Playing Dirty (Sydney Smoke Rugby)

by Amy Andrews

  He charged at Griff, grabbing him by the shirt and pushing him back, back, back, into some more lockers, a harsh metallic screech renting the air as the lockers travelled a foot at the impact. But as soon as he had his feet, Griff was pushing back and swinging again.

  Kyle swung, too, landing a hard punch against Griff’s shoulder. He hadn’t intentionally targeted the area, but Kyle remembered it was that shoulder which had forced Griff into retirement a decade ago. Griff winced but shook it off quickly, returning fire with a quick jab to the ribs, which momentarily sucked Kyle’s breath away.

  Clearly the man didn’t care about maiming his most valuable player, which only made Kyle madder.

  And so it went on, the two of them pushing and shoving and grunting, occasionally landing a jab here or there, until they were both sweating and panting. Kyle didn’t know where the energy had come from, but he did know it was flagging fast, and that a guy twenty years older than him was a more than able opponent.

  Their fight had moved into the more open area now, away from the lockers. Griff took a swing at Kyle’s head, sweat flying in a spray as he did so. Kyle ducked, and he missed, but the punch had a shitload of momentum, turning Griff around, accidentally shoulder-checking Kyle on the follow-through, and they both staggered and fell, landing on the hard floor, sprawled on their backs.

  Neither of them moved for long moments, and the only sound was the noise of laboured breathing. “Christ.” Griff groaned as he lifted an arm and rotated it. “You almost dislocated my fucking shoulder.”

  “Yeah, well…” Kyle grabbed his side. “I’m pretty sure you cracked a couple of ribs, so consider us even.” All the rage and fight that had torn through his body was suddenly gone. “I’m sorry. About what I said.” Kyle believed it, but he’d said it to provoke a response, and that had been wrong. “It was a low blow.”

  Griff didn’t say anything for the longest time. When he did, their breathing had almost returned to normal.

  “Maybe. But it was the truth. I’ve just been too busy burying my head in the sand to see how much I was hurting her.”

  Kyle had never heard anything but strength in Griff’s voice. To hear defeat didn’t give him any pleasure. “I love her. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but it’s the truth.”

  More silence, followed by a groan as Griff slowly eased himself into a sitting position. “No you don’t.”

  Kyle stared at the back of Griff’s head. Christ, he was a hard-ass. “Yes I fucking do.”

  “No.” Griff looked over his shoulder at Kyle, his big hand enveloping the injured joint as if he was trying to hold it together. “You’d be with her if you loved her.”

  Fuck. Was this guy for real? “And whose fault is it that I’m not?”

  Griff gave a soft snort, turning away from Kyle. “You losing Valerie isn’t my fault. If you really loved her, you would have told me to shove my ultimatum up my ass. You’d have picked her. But you chose rugby, instead, doofus. Just like I did.”

  Kyle vaulted into a sitting position, holding his ribs, gritting his teeth against the sharp stab of pain. “I only did that because you looked me in the eye that day in your office and asked me to step aside. Because she was finally connecting with you, and I didn’t want to be some kind of burr between you, keeping you from reconciling.”

  Griff glanced sideways at him, his look assessing. Kyle was pretty sure he saw admiration in the man’s eyes. “But she doesn’t know that, does she?”

  “No.”

  “So go and tell her. If you really love her, go and tell her. Go and get her back.”

  Kyle blinked. Wait. Griff was giving him permission? “I…have your blessing?”

  “Well, you wouldn’t be my choice, but my daughter knows her own mind. Always has. Just because I haven’t been a very good father in the past doesn’t mean I can’t pull my head out of my ass. And Tanner’s right. We can’t keep going like this. We have a final to win, and now you’re finally passing the fucking ball, we might just do it.”

  A laugh bubbled up Kyle’s throat and escaped. He didn’t expect to be laughing with Griff so soon after they’d been trying to beat the living hell out of each other. “I’m going to do it. I’m going to go get her back. And we’re going to win.”

