Red Card

by Liz Crowe

  Mel sucked in a breath. Light from the early summer dawn peeked over the horizon, sending rays of pink and orange across the sky.

  “I’ll tell you what’s right in front of me. This man, who was married to my sister, who I hated with every fiber of my being for so long…” She held up a hand as he started to speak. “No, listen to me. I did hate you. You fucked with my sister’s dream of being a soccer player. Knocked her up not once, but twice.” Metin flinched. She didn’t let it stop her.

  “But I felt bad for you even after that stupid scene at the funeral. And then I was asked to help, so I saw it as a way to redeem myself some, to shed a little of the guilt I hauled around for blaming you for her death. And now?” Mel clutched at her arms, frozen by his gaze. “And now… I…” Her heart pounded.

  She wanted him so badly—needed him to take this, force it on her, make her see… but he was not going to do that. She had to get to that conclusion on her own and she was already running away from it like the coward she’d always been.

  He was in her space in seconds, holding her, running a finger down her face, his breath hot on her skin as he spoke. “Now we have something else. Something new and something that is not wrong, or bad, and is even endorsed by your own father and your sons. Why can’t you accept it?”

  She wrenched away from him, chest heaving with the effort to keep her distance. “Because I will not allow myself to love you,” she choked out. “I can’t. No matter what you say, I will always feel like I’m a… a… bad second choice, that you are settling for me.” She couldn’t believe how petulant and childish she sounded.

  Metin opened his mouth. She held her breath, hoping against hope he could convince her otherwise. But when another car pulled up to the curb, he frowned.

  Brent unfolded his long, lanky body out of his late model pickup. He didn’t rush, and his body language radiated calm as he approached. Metin let go of her, took two steps away, leaving her bereft.

  “Him,” he whispered. “He is… not wrong for you, perhaps? He won’t make you feel like a second stringer?”

  She bit her lip, choked with emotion. His eyes flashed.

  “Make your choice. But know I will not wait forever.” When Brent walked within earshot, Metin leaned into her ear. “I do love you, Melanie. Deal with it.”

  Then he shook Brent’s hand, gave him a quick rundown of what had happened, and climbed into his sports car without another word or glance in her direction.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Metin sat behind the bench at the final game of the Michigan high school state championships. Zach’s team took the field and controlled nearly the entire first half of the match. He’d spotted Melanie with Brent as they filed into the University of Michigan soccer complex at the same moment her eyes found his. Wishing he could avoid it, but knowing it had to be done, he made his way over to them.

  Melanie had given him a perfunctory hug, smiled in a nearly genuine way. But they had not spoken once since the night of Zach’s arrest. And although he stayed in touch with Zach about the fallout afterward, he refused to discuss anything other than soccer with the boy. He stopped eating breakfast at Ayden’s and truly focused his attention on the team and himself. Going so far as to try a little experiment—dumping the clingy girl and not giving in to temptation to ask out a different one, accepting that “being alone” was something he should work on, for his own sake.

  Now that he had his full head and heart around their last few months, he felt nothing but good about the time with Melanie. Other than how he had screwed it up somehow, made her feel badly about it, guilty about her own need for him. And her personality would not allow her to admit what she wanted. He got that now. No matter what he did, he wouldn’t be able to convince her he would be anything but settling for her—that he wanted to be with her forever, for herself, not because she represented a connection to Alicia he couldn’t shake.

  Memories of Alicia bombarded him still, getting worse, if anything. But not in a guilty way—in a way that made him even more convinced that he had missed out, had fucked up his second chance at love. A love much different than his first—less intense, but more crucial to his well being.

  Miles of running the streets of Ann Arbor, swimming at the YMCA, watching film with Rafe, going on recruiting trips, and formulating strategy with Parker and Nicco, two men who’d formed themselves into a couple, and leaders in the team, took up all his time. He made sure of it. And while he felt stronger or more in control of himself than ever, the sharp spike of jealousy piercing him between the eyes at the sight of a classy diamond ring on Melanie’s left hand had left him breathless. He shook Brent’s hand and moved away from them before punching anybody’s lights out—his first inclination.

