Team Player Page 5

  Chad opened his mouth.

  “Chad, if you start singing anything by the Spice Girls, you’re fired.”

  He closed his mouth.

  “Oh, thank God,” Brandon mumbled.

  Gwen sipped her champagne. Okay, as far as mole jobs went, that wasn’t the worst task she could be assigned. Find out what people want in their charity auction basket, easy enough. Make friends with the players? Perhaps not so easy if she wasn’t wearing a mini skirt and four-inch sparkly heels.

  She glanced at the crowd again, but this time Ty was nowhere to be seen. Neither was the blonde. Gwen sighed. “I need to use the bathroom,” she said.

  She wound her way through the crowd, perfume, alcohol and hormones thick in the air. To the left of the bar was a long dark hallway with closed doors lining either side. It was dimly lit by tiny sconces, and the farther she retreated from the bar, the quieter it got, until she could hear her heels on the polished floors.

  The first three doors were marked for management, the fourth said Men’s, and the fifth said Games Room. Next to it was the women’s bathroom, but Gwen didn’t really need to go, she just needed space. Maybe it was important for her to get out more and start socializing, but she needed to ease back in, not jump into one of the fanciest clubs in the city, with the most beautiful people on Earth, while wearing her favorite Thrashers tee.

  Curiosity got the better of her and she tried the knob for the games room. The door swung open, and her heart stopped. The perimeter of the room was lined with the old arcade games from the previous bar, some so old and worn they brought back memories she’d long thought suppressed. Born in Namibia to missionary parents, Gwen had grown up in a small township, which had a dusty old arcade. Because her parents were too busy caring for other children to really raise their own, she’d been given fistfuls of coins and sent off to entertain herself. She’d spent hours in the arcade, racking up the best scores, seeing her name climb the leader boards. Then, when she was nine, she’d nearly died from dengue fever and her parents had packed her up and shipped her to Charleston to live with her father’s sister, Marge. They called a couple times a year, but she hadn’t seen them since they’d hugged her at the airport, said, “Take care, Gwen,” and waved until she was out of sight.

  Gwen slipped inside and closed the door quietly behind her. The din of the bar was completely gone, the makeshift arcade peaceful and familiar with its glowing lights and dark screens. The center of the room was dominated by a large pool table, but the walls were lined with pinball machines and traditional stand-up games, and even an old two-seater racing game called Taxi-Kart. She’d loved that thing growing up, though it had been hard to find someone to play with.

  “Hello, again.”

  Gwen squealed and whirled around, smacking her elbow on the door and fumbling with her other hand to find the knob. It took six terrifying seconds for her eyes to focus and spot Ty approaching from the far corner, adding chalk to the end of his pool cue. Gwen’s vision cleared enough for her to see the rack of cues hanging on the wall, the table set up to play. She glanced around, paranoid.

  “I—Sorry,” she said, knowing the blond woman from before had to be there somewhere. “I didn’t realize—I just came to—”

  Ty set the chalk on the edge of the table. “Do you play?”

  Gwen frowned and peered around more carefully. She couldn’t see anyone, but there were plenty of places to hide.

  Ty answered the unasked question. “I’m alone.”

  “Why?”

  He smiled as he shrugged out of his jacket and rested it on top of a pinball machine. “Because I wanted to be. Why are you?”

  Gwen’s heart had returned to a mostly normal rhythm. “Same reason,” she admitted. “I’m a bit of a loner. This is a lot of people.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Yes, but they like you.”

  Ty laughed and picked up his cue, then bent over and took aim, breaking up the balls. Two solids rolled into corner pockets. “Well, there are millions of reasons to like me,” he said. “But most of them have dollar signs in front.”

  “Ah. Well then, I only have two hundred and six reasons to like me,” Gwen replied.

  He laughed again and shifted around the table to make his next shot. “You don’t play?” he confirmed, waiting for her to shake her head before sinking another ball.

  “Not pool,” she clarified. “But...the rest.”

  “The rest? Of the room?”

