Players to Lovers (4 Book Collection) Read online

  Weirdly disappointing. Definitely uncomfortable. I’m unused to a woman wanting to live with me but have nothing to do with me at the same time.

  “She can have this, but then it’s her nap time,” Carter says and gestures to the bottle Lily’s glommed to her face. “The pancakes were probably enough to tide her over.”

  I regard Carter like an elementary school teacher who just told me I got detention. “Didn’t she nap a few hours ago in the car?”

  “She takes two naps during the day. Maybe three today, since the plane ride messed her up.”

  Yup. Definitely a schoolmarm. “Fine, I guess.”

  She surprises me by apologizing again. “I’m used to being in charge of her schedule. It’s a hard habit to shake.”

  “Why are you sorry?”

  Carter straightens from her hunch over Lily. “Because I feel bad. Like I’m ordering you around when all you want to do is spend more time with Lily.”

  “I’m no fool. You know Lily best, and it’s going to take me a while to figure it out. It’s why I asked you to stay. To help out. So, don’t feel bad for giving me the know-how.”

  Carter’s brows rise like she’s shocked I’m so reasonable. Man, when will this girl figure out I’m not out to get her?

  I figure the bananas and peas can be saved for later because Carter’s standing with Lily and making her way to the couch.

  “Jeez, that kid chugs harder than a frat boy during hazing week,” I say.

  Carter turns, and I brace an inner eye roll for a scolding, but she says instead, “You weren’t part of a fraternity.”

  I lift my chin in surprise. “You’re right. I wasn’t. I’m surprised you know that.”

  Some kind of emotion flits over her face, but I can’t discern it. Embarrassment? Bashfulness? Could chicks even be bashful anymore?

  “Don’t pretend like you don’t remember how famous you were in college,” she says.

  I shrug and go and sit beside them. Lily’s got one hand on her bottle, the other in the air, turning it this way and that as if fascinated she has fingers that can move on command. Her head is nestled near Carter’s breast, and I’ve completely forgotten what Carter’s saying.

  This baby, this little girl, she’s mine. And she’s regarding the world for the first time, including her own limbs.

  Carter clears her throat, and I immediately know why she’s frowning. “I’m not looking at your tits.”

  Her eyebrows jump.

  “I mean”—I glance at Lily—“boobs. Breasts. Not looking at them.”

  I’m mentally kicking myself in the dick right now. The old Locke would, of course,, check out the rack Carter possesses because it’s a good one, but this Locke, Dad Locke, is one hundred percent in awe of his daughter at a woman’s breast and the miracle of human life.

  How am I supposed to express this to Carter? Her mind is made up. I’m an immature, asshole player, and she’s the perfect modern version of Mother Teresa.

  Carter squints at me. “I think I’ll put her to bed now.”

  I give up. “Sure. Go ahead.”

  I watch Carter take the bottle away from a drowsy Lily and leave, giving a big sigh to her retreating back. But as if pulled by magnetic power, I follow behind.

  I’m at the doorway as Carter gently sways toward Lily’s crib, and when she turns to the side, I see her dip her head near Lily’s, murmuring.

  It’s a song. I can hear it when I step closer. Carter’s singing to Lily, notes I don’t recognize, but the longer Carter goes, the heavier Lily’s eyelids get. Together, they sway, Lily’s ringlets moving in the small wind they alone have created, and eventually, quietly, Carter lays her down.

  A strange emotion fills me, similar to what I felt when scoring a touchdown, but this was lighter, airier, yet it lingers and feels full. Being witness to this moment feels so personal to Carter, so private, that I’m strangely ashamed and start studying Lily’s crib instead.

  I’m proud of that crib. Proud that I chose it, that Lily must like it because she’s not complaining upon being laid in it, and I also made sure the mattress cover was super soft. Nothing but the softest touch could caress my girl.

  I’m so focused on Lily that I almost miss Carter raising a hand as she pushes off the crib and wipes it against her cheek. A single tear has escaped, despite the sweet melody and holding Lily close, knowing she doesn’t have to go anywhere anytime soon.