  And there he sat, brain boiling, his gaze drawn to the two of them over and over, sitting close, laughing, talking to other parents, cheering. He kept quiet, as he usually did, not wanting Zach’s coach to think he was there to usurp him. But as the game went scoreless into the eightieth minute, he noticed something about one of the midfielders.

  “Hey,” he whispered to the coach. “I think number ten is hurt.” Any player worth a damn would not ask to come out for any reason, especially at a game like that one.

  The coach narrowed his eyes at the kid limping and wincing. At the next opportunity, he subbed him out.

  “Pull Zach to mid, push number twenty-two up top. You need more control in the middle, and Zach knows where to place the ball—I taught him,” he said. “I mean… you know… for what it’s worth.”

  The coach’s pointed look ran along the lines of Mind Your Own Fucking Business, but he did exactly as Metin suggested. It was brutally hot for June, and all the boys were gassed by that point in the frustrating, physical game.

  Zach glanced over at him when the change was made. Metin gave him a nod. They’d worked on this—setting up a player to score was as important as the actual act, especially late in a game. He’d been a quick study and was headed into Division 1 scholarship soccer as a midfielder. So this needed to come as second nature to him. The play resumed.

  He batted the ball around at his feet, cut left, and sent a high arcing pass to the newly-promoted forward, who fumbled it, sending it to the left of the goal. But the goalkeeper had made the crucial error of contact with it, forcing a corner kick for Zach’s team—one of the best opportunities to score they’d had nearly the entire game. Metin leaned forward, willing him to remember what they’d practiced.

  Zach moved into position, right outside the net, then, when the kicker gained the advantage, he shifted to the right to receive the pass and leapt into the air. A second after the exact moment Zach executed a textbook header into the goal for the score, his forehead collided with the back of an opposing defender’s skull. The crowd gasped in alarm as both boys hit the turf hard then lay, unmoving.

  Metin jumped to his feet, heart in his throat. Melanie stood, hand to her mouth, while everyone around her sat. Zach’s team celebrated before realizing he was still down. The goalkeeper sat up, rubbing and shaking his head. Zach hadn’t moved. The huge crowd stayed nearly silent. Metin walked out onto the field, slow, steady, not willing to give away how panicked he was at the sight of Zach’s immobile body. He knelt down across from the trainer who’d run out already, touched the huge goose egg sprouting on the boy’s forehead.

  “Zach,” he whispered.

  “I’m getting the stretcher out here,” the trainer declared after his attempts to revive him failed. Metin nodded, not taking his eyes off Zach’s unconscious face.

  When the trainer motioned for the EMTs who had an ambulance parked nearby, Zach opened one eye “Is she coming out?” He asked under his breath.

  Surprised fury replaced the terror buzzing in his ears when Metin glared at the supine kid. “What the hell are you…. Oh.” He looked up when Melanie appeared at his side, touching Zach’s face, his shoulder. She shook so hard, her teeth chattered.

  “Metin, Zach, oh, god, is he…
?”

  Zach gave a nearly imperceptible nod. Unable to stop himself, Metin put his arm around Melanie’s shoulders, and she pressed her face into his neck. “He’s going to be okay.” He allowed himself a small kiss to her hair, adoring the familiar smells, the feel of her against him.

  The EMTs rolled out the stretcher and lifted Zach onto it. Metin stopped them, leaned down to Zach’s ear. “Even I would not do this to my own mother. Now I know you need a CT scan.”

  Zach nodded again. “It hurts. And I’m seeing double for real,” he croaked out.

  Melanie gasped at the sound of his voice. “Oh, honey, you are okay.”

  “Yeah, Mom.” He winced as the stretcher bounced to the sidelines and play resumed. “I want Metin to come to the hospital with us.”

  Metin shrugged, but his heart beat funny rhythms in his chest at Melanie’s proximity.

  “Sure, Zach, whatever you want,” she said.

  “I’ll drive us,” the biology teacher declared, his mature calm like fingernails on Metin’s inner chalkboard.

