Team Player 2: A Sports Anthology

by Paige, Rochelle

  “Yep,” I said, biting back a smile. “Or else you might get chewed on.”

  Chapter Eight

  Kai

  I drove the Jeep that Jason had rented for me southwest, into Maui’s upcountry. Daisy gave directions while not telling me where, exactly, we were going to go. The road was winding and green as we drove deeper into the heart of Maui, until she finally said, “That’s it, up there.”

  I looked to the sign she pointed at, trying not to stare at her slender arm, or the coppery bracelets that jangled on her delicate wrist.

  Kula Farm, now offering Maui Goat Yoga

  I shot her a look. “Goat yoga? Are you kidding?”

  “Nope.”

  “How does that even work?”

  “It’s just like what it sounds. Yoga with miniature goats walking and-or climbing amongst us.”

  “They’re going to climb on me?”

  “Goats like to be up high. It’s the cutest thing ever. You don’t necessarily get a full yoga experience, but—”

  “No, this one comes with bonus goat piss,” I said and rolled my eyes.

  Nevertheless, I followed her out of the car and to the farmhouse off the side of the road. We took a path around to a yard that was fenced in with wire where ten people were sitting on yoga mats while miniature goats—about the size of large dogs—and their babies meandered among them, chewing on t-shirts, and on the shoes the participants had piled next to their mats. An instructor sat in front, a baby goat gnawing on the hem of her shirt. The instructor welcomed us with a smile and beckoned to sit our mats anywhere.

  “Anywhere the goats haven’t shit on yet,” I muttered. “Tell me again why we’re here?”

  Daisy arched a brow at me. “Because you’re holding on to your anger like it’s some prized possession. Which is unhealthy. And it’s impossible to be angry around baby goats.”

  “What if one pisses on me? Can I be angry then?”

  “No, you cannot.” She gave my sleeve a little tug. “Come on, it’s about to start.”

  We took our mats and joined the group on the grass. The goats meandered around the yoga participants, and I pet those that ventured nearest to me while the instructor led the group through breathing exercises. Some of the goats were mere babies with little sharp hoofs and soft coats. The adults had stiffer coats, and some bulged in the middle as if they’d swallowed two basketballs.

  One adult plopped down right in the middle of my mat and lay there placidly. Unbothered. And unmovable.

  “Oi. Goat. Move.”

  It acted as though it hadn’t heard me. I looked to Daisy beside me. “Now what?”

  She laughed and reached out a slender arm to pat the goat’s belly. “Looks like you have a yoga partner.”

  “How am I supposed to do…anything?”

  “Think of it as a test of your flexibility.”

  “This is ridiculous,” I muttered, but I found myself inexplicably on the verge of laughing.

  The instructor led us through maneuvers that I had to perform with a large and likely pregnant goat on my mat. Achieving any kind of Zen or relaxation or whatever the hell yoga was supposed to do was impossible with a smelly goat as my partner.

  More distracting was Daisy in yoga pants that hugged the curve of her ass and made her legs look a million miles long. She was radiant, the sunlight glinting off the curls of her hair, and her smile perfect as she stopped doing yoga altogether to hold a baby goat in her arms. She met my eye, and instead of complaining about my predicament, I felt a lightness in my chest, like a balloon that kept filling with warm air instead of anger and frustration.

  When it came time to get on all fours, I had to kneel in the shitty mud and wanted to laugh harder. No sooner was in position than a baby goat leapt onto my back, its little sharp hooves digging into my skin and most likely ruining my $190 Ralph Lauren workout shirt.

  “This little fucker doesn’t care at all about my feelings, does he?” I asked Daisy. “He’s just going to climb wherever the hell he pleases.”

  “Yep,” Daisy said, laughing. “That’s what I love about goats. They’re DGAF attitude is inspirational. Hold on. We need to memorialize this moment.”

  She set aside her own little goat to grab her phone and took a pic of me. On all fours. With a goat on my back. Laughing, she turned the phone to show me.