  I wonder what Carter’s thinking—if it’s about Lily or her friend, or leaving the familiar behind to stay here, maybe even a boyfriend. But Carter sees me in the doorway and then smiles as if there were never a visible tear.

  I hesitate in smiling back. Whatever could make her go from so sad to so deceivingly happy, had to be too much for a girl like this to bear.

  “She’s out,” Carter whispers to me as she draws close. I step back, and she softly shuts the door.

  “Then I guess it’s just the two of us.”

  I say it hoping to elicit a smile. Not the fake one she just deployed, but her real one, the unwittingly bright one that hits me like a football every time I see it.

  She gives none. “Do you mind if I rest, too? I know I’m supposed to be in there with Lily, but if I could just lie on your couch…”

  “Take my bedroom.” I add, “Sheets are clean, I promise.”

  There. The barest flicker of a genuine smile. “Thanks.”

  “You must feel like it’s been a day and a half. Go sleep for a while.”

  She turns as she’s heading to my room. “Wake me when Lily’s up?”

  “Sure,” I say.

  As soon as Carter is out of view, I make like a tree and timber onto my couch, arms splayed out, legs spread, and look to the ceiling. Fucking exhausted.

  Here’s the problem: I remember Paige Tobias.

  While reputation precedes me, especially during college and at the top of my game—both with women and as running back—my mother raised me to respect women. I mainly apply that respect to physical appreciation, but it’s a rarity for me to look at a girl and not remember sleeping with her. I know who I fuck. My dick commands my brain for the most part, but there still has to be an attraction, a willingness to strip naked and pleasure a woman.

  And I recall the night Paige stepped into my world with uncomfortable clarity. It was a house party, right after we became the National champs, so yup, I was finally drinking again after being sober the entire season, and hammered out of my mind. She came into the room with Carter beside her, and the reason they were so memorable was their utter awkwardness in a relatively raucous room. Beats, bass, hollers, drinks spilling, girls’ shoes randomly ditched, and a group of us guys, “cheers-ing” with the women draped over us.

  Those two stood out like it was the first party they’d ever come to.

  Asher, one of my main buddies, spotted them the moment I did. Covered in tats and with a toothpaste smile, he said to me, “Freshies?”

  “Nah,” I said while a girl kissed me and gnawed at my ear. “Look at those legs. Those aren’t baby deer over there. They’re at least gazelles.”

  Asher could always be relied upon to laugh at my quips. “Hunting season already, bro?”

  I lingered on Paige, curly blonde ringlets half clipped back from her face, giant green eyes, a splattering of freckles on the top part of her chest, then returned to the girl next to me, giving her a nip on her nose, much to her delight.

  “Too innocent for me,” I said to Asher. “I like my girls…” Another nip and this one giggled. “Up for anything.”

  But my attention strayed back to the two of them, this time moving to the one beside her, to those dark, sexy waves of hair hitting her elbows, those oval gold eyes, more feline than human. Now she was more what I’d like to prowl, rather than the all-American girl beside her.

  She caught me staring, gold shields wavering ever so slightly before she spoke to her friend and they skittered away.

  “Your heart beating a little fast, bud?�
�� Ben came up behind us, draping his arms around both my and Asher’s shoulders.

  “If I were you,” he said to the lady beside me, “I’d be insulted.”

  She—Laura—smacked Ben’s arm in an oh you gesture, huddling closer to my abs.

  Fast losing interest in her, Ben said, “Easton’s bailed, as usual. We should play some beer pong.”

  “Why?” Asher asked. He pointed with his chin. “This room alone has whatever you need to pass the time.”

  “Another night, another party, more chicks.” Ben gave an exaggerated eye roll, clearly blitzed. “Blah.”

  “I’m not into pong,” I say. “Should we throw some ball outside? Get some poker going?”