  The man loomed nearby, his gangly presence irritating the shit out of Metin. She stood between them, her eyes on Metin. Brent put a proprietary arm around her shoulder, and Metin took a step farther away. They all jumped when the ambulance squealed out of the parking lot.

  “I can drive all of us,” the biology teacher declared, his mature calm like fingernails on Metin’s inner chalkboard. “Come on, honey.”

  He turned Melanie slowly, but firmly away from Metin. They climbed into an expensive-looking Audi, and his heart sank to his knees. That’s it. She had made her decision, like he’d told her to. He climbed behind the wheel of his sports car and cranked rap music and got in the line behind the ambulance, frozen with remorse.

  Epilogue

  Two years later

  “Oh god, make it stop,” Mel rolled over and pulled the pillow over her head. Exhaustion lit every corner of her being. “Did Tanner ever come home?” she mumbled from her soundproof safe haven.

  Zach had begun his second year playing soccer at Georgia Tech, since Duke revoked his scholarship offer, thanks to the concussion scare. And Tanner had taken on the role of Problem Son with gusto. Late nights, illicit house parties, and surly attitudes interspersed with yelling arguments about the state of his room, his grades, and his pot head friends were part and parcel of life with that kid. Where her sweet, happy little boy had gone, she had no idea.

  “Yeah.” Her husband rolled away from her. “I stayed up to make sure he met the curfew.”

  “Thanks.” She sighed, grateful for a lot of reasons. He was so reliable, so sturdy and calm in the face of Tanner’s scary descent into wild, teenage boyhood.

  “I’ll get this one,” he said. She peeked at the clock—five a.m. on a Saturday. Though so bone-tired in body and mind, and slightly ill contemplating it, she needed to get in to the café in a couple of hours. He pulled on a pair of jeans and ran a hand through his hair. “Get another hour, Mel. You had the last shift.” Giving her leg a pat, he yawned and then wandered out into the hall.

  She drifted off, her over-taxed brain going directly into deep sleep, only to be startled awake by smelly dog breath. Opening one eye, she stared at the animal’s huge face on the bed next to her. Noting an hour and a half had passed since she’d last seen the clock, she sat up. The house was silent. Staggering a little, she hit the shower, emerged, and dressed, still in a haze of exhaustion.

  “Coffee… need lots and lots of coffee,” she muttered, padding down the hallway toward the kitchen.

  Stopping at the door of Zach’s old room, she smiled at the sight of the tiny baby girl, nestled into her father’s neck. She watched them both sleep for a few minutes, marveling at how close she’d come to making the wrong decision—to choosing the life that seemed right, over the one that she wanted.

  The baby stirred, snorted around, made a small mewling cry. Mel’s breasts responded in kind, tingling and leaking. “Ow, god,” she yelped. “Wake up, you lazy shit, I gotta feed your spawn.”

  The man opened his eyes and grinned at her, his face a mask of utter happiness as he stood, handing their daughter into her arms, and guiding her down to the seat.

  “This whole baby thing was a bad idea, you know.” She winced as Ava latched onto her nipple with a healthy tug. “I never should have let you….”

  The baby flinched when a tear dropped on her face, but didn’t let it distract her from her singular mission.

  Her husband crouched down next to her, ran his finger along the girl’s cheek, then Mel’s breast. Her eye caught the glint of the thin gold ring he wore, an exact match to hers. “I’m pretty convincing when I want to be.” He leaned over to kiss her lips.

  “Yeah,” Mel said, yawning and putting her forehead against his, her heart calm and her soul sated. “You are.”

  “I love you,” Metin whispered, kissing her hair.

  “Good thing, since you’re just another in a line of men who knocked me up.”

  “Yeah, but I’m the end of that line now,” he said, frowning. “We clear on that?”

  “Crystal.”

  It only took a couple of weeks after Zach’s concussion all clear for her to return to him no longer wearing the biology teacher’s engagement ring. Metin had been kicking balls into his backyard goal after a ten-mile run, contemplating what would possibly be next for him. The hole that Alicia and Ayden’s deaths ripped into his soul could never be healed. He knew that. And although Melanie was more than mere filler, he also knew he had to give up convincing her of that fact.

