The Game of Love (6 page)

“Why?” She opened the bottle and took a drink, mostly to have something to do with her hands. She felt more in control with something to do.

“To apologize.”

The water caught in her throat and she choked a little. She bent over and coughed, hating how her eyes stung. A hand thumped her a few times on the back, almost pushing her into the ground. Before she could protest, that same hand gripped her shoulder like she was a delicate bird and pulled her straight up, rubbed a few circles on her upper back before pulling away.

She faced the counter and capped the bottle, avoiding his gaze. When she turned, the concern on his face threw her even more off-balance than her near-drowning.

“Well, that concludes the entertainment portion of the evening.” When he grinned, she asked, “What were you saying?”

“I was apologizing.” He stepped back, then lifted himself to sit on the countertop. “For my shitty behavior at the coffee shop.”

Her jaw dropped. She’d lost the opportunity to apologize first. But then again, hearing him admit to his crappy behavior was worth it.

“I really don’t have an excuse for why I said what I did,” he continued. “There’s no excusing it. I wasn’t raised that way. Had my mother heard what I’d done, she’d have tanned my hide faster than you can say, ‘Find me a spoon.’”

“I think I like your mother.”

He just chuckled and nodded. “Yeah. I think you would. For what it’s worth, she heard about how you put me in my place, and found it appropriate.” He stared over her shoulder for a moment, as if he was thinking of something else. Those chocolate-brown eyes returned to hers. There was a sincerity there that couldn’t be faked. And she’d heard plenty phony apologies in her time.

“The fact is, I did have a twisted, personal motivation for seeing how you reacted. But that’s me and my junk, not you. And I shouldn’t have dragged you down into the pit my mind was playing in.” He smiled slightly, looking like a sheepish little boy. “Just for the record, I hoped you’d shoot me down. Sounds stupid, and you might not believe me, but there it is.”

Blank. This was what people meant when they said their minds went blank. She couldn’t have shouted
Fire!
if her butt was burning.

When she didn’t say anything, he shifted on the counter. He stuck his hands under his legs and swung his feet until his heels beat a rhythm against the cabinets below. “I know it might be hard to believe. But I’m not that guy, not really anyway. I might have done a damn good imitation, but it’s not me. I just…” He looked away, staring through the sliding glass door that led out into the pitch blackness of his backyard. “I let old shit get the best of me and you got stuck with the bill.” He met her gaze once more. “I’m sorry.” His voice sounded husky and sincere.

Everything in her said to discount it, to ignore it. It was a trap of some kind.

But his eyes…In all the times she’d heard an I’ll-apologize-so-you-shut-up-about-it apology, the eyes had always given it away. And despite what she wanted to believe…she knew with surprising certainty that he was sorry.

This had not gone the way she had planned.

She was determined to lighten the mood. “Truth be told, you beat me to it. I came here to apologize and silently gloat at being the bigger person. You stole my thunder.” She tried to give him a scowl, but knew it wasn’t convincing. “You jerk.”

He bent his head in mock shame and gave another, “Sorry.” But he grinned back.

“I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have thrown my coffee in your face. It was crass and childish.”

“But I bet it felt good, didn’t it?”

She closed her eyes for a moment, replaying the scene in her mind. The way her coffee shot out of the cup, how it splashed his face and chest, the way he stumbled back, toppled over like a felled oak.

Grinning with unrepentant glee, she agreed, “Yup. Felt great.”

“So since you’re here, should we continue our meeting?”

“Oh, um. I don’t have my notes.” Crap. She’d walked right into that one.

One corner of his mouth tilted up. “Can’t remember the overall idea?”

“Yes, I can remember.” Wait. She’d just lost her one justification for not staying. “Fine. Do you want to talk here?”

Brett hopped down, walked to the island and pulled out a stool. “Have a seat.” As she did, he pulled another one, sat across from her and draped his arms across the granite. “All right, lay it on me.”

Deep breath in and out.
“First and foremost, uniforms. The ones in storage at the high school look like something the managers have been using to wipe down the football pads.”

“Can’t have that, can we?” He winked and started to roll his water bottle between his hands. Little drops of condensation sprinkled the countertop.

She watched the water bottle roll. He might as well have been a hypnotist with a swinging pocket watch. Her eyes roamed up to his hands, his wrists. They were thick with tendons, and she doubted she could wrap her hand around one wrist completely.

“Chris?”

“Huh?” Her head jerked up. “Oh, right. Can’t have that.”
Get it together, St. James.
“Uh, anyway, my hope was that if we had anything left over after uniforms we could put it toward hosting an invitational.”

“Invitational. Interesting choice. Why?”

She thought about how much detail to include, then just jumped into the deep end. “I’m not from this area, but I did teach last year about an hour away. So I recognize some of the teams from the schedule. And I know how strong they were.”

She paused for the interruption. None came. “Judging from last year’s record, it seems like this team’s middle-of-the-road. They beat the obvious bottom-of-the-barrel teams, but they don’t seem to rise to the occasion when faced with anything that challenges them.”

“And an invitational will change that?”