  “Just as I suspected. The little bastard is just using me.” I winced as the goat turned a circle on my back and gave the collar of my shirt a nip. “I craned my neck. “Oi. Mate. I have feelings too.”

  Daisy laughed, and I laughed too, and generally felt better than I had in months. Even when my yoga partner finally rousted herself up and promptly let loose a stream of yellow piss all over my mat. I only laughed harder.

  Daisy brushed her hands together. “My work here is done. The smile on your face…” Her cheeks turned pink and she looked away. “That was worth it.”

  The moment between us caught and held, and then the sky darkened above. Clouds rolled in fast, indicating a storm, and not just one of Hawaii’s typical and frequent rain showers.

  “Damn,” Daisy said, hugging herself and looking up at the ominous sky. “I read a storm was coming through but hoped it would pass us.”

  I started to make a joke but Daisy’s beautiful face was closed down in worry.

  “It’s all good,” I said. “Nothing to fear.”

  Her bronze eyes darted to me and then away. “Right. Can we get going? If there’s going to be lightning, I want to be with Keanu so he doesn’t freak out.”

  “Sure. Let me just wash off the souvenir my yoga partner left me.”

  Daisy didn’t crack a smile as I used a hose at the side of the house to wash off my mat, then joined her at the Jeep.

  “You okay?” I asked before we got in. She was staring at her phone, her brows furrowed, gnawing on her lip.

  “I just…sometimes storms lead to power outages and the weather service is saying this one looks worse than they thought.” She glanced at me. “The guesthouse doesn’t have a back-up generator by any chance?”

  “Not sure. I know the main house does.” I cocked my head. “Do storms really bother you so much? If so…you picked the wrong bunch of islands to move to.” I held up my hands at her dark look. “I’m just saying…”

  “It’s not the storm,” she said. “It’s the dark.” Then she shook her head as the first raindrops started to fall. “Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

  She climbed into the passenger seat without a word, and we drove back to the house in Lahaina, a tension-filled silence filling the car, like lightning does before it strikes. Outside, lightning did strike and the storm began in earnest. Rain fell like sheets of water, and the sky grew dark in a premature night.

  “You sure you’ll be okay?” I asked in the backyard, from under the main house’s kitchen lanai.

  “Yep. Great,” she said, biting the words out. “Got to get to Keanu. He must be scared.”

  She ran off without another look back, into the guesthouse.

  What the hell was that?

  Disappointment bit at me that the fun, light mood of the goat yoga hadn’t lasted. But then—I reminded myself—nothing good does.

  * * *

  The storm was a long one. For three days, rain lashed down and Daisy and I had to take her Reiki sessions into the workout room in the big house. I hated to admit it—even to myself—but my elbow felt amazing and my own thunderstorm of grief felt like it was rolling somewhere else. At least for now.

  On the fourth day, the storm took a final, bruising turn, and sure enough, the power went out. The TV that I’d been watching tennis highlights on blipped black and everything went dark around me. Then the whir of the back-up generator kicked in, and a few lights came back on.

  I headed to the kitchen that was empty; Lana having gone home hours before. The guesthouse across the pool was pitch black, and I suddenly remembered the stricken look on Daisy’s face at the prospect of a blacko
ut. She’d been genuinely afraid and here I was, standing there like a dope when she needed me.

  Settle down, mate. You’re no hero.

  Even so, I raced around the huge living room, gathering up pillar candles the interior decorator had apparently been addicted to using in his décor. I gathered as many as I could carry in my arms and rushed for the kitchen’s back door.

  I fumbled the door open, juggling the six pillar candles, and then nearly dropped them all to see Daisy standing there, hand raised to knock, Keanu by her side.

  “Oh, hey,” I said.

  “Hey.” She was hugging herself nervously, eyeing my armful of candles. Raindrops hung like diamonds in the curls of her hair. “What are you doing?”

  “I was…” I shifted the load in my arms. “I thought…”

  “Are those for me?”

  I nodded. “You said you’re not a fan of the dark.”

  A faint smile pulled at her lips. “That’s so…thoughtful of you.” She hugged herself tighter, and she looked over my shoulder, to the lighted living room.

