Playing the Player (Sydney Smoke Rugby #3)

by Amy Andrews

  And she wasn’t. She really wasn’t. A sudden sense of calm swept over her. “But I don’t want to be that woman, Linc. The one who wishes and hopes and prays and thinks every birthday or Christmas or holiday they go on is because he’s about to pop the question, and when it doesn’t happen and doesn’t happen she starts seeing freaking clairvoyants and reading spell books and bitches constantly to her girlfriends about him.”

  He gaped at her. “Jesus.” The look he gave her was priceless. “Women do that stuff?”

  She huffed out a laugh. Unfortunately, yes. She’d been uncomfortably close to that herself.

  “Relax, Linc, I’m not about to boil your team mascot on my stove. But I need more than a half-hearted maybe. So I’m walking away now before I give up ten years or, hell, even another day of my life, knowing you’re not even open to something that means so much to me and hoping you’ll change your mind at some stage. I want the whole shebang. I want the ideal. I want to be an Olympian.”

  “But—” He frowned at her, picked up her left hand, and held it. “How can you say that when your own parents’ marriage didn’t last?” he asked. “When everywhere around you marriages aren’t lasting. The divorce rate is over fifty percent, for Christ’s sake. My parents couldn’t go the distance. My father is on marriage number four. Griff is divorced. So are five guys on the team.”

  Em couldn’t deny any of his claims. Marriage did seem like an institution that was past its use-by date.

  But…

  “I understand why you feel like you do, Linc. You have to know I understand. But don’t forget, your grandfather was married for forty-five years, and even if he hadn’t been, don’t you think some things are worth the risk? You’re a gambling man, right? Trust me, the odds were stacked waaay against you when it came to bagging me, but you still put your money down, didn’t you? Or do you only bet on frivolous things like poker and fucking women?”

  She reclaimed her hand and pushed past him. There wasn’t a lot more that could be said when they had two diametrically opposed ideologies. Feelings could change, but ingrained beliefs were much harder to shift.

  He caught her arm lightly. “Em,” he urged, but she kept going. He didn’t try to stop her, and she was thankful for that. It was better this way. Cut herself off before any real damage was done.

  She paused in the doorway. More sad than angry. It wasn’t his fault that events from years ago still coloured his thinking. God knew she was only just getting out from under hers.

  The truth was this was her fault for thinking a man who was so fundamentally damaged could change.

  She only had herself to blame.

  …

  “Hey, babe.” Harper’s voice was disgustingly chirpy for seven thirty. “You’re up early on a Sunday, or did you and Linc not get any sleep?”

  The tease was like a little arrow into Em’s heart. She sniffled and shut her gritty, swollen eyes. “I know it’s too early to drink, and you can’t anyway, and you’re probably both enjoying a lie-in with the season over, but I’m all out of peach schnapps, and nowhere is even open now to go and buy a bottle, and I really, really wish you were here.”

  “What happened?” Harper’s voice was suddenly both alert and alarmed. “Are you okay?”

  Em shook her head, swallowing against a lump the size of a rugby ball in her throat. “Linc doesn’t want t…t…to marry me.”

  There was a pause. “Oooo-kay. I’ll be fifteen minutes.”

  Good as her word, Harper was at Em’s door at ten to eight.

  She was a sight for sore eyes, and not just because she had a full bottle of peach schnapps in her hand. She was radiant.

  “God,” Em sniffed. “You’re glowing.” Pregnancy definitely agreed with her bestie. “I’m surprised Dex let you out of bed.”

  Harper laughed as she pulled aside the tissue-strewn covers of Em’s bed and slid in next to her. “Are you kidding, he was happy to get rid of me. I was getting frisky, and he’s been knocking me back ever since I peed on that damn stick two weeks ago. He reckons he’s terrified he’s going to hurt the baby.”

  Em snorted as she relieved her friend of the bottle of schnapps. “Why do men always have such high opinions of their cocks?”

  Harper laughed again. “I don’t know. I’m bloody horny, though. I personally think he’s kinda freaked out about the whole having another person between us. Three’s a crowd and all that.”

