Calling the Play

by Samantha Kane

  Brian’s stomach clenched at the casual reminder of how close Ty had come to dying.

  “I’m sorry,” he said impulsively. It was meant for Ty, for everything that had happened between them, even though he knew it wasn’t enough. Both Ty and Randi looked at him oddly. He turned to Randi, to cover his awkward apology. “I didn’t mean to jump down your throat like that. I didn’t mean half of it. But you must know this is hard for me, to come here and try to talk to Ty. And thank you. For saving his life, I mean.”

  It was too much. Now Ty looked astonished and Randi looked smug. Brian clamped his mouth shut, determined not to embarrass himself more. He had never felt this awkward in his life.

  “Apology accepted,” Randi said graciously, much to his surprise. “And you’re welcome.” She turned to Ty. “I’m going to find something to eat. I’m starving. Being your sex slave is hard work.”

  “I thought I was the sex slave,” Ty said with a frown. “Don’t ruin it for me.”

  “Whatever,” Randi said, patting his ass as she walked by him. “You slave, me slave, I’m still hungry.”

  Brian had to smile at the exchange. Did these two have any idea how perfect they were for each other? Probably not. They’d probably ruin it, just as Ty said. Run away from each other and what they could have because they were too scared of commitment, too scared of the work it would take to keep it going, to stay together. Scared of what people might think, of how it would look, of being hurt. Or was that just him?

  When they were alone, Ty looked at him expectantly.

  “I have to do this in the foyer?” Brian asked, not sure how to begin groveling for Ty’s forgiveness.

  Ty closed one eye and pursed his lips as he stared at Brian, as if he was thinking about it very hard. Finally, he relented. “I guess not,” he said. “Come on.” He led the way through the living room and out onto the patio. There were groups of empty beer bottles on a couple of the tables, and two big trash cans just down the patio steps, on the tile surrounding the pool. One was for trash, the other for recyclables. It was clear that he and Randi had been cleaning up after yesterday’s party. Typical that the partygoers would leave without thinking about the destruction they’d left behind. Brian grabbed a couple of handfuls of bottles and carried them down to the trash cans.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, deciding it was best to just get to the heart of it all. He kept cleaning up, not looking at Ty, keeping busy so he didn’t get caught up in his own drama. “I never should have left like that.”

  “Yesterday?” Ty asked, sitting down in one of the patio chairs. He was watching Brian as he worked, his focus intense, like when he played football. Or when he was trying to figure out what you were thinking. He’d never been able to figure out what Brian was thinking. If he had, he never would have believed Brian’s bullshit when he left.

  “No. Eight years ago,” Brian said, facing Ty, wanting him to see that he meant it.

  “Convenient that you’d suddenly come to that realization when you show up here to coach me.” Ty sounded almost bored. Good thing Brian had expected Ty to be disbelieving and mistrustful, or that tone would have unnerved him.

  “I realized it about ten minutes after I left,” Brian said. He went back up and collected more bottles from the table beside Ty’s chair. He didn’t look at Ty, but felt his scrutiny as he went to throw the bottles away. “But I was too scared to admit it and come crawling back.” He turned with a sigh, facing Ty as he leaned against the brick ledge that surrounded the patio. “See, I was so afraid of being left behind that I turned into the one who leaves. I’m still fighting that battle.”

  “Is that what happened with Janine?” Ty asked. “You left?”

  Brian was startled for a moment at the mention of his ex-wife. “Janine? No.” He shook his head. “Remember how she used to say you were her last chance to fuck the quarterback and his friends? Well, it turns out that with my job that wasn’t true.” He smiled ruefully. “I can’t really blame her. She thought I’d be into that, for obvious reasons. But I wasn’t.”

  “Why not?” Ty asked curiously. “You seemed to like it just fine with me.”

  “Because they weren’t you,” Brian said baldly, laying it on the line. “I only ever wanted that with you.”

  Ty kept watching him, his expression inscrutable. “You haven’t had a threesome since then?” He still sounded only mildly curious.

  “Nope,” Brian said, pushing away from the wall. He was pretty sure he had his answer to whether or not Ty and he had a future together on a personal level, and that answer was no. Ty didn’t seem to care one way or another about Brian’s confessions or remorse. He couldn’t really blame him. Brian had screwed up badly, and eight years was a long time, long enough to get over just about anybody. Anybody but Ty, of course. “Like I said, I didn’t want that with anyone else.” He went and grabbed another handful of bottles and nearly dropped them when Ty grabbed his wrist tightly.

