Playing for Keeps: An Enemies to Lovers Sports Romance

by Stephanie Queen

  Wondering for the jazillionth time how this happened—aside from the part about me and Tate fucking our brains out—because I’m on birth control. I have a patch, don’t I? This is a mystery I’m hoping the doctor can explain, because I’m sure as hell going to need to have an explanation for Tate.

  Directly after my appointment, I will talk to Tate. No matter how busy he is, no matter how much he tries to avoid me. I won’t let him escape without knowing he’s the father of my baby. Our baby.

  Chapter 20

  Tate

  The team got in late last night from Detroit, so on top of losing game eight and blowing our winning streak to a dumpster team, I’m running on four hours sleep. Hell, I should be used to it by now. It’s been weeks since I’ve slept eight hours. Exactly four weeks but who’s counting. It’s my first broken heart, but so far, I’m sporting all the classic symptoms according to Max.

  It’s late and the locker room is emptying out. I’m only half dressed when Max comes by and says he’s taking off.

  “By the way, you have a visitor. In the training room.” He gives me a wink and I wonder what shit he’s pulling. If it was Sean, I’d expect something devious, but since it’s Max, I get off my ass, grab a shirt and head for the training room. As soon as I push open the door, I know it’s her.

  Chloe has a special scent that I’ll never forget as long as I live. It sends a spasm of longing and excitement, fear and joy running through me in a shiver as I step inside and close the door behind me.

  She turns to face me and whatever warring chaos is fucking around in my head stops, the numbness that’s gripped me like a close friend disappears like a ghost. There’s something in her beautiful violet eyes that compels me forward, that clears my emotions like a tornado clears a forest.

  Stopping in front of her without touching her, as if I’ve hit a glass wall, I say, “What is it Chloe? What’s wrong?”

  I shouldn’t let my guard down because I know what lays just beneath it. More than lust, more than caring—more than I want to think about because that way lies madness. As in madly in love and I know why they call it mad now, understand the craziness it causes, how it messes up your head, fucks with your whole life and everything you thought you knew.

  But the look in those eyes scares me more than anything else I’ve experienced in life up until now. The room is deathly quiet and the air between us tense.

  “I don’t know how to tell you this.” Her voice is wobbly, like she’s on the verge of crying and my fear for her blows up, spewing out fresh new emotion to replace whatever came before. Taking the last step to close the distance between us, I hold her arms.

  “Tell me. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s not wrong… but it’s not exactly right,” she says, her eyes glittering, but different than the last time I saw her with unshed tears. This time there’s no holding back as tears leak onto her cheek in a small stream.

  “I’m sorry—I’m extra emotional. It’s hormones,” she says as I don’t bother resisting my urge to brush her cheek with my thumb.

  “You’re scaring me, Chloe.” My voice is shaky and it’s no exaggeration. I’m preparing myself to hear that she’s dying and my gut roils and my heart screams, the sharp pain of it shooting through my chest.

  She puts her hands on me, touches my chest and leans in, looking up at me. “No, don’t be scared, Tate. It’s alright. I don’t expect anything from you. I’ll be fine.”

  “You will? That’s good.” I blow out a breath, but relief is quickly supplanted by confusion. “What the fuck is going on, Chloe?”

  “I’m messing this up—I’m sorry. But it’s so hard, such a big, big thing and a surprise—such a surprise, and—”

  “Chloe,” I grip her shoulders, “tell me what this big fucking surprise is right fucking now.”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Boom.

  “What?” My mind is blank. The shock is like jumping into Lake Michigan in early spring the first time when the water’s fresh off the freeze. My whole body goes numb and I hold my breath, my eyes close and I wait to resurface, for the world to start up again with a big breath of air. But the big sad violet eyes staring at me are still sparkling with unshed tears and my heart beats wildly pounding too hard to be healthy.

  Something hot and electric starts in the pit of my stomach and spreads through me like a wild fire. “What did you say?”

  “I’m pregnant, Tate. With our child. You’re going to be a father. I’m going to be a fucking mother. We’re having a baby—” Once she gets going, she can’t stop, but her words are registering now.