  “Oh, but hey, come in,” I said quickly, stepping aside. “I mean…if you’d rather…”

  “That’d be great,” she said, her usually assured voice low and trembling. “If you don’t mind. Just for a little while…”

  She stepped inside, Keanu following at her heels. She plopped down on the couch and a sigh of relief gusted out of her.

  “Sorry to intrude,” she said. “I’m sure you need to rest.”

  “It’s fine,” I said and set down the candles on the dining room table. “You want something to drink or eat? Or…drink?”

  “No, I’m good,” she said, still hugging herself.

  Her normally calm, peaceful demeanor was rattled, and it made my stomach tighten. I opened my mouth and shut it again; put my hands on my hips, then dropped them again.

  “What can I do?” I asked finally.

  Daisy’s impossibly-colored eyes turned to me with a softness I’d never seen before either. “I’m fine,” she said. “Or will be. I just…” She sighed again, and Keanu rested his muzzle on her thigh. She rubbed his ears absently. “I suppose you want to know why. The dark? My dog?”

  I want to help you.

  The thought tightened the knot in my stomach. I needed to go to sleep. I needed to not get involved. I needed to not care...

  “If you want to talk,” I said slowly, “I’m here.”

  Shit.

  Daisy’s eyes widened and softened until they were liquid bronze, and then she quickly looked away. “That’s awfully nice of you, Kai,” she said, trying for her usual bravado. “What gives? The rain making you sentimental?”

  “Must be.” I leaned my palms on the table. I gave her one of my grins; the kind that the press ate up with a spoon and had landed me on the cover of Sports Illustrated. It didn’t work on Daisy.

  Is that why I like her so damn much? Already?

  Her not putting up with my bullshit or falling into my bed five minutes after meeting me weren’t good enough reasons to be this attracted to a woman this fast. But her sitting on my giant couch, scared shitless yet brave, stunningly beautiful, and a hundred other better reasons tried to crowd my thoughts.

  Daisy cocked her head. “Kai? You’re staring.”

  I blinked, fought for something to talk about. Keanu yawned and settled himself at Daisy’s feet. “How long have you had this ugly mutt?”

  She laughed. “This ugly mutt is a purebred Siberian Husky. They’re descended from wolves. I mean, all dogs are, in theory, but the Husky is only a few genomes off.”

  “How did you end up owning an almost-wolf?”

  “A friend of my parents bought Keanu from a breeder but then decided to retire in Paris. Parisian apartments and Huskies don’t mix, so now he’s mine.”

  “I would have thought that Huskies and Hawaiian heat wouldn’t mix either.”

  “They’re adaptable to climate,” Daisy said. “But I keep his fur short and make sure he’s cool enough. I take care of him and he takes care of me.”

  “How?”

  “He protects me,” she said. “In general, he’s a good guard dog. But at night…he protects me from intruders. And that’s important.”

  Something happened. Something not good.

  It was on the tip of my tongue to ask, but I had a feeling I wouldn’t like the answer. I had a feeling I would hate the answer. That I’d want to kill someone. That I’d listen to the story now, unable to prevent whatever happened then, and the helpless feeling would drive me crazy. Because she drove me crazy. Daisy Watson whipped up my emotions and made it impossible to let me talk myself out of feeling…things. If she told me something terrible had happened to her, it’d fuck me up and I didn’t need or want that.

  I cleared my throat, searching for a distraction. My gaze landed on the dog. “You take him everywhere?”

  “I don’t go anywhere without him,” Daisy said, raising her eyes to mine. “Or more like I can’t go anywhere without him. Not without feeling scared and helpless at night. The nightmares…they’re so bad. It’s so ridiculous.” She shook her head. “Anyway, I should go. Let you sleep.”

  She started to rise, and I should have let her. Instead, I sat down beside her on the couch.

  “Tell me.”

  “No… You don’t want to hear it.”

  “I do. Even if it pisses me off and I want to murder someone, I want to hear it. I want to hear it if it helps you to tell it.”