  When he looked up, sweat dripping into his face from the hard workout, she stood on the patio, in a soft-looking yellow sundress, her face wearing a grim expression.

  “I’m here to tell you something.” Waiting for another lecture, more curses and, whatever else she needed to get off her chest, he stood silent but for the pounding of his pulse in his ears. “I love you. But don’t get a big head over it or anything.”

  “I won’t, but you have to tell me something else.” He made his slow, determined way across the lawn to her, his heart lifting with every step. She seemed to shrink in on herself as he approached. But when he touched her arm then pulled her close and kissed her, she relaxed, finally in his embrace. He broke the kiss, reluctantly, cradling her face with shaking hands.

  “What else did you want to know?” she whispered.

  He chuckled. “You know what? I forgot. Well, there is this.” He clutched her ass, trailing a hand up to her breast. He buried his nose in her neck. “Say it again,” he muttered, eyes closed, not willing to believe it… yet.

  “I love you, Metin. Now take me inside and prove to me how happy you are to hear it.”

  Picking her up, he did exactly that for a day or two at least. Then they went to the courthouse, signed a paper, exchanged rings, and made their announcement at a small party in Ayden’s Café.

  Her father cried for the first time since his own wife died. Metin’s family showed up en masse to surprise them all.

  And it was, if not perfect, damn close.

  The End

  Read an excerpt from

  Man On (The Black Jack Gentlemen Book 1)

  His first session with the psychologist, an earnest, nerdy-looking guy with square glasses and a cleft chin, had been brutal. But Nicco knew he’d been deflecting, pretending, and to his credit, the shrink had let him front and show off for a full hour.

  Then, just as he was getting up to leave, convinced the whole thing had been a total waste, the guy looked up at him, pinning him with eyes so sharp and clear they made Nicco gasp in spite of himself. “Nicco,” he’d said. “When you’re ready to face up to your addiction, I’m here to listen. I know you have a problem with sex. You know you have a problem with sex. I’m glad you made this appointment. Next time, let’s make it more useful, shall we? And for the record, I did not support the concept of putting you out there as poster boy for gay rights or gay athletes.”

 
The man had removed his glasses, still staring Nicco down as if he could see into his very soul. “I am gay. I have been with the same partner, a man I love dearly for six years. I understand, on a certain level, what you’re dealing with. So,” he’d put the glasses back on and glanced down at his tablet computer. “When will I see you next?”

  Now, he pulled the card from his pocket and stared at the therapist’s name and phone number. Then he ripped it into small pieces as the rest of the new team filed into the room. He noted two German players he’d had run-ins with in World Cup play, a South African player who must have cost the casino owners a pretty penny, at least three Brits, a Welsh guy or maybe Irish, and two South Americans whose dark, intense good looks made him shiver with memory.

  A handful of fresh-faced young Americans interspersed in the group made him feel old. And that pissed him off. What was that Inez pup thinking anyway? There were two per position in the room, two strong players for each spot—except his. He sipped his water bottle and glared at the Germans. Nervous tension gnawed at his gut but he kept his face calm. Finally when their new coach showed up and flipped the blinds closed, he relaxed.

  So everyone in the room has to fight for their spot except me? That works. He dropped his feet to the floor at Rafe’s pointed glance and propped his elbows on the table prepared to ignore the forthcoming pep talk.

  He’d already made plans for the night and wanted to rest up before hand anyway. This goofy welcome pep talk would be as good a time as any. Letting his thoughts wander to the nightclub catering to gay men and promising full discretion, he forced himself to stop obsessing over the failed therapy session.

  The door clicked open and all eyes landed on the tall, blond man who snuck in, backpack on his shoulder, dressed to play. Nicco’s scalp tingled at the sight of him—strong torso, long legs, firm jaw covered with several days’ worth of fuzz. Good Christ but he was a perfect specimen. Nicco kept his casual stance but startled when the kid’s bright blue eyes and huge white smile landed on him.