Some Like It Geek: A Really Big Set of Romances

by Box Set

  My lesson started in high school after my accident. What I hadn’t told Luke was that in trying to please my parents, I’d caused others harm. But there’s more to it than that—it took me a while to realize that I’d been an emotional wreck as a teen. My confidence and self-esteem were non-existent. My anxiety always in the background. They let their general disappointment in me show with their silent judgment. Especially with my “histrionics.”

  I’d been so mired, I made a poor decision. I wasn’t honest about my injury. After that, career, and career only, was my sole focus, and I worked hard to never let my emotions cloud my judgment.

  Dating was something that would happen later in my life, I always figured. When I had time. When I’d “made it.” There were moments when I almost quit. Doing sports medicine might have started out as an atonement, but my fascination with the human body genuinely spoke to me. If it hadn’t, I would have quit.

  Phil was my first serious relationship, and it only happened because he was a patient first and I thought I was in a place in my life when I could date. And then I crossed the line with him by writing him a prescription for pain meds—hence my probation.

  But unlike Phil—who I think deep down I always suspected was a narcissistic jerk—Luke is turning into someone I’m beginning to see has so much more. I started out believing he was a jerk, but he keeps proving otherwise.

  I flush, thinking about our recent night together. I woke up in the middle of the night tucked into my bed with him curled around me. I couldn’t help compare it to the time I woke up on the couch after a grueling day during my fellowship to find Phil, who was pretty much living at my place by that point, had come home from his game and was sleeping on my bed.

  That morning over omelets, I asked Phil why he didn’t wake me. My neck had a crick in it from sleeping at a bad angle. A stupid part of me was hurt that he didn’t carry me to bed, or at least wake me up. He just gave me a look and said it wasn’t his responsibility to make sure I was comfortable—it was my fault for falling asleep on the couch.

  Fresh hurt washes through me. I should’ve broken up with him then. It’s not that I feel like, because I’m a woman, a guy should have scooped me up and rescued me from a bad crick. No. But because I’m a frigging human being whom another human supposedly cared about? Hell, yes.

  So, yeah. Luke carrying me to my bed? Five points to him, for damn sure.

  Before I can sit down, awareness prickles my neck. I glance over my shoulder, and he’s filling a cup with water from the jug closest to me. He keeps his eyes locked on mine, and heat flushes my skin. His gaze dips to the blanket I brought, and when they rise back to mine, his gaze is hooded. A shiver rocks me, knowing he’s also thinking about what we did under that blanket. Or at least, what we started. I later found it draped carefully across the back of the couch.

  “Dr. Rodgers, may I have a moment of your time?” His voice is professional.

  “Of course.”

  He lifts his arm to the side, motioning for me to precede him toward the concession stand.

  During the short walk, his presence behind me is like a physical pressure. I round the corner, and strong arms circle me and pull me back against a sizzling wall of strength. Immediately I’m in tune, humming against him. Luke smells wonderful, his soap-clean skin warmed by the sun. This feels so simple and so right, I’m reassessing everything I thought about relationships.

  “Kiss for good luck?” he murmurs in my ear. “I had to get you to myself.”

  Shivers race up my spine again at his silky soft voice. I turn in his arms, and his intense, green gaze latches with mine. That gaze tells me that if we were anywhere else, something a whole hell of a lot more than a kiss would happen. My stomach clenches with desire, and I rise on my tiptoes, anticipation making my breath come out in irregular puffs.

  He brushes his lips against mine, his hands framing my face, and somehow we keep it family-safe. But as he pulls away, he gives my lower lip a little nip.

  My mind and body finally slot into a groove as he walks away to take the field. I can do this. The heady, heady idea scares and thrills me.

  Luke

  Galway New York is good. Really good.

  It pumps us all up. We’re gonna need every edge we can muster, which makes me even more grateful that we ate clean for a full week leading up to this match. Playing against a top-notch team is exactly what we need—this is real competition. They not only have a coach, but two assistant coaches, and more than half their team is Irish.