“I think they need more competition. The schedule doesn’t give us any, so we’ll make some. And they need uniforms. That’s the bottom line.”

Brett continued twirling the water bottle between his palms. “Do you remember off-hand how much uniforms would cost?”

“Sure.” Down to the penny. She’d spent hours researching uniforms online, figuring out which companies gave discounts.

Brett opened a drawer to the side of the island and dug through it. He pulled out a pen and a stack of Post-its. “Write it down.” He slid them over to her.

She wrote down the cost, padding the figure only a little.

“Okay, and what about an invitational?”

She wrote down that estimate as well and shoved the Post-it back his way. He stared at the numbers for so long, she almost asked if he could read. But that would have been childish and rude. The man was being cooperative. Maybe he wasn’t the overbearing, arrogant—

Without looking up, he held out a hand. She stared at it. He snapped his fingers and she realized he wanted the pen. Yup, the arrogant male lived on. But as far as infractions went, this one was minor, so she simply slapped the pen in his hand.

His hand moved quickly, with efficient strokes. No hesitations, no doodling. He shoved it toward her, the loose end of the Post-it pad flapping.

“That’s the donation, minus what you need for uniforms, minus half of the tournament cost. If the rest went toward a new scoreboard, could you live with that?”

She thought about it for a moment. “Why only half the tournament cost?”

“What’s leftover right now won’t pay for an entire scoreboard. We’ll have to pick up a second fundraiser on top of what we already do to make up the difference. But we can do it. If you took the entire cost of the invitational, we’d never make it.” He smiled. “Plus, if the football team is compromising, maybe you should, as well?”

Instinct had a sarcastic retort on the tip of her tongue, but common sense told her to swallow it. “So we’re each getting a little of what we want?”

“Well, yeah. That’s the basic definition of
compromise,
isn’t it? Just a two-dollar word for ‘meeting in the middle.’” His lip twitched like he was fighting off a smile.

Obviously she hadn’t kept her snap judgment of his being a dumb jock very well hidden.

“The thing is…I can’t run half of a tournament. Got any ideas there, Coach?”

“Sure do.” He stopped spinning the bottle and moved it to the side. “If you want some guaranteed money, you can reserve slots to work the concession stand at football games. You keep a majority of the proceeds, and they always rake in good cash. A few Friday nights early in the season and you’ll be good. Plus, I can hook you up with a few distributors for added discounts on the uniforms, and on refreshments for your own tournament.” He crossed his arms over his chest, looked smug. “Sound good?”

Did it sound good? He had, in essence, figured out how they could both take the money, both get what they wanted out of the deal, and they didn’t have to kill each other in a fight to the death.

Yeah. Sounded good.

She nodded, then passed him a sly glance. “Should we head to the hospital, get some bandages and a sling? Jared won’t believe that we managed to come up with a solution without any bodily injury.”

He laughed and stood up. “Probably right.”

She stood and held out a hand to shake on the deal.

His smile was slow to spread over his face. As it grew, something warm slid through her belly, warming her from the inside like a pumpkin spice latte on a cool fall night.

Red alert. That’s a ten-forty-two. Charming jock in progress, proceed with caution.

He took her hand in his, shook it once, then let go. Very proper, very simple. And it would have stayed that way had she not looked him in the eye and seen it.

Hunger, as clear as if he were a starving man looking at a T-bone.

And that was the T-bone’s cue to make for the hills.

“Well, thanks for being so flexible.” She started toward the door. He stayed right behind her, step for step. She reached for the door handle and his fingers wrapped around hers, curling them around the knob. The metal heated under her grasp. She tugged once, but his hand only squeezed hers. Not painfully, but enough to keep her from trying again.

“We have to stop meeting over door handles like this,” she joked. She could smell the fresh spring scent from his shower, feel his chest brush against her back as he took a deep breath. Her blood was rushing faster than it had a right to and her heart pounded so hard he could probably hear it.

Silently, she scolded herself to get a grip, stop being afraid.

Another moment passed, then he let go and she opened the door. She tried to turn around, but her shoulder bumped his chest. He hadn’t stepped back, was still too close for comfort. The front porch, and the wide expanse of openness beyond beckoned, and she stepped through the doorway.

She was once again faced with the outline of a man, his features shadowed. “Thank you, for being understanding and for the apology.” This whole thing was getting too serious. She needed to lighten the mood. “Just remember, I was going to apologize first.”

Before he could reply, she jogged down the steps and walked to her car without looking back.

His laughter followed her long after she was out of hearing range.

Brett leaned against the heavy wood door. He let his head thump back and his eyes drifted closed. His heart was still racing like it was fourth and goal, down by six.

Deep breath in, deep breath out. Fight for the calm. Don’t break the line of scrimmage.

Legs still a little wobbly, he went back to the kitchen. He opened the bottle of water he’d abandoned earlier, guzzled the rest and tossed the empty bottle in the trash. He plopped down on the kitchen stool and rubbed his hands over his face.

What the hell had happened?