  “You are a motherfucker to stay away all these years and leave me thinking it was my fault, and feeling ashamed of what I felt.”

  “I am most definitely that,” Brian agreed. He didn’t pull away, just let Ty hold him a few more seconds, his grip painful, until he let go. Then Brian walked over and threw the bottles away. “I saw what you went through. I saw the drinking, the drug charge, the CFL, for God’s sake.” He shook his head. “Did I congratulate you on the Grey Cup yet? No. So, congratulations. You took all the negative and threw it back in their faces by coming out a winner.” He looked him straight in the eyes. “I’m proud of you.”

  “A few years ago, that would have meant something,” Ty said. That arrow hit its mark and Brian cringed.

  “I’m sorry for that, too,” he said, meaning it more than Ty could ever know. He looked out over the pool, placid and blue, the sparse clouds in the sky reflected on its surface. The sun was hot on his head and his back, but the warmth wasn’t seeping in. “I thought you’d leave me, Ty,” he tried to explain. “I knew you were going places, and I really thought I’d weigh you down. I thought I’d be the one who was a burden, who was clingy and needy, and you’d resent that and throw me away.” It was true, just not all of the truth. The most important reason he left was because sharing Ty with one meaningless partner after another was breaking his heart. He couldn’t do it anymore. But years apart had made him realize that even a part of Ty was better than none, and if he had to share him to have him, he would. He looked down at his feet in their new Reef flip-flops, bought for the beaches of Alabama because he didn’t realize how far from the ocean they were. He hadn’t realized a lot of things about Alabama, apparently, but that was okay. He didn’t think he’d be staying long. “I’m not trying to excuse what I said, or my leaving, or any of that. I just thought you ought to know where my head was at back then.”

  “And now? Where’s your head now?” Ty asked, finally standing up. He paced in front of his chair. “Why did you take this job, Brian?” He stopped and faced Brian, and they stood there on opposite sides of the patio, sun warmed and separated by a chasm of misunderstanding. “You had to know this would be hard for both of us.”

  “I took the job because they came to me,” Brian told him. He was determined to be honest. “I never thought I’d have the chance to work with you again. Hell, to even see or speak to you again. And then the Rebels called me up and said, ‘Hey! We heard you did wonders with Ty Oakes in college ball, and we want you to come to Birmingham and do that voodoo here with him. How about it?’ And I jumped at the chance. Because I wanted to see you, I wanted to work with you again, I wanted to explain and help you. I couldn’t have said no, Ty. I just couldn’t.”

  Ty didn’t say anything, just stood there and stared at him, unreadable. Brian refused to walk away without some response from him, without knowing where he stood and whether he was staying or going.

  “Say something.” Randi came out of the shadows inside the house, through the open French doors. “Don’t leave him hanging
, Ty. He laid it on the line to come here today.”

  Brian hadn’t expected an ally in her. He wasn’t sure whether to acknowledge her help or not. He didn’t want Ty to feel pressured, and he didn’t want to be the cause of ruining the fledgling thing between the two of them. She was the only girl he’d ever known Ty to keep around for two consecutive nights. That was huge in Ty’s world.

  “Did he?” Ty asked in a bland voice. Brian was a little alarmed at how good Ty had gotten at hiding his feelings. He walked over to Randi and put his arm around her. “They came to you, did they?” he said, still speaking to Brian. “So they think I need a football guru.”

  “No,” Brian denied too quickly.

  “Don’t even try,” Ty said. “I’ve kept tabs on you, too. I know that’s your reputation. You come in and make underperforming players shine. And, boy, am I underperforming.” He squeezed Randi in a one-armed hug and let go before he walked over to the side of the patio, staring at a brick wall. “My game is in the crapper and you and I both know it.” He spun around suddenly. “Okay, Brian. Let’s work that voodoo again here in Birmingham. What do you want me to do?” Before Brian could answer, Ty added, “Football, Brian. Eight years is a damn long time to just show up and expect me to fall back into what we had.”

  “I don’t want what we had,” Brian told him. “I want more.”

  “I don’t know if I have more to give,” Ty said, sounding sad and lonely. “Not anymore.”

  “Fair enough,” Brian said, completely understanding. “Football it is.”

  “Oh, please,” Randi said with a loud, rude raspberry. “You guys are so screwed. Football, my ass.” She turned and headed for the pool, pulling off her tank top as she went. She was naked underneath, and dove into the pool with nothing on but her tiny bikini bottom.