  “Good.” Griff nodded. “One thing I have learned over the years is that winning is empty if there’s no one special to share it with.”

  Kyle had never felt sorry for Griff before. He didn’t have to know the man well to know that he didn’t want anyone’s pity. But Kyle did pity him in this moment. He could suddenly see years of loneliness in the great man’s eyes and hear the echo of desolation in his voice.

  They might have all been of his own making, but that didn’t make it any less sad.

  Kyle pushed to his feet, the pain in his ribs suddenly insignificant. He held out his hand to Griff, who shook his head on a grimace. It wasn’t a snub. More the gesture of someone who needed to sit for a little longer.

  “Wish me luck.”

  Griff nodded. “You’re going to need it.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  It took Kyle forty-five minutes to get to Sticky Fingers. He didn’t stop to shower or even to consult the team, who were huddled out in the corridor when he emerged. He just ran straight for his car and now he was here, and there she was, at the front door, flipping the sign from open to closed.

  Christ, he’d missed her. Just a glimpse of her had his body in an uproar and his heart and lungs so big in his chest they pushed against his aching ribs until he could barely breathe for the pain.

  He climbed out of the car and dashed across the road, belting on the glass just as she was disappearing through the swing doors into the kitchen. She turned, and her face went through a gamut of emotions. Surprise, shock, hope, and then a grim, grim countenance, her mouth flattening, her shoulders hitching back.

  “Go away,” she snapped, marching toward the door.

  Kyle shook his head. “Open up. I just want to talk to you.”

  “No.” She folded her arms and glared at him through the glass, but then her brow crinkled, and she gasped, reaching for the dead lock and reefing the door open.

  “Oh my god, what happened to you?”

  Her change from angel of death to angel of mercy had Kyle temporarily confused, until she took a step toward him, her hand coming up to stroke the bruising coming out on his cheek and the swelling under his eye.

  Oh. That. “Your father hit me.”

  She dropped her hand. “He hit you?”

  “It’s okay.” He shrugged. “I deserved it. Plus I landed a couple as well.”

  Which was obviously the wrong thing to say, because her frown was back, and she made some deep, growly noise at him as she took a step back and slammed the door, yelling, “Bloody cavemen,” through the glass.

  Well…yes. That was true. Given the fact he couldn’t defend against her statement, he wisely decided to move on. “Look. I screwed up. I know that. There are things to say. Can I please just come in?”

  She shook her head with determined slowness. “You can say them where you are.”

  Kyle already had to raise his voice to compensate for the glass barrier. He didn’t want to be standing on the doorstep talking loud enough for the neighbourhood to hear. “They’re important.”

  “In that case, you better speak up.”

  He stared at her for a moment, but it was obvious she wasn’t going to budge. “I love you.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “What’s that?” She cupped a hand around her ear. “I can’t hear you.”

  Okay…she was still really pissed off at him. Kyle looked around him. The street was full of parked cars, and an older couple were walking by with their dog on a lead.

  “I love you.” He injected enough volume for the mothers of the kids playing in the park across the street to hear.

  “Apparently not as much as you love rugby,” she said, her voice also raised.

  “Yeah, see�
�” Kyle took a step closer to the glass and placed his hands flat against it. It wasn’t the same as touching her, but it was the closest he could get at the moment. “That’s where I screwed up.”

  “Oh, you think? Jesus Christ, Kyle, I’ve grown up in the shadow of a man who chose rugby over me. Over everything. And I refuse to be with another man who can’t get his priorities right.”

  “Just…let me explain.” He was so close to the glass it misted under his breath. “When your father gave me that ultimatum, I didn’t want to choose rugby. But he looked at me and asked me to give him space to get to know you again and—”

  “Bullshit.” Val cut him off with her vehemence. “I was listening at the door, Kyle. I didn’t hear him say any such thing.”