Since the moment he’d met Christina St. James, she’d been one contradiction after another. She walked and looked like an Amazon, with those legs that went on for days and her shield always up, ready for battle. But at times, he could see vulnerability in those eyes of hers. Her tongue was sharp as hell and she didn’t hesitate to use it to cut him down to the size she thought he should be. Other times, her wit was so funny and dead-on that he had to bite his cheeks to hold back laughter.

She’d taken the initiative to come over and apologize. That took
cajones,
for anyone. He couldn’t fault her for her convictions, either. She had them in spades, and they sprouted from good intentions.

But did that mean he had to be attracted to the woman? Dammit.

When he’d opened the door, he all but felt her eyes rake over him as she took in his post-shower get-up. He’d had to fight—hard—to keep his erection from showing through the flimsy mesh shorts. One sight of the beginnings of a boner and she’d have called him a sexist caveman and left.

But he couldn’t seem to help it. Even though he knew what a dictator she was, his body revved up for action, begged for release. He was dying to know if she felt the same desperate, primal and completely unwanted attraction.

Probably not.

Christina St. James struck him as a woman who would be completely content to live her life in a nunnery. As long as the convent came equipped with a tennis court. And maybe some cardboard cutouts of men for target practice.

And still, he thought of her on a court, in those tight short tennis skirts, chasing after balls. Lunging for the kill, her skirt flapping in the wind to show what she wore underneath. Which, since this was his fantasy, was nothing. Chasing a ball, skidding on the surface of the court until she came to a stop under him…

Time to cool off.

He got up, walked over to the sink, flipped the water on and let it run until it was icy cold. Then with a deep breath, he shoved his head under the glacial stream, staying there until he was sure his brain was numb and all thoughts of Christina St. James—naked or otherwise—were frozen.

“You guys are joking.”

Jared’s mouth hung open so wide Brett’s QB could have used it for target practice.

“Dude, come on. Is it that unbelievable?” He barely bit back the smile.

Jared shook his head slowly, as if waiting for the pieces of a puzzle to shift and settle in his mind. “Yeah, unbelievable is the word I’d use. You guys left my office five days ago looking like two junkyard dogs about to rumble over a bone.”

“Well, we junkyard dogs made a decision to split the bone in half.”

Brett chuckled and took a good look at Chris. Her arms were crossed under her breasts, one long leg crossed over the other. Her sneaker-clad foot swung in a rhythm that signaled her impatience. “Are you in a rush?” He didn’t even try to hide his amusement.

“Can we just sign the papers and move the funds? Not to be rude, but I have a meeting to start with my girls in—” she checked her stopwatch, “—seventeen minutes in the band room. And I still need to talk to Jared about uniforms.”

“Of course,” Jared said. The shuffle of papers moving filled the small, airless office that was the athletic director’s domain.

He wondered what it’d be like to work in a place like this, day after day. Come here early in the a.m., spend all day making phone calls, shuffling paperwork, kissing asses for donations.

It had to be done, and Jared seemed to love it, love being a part of the athletic department. He’d always been interested in sports, but his interest was always more intellectual than physical. More of a watcher than a doer. Mixing bureaucracy and athletics was a picture-perfect profession for his best friend.

He, on the other hand, would shrivel and die living like that.

Sure, he had an office, just down the hall, where all of his paperwork was. Where he reviewed game tape if he didn’t want to take it home, where he made phone calls. But his main job was on the field. Outside, rain or shine, freezing cold or hotter than hell. Taking the beating Mother Nature bestowed on them that day and smiling about it. Because no matter what the weather was like, it was a beautiful day on the gridiron.

Jared printed out a new contract showing the split in the funds and had Chris sign them. When she passed the paper off to him for his signature, she gave Jared a brilliant smile. Sure it would have been nice to have all the funds, to not have to worry about fitting another fundraiser into an already-packed season schedule. But when he saw Chris smile at Jared like a couple dozen tennis skirts were the lost treasure of Atlantis, he knew he’d give up all the cash to see her smile at him like that. Completely, one hundred percent happy.

All the cash? Jesus, this is what comes from letting your dick do the thinking. Did you learn nothing at all from Lilith?

He needed to get away. It was like she had some Stupefy Brett force field surrounding her. When he got within a ten-foot radius, his brain melted and the blood rushed to the wrong head, causing him to think irrational thoughts or say things that he would rather slice his throat than say on a normal day.

He scratched off his signature and passed the papers back for Jared’s approval.

“Looks like everything’s in order here.” Jared eyed the papers. Looking back up, he grinned at each of them in turn. “Nice teamwork, guys.”

“Can we talk about uniform approval, Jared?”

“Sure, not a problem.”

Brett saw his chance to escape and took it. “Well, since the football team would look pretty silly in skirts and tank tops, I probably have nothing to contribute here. So I’ll head out.”

“Mmm-hmm. See ya, Coach,” Chris murmured, her attention already sucked into a uniform catalogue.

He gave Jared a two-finger salute and slipped out.

When she left Jared’s office, she looked around for Brett, but he was nowhere to be seen. She didn’t have time to check his office—which Jared told her was down the hall, past the gymnasium. She held her messenger bag so it wouldn’t thump against her leg as she hustled to the band room, which was the opposite direction.