule and not try to seduce Oliver Shields. Though of course, there was always the possibility that he might have turned her down. She thought of that smile again. And the dark warmth in his eyes. Nope. She didn’t think she’d been calling that play wrong.

Bloody Finn. He was a flaming hypocrite.

Sucking now-warm club soda through a straw, she watched Finn dancing with the blonde. Close dancing. In a way that made it clear that he was planning on introducing her to some extracurricular activities later that night. She suppressed an eye roll. Finn had always been surrounded by willing women. One day he was going to meet the woman who would tell him no and Amelia very much looked forward to standing on the sidelines when that happened and cheering her on. But it didn’t seem like tonight was going to be that night.

So she might as well call it quits. She didn’t really know anyone else at the party, and if Finn had abandoned her for the blonde then he wasn’t there to introduce her to anyone new. It was getting late and her feet were hurting more than ever. It was time to just go home. Back to Manhattan. Where she would curl up in bed alone and try not to think of Oliver Shields and what might have been.

*   *   *

Somewhere around one a.m., Maggie Jameson ambushed Oliver as he made his way across the club looking for distraction. It was well over an hour since Finn had pulled his bullshit and Oliver had struggled to shake the nasty mood that had settled over him in the aftermath. Castro. Still, Maggie didn’t deserve to get caught in the cross fire of his lingering irritation, so he forced a smile when she stepped in front of him.

“What’s up, Mrs. Winters?” he asked. “Come to your senses and decided to leave Alex for me?”

She grinned at him, looking beautiful as always, her long frame wrapped in a very short, very red dress that matched the red gems gleaming in her ears. “In your dreams, Ollie.”

He grinned back. Once upon a time, Maggie had been his dream. But that was a long time ago. “Are you out of official party-wrangling mode yet?”

Maggie and Raina and Sara—the third of the trio of women who ruled the owners of the Saints—usually worked like a well-oiled machine to ensure that Saints’ functions ran like clockwork. Which Ollie thought was rather unfair. It meant they didn’t always get to relax and enjoy the parties as much as they deserved to.

“Just about,” Maggie said. “Things will wind down soon.” She studied him for a moment. “Meet anyone nice tonight?” she asked.

That was Maggie speak for “Are you hooking up?” Or maybe “When are you going to settle down, Oliver?” Which was a subject that he considered to be none of her business since she’d long ago declined to be a candidate for said settling.

“Still looking,” he said, trying not to think of Milly the economist and her perfume and her pretty eyes.

Maggie smiled. “Oh good, then you won’t mind doing me a favor.”

Crap. He’d walked into that one. “Define favor,” he said cautiously.

“Helping out one of your teammates,” she said. “With a ride. You drove, right?”

“Maybe.”

“I saw your car parked outside the club.”

Busted. “All right, yes, I drove. Who needs a lift?”

She hesitated. Just for a second. Then, “Finn.”

“Castro?” Ollie said disbelievingly. He did his best to get along with Castro at the club, but he’d made his opinion of the guy clear to Maggie on several occasions. Finn’s actions earlier hadn’t improved that opinion one bit.

“Yes. He’s had one or two too many. Alex and Mal and Lucas think it’s time for him to go home.”

Translation, the guy was wasted and Maggie was in damage control mode. “So put him in a cab.”

“He’s not that drunk. He’d probably just get the driver to take him to another club as soon as they got out of sight.”

True. The last thing they needed was Finn doing some dumb-ass thing while under the influence and getting the Saints’ name plastered in the papers or all over the morning news shows.

“He was here with someone earlier. Milly or something.” His jaw tightened at the thought of her. And of Finn chasing her off. Though she’d let herself be chased off. Sort of. So maybe she hadn’t been interested in the first place. Or maybe she was just being a good friend. Damn it. He needed to stop thinking about her.

“If I’m understanding Finn correctly, then she went home,” Maggie said.

“So send him home with someone else.” He understood Maggie’s reasoning for not wanting to trust Castro with a cab or one of Alex or Mal or Lucas’s drivers, but he really wasn’t in any mood to help out.