  “Yeah. I played when I was a kid. They used to have these games here before they changed ownership and I played then, too.”

  “Me too,” Ty said. “I have the top score on Donkey Kong.”

  “No, you don’t. Someone named—”

  “My name’s Hitman.”

  Gwen stopped. The top scorer on Donkey Kong was named Hitman, but— “Connor’s nickname was Hitman.”

  “I borrowed it. Red ball, corner.” He sank the red ball.

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Have you met me? I never joke about winning.” Ty knocked in the final ball and straightened. “Let’s play. Any game you like. But I’m not going to take it easy on you because you’re wearing my T-shirt.”

  She turned to show him the back. “This is Escobar’s shirt.”

  “But you have one at home, right?”

  “No,” she lied. She had two.

  He grinned and pulled a five dollar bill out of his wallet, approaching the token machine. “Are you in? It’s okay if you’re afraid, I’d totally under—”

  “Taxi-Kart,” she said.

  His grin widened as he collected the tokens. “I was hoping you’d say Taxi-Kart.”

  And even though Gwen had played the thing a hundred thousand times before, it was only as she walked to the game that she realized what she’d done. She’d picked the only machine in the room that was a two-player enclosed game, better suited to children than adults, one of whom was 6’1”, 210 pounds, and one of the most famous athletes in the world.

  They faced each other from opposite sides of the machine, Ty looking laughably childlike as he rolled up the sleeves of his overpriced white shirt and cracked his knuckles. Gwen smirked as she stepped out of her heels and rolled her neck. Then they slid into the too-small space, tiny plastic seats, fake doors boxing them in, two screens with steering wheels jutting out, and cold metal pedals for their feet. From this close Gwen could smell Ty’s soap and shampoo, feel the heat from his bicep against her arm. His fingers tickled her palm as he passed her coins, and their knees bumped when they leaned forward to slip the tokens into the slot.

  The game’s opening screenshot was of a kamikaze taxi careening up on two wheels as it veered around a corner, and large red letters flashed on top of the image, taunting and teasing: ARE YOU READY?

  Ty glanced over, his face too close, too handsome.

  Gwen heart hammered against her ribcage.

  “Ready?” Ty asked. It was just a silly old arcade game in a rarely-used room in a bar she didn’t belong in, but there was something in the way he asked that told her he was ready to compete.

  Gwen’s competitive streak rose to the surface. Arcade games were one of the few things she’d ever been good at, and as she wrapped her fingers around the wheel, the plastic worn with age, and curled her bare toes over the pedals, she felt like her younger self again, unconcerned and unafraid, like there was nothing else in the world but this game and this moment.

  “Ready,” she said.

  They hit start at the same time, and Gwen accelerated immediately, the game coming back to her, instinct taking over. She veered around corners, knocking into trash cans and just missing a stray cat, braking hard at a red light with a police car waiting at the intersection. Beside her Ty was doing the same thing, but he hit the brakes too late and skidded into the crosswalk, prompting the red and blue lights to start flashing. He cursed as his game was delayed and Gwen pressed down on the gas, racing through the green light and navigating the streets unt
il she stopped in front of a quaint yellow house and dropped off her passenger. Sixty dollars.

  She wasn’t quite sure when she started smiling, when their knees became permanently pressed together in the middle of the booth, when it was more common for his arm to be rubbed against hers than not. She was very sure when he elbowed her to get to his fourth passenger first, and there was no way he’d slung his leg over and stepped on her brake by accident. She hadn’t noticed him taking off his shoes, but the touch of his socked foot on her bare skin was jarring, giving her feelings she couldn’t afford to feel. Not with Tyler Ashe.

  They were neck and neck when they picked up their last fares of the game at the mall, speeding through the streets at breath-taking speeds. Gwen’s feet and hands remembered the game better than her brain and she let instinct guide her, cutting the wheel hard to the right to skip down a back alley, an exploding trash bag leaving a banana peel on her windshield and blocking her view. She knew there was another cop waiting at the end so she slammed on the brakes and eased out of the lane, just as she heard sirens wailing on Ty’s side of the box.