  “Chloe,” I whisper the words like I have rust in my throat. “Are you sure.”

  She nods, shaking a tear loose and I reach up and wipe it with my thumb, my hand shaking.

  “I just came from the doctor.” She clears her throat, sniffles and goes on with bravado. “It’s official. You and I will become parents in about seven and a half months.”

  But the bravado doesn’t hold and her cocky smile quivers. My chest feels like I’ve just been branded by hot irons—with her name on them. Reaching out to her I pull her to me and wrap my arms around her, pressing her against me, as much to sooth the searing in my soul as hers.

  She doesn’t want me and I’m not so sure she wants this baby even as brave as she’s trying to be, but I’ll be damned if I’m not going to be the best damned father this baby could have. No kid of mine is going to live a minute feeling unwanted.

  Tears soak my sweaty shirt and I realize belatedly the last place she probably wants to be is pressed to a smelly practice shirt in the arms of a man too foolish to appreciate her, too stubborn to forgive her.

  “Chloe,” I don’t know what to say, where to begin.

  “You already said that, Fontanna,” she mumbles into my shirt and I let out a big breath, a smile in spite of the jumbled confusion in my head and heart. Relieved that she sounds like her irrepressible self, that I haven’t crushed her spirit, overwhelms me, helping to clear away some of the fog of emotions swirling like a hurricane knocking me on my ass like no offensive lineman ever did.

  When the fog clears, the one emotion that’s left standing is pure ecstatic joy. I don’t go looking for any chasers of uncertainty or doubt to ruin the moment. There’s nothing else in me now but pure euphoria, a burning well of happiness like I’ve never felt before. I squeeze her tight.

  She pushes back and looks up at me.

  “You’re smiling,” she says. “Two dimples.”

  “You bet your sweet ass.” I lift her off the ground and swing her around. “This is unbelievable. You and I?”

  She nods, tentative at first, then smiles back.

  “Does this mean you’ll marry me, Fontanna?”

  I check her eyes to make sure she’s serious, but I know she is.

  “You sure that’s what you want?” I say.

  “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  I laugh, because it’s so Chloe Smith.

  “The only way this is going to work is if I’m the one who asks.” I take her face in my hands and bring my lips to hers in a caress and then ask her.

  “Chloe, will you marry me?”

  “Only if you love me.” Her voice is quiet and brave and sends a wave of warmth through me.

  “I’m madly in love with you.”

  “Do you trust me?” she whispers and then holds her breath. I don’t think, I talk, saying what’s in my heart.

  “I trust you with all my heart. I trust you to be the mother of my child.”

  Her grin lights up the universe and she nod wildly, spilling curls onto her face as she wraps her arms around my neck and kisses me.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” I say in between kisses. We hold each other tight in the middle of the training room at the stadium. Tears are streaming down her face now, but I know they’re happy tears and I kiss them away.

  I should be in shock, should feel like this is all a dream, but it feels more like I’
ve awakened from a nightmare, the one where I was trapped in old fears, held captive my own inability to trust myself, to trust and to forgive the woman I love.

  Epilogue

  Chloe

  “It’s time.”

  “You’re sure?”

  I give him a look. He gives me the finger. I laugh. He squeezes me in his arms and I squeal then double over in real pain this time.

  “Fuck,” he says. Then he jumps out of bed and I watch him as beads of sweat pop out everywhere and I try not to cry or scream or look like I’m in pain. This might be a losing battle, Smitty. I can hear my grandma telling me this. She’s always right.

  He runs around the room like mad, putting on pants and grabbing my clothes from the chair.

  “You okay? Breathe deep.” He’s pulling my Boston Militia jersey on over my head which is okay since I’m naked and don’t mind going braless.

  “I’m fine.” I smile as proof. He looks skeptical.

  “How bad does it hurt? Tell me the truth.”

  “No pain. I’m in between contractions.” Sliding my legs around, I touch my feet to the floor. He’s about to slip on my super stretched out leggings, but I stop him. “I need panties,” I say.