“He lives about two blocks from you,” Maggie said. “You’re the best candidate.”

He’d been vaguely aware that Castro lived somewhere near him. He should have paid more attention. Then Maggie would be trying this with some other sucker. “How do you know I won’t succumb to the temptation to kick him out of the car halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge?”

“You won’t do that,” Maggie said.

“Why not?”

“Because you think I’m awesome,” she said with another brilliant smile and he resigned himself to having a very unwelcome passenger for his trip home.

*   *   *

They drove in near silence. Castro hadn’t said a word since Mal and Dan Ellis had practically escorted him from the building and into Oliver’s car. He’d pulled out his phone and started texting someone as soon as Oliver had started the engine. Which suited Ollie just fine. He really wasn’t interested in talking. He focused on the road, suddenly tired. The adrenaline of the win and the party was fading, and he felt every one of the twenty or so hours he’d been awake.

As they hit the end of the Brooklyn Bridge and eased into Manhattan traffic, he yawned.

Finn looked up. “Tired, old man?”

Jesus. The guy didn’t let up. No wonder the Cubs had sold him cheap. He was a decent batter and a very good fielder, but he was trouble. He shook his head. “No, just bored by the company.”

“Yeah, well, you can just let me out at SubZero and I’ll be out of your hair and you can go home to bed.”

Un-fucking-believable. “Not gonna happen. I’m stopping nowhere but your apartment building.”

“Shit. You sucking up to the bigwigs or something? Just take me to the damned club.”

“Look, Castro, I don’t know who gave you the bug up your butt, but let me clear something up for you.” Oliver let the car glide to halt as the lights ahead turned red. “When the owner of your club and your coach evict you from a party for being wasted, the smart thing to do for your career is to go home, sleep it off, and apologize in the morning.”

“If I wanted advice, I’d ask for it,” Finn snapped. “As if you’ve never partied.”

Apparently the kid was determined to dig his own grave. The light flashed green and he stepped on the gas. “Fine. But I’m still taking you to your apartment. You can do what the hell you want after that. It’s your damned funeral.”

The SUV that hit them halfway across the intersection came out of nowhere.

Chapter Two

The bag of takeout was frying her arm through the too-thin layer of her coat. She would have moved it but the October day was unexpectedly cold and the takeout was keeping the worst of the chill out. She smiled gratefully at the doorman as she reached Finn’s apartment building and practically jogged through the door into the warmth.

Juggling the take-out bag, her purse, her laptop bag, and the key to Finn’s apartment proved impossible. She was tempted to give in and knock but that didn’t seem fair when Finn was recovering from a concussion. His head had to be killing him.

Or maybe not. When she managed to open the door and get inside, Finn was sprawled on one of the giant red leather sofas in his living room, playing a video game on his massive TV. The sound was turned off, and there was no other light source in the room.

“Should you be doing that?” she asked from the doorway. “I thought you were told to avoid anything with a screen for a few days.”

Finn didn’t look up. “You sound like Emma.”

Given it was Emma who’d reminded Amelia about the list of things Finn wasn’t supposed to do when she’d called earlier to request a baby-brother lunchtime checkup, that was an accusation she couldn’t deny. But that didn’t mean she was going to let Finn know.

“I brought you pot stickers. And wonton soup.” Finn’s favorite foods. Well, they had been when they’d been growing up. “Have you eaten?”

He looked around at the question and she saw the wince that crossed his face with the movement. “No.”

“How’s your head?” She put the food down on the coffee table in front of the sofa and dug into the bag for the carton of pot stickers.

Finn put the video game controller down and rolled his eyes. “If I eat this, will you stop nagging?”

“I’m not nagging, I’m asking how you are,” she said, trying to keep her voice level. Long lunches were hardly the norm at Pullman, and she was pushing her luck by taking this one. It had taken forever to get the food and then all the way to the Upper East Side, and she was starving. Arguing with Finn wasn’t going to help her mood, or Finn’s.

She fetched bowls from the kitchen and came back to the lounge. “Here.” She held out the bowl to Finn and he obligingly tipped about two-thirds of the first carton of pot stickers into it.