  “Fuck!” he muttered. He stomped on the brakes a second too late.

  Gwen’s driver waved politely as the banana peel faded away, then she drove the last block at a safe, sane speed and dropped her passenger at home.

  WINNER! splashed across her screen at the same time LOSER! splayed across Ty’s. His shoulders slumped and he hung his head, and Gwen realized they were both breathing hard. At some point she’d started sweating.

  Ty lifted his head and looked at her. “Good game.”

  “Thanks.”

  He stared at her another moment. “Dammit.”

  Gwen laughed. “You won earlier today,” she reminded him.

  “I wasn’t on the field,” he pointed out.

  “But you were pretty close.”

  He smiled and shook his head. “Not close enough.”

  “You’ll be in the lineup tomorrow.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because Tyler Ashe puts the Ashe in Thrashers,” she recited, earning herself a groan.

  “Please never say that again. I love this team, but what a horrible fucking coincidence.”

  Gwen laughed again. Allison had just started with the organization when Ty was signed, and she’d coined the term for his first game. Not a day had gone by since that it wasn’t uttered by someone, somewhere.

  “Okay,” she said. “Promise.”

  He flopped back in the seat and sighed. “Where’d you say you learned to play?”

  “I spent too much time at the arcade when I was a kid.”

  “Me too. Until I picked baseball over video games.”

  “I think you made the right choice.”

  He glanced over. “Yeah?”

  “Maybe?”

  “Maybe.” Their eyes locked, and again Gwen was reminded how small the space was, how warm his skin felt, how warm her own skin had gotten. He smelled nice, and looked even better, and it had been so long since she’d even joked with someone, relaxed with someone, that she’d forgotten how much she missed it. The realization struck her like a blow.

  Something was happening to Ty, too. She could see it, because she couldn’t look away. His handsome face had shifted, just a millimeter, maybe the softening of his eyes, the tension in his jaw, an intensity that couldn’t be attributed to the game they’d just played. Somehow he stopped being Tyler Ashe, celebrity athlete, and just became himself. “Hey,” he said softly, equal parts greeting and question.

  “Hey,” she said back, the syllable catching in her throat.

  But it didn’t matter because they both understood, and they covered the inches between them at the same time, their lips meeting, pressing, sliding, and suddenly the space didn’t feel too small at all, they fit perfectly. Ty shifted in his seat so he could use a hand to cup her face, his fingers tickling the nape of her neck, and Gwen felt his tongue swipe across her lower lip and opened her mouth so she could feel more.

  She was feeling everything right now. It was like the door on an overstuffed cabinet finally bursting open, the feelings spilling out, scattering around her. Arousal, excitement, alarm, paranoia, arousal again. It flooded her veins, spreading to every inch, flushing her skin, heating her belly. At some point she fisted a hand in the front of Ty’s shirt and her knuckles rubbed over his chest, the shirt expensively soft, his body ridiculously hard. And she wanted that hardness. She wanted more of it, all of it—

  “Helllloooooo? Hope I’m not interrupting...”

  They sprung apart as far as the small box allowed, eyes wide, frantic breaths escaping. Gwen slapped a hand over her mouth as she recognized Ibanez’s voice and heard him take a few steps into the room, clearly searching for Ty. They were hidden inside the game, but easy enough to spot if he came closer.

  Gwen’s heart was galloping now, but for an entirely different reason. If anyone saw her in here, they’d jump to the wrong conclusion. Or the right one, it didn’t matter. Her reputation would be ruined, and she’d lose her job. She still wasn’t even sure she wanted the job, but risking it was a stupid mistake. A stupid, sexy mistake.

  “That’s his jacket,” Ibanez said to whomever he’d come searching with. “But he’s not here. They probably went somewhere else to hook up.”

  Gwen closed her eyes and prayed that “they” was Ty and the missing blonde woman.

  “All right. Let’s keep looking.”

  It was five more heart-stopping seconds before Ibanez’s footsteps retreated and the door clicked closed and Gwen took a full breath.