  “WTF, Chloe. They’re only coming off as soon as—”

  “My grandma always said a lady wears panties to the doctor’s. Her Sunday best.”

  He smiles at me. I think he’s in love with my grandma. Or so it seems by the way he looks every time I quote her. I’ve taken to quoting her a lot lately, not that I’ve forgotten my father. But let’s just say my ambition to follow in his footsteps as a sports reporter is now superseded by my ambition to be a mother. The kind of mother I imagine my mother might have been had she lived. The kind of mother my dad would have loved me to be. Had he lived.

  The next wave of pain hits me and I grit my teeth, trying to stay upright and hide it, but Tate’s not fooled.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” he whispers and holds me, caressing my hair and back and trembling with whatever emotion he’s feeling. Probably fear for me. “We need to get you to the hospital. Right now.”

  I can’t argue with that as he lifts me in his arms like I’m a small person, which I am most definitely not at this stage. I was never a skinny girl and now I’m practically a cow after gaining thirty pounds through the ice cream diet. Tate bought me every flavor imaginable in the past six and a half months to make up for ridding the place of all whiskey and cigars.

  Wrapping my arms around his neck as he carries me and my bags to the door, I laugh when he stops. Then I reach down and open it for him and he carries me down to the car.

  “Did you warm it up?” I ask, shivering with the blast of cold New England air even as I huddle closer to him.

  “Of course. Sorry I forgot your fucking coat,” he says as we reach the car and he maneuvers me inside then throws the bags in the back seat. He jumps into the driver’s seat and looks at me. The love I see in his eyes takes my breath away, almost making the next wave of wracking pain manageable.

  “Jesus, Chloe. I don’t know if I can stand seeing you in pain. You’re supposed to be immune, tougher than anyone.” He rubs my back and leans in, kissing my face like he’s trying to make up for labor pains, like he’s trying to erase every ounce of pain I ever had. Well, I don’t know if that’s what he means to do, but that’s what’s happening to me. I’m turning into a melting pool of love honey under his touch and his words.

  I’m turning into a whole new person, one I never knew or imagined there was inside me, one who’s not trying to be her dad or her grandma. I’m turning into Chloe Smith Fontanna, a woman all her own. A woman who loves a man, who loves our child. More than life or anything else in it.

  “I love you so damn much, Chloe. And I’m bursting to love our baby,” he says. Then he wipes the tears from my eyes, smiling and I see the glisten in his eyes too.

  “We’re a pair,” I say, weepy.

  “Soon to be a trio,” he says, gunning the gas to get us to the hospital on time.

  # The End #

  Dear Reader,

  Chloe has to be my favorite heroine yet. She’s special to me because once upon a time, I aspired to be a sports reporter and I would have loved to be just like her. Thus I brought my fantasy to “life” in this story. But in real life I’m not even close—no resemblance whatsoever. (Heck, in real life I never ever swear!) That’s the fun of writing fiction.

  Tate and Chloe warmed my heart. I hope they came to life for you and their story warmed your heart too—and gave you some exciting moments as well!

  As always, I invite you to

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  I always love feedback and connecting with readers, so feel free to drop me a note. I’ll always reply.

  Warm Regards,

  Stephanie Q

  Check out Hunter Quintanna & Cat’s story in

  Playing for the Money

  About the Author

  USA Today bestselling author Stephanie Queen has been writing stories forever, the kind with happy endings. She lives in New Hampshire with her family and her cat and lots of friends who make sure she gets out of the house on occasion. She loves to paint—pictures, not houses. She goes to the gym. More or less. She is the president of her local Chocoholics Anonymous chapter, after a long-standing denial and spectacular failure to control her permanent addiction. She is an alumni of UConn—Go Huskies!—and Harvard U.

  Also by Stephanie Queen

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  Playing for Keeps

  NEW Hockey Romance Series

  Men Larger Than Life

  He Has Trouble

  He Has It All

  Regal Family Series

  Sexy Romantic Comedies

  Margo & George Christmas

  Margo & George Forever

  Holiday Affair

  Miss Christmas

  Beachcomber Investigations Series

  The Beachcombers Complete Series: 1-12