  “Well, he did.” Kyle shoved his hand through his hair. “Right before the sick daddy revenge bit. He didn’t say it very loud, but the anguish in his eyes, Val…”

  She blinked, and he could see she was thinking back to that day. “He did say something I couldn’t hear.”

  “Yes.” Kyle nodded, hope sparking to life. “And I didn’t want to jeopardise any chance your father and you had of patching things up. But I was wrong. I should have chosen you anyway. He just told me I should have told him to shove it up his ass, and he was right.”

  “My father told you that?”

  “Yes. He’s given me his blessing.”

  She gaped at him for long moments. “So you’re like best buddies now or something?”

  Her voice was laced with sarcasm. That was Kyle’s first inkling that things weren’t going as well as he’d hoped they would after he’d shared the news of her father’s approval. “I wouldn’t exactly say that. But I think we’ve come to an understanding.”

  “Well isn’t that cosy,” she sneered. “You and my dad, all loved up.”

  “Oh no…it’s not like that. We—”

  “I am not,” she yelled, “some possession of his for him to grant some screwed-up kind of permission to you to claim me.”

  “Okay.” He held up his hands in surrender. “I didn’t mean it like that.” Christ, he’d never been good at this shit. “Let me start again.”

  “How about you don’t? Go away, Kyle.”

  “God. Val, please…honey, let me in.”

  Val struck the glass with her flattened palm, and Kyle took a hasty step back as it reverberated with her anger. “I’m still angry, Kyle.”

  Yeah, he could tell that from the glitter in her eyes and the way the glass still hummed from her assault.

  “Angry that you actually thought I had to choose between you and my father, and then you deciding for me which one to make. Angry that you thought I’m not determined enough or smart enough to be able to love both of you and juggle the needs of those relationships. I’m sure as shit too angry to listen to you talk about how, after knowing my father for less than two months, you’re apparently closer to him than I’ve been in twenty-two fucking years.”

  She hammered the glass again, her face crumpling a little as she dashed a tear away with the other hand.

  “Now go away.”

  She turned on her heel, her head held high, her shoulders back, and stormed toward the kitchen, slapping at the swing doors as viciously as she’d slapped at the glass, before disappearing behind them.

  Kyle pressed his forehead to the glass. That went well. Not. He shut his eyes. Why did things now feel worse than before he’d made the mad dash here?

  He turned around and leaned heavily against the bakery door, staring absently at the park across the road, his brain churning.

  Okay, she was angry, that was fair enough. But anger didn’t last. Which lead him to believe that at some point she wouldn’t be snarling at him and might actually be open to listening to him.

  She’d said love. To love both of you.

  And deep in his heart, he knew it to be true. Had felt her love in so many ways. Knew that only love could drive someone to this level of rage. So he had to patient.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t his strong suit.

  But there were two kinds of patience. The keeping-his-distance kind he’d already been employing. And the second kind. A more strategic approach.

  And if he’d learned nothing more from the Smoke these past weeks, it was strategy.

  So, that’s what he’d do. He’d practice the in-your-face kind of patience. The kind that made him hard to ignore. That would put him close to her every day. Force her to think about him, to be aware of him, and thus examine her feelings rather than pushing them aside.

  To confront the Kyle issue, not hide from it.

  A little kid screamed in delight as he flew down the slippery dip, and Kyle smiled as a plan formed in his head.

  The neighbourhood was about to get a squatter.

  …

  Val hadn’t slept a wink last night, her conversation with Kyle going around and around her head. Had she not been so angry with him, she might have thought how sappily wonderful it was for Kyle to have sacrificed his love—at her father’s request—to pave the way for her to reconnect with the man who had given her life.

  Because of course it was. And she was sure in a couple of weeks, when the embers of her anger had gone cold, she’d be just that sappy about it, too.

  But for now, she was angry.

  She didn’t care how irrational or petty it might be. That was how she felt, and goddamn it, surely she was entitled to her own bloody emotions?

  Kyle could just stew for a while.