  And because I am a guy, it gives me an extra push having the woman I want to impress and whom I’m sleeping with watching from the sidelines. And her being a sports med doc? Even more so. She, more than most, understands the workings of the human body and how we push to utilize it to the best of our ability. I must be pushing to one hundred percent right now. Folks say shit like giving 110 percent, but that’s bullshit. The trick is to train so hard you can perform at the level required to excel while at seventy percent. Better endurance that way. Today, I’m as nervous as the first day of BUD/S, knowing my performance was all that kept me there. I had no margin for error then. And I don’t now. Because despite the beatings my dad gave me, he was right about one thing—trailer trash like me have no margin for error.

  Everything changes in the third quarter. Normally the game is played in thirty-five minute halves, not quarters, but we made a concession to the Irish players from New York who aren’t used to the heat and humidity down here. New players with fresh legs and lungs replenish their ranks. As the quarter wears on, it’s becoming clear—these aren’t just new players, they’re the first string. We’ve been playing against their second string this whole time.

  Mark’s already sporting a broken finger, but he’s still playing. However, Romy got sidelined with a pulled hamstring, so we’re playing one down.

  At the end of the third quarter, one of their forwards catches a wicked-fast pass. I could hear the smack from here as it hit his palm. He deftly tosses it to his hurley and starts a solo drive down the center of the field. Paolo shoulder charges him, but the forward recovers and nimbly bats it to another of their men. Mark flies off the ground—arms at full stretch—in a diving block but narrowly misses. He lands with an oof and bounces back to his feet. I’m soaking up all of it—the trajectories, the layout—and assimilating it with how they’ve played off each other in previous drives.

  I know my teammates—I trust them. And that might give us an edge too, depending on the cohesiveness of their team. With trust, we can take risks. When you don’t have that? You play it safe, only doing what’s expected.

  So I’m ready when their forward tries to get past. I twist and block him, but hear and feel a slight pop in my knee. We’re all shoulders and footwork, the scent of fresh churned grass and dirt filling the air, along with the crack of our hurleys meeting, but I use my height and size and steal the sliotar from him. With a decisive thwack, I send it straight down the field out of our territory. Fuck yeah. Winning means squat if you’re not competing against the best. Plus it feels good to take New York by surprise.

  I’m feeling great, my muscles are warm and thrumming, and my cardio is handling the sprints on the field. I flex my knee and feel a twinge of pain, but it’s not bothering me much. Nothing to take me out of the game. The whistle blows for the end of the quarter, and we jog to our side of the pitch. It’s hot as Hades in the Florida sun, and we all beeline for the water jugs lined up on a table.

  Our setup feels a little Bad News Bears compared to the kind of field and bleachers New York is used to, but I can’t seem to care. I pull off my helmet, sip my water, and dump another cup over my head.

  And because I can’t help it, I make my way over to Pepper, even though I must stink with sweat.

  “You guys are looking great out there.” She grins at me from where she’s sprawled back on that blue blanket of hers. Our blue blanket, a little known sappy part of me pipes.

  Seeing her deliciously
laid out below me has me thinking all kinds of thoughts about what we can get up to after the match. “What do you think of the game?”

  “It’s hard sometimes to get the hang of what’s going on. Sometimes I’m expecting a hockey move, and then someone does something only allowed in rugby or volleyball. I have no clue who’s winning. So you can score by putting the ball through the goal posts and also into the net?”

  “Yeah. Through the posts is a point, and in the net is a goal, which is worth three points.”

  “Conor’s scored three goals, and New York one, but I wasn’t paying attention at first to the ones through the posts. Are you winning?”

  “Nope. Tied, Galway 1-8 to us, with 3-2. The first number in those scores are the number of goals, the second are the points. We’re only keeping up because Conor is a machine the few times we can get near the net.”

  Paolo whacks my shoulder. It’s funny that he thinks he can budge me or take me by surprise. “Great save there, man. Sorry I let the sliotar through.”