  To be honest, I was also losing interest in this party, in the sameness of it all. Senior year. Routine was all well and good on the field, but take me out onto concrete and spontaneity was what I craved. Not another house party, another exam, another day of training. I felt for Ben.

  “Nah, all done and done.” As if on chance, but it was purely planned, Ben put those two girls back in his sights. “Which one, Locke?”

  I laughed, but it was suspicious. “What are you talking about, man?”

  “Which one do you want?”

  I shook my head, playing with Laura’s hair. “Neither.”

  “Liar.”

  “Fine. The brunette,” I said. “‘Cause I got a blonde right here.”

  On cue, Laura giggled again, then whispered, “Let’s go somewhere.”

  “Soon,” I said to her. Despite my boredom, my cock was calling for some action.

  “I dare you to bag the blonde, then. The other one.”

  My attention strayed to Ben. “Dude, no.”

  “Yes!” Asher pumped the air. “A wager. Better than any poker game, because I suck at it.”

  “I’m not betting on a chick,” I said, “when I can get any chick I want.”

  “Bet you can’t get that one,” Ben said.

  “You’re an ass.”

  “You’re a pussy.”

  “If you fuck her, I’ll give you five hundred bucks,” Asher jumped in.

  Both Ben and I said, “You fuckin’ kidding?”

  We knew he wasn’t. Asher came from prime old money stock. His family had more money than some countries. College was more a way for him to pass the time, and, I often ribbed him, a place where he could make friends.

  “Nope,” he said. “Let’s boost the odds a bit. You’ve got a lady on your arm—sorry, Laura—but, go for the girl who has the best chance of saying no to you. Prove us wrong, Locke. Show us the Hayes legacy remains strong.”

  “You’re both dicks,” I muttered.

  “That’s ‘cause you won’t use yours.”

  I don’t know which one of them said it. It didn’t matter. I was bored, used to nailing challenges, and figured, why not give that girl a story? She could have one night with the best, something she could tell her grandkids one day.

  Little did I fuckin’ know, I’d be related to those grandkids.

  Falling back into the present, my apartment ceiling re-enters into focus.

  That’s what I don’t want Carter to find out. That I slept with her friend on a dare, when I really would have preferred to sleep with her. Clearly, Paige never filled Carter in on the specifics. And yeah, I accepted a thousand bucks cash for it. I’d upped the ante with Asher on precedent.

  Fuck, Carter would hate me more than she does now.

  I’d always been interested in women. Who wouldn’t be, when your first experience with them was being propositioned by an older lady at a convenience store at fifteen years old buying Red Bulls?

  After my injury, I went into overdrive. My knee had healed enough to get by without opioids, so I threw myself into my own personal female anatomy classes. I grinned, I wooed, and soon I didn’t even have to do that. They came around me, fluttering butterflies with excellent asses, and I was a natural. I pleasured them with less conversation and more sex. Adventurous, detailed sexual positions that got me off and sent me prowling for more. Always more.

  I forgot all about the blonde I’d screwed in the back of Asher’s Audi. And I never once thought about her friend with the gilded eyes.

  I’d gained, I’d conquered, and I broke hearts. My career and life goals were over as I knew it, so what did I care if a chick cried into a tissue box for a few nights before moving on to some other dude? Not me, man.

  The only time I ever thought it was a problem was when Carter stepped back into view a month ago. But Carter gave me no time to process, since she dropped a bomb in the form of a baby, then left. That should’ve been it. Some crazy woman who can’t let go of a kid that isn’t hers. I’d do my part, gain rights to Lily, and then Carter would re-exit stage left.

  Except, on the day she flew back to Florida, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. It finally clicked. Those toffee-colored eyes that held more cracked glass than sparkle. The curves of her body and how I wanted my hands on her hips and cupping her ass in college. Only now, both were flattened by grief.

  For the past month, between being terrified of taking care of Lily, becoming her sole custodian and forcing myself into figuring that shit out, images of Carter would creep in and glue onto my retinas. Her lips, and yes, her tits, her curves, and angles—some sharper than others.