  “Well, that’s dumb.” Em cracked the lid on the bottle and took a swig from it—this was not a time for shot glasses.

  “Yep. But don’t worry, the man won’t be able to hold out much longer. I almost had him this morning.”

  Em’s left eye shut involuntarily as the hard liquor hit the back of her throat, the fumes blowing through her sinuses. “Sorry for interrupting,” she said, her voice raspy from the booze.

  “It’s fine,” Harper dismissed easily. “Tell me what happened with Linc.”

  “We broke up.” Em didn’t think there were any more tears left. She was wrong, promptly dissolving into a puddle again.

  She told Harper the whole story. Well, she left out the sixty-nine bit in deference to Harper’s state of horniness. Harper listened without comment like she always did, handing over tissues and the bottle at the exact times Em needed them.

  It wasn’t until Em was done that she said anything. “I’m really sorry, babe.”

  Em shrugged. “C’est la vie.”

  “Okay. Which Harper do you want me to be?” she asked. “The let’s-devise-a-hundred-ways-to-castrate-Linc Harper. Or the you-deserve-the-best-and-I’m-on-your-side Harper. Or the voice-of-reason-tough-love Harper.”

  “I hate the voice-of-reason Harper.”

  Harper smiled. “I know.”

  “Why the tough love?” Em demanded. Although whined may have been more accurate. “I’m the aggrieved party here.”

  Harper didn’t say anything for a moment. “We don’t have to do the tough love.”

  “Fine,” Em huffed. Because Harper gave great sympathy but even better tough love. “Tell me.”

  “Don’t you think maybe Linc’s right?” She held up her hand as Em opened her mouth to refute. “Just listen. He loves you, right? Now, don’t get me wrong, I love that guy hard, too. He’s sweet and funny in that sporty macho way and so damn loyal, but I wouldn’t have thought Lincoln Quinn could stop loving himself long enough to love anyone else, and from what you’ve told me about him, that’s a really big step for him. So maybe just give him some time. He might surprise you, and if he doesn’t, then…” She shrugged. “I know marriage is important to you, but…maybe it’s not the be-all and end-all?”

  “Says she with the ring on her finger and the bun in her oven. Would you have considered having a baby with Dex before being married to him?”

  “I’m glad that we did it this way,” Harper said carefully. “But it wouldn’t have been a tragedy if we hadn’t, Em.”

  “But you would have gotten married, right?”

  “Well…yes.”

  “Exactly,” Em muttered, taking a sip of the schnapps. “You got the gold standard—don’t I deserve that too?”

  “Of course you deserve it, babe,” Harper said, pushing the curls off Em’s forehead to peer into her eyes. “Of course you do. But isn’t love the gold standard? Look, I’ve known you a long time. I know all about that little girl inside who watched her father walk away and lived in hope for his return, and when he didn’t she wove pretty daydreams about her own knight in shining armour and doing it right when it was her turn. I’ve watched you strive for that ideal since you were seventeen. But maybe there’s a different way?”

  Em shook her head. “No.”

  Harper sighed. “If you don’t mind me saying, you’ve only been together for a couple of months. Isn’t it a bit…early to be talking about marriage and kids? Hell, I thought you wanted to have a career first anyway.”

  “Of course it is, but it’s what I want…eventually. And I nee
d to be with someone who’s open to it. You should have seen him, Harper. He wasn’t even open to it.”

  “People can change their minds, sweetie.”

  “Over something as fundamental as this? Over whether an integral part of human society has value or not? I think that’s the kind of thing you feel in your gut—I know I do—and I’m pretty sure he does, too. Only it’s the opposite of the way I feel, and I’m not going to waste years of my life hoping he might eventually change his mind.”

  Harper frowned and tsked, reaching for the bottle and screwing on the lid. “Clementine Mildred Clarence, why would spending any time with a person you loved be wasting your life? Even if it didn’t work out the way you wanted, does it really mean all the joy, happiness, and fun, all the good times, are wasted? You’re not serious, right? I paint murals in a hospital full of sick kids, some of whom never make it out again. None of us know what the future holds. Any chance we get to love someone, even if it’s only for a little while, isn’t wasted time.”