  “We’re getting a good read on their offensive weaknesses, though. Did you notice how the center forward always fakes right when someone comes up to challenge him?” We’d done this analysis at half-time, but with the new players, we need to adjust.

  Eamonn, our goalie, joins us. “And the right forward is limping slightly. Left ankle, I think.”

  “Good to know.”

  The whistle blows again—Aiden’s uncle is one of our refs. The others run out, but I take a sec to throw a weighted glance at Pepper, a promise of what to expect later tonight. A slight flush stains her neck. Message received. We’ll have to endure the after party at the Butt with the two teams, but after that? I grin and jog to position, the twinge in my knee minimal.

  The match resumes, and our offense is doing a good job keeping the sliotar downfield, but they’re failing to deliver. I keep my joints limber as I wait on the far field and keep an eye on the sliotar and the players’ movements.

  Suddenly, the sliotar explodes toward our end of the pitch, and their center deftly traps it and begins a drive toward our goal. We adjust our positions and move to intercept. A forward catches a hand pass and heads to a gap to my right. When he draws near, I plant my foot and pivot to shoulder charge him. A shooting pain spears into the side of my knee, as if someone’s driven a damn spike right into the flesh and bone.

  Agony explodes through me, staining my vision red, and the ground rushes to meet me. My cheek and side hit the dirt. I buckle forward and grab my knee. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  A whistle blows. I glance over, and the fuckers have scored a goal off me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Pepper

  My heart trampolines into my throat and lodges there. Luke’s on the ground, clutching his knee. I grab my bag and race onto the field. The whistle blowing for the goal seems to chase me, echoing in my ears. Shouts, footfalls, and more whistle blows become glaring, competing with my own personal feelings as they beat time inside me with each footfall. I can’t mentally latch onto anything. Shit.

  Concentrate. Ruthlessly, I shove my personal worry for Luke into a section of my brain and lock it down. Cool detachment settles like a soothing blanket over my mind and, one by one, the various noises snuff—a trick a fellow doctor taught me. I reach Luke’s side, and the thump of my knees hitting the ground is in perfect rhythm to the medical scenarios now scrolling through my brain.

  I touch Luke’s shoulder, and he unclasps his hands from his knee and straightens out, resting his head on the ground. His face is impassive, but I know he’s in pain. I quickly do an assessment of the area to make sure there’s no break.

  “Luke, can you put weight on it?”

  His teammates help him to stand, and he puts pressure on the leg. His lips tighten into a thin line.

  “Okay, I don’t think it’s broken, but you’re out of the game for now.”

  He curses, and Paolo and Conor get under each arm. “Let’s get off the field, lad.” The few spectators and the other players clap as Luke leaves the field.

  I dash ahead to the tub of ice, grab a plastic bag, and scoop some inside. I breathe into it and suck the air back out, several times, to get it as airtight as possible. I twist it closed and flatten it. By then Luke is on my blanket, and I grab the roll of saran wrap and wrap the ice around the knee to prevent swelling.

  Luke rolls his lips inward. “What do you think?”

  “My guess? ACL, MCL, or a torn meniscus.”

  “Fuuuck.” He tips his head back and looks at the clear blue sky. His helmet is off, his hair is plastered to his head with sweat, his knees are bloody like most of his teammates, but for some reason he’s still sexy as hell.

  “We’ll get an MRI. How soon again until your division playoffs?”

  “Three weeks.”

  “Well, if it’s a torn meniscus, you might still be able to play.”

  “But not till then?”

  I shake my head.

  The rest of the team is gathered around but has given me enough room to work, which I appreciate. They look down on Luke as if they’re in mourning. I’m also struck by how different they are about injuries than soccer players and the like. Conor has blood dripping down his neck, staining his new jersey. He received a wicked gash on his forehead and only let me put a Band-Aid on it halfway through the game—he called it a ‘plaster.’