  Given her tiredness and general irritation, the best place for her today was definitely tucked away in the kitchen, taking out her anger and frustration on unsuspecting pastries. In fact, it was quite therapeutic. Or it was until seven o’clock, when the bell over the front door dinged.

  It was the same ding it had been dinging since five a.m. But everything was different about this one, and she knew before he even said a word that Kyle had entered the shop. He hadn’t been since that day at the stadium—since he’d chosen rugby over her—but he was here now.

  She frowned and checked the clock again. Seven. Shouldn’t he be at training?

  She banged down the rolling pin she’d been using on the croissant pastry, although taking it with her did cross her mind. She pushed open the swing doors, and there he was at the counter, smiling at Sandy, sexy as hell, bold as freaking brass.

  “Why aren’t you at training?”

  Sandy blinked at the question and glanced around at the customers in the shop, but Val was beyond caring. If they were offended by her, they could go buy their croissants somewhere else.

  Couldn’t the man leave her in peace to hate on him for a while?

  Kyle just smiled and said, “Good morning.”

  He was disgustingly chipper, and Val wished she had brought the rolling pin with her to bang over his smug head. “You’ll get fined if you miss a session.”

  “I know.”

  “My father will have a fit.”

  A lazy shrug lifted his massive shoulders. “Don’t care.”

  “You think because you’re besties now he won’t bench you?”

  There was a slight tightening at the angle of Kyle’s jaw, which told her the barb had found a mark, but his smile didn’t slip in the slightest. “I’m sure he will.”

  Val shook her head. “Don’t be a fool, Kyle. Throwing your career away is not the answer here.”

  “I don’t want to throw it away, but I will, if that’s what it takes to convince you that you mean more to me than rugby. I’m staying in that park over there—”

  He hooked his thumb over his shoulder, and every customer in the bakery turned to the window. “I’m not training, not going to Henley, not playing in the finals until I can convince you. Hell, I’ll give it up tomorrow and get a real job, if that’s what it takes.”

  Val gaped at him. Had he gone mad? “What do you mean, you’re staying in the park?”

  “I pitched a tent yesterday afternoon.”

  What? Va
l came around the counter and strode to the window. Sure enough, under the umbrella-like spread of a couple of big Poincianas was a fluorescent-orange tent.

  It was the most insane thing she’d seen in her life. She turned back to him, her arms folded. “I think you’ll find it’s illegal to just pitch a tent in a public park.”

  He shrugged. “Looks like I’ll be going to jail, then. Won’t been the first time a Leighton’s been in the slammer.”

  “And what the hell are you going to do with yourself all day? In a public park?”

  “I have a bakery full of food and glimpses of you. What else do I need?”

  Oh no. Absolutely not. She marched past him and back behind the counter. “Do not,” she said to Sandy, “under any circumstances, sell Kyle anything.”

  She wasn’t above starving the man out.

  Sandy blinked, looking from one to the other. “I don’t sell him anything now.” She shrugged. “I give them to him for free. Remember?”

  Val almost ground her teeth. “My buns are no longer free to him.”

  Kyle tisked, a smile playing on his mouth. “You reneging on your deal, Valerie?”

  She flashed him a tight smile. “You bet your ass I am.”

  He shrugged. “There’s a bakery three blocks away. I hear they do really excellent Chelsea buns.”

  The fact he would even contemplate going anywhere else for his bun fix was a low blow. “I hope you choke on them.” And she turned away, the deep rich timbre of his chuckle following her all the way into the kitchen.

  The next morning, there were four tents pitched in the park, and she recognised some of Kyle’s relatives wandering around. She steadfastly ignored them. If he thought he was doing his cause any good, he was sorely mistaken. He was only pissing her off even more.

  The third morning, there were two more tents and a sign posted on the main road.

  Honk if you think Val should forgive Kyle.

  Horns honked all bloody day, and she started getting phone calls and texts from the WAGs.

  The fourth morning, another two tents had joined the party. It was getting to be a regular tent city.