  Em blinked at her best friend. The schnapps bottle was about a quarter gone, but she wasn’t drunk enough not to feel the sting of Harper’s gentle rebuff.

  A hot tear welled and escaped her left eye. She couldn’t cope with sick kiddies thrown into the mix. Harper handed her another tissue. “It’s just food for thought, Em.”

  Em sighed and nodded. “Can I have one of the other Harpers now?”

  Harper passed the bottle to her then put an arm around Em’s shoulders. “Of course. You want to talk castration?”

  Em nodded, unscrewing the lid. “Yes, please.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Linc felt odd going anywhere without Em. Even a month down the track, it still felt like part of him was missing. It was bizarre to think he hadn’t even known she’d existed before this year, and now his entire life stretched in front of him, completely devoid.

  Not even the thought of tomorrow’s charity match for the Lord Mayor’s annual appeal to support the city’s homeless or pre-season training starting up again next week was enough to lift the cloud hanging over him.

  He wasn’t sleeping; he wasn’t interested in eating. But he was drinking. Too damn much. Usually solo in his apartment, watching re-runs of The Dukes of Hazzard and Smokie and the Bandit—his father’s favourites—on TV.

  He’d gone through the gamut of emotions, from anger and disbelief to despair and desolation. He was currently deeply mired in a little known stage of grief—the fuck you stage.

  He’d picked up his phone a dozen times a day, sometimes just to hear her voice, other times to make it right. But with the invitation to his father’s fourth wedding staring back at him from the coffee table, he kept hanging up.

  He loved Em. It had crept up on him. Surprised him. But it was true.

  He loved her so much, being without her actually physically hurt. But it wasn’t like he hadn’t been totally upfront with her.

  Why was he being the unreasonable one?

  Why couldn’t they just love each other and not worry about the rest? Why couldn’t she just let him love her his way?

  At least she’d be here by his side today at Tanner and Matilda’s harbour-side apartment. He’d always loved team get-togethers, but Valerie had dragged him here today. She’d turned up at his apartment and threatened to put the fire extinguisher on him if he didn’t get his ass out the door, and when that hadn’t worked, she’d picked up her phone and announced she was calling her father.

  Which had worked.

  But it didn’t stop him feeling like a bloody pimple on a pumpkin. Everyone on the team knew he and Em had split, and their uncharacteristic pity pissed him off even more. To make it worse, Harper was here and he wanted desperately to ask her about Em, but she’d already declared herself Switzerland a month ago, and Dex had joined the alliance.

  Traitor.

  “I’m telling you,” Ryder said as he took aim over the snooker table. He, Dex, Donovan, and Bodie were playing doubles. Linc was hanging out because it was where Harper wasn’t. “She rode that mechanical bull like she’d been born in a paddock. Itty bitty shorts, too. Mmm mmm.” He sighed dramatically. “Man, I wished I was that saddle.”

  Linc twitched at the comment. The last thing he wanted to hear about was Ryder’s latest rodeo night conquests. He was obviously enjoying his break and the kudos his grand final ring brought him. But it all just seemed so damn sordid to Linc now.

  A red warning light started flashing in Linc’s head as the urge to tell Ryder to shut the fuck up built. He chewed it down.

  There was nothing worse than a reformed player.

  “She had a friend,” Ryder continued as he passed the cue to Donovan. “Has a thing for Maori dudes. I can get her your number if you like?”

  “Thanks.” Dono grimaced. “I’ll pass.”

  “I don’t,” Bodie piped up. “Tell her I’ll be whatever she wants me to be.”

  The light blinked faster. Linc was four beers down and in full fuck you mode. “You’re so full of shit, Spidey.”

  Like the scratching of a needle across an old record, everyone seemed to freeze for a second or two, then the guys’ attention switched, as if in slow-mo, from the game to Linc.

  Bodie’s jaw tightened as a sudden tension filled the air.

  “Dude,” he said, clearly at the end of his patience, “it’s been a month. Go make up with her or go and get laid already. All those built-up tadpoles have made their way to your brain. You’re being a giant pain in the ass.”