  She hides her emotions too well. When she’d looked away from me at that party almost two years ago, all I wanted to know was why. Why didn’t she approach me then? And now that she’s in my apartment? All I want to do is figure out her layers. And I’m not supposed to want that sort of thing.

  Cut to now, and I’ve asked Carter to live with me—can’t wait to hear Ben’s and Ash’s thoughts on that—this girl I can’t shake. Regardless of how much she can’t stand me, I want to figure out her puzzle.

  It should be easy because I’m a master at women.

  I close my eyes and rub them.

  Too bad for me, I’m currently housing two ladies I have no clue how to handle.

  11

  Carter

  Once Locke is out of the room, I’m not supposed to think about him.

  That’s what I tell myself as I strip off my pants in his room, lie down in his bed, cover myself in his sheets.

  He’s right, they’re crisp and clean. Smelling like lavender.

  What he doesn’t know is that lavender is Paige’s signature scent. Was.

  Like always, my eyes fill with unbidden tears. I use a piece of his sheet to wipe them away, but that only traps me in a floral breeze, and I choke back a sob.

  I don’t want Locke to hear me. I’d be mortified if he came in here and saw me without pants and crying.

  But memories of Paige don’t care about what I want, and they assail anyway. Of her holding Lily in the hospital, her cheeks wet with happy tears. Her recovery in our apartment, a small bassinet beside her, Lily sleeping through most of it while Paige could barely come to a sitting position…

  My sleeping with both of them, helping Paige figure out how to breastfeed, and then, when that didn’t work, how to take a bottle. Figuring out morning feedings and the weird tendencies of newborns to appear like they’re malfunctioning as they adapt to life outside the womb. All scary, terrifying prospects that Paige and I battled together.

  But then…the greatest fear of all came upon us, and I couldn’t lift up a sword for her.

  The lump on Paige’s right breast. Her dismissal of that tiny bump all throughout her pregnancy. The failure to breastfeed leading us to mention it during Lily’s one-month wellness checkup. The pediatrician feeling Paige’s breast and going, “Huh…”

  Everything turning into disaster after that.

  It’d be easy to blame Paige for this. For my being here. For Lily being given to a guy who wouldn’t know who Paige was if someone threw her at him. But as much as I hate to admit it, I know Paige’s reasons. She wanted Lily to have a father, her father, not another family where not only I but she would disappear.<
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  I wonder if Paige kept up with Locke’s career. If she knew about his knee blowout and maybe thought she’d be offering him the gift of learning to live again by giving him a chance to choose Lily.

  That would be so like her, to notice his fall, sense an opening. To give him the chance to overcome his ego and understand true love instead of the allure of brief, physical talent.

  Did she wrestle with the idea that Locke could’ve been worse, rather than better, after his accident? Not simply due to the drinking and women, but the failure, too. Losing his career, becoming invisible to the masses that once adored him. The infallible Lachlan Hayes turning into an internet joke.

  Who knew? I roll over, fluffing Locke’s too-flat pillows. Locke certainly won’t tell me.

  Slowly, ever so carefully, I feel my eyelids weighing shut, but can’t help the bleak thoughts from blanketing me into slumber.

  Locke could be a worse man now than he was then. And back in college, he was pretty bad.

  I wake to a thump. And then another.

  Cracking an eye open, I’m still unable to see anything. The room is dark, only the barest line of curtain bordering the night.

  Lily.

  I shoot up in bed and throw the covers off, fumbling in the darkness for my jeans.

  While I was sleeping, Lily might’ve been hurt. I’ve left her with a stranger the entire afternoon who doesn’t know a toddler from a newborn and—dammit, where are my jeans?

  Oh god, oh god, oh god.

  Fuck ‘em.

  I sprint to the door and fling it open, desperate to see a baby crawling around, one healthy and pink-cheeked and whole.

  “Lil—!”

  I stop. Freeze under three sets of headlights. Three men—none of them Locke—have somehow managed to fit themselves on the couch in the main room.

  The closest one grins. “Hello!”