“There,” he said. “Let’s eat.”

“I think you need another lesson in fractions,” Amelia said. “That one I gave you when you were in elementary school doesn’t seem to have stuck.”

“I’m bigger than you,” Finn said.

“You’ve been doing nothing but lying around all day,” Amelia countered. “You’ll be busting out of those tight baseball pants if you’re not careful.”

He grinned at that. She tried not to grin back. Finn and Em came from a background that included Polish, Irish, Spanish, and French ancestors. Whatever the precise mix was, it had produced good-looking specimens in this generation. Both Castros had skin that always looked slightly tanned, dark-green eyes, and dark-brown hair that was close enough to black. In Finn’s case it also came with a face chiseled to perfection by helpful genes—strong cheekbones and a square jaw that was a reminder of just how stubborn he could be. On Em the cheekbones were high and the face more angular but just as attractive. Both of them could charm the birds from the trees. Which was why Amelia was sitting here when she should be at work, making sure Finn ate and trying not to smile when he smiled at her.

She ate her share of the pot stickers a little faster than could be termed polite and reached for the second carton—securing her share before Finn could devour them all. The perfectly cooked dumplings eased the hunger pangs, and her mood started to improve.

Leaning back in the chair—and wishing that she was wearing something more comfortable than a suit—she studied Finn.

He ate steadily but the fact that she had beaten him to the second batch of pot stickers told her he wasn’t feeling 100 percent.

“Did the team doctor—what’s his name again—come to see you?” she asked when Finn put his empty bowl down.

“Jones,” he said. “I thought you weren’t going to nag.”

“Well, either you can tell me what happened and I can tell Em, or you can not tell me and deal with Em yourself when she gets sick of waiting for an update.”

“You wouldn’t sic Em on a recovering invalid, would you?” He gave her his best puppy-dog eyes.

Luckily she was largely immune to Castro puppy-dog eyes. At least when they came from Finn. Em was harder to resist, but that was because her puppy-dog eyes came with nearly twenty years of best-friend you-got-my-back-and-I-got-yours instinct built in. “I won’t need to sic her on you. She’ll do it herself. So what did the doctor say? Are they going to let you play?”

“Doc Jones was here this morning. I have to get another checkup tomorrow but it looks like it,” Finn said. “We don’t have to fly to Boston, so that helps.”

Flying with a concussion was a no-no, she knew that much. The Saints were playing the Red Sox for the division series. So that was lucky. Though part of her wondered if Finn should be playing so soon. Damned stubborn Castros.

Finn slurped soup, and she suddenly felt exhausted. She’d gone home from the Saints’ party ready to call Em in the morning and announce that the Amelia-Graham-looks-out-for-Finn-Castro program was about to be canned. Instead she’d gotten a semi-hysterical phone call from Em telling her that Finn had been in an accident. The memory made her gut tighten. After all, it was only Tuesday, and the accident had been Sunday night. Or Monday morning, really.

“That seems fast,” she said. “Only gives you one more day to rest.”

He slanted her a look that suggested he wasn’t that interested in her medical opinion. “If the doc says I’m okay, I’m okay.”

She held up her hands. “Fine. I won’t nag.” If she did, he’d just turn stubborn and decide to play no matter how bad he felt. So she’d leave the nagging to Em and just try to be supportive. Team Finn, as always. He was hurt, so she couldn’t bail on him. After the divisional series was over, maybe. It seemed unlikely that the Saints would make the championships. The Red Sox were far more experienced. Not that she was going to utter that traitorous thought to Finn.

He was thrilled to be playing in the division series. It was his first time.

“Are your parents and Em coming out for the game?” she asked.

“Mom and Dad are going to come to the first Staten Island game,” Finn said.

“And Em?”

“She doesn’t know if she can get away. She’s got a case starting tomorrow. Some big fraud thing that’s going to go on forever.”

She knew that part. But she suspected Em might surprise Finn with an appearance. Though if it wasn’t one of the two Boston home games or the first Saints game at Deacon Field, she might just miss out. The division series was best of five.