  Our eyes met and locked. My arms itched to hold her. To comfort her. Protect her. I’d never held a woman if it wasn’t going to lead to sex, and that had never bothered me before. It bothered me now.

  Daisy must’ve seen something in my eyes that said she could trust me, and holy shit, that was a first too.

  “I was housesitting my parents’ condo in San Francisco,” she began. “They have a really nice place in the Marina District, which is where a lot of rich people live. My parents have money. I don’t,” she added. “It’s silly, honestly. They’d bail me out of trouble if I needed them, but I don’t want to need them. That’s why I took Jason’s offer when I’m only the—”

  She bit off her words and looked away.

  “When you’re only…what?”

  “Nothing. I don’t know. I was telling you about the break-in.”

  “A break-in.” I sat back against the couch, not liking the sound of this already. “Okay.”

  She nodded. “I was alone. It was late. I woke up in the guest bedroom to a…a man…”

  My heart crashed against my ribs and I swallowed hard as my throat had gone dry.

  “One of the burglars. He was just…lying on top of me. The covers were between us,” she added quickly, catching my horrified expression. “I woke up with him on me. His hand on my mouth and a knife on my cheek.”

  I stared. “Bloody fucking fuck, Daisy.” My hands clenched and unclenched. “Did he…hurt you?”

  She shook her head and took a trembling breath. “No. It was so weird. Horrifying and weird, but he just lay there, staring at me through a ski mask. Almost casually. And it was so dark. He was dark. All in black. And his partner was smashing things and making noise. So they left. The man…” She shivered. “He kissed my cheek and then he left.”

  I carved my hand through my hair. “Jesus.”

  Daisy glanced up at me, her eyes shining but she blinked hard. “Yeah, so now I have a hard time with the dark. Or being alone at night.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” I said. “I’m sorry, Daisy. I’m sorry that happened to you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Did they ever catch the arsehole?”

  She shook her head. “I think that’s what makes it worse, in a way. He’s still out there, and I feel like he might be trying to find me. That’s partly why I moved all the way to Hawaii. Because he was never caught and…he might not be done with me.” Daisy glanced up at me, an embarrassed, nervous smile flitting over her lips. “I
know, it’s irrational but I can’t shake it. So I have Keanu and I sleep with the lights on, and Melanie, my boss at the Wellness Center. She’s trying to help me too.”

  “Good,” I said. “She should.”

  Daisy plucked at the couch cushion thread. “I suppose you’re wondering how I can be any good helping you when I’m not having much luck on myself yet.”

  “I wasn’t thinking that,” I said.

  She held my gaze a second, then looked away. “You might, though. If I tell you the truth. And since I’m spilling my guts tonight, you should hear the truth.” She heaved a breath and then said, “I’m not a naturopath. Not yet. I’m in training.” She raised her bronze eyes to mine. “At the Wellness Center…I’m just the receptionist.”

  I blinked. “Okay.”

  “Jason, your agent… He cares about you so much and he wants to help you. And I needed the money. Desperately.” She tilted her chin up. “I understand if you want me to go. And refund the pay. I’ll—”

  “What? No.” I shook my head with a small laugh. “I don’t know if this is going to make you feel better or worse, but it doesn’t matter a wit to me that you’re the receptionist.”

  She loosed a watery, relieved little laugh. “No?”

  “Nah,” I said. “You could be the janitor or the CEO. It’s all the same to me.”

  Daisy laughed again, the tension leaving her body and fear vanishing from her eyes, leaving them bright and clear. “You’re right. That makes me feel so much better.” Then she frowned. “But what about the money?”

  “There is the matter of your pay,” I said, biting back a teasing smile. “I suppose that means I’ll have to show up tomorrow morning for another Reiki session.”

  She arched a brow. “A session you believe is worthless?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t get excited but…my elbow feels better than it has in months. And I happen to be free at that time.”

  Her playful smile faded. “It really does help with bad memories too, Kai. Or pain. Anything is better than boxing it up, shoving it away, and pretending it doesn’t exist.” Her hand in her lap rested lightly on mine. “Talking about it helps.”