  Mark is leaning on his hurley, his finger taped to its neighbor. There might be blood stains on his hurley. Jesus. The roughness of the game is definitely more similar to hockey or rugby.

  “That’s the game then, with two down,” Conor says, his Irish accent thick with regret.

  A tall, dark-haired woman steps forward. “I can sub.”

  The guys all turn to stare at her, except Luke, who’s still focused on his knee.

  Aiden shakes his head. “The GAA rules don’t allow it—you know that.”

  The New York captain steps forward. I’d been introduced to him earlier to let him know we had a doctor on scene. “It’s fine with our team.” His Irish accent is similar to Conor’s. “It’s not an official game anyway, and I’m after some game time for the second string. We’ve come all this way. Let’s finish this.”

  Conor frowns and steps threateningly toward him. “She could get hurt out there.”

  But the woman mutters under her breath and then says aloud, “I can handle myself. You know that.” With that, she grabs her helmet, flips Conor a bird, and runs out to the field with full confidence the game will continue.

  Conor looks to Aiden. “Can’t you stop her?”

  But Aiden just looks amused. “She’s not my woman.”

  The tops of Conor’s ears turn red. Interesting. “She’s not mine either, ye git.”

  “Lighten up, Conor,” Luke throws over his shoulder. “Claire’s the best defense the women’s team has.”

  There’s a women’s team?

  Aiden nods. “Switch her with Paolo.”

  Conor curses but says, “Do it. Let’s get back on the field then.”

  Luke

  We’re holding our own still against Galway, but I’m on the sideline fuming over my injury. Pepper’s a soothing presence beside me on the blanket, her shoulder pressed against mine, her knees up with her arms clasped around them. Her focus is trained on the players, but there’s a feeling of companionship as we sit here and watch the rest of the game unfold. It’s a nice feeling, sure, but doesn’t completely diffuse my mood. The Florida sun’s making quick work of the ice packs, so we’ve repacked my knee twice already. It’s quite numb at this point.

  Pepper glances my way. “I couldn’t tell out there, but what exactly happened?”

  “Does it matter?” Okay. I’m also a bit surly. I know anything I say will be laced with the anger I’m grappling, so I’d rather keep my trap shut. We need to win this game, and I get a fucking injury? And allow a goal?

  She gives me the side-eye. “Knowing how you sustained the injury could help me rule out
diagnoses.” She bumps her shoulder against mine. “If you were hit in the knee from the outside, it’s most likely an ACL or MCL.”

  I like that she’s not put off by my mood and gets that it’s not directed at her.

  “Nope. I just twisted. I think it was the same thing that happened earlier.”

  Her head whips around at that. “Earlier? What do you mean earlier?”

  Uh-oh. “End of third quarter when I blocked their attempt at the goal. Something popped, but it didn’t really hurt and wasn’t affecting my ability to play.”

  Now her expression becomes what I can only describe as oh-shit-she’s-going-to-kill-me. “You injured yourself earlier and didn’t tell me?” Her voice is calm and cool, but I’m wary.

  I lean away, resting back on a hand, my shoulder no longer warmed by hers. “It was no big deal. I was able to play.” My own anger burbles with irritation at her. I know my limits. This was my call.

  “No big—” She stops herself, and her lips twist into a funny shape, as if she’s swallowed a bug or is about to spit.

  I lean back more in case it’s the latter.

  She takes a deep breath and blows it out, as if she’s in one of those find-your-inner-peace yoga classes. “Luke. I’m so mad at you right now, I can barely get my words out.” Her voice does sound strained, stretched tight. “You always, always, report an injury.”

  I clench my jaw. “I’m a former SEAL,” I bite out. “Believe me, I know what kind of abuse my body can take. The others?” I shrug. “I agree.” But part of my pissiness is because I had misjudged my limits.

  If at all possible, her voice gets even thinner. “Even you, asshole.”

  I rear back in shock, because it seems like an overreaction. And then I’m finally hit with the clue stick. Her injury back in high school. When she was on the cheerleading squad.