  The light shattered into a hundred tiny pieces. “Jesus Christ, Spidey,” Linc snapped. “Getting laid isn’t the answer to everything.”

  There was a moment of stunned silence, then Dex turned to Donovan. “Aww, look at that. Our little boy’s all grow’d up.”

  Linc’s heart raced as irrationality gripped him. He didn’t know if he wanted to crack a pool stick over someone’s head or throw himself in the freaking harbour.

  “Our work is done,” Donovan nodded.

  Bodie and Ryder laughed, easing the tension. “Oh, bite me,” Linc snapped, swiping up his empty beer and heading for a refill.

  Except when he got to the kitchen, he came across Tanner and Tilly making out. She was sitting on the bench and he was taking full advantage. Thankfully, they were both clothed, although Linc was pretty sure Tanner’s hand was up the front of Tilly’s shirt.

  “Only two months and six days ’til I make an honest woman of you,” Tanner was saying.

  His words were muffled, given that his lips were on her neck, but they might as well have been said through a megaphone as far as Linc was concerned.

  “Jesus, you two,” he said testily, entering the room and heading for the fridge. “Don’t you have a bedroom for that?”

  They broke apart as Linc turned, cracking the screw top on his beer. “Are you okay?” Tanner asked quietly.

  Linc had lost sight of okay weeks ago. “Why?” he demanded, ignoring the question as he took aim at the bin on the opposite wall. He tossed the bottle cap at it. And missed.

  Fuck.

  “Why the hell do you want to get married at all? What’s wrong with what you’ve got now?”

  Tanner glanced at Matilda and she smiled at him. “Over to you,” she said, before sliding off the bench top and heading for the door. She stopped and hugged Linc’s inanimate body on her way out. He stood stiffly, not returning it for fear he might do something mortifying, like break down.

  “I could tell you a hundred PC reasons why,” Tanner said as Matilda disappeared. “Because I love her and marriage is the ultimate expression of that. Because it’s a public declaration of that love. It’s me saying she’s the one and that I’m in it for real and I’m not hedging my bets. But even more than that, deep, deep down, on a more primitive level, and I swear I will deny this if you ever mention it to her because it is pure caveman shit that I’m pretty sure she’d crucify me over, but that wedding band I’m going to put on her finger? It’s going to tell every
other guy in this world that she is mine. And they better back the fuck off.”

  Linc blinked at the growl underlining Tanner’s words. They spoke to him on a primal level, too. In fact, they roared through him.

  Now that was a sentiment he could get on board with.

  “If you love her, man, and want to spend the rest of your life with her, then put your money where your mouth is and marry her. She deserves it.” Tanner walked toward him and clapped him on the shoulder. “So do you.”

  The amount of time it took Tanner to walk out of the kitchen was about how long it took for Linc to realise he’d been a dick.

  So much for being a betting man. When it had come to the biggest gamble of his life, he hadn’t backed himself. Maybe deep down, part of him thought he was going to be abandoned again. Maybe he didn’t truly believe he was worthy of love after the one person who was supposed to love him more than anything had turned her back on him.

  Maybe psychologically he’d never felt worthy or deserving.

  But he knew for sure he loved her. And he knew for sure he wanted to be with her and he wanted the whole world to know it.

  Officially. With a piece of paper.

  Because she did deserve it.

  They both did.

  And for damn sure he wanted every other guy to back the fuck off.

  He crossed to the sink and tipped his untouched beer down the sink then went in search of Harper.

  …

  “This is a bad idea,” Em grumbled as she let Harper and Valerie tag team her out the door. They’d already bossed her into a pair of navy Capri pants and a yellow tank top.

  “It’s not,” Valerie assured. “It’s a beautiful October day. Perfect for a rugby match. And for raising some money.”

  “Yes,” Harper said, opening the passenger door so Valerie could guide Em in. “Think of all the homeless people in the city sleeping rough.”

  Em glared at her friend. Harper playing the homeless people card was getting a bit much. “But he’ll be there, won’t he?”