  “Oh God,” she muttered, scrambling out of the booth. “I can’t—I shouldn’t—”

  “Yeah,” Ty agreed, getting out the opposite side. He cleared his throat while he adjusted himself and smoothed his wrinkled shirt. “Totally. Not a great...” His voice trailed off as they locked eyes again, and though Gwen’s brain was screaming at her to get out, all the rest of her body parts were launching her at Ty, and he was catching her, and they were kissing again. They stumbled back into the pool table and Ty boosted her up, not missing a beat. Her knees hugged his hips, and hands and mouths were everywhere, and not nearly everywhere enough.

  Ty fished his wallet out of his pocket and dropped it on the table. “I have a condom,” he said, “if you want—”

  “Yes,” Gwen breathed. “Def—”

  “...where could he be?”

  “Do you think he left?”

  “Without his coat?”

  More voices came in from the hall and Gwen and Ty burst apart. Ty scooped her off the table and pushed her in the direction of Taxi-Kart, and Gwen dove inside just as the door to the room opened again and Ibanez returned.

  “There you are!” Ibanez exclaimed. “We just looked in here for you.”

  “I went to the bathroom.”

  “Who are you with?”

  “No one,” Ty lied smoothly. “I was playing pool. I wanted some space.”

  “You want me to kick your ass at a game? I’m good.”

  “I don’t believe you, and no. I’m going to head home.”

  “It’s early!”

  “We’ve got a game tomorrow.” Ty’s voice was drowned out by the sound of him racking up the pool balls.

  “Don’t get soft on me, old man.”

  “Why are you here, exactly?”

  “Because I’m saving your ass. That scary woman from PR is rounding up everyone for photos, and we couldn’t find you.”

  Gwen’s eyes widened at the mention of her boss. How long had she been gone? Five minutes? Ten? Too many minutes, and also too few to have made such an epic, Tyler Ashe-sized mistake.

  “Okay, I’ll be right out.”

  “Come now. I’ll wait for you.”

  “Ah...”

  Gwen slumped lower in the seat, like they might see her through the plastic walls.

  “Sure,” Ty said finally. “I just, I was having a really good game.”

&
nbsp; Ibanez sounded confused. “You can play again later, dude.”

  Gwen listened as their footsteps left the room and the door clicked shut, then she counted to ten, then twenty, then thirty, willing her blood pressure to drop to a healthy level. She plucked her T-shirt away from her sweaty chest and blew air into her cleavage. What she really needed was a paper bag in which to hyperventilate. She’d almost had sex with Tyler Ashe. On a pool table. In a public place. How had she gone from nearly eight months celibate to insane?

  Oh. Maybe that was why.

  She finally crawled out of the booth, gripping the side as she waited for her shaky knees to stabilize. She crept to the door and eased it open, but there was no one in the hall, so she slipped across into the bathroom and winced at her disheveled appearance. Her hair was half-out of its ponytail, sticking up crazily on one side, and her lips were pink and puffy. Her mascara was smudged around one eye and her cheeks were flushed. It took a few minutes to right herself, and when she couldn’t linger any longer, she returned to the PR team’s booth, relieved to find it empty. She drained the final inch of her champagne, wincing at the warm sweetness, then scooped up her blazer so she could escape with the dregs of her sanity.

  “So,” Chad said, sliding into the opposite side of the booth. “Got started on your mission a little early, huh?”

  Gwen froze as Allison and Brandon materialized behind her. Brandon sat next to Chad, which forced Gwen into the booth so Allison could sit down. Now she was trapped.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, her voice too shrill.

  “Your mission,” Brandon said, nodding to her empty glass. “Enjoying the free champagne.”

  “Oh, no, I—” Gwen cut off her own protest, since what she was being accused of was far less mortifying than what she’d actually done.

  “Forget it.” Chad refilled everyone’s glass. “It’s Saturday. We’ll worry about consequences tomorrow.”

  “To Saturday!” Allison said as they toasted. “And keeping those horny players in line.”