  Brian wished he could be as sure as Randi that football would lead him back to Ty.

  Chapter 9

  Randi thought Ty was going to strangle her when she asked Brian to stay for dinner. It was as obvious as the nose on her face that the two men still had more to talk about. They needed to get over this “just football” thing. Because there was no way Randi wasn’t going to be the girl filling in that sandwich. The sexual tension between them was thick enough to choke on, but it seemed to her they weren’t going to get anywhere without a little divine Randi intervention. So if she had to lead them to each other through her, who was she to argue with that? She was more than a little sad that her time with Ty was going to end sooner than she’d like, but she wasn’t going to come between him and Brian, not when they had history and obvious feelings for each other. A girl could dream, but she didn’t have to be a bitch about it. She was still on Ty’s side, but she could see Brian’s side of things, too. Hadn’t she thought the same things he’d talked about today, that Ty would move on? Guys like Ty didn’t stay with girls like Randi. She guessed they left for guys like Brian, guys who were gorgeous, successful, confident, and sincere.

  “Are you sure?” Brian asked after she’d asked him to stay. He looked at Ty as he said it. Ty was glaring daggers at her. She was still in the pool, her arms resting on the side as she floated, lazily kicking her legs as she watched the two men pick up the last of yesterday’s trash. When Brian had offered to stay and help, Ty hadn’t complained.

  “The least he can do is feed you after you cleaned up his pool,” Randi said.

  “I cleaned most of it up before he got here,” Ty said sarcastically. “With very little help from you, I might add.”

  “You could add it, but you won’t,” she said. “After all, I got them all to leave yesterday, didn’t I? You could still have some of my good-for-nothing cousins lounging by your pool if I hadn’t intervened.”

  “You invited them,” Ty said, standing with his hands on his hips as he gave her a lopsided smile.

  “So I did,” she agreed. “And then I uninvited them. You can thank me later.” She wandered over to the steps in the shallow end and climbed out of the pool. It was a calculated move. She knew she looked damn good, all wet and half-naked in the sunlight. Both men watched her as if she was ESPN on draft day. “So, Brian, can you cook?”

  “What?” he said, sounding confused for a second. “I mean, yeah. Of course I can cook.”

  “Then I am definitely sure you’re invited for dinner.” She walked up to the steps that led to the patio, where both men still stood in the same places they’d been when she’d risen from the pool. She just stood there and let them look their fill for a minute. It took that long for Brian to figure it out.

  “Wait a minute,” he said suspiciously. “Am I cooking?”

  “Yep,” Ty said. “I still can’t boil water.”

  “I can’t even pour my own cereal,” Randi said, one-upping him.

  Brian laughed, and the spell her nakedness had cast on the men was broken. She took the stairs two at a time and grabbed her tank top, pulling it on.

  “Aren’t you going to dry off?” Brian asked. He was staring at her soaking wet tank. Well, he was staring at her boobs through her soaking wet tank.

  “Nope,” she said.

  “Why not?” Brian asked. He looked like he had a pretty good idea of what she was trying to do and couldn’t decide if he was happy about it or not.

  “Because my tits look better in a wet tank than a dry one,” she said. “And since you guys seem so fascinated by them, I thought I’d do you a favor.”

  “Thanks.” Ty threw a towel at her. “But don’t catch cold on my account.”

  “Maybe it’s on Brian’s account,” she replied, not catching the towel. It fell to the stones on the patio. Brian scooped it up.

  “Brian thanks you, too,” he said, walking over with the towel. “But you don’t have to put on a show. I already like you.”

  “Like?” she said. “As in ‘I like coffee’? Or ‘I like watching golf on TV’?”

  “Like as in ‘My eyes have been glued to your body since I first saw you across the pool yesterday,’ ” Brian admitted. “You don’t need any embellishments, or tricks, or wet T-shirts to make me appreciate your body.”

  Randi frowned. “What kind of man are you? Guys love that shit.”

  “If I loved it any more I wouldn’t be able to walk normally,” Brian said wryly. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it, just that you don’t have to do it.”

  “Hey, remember me?” Ty said, waving from across the patio. “What’s the deal? I thought you weren’t done with my dick yet.”

  “I’m not,” she told him. “I’m sick, psychologically. I have to make every guy who sees me want me.”

  “Just walk into a room,” Brian advised her. “That ought to do it. What am I making for dinner?”

  “You are going to be so easy,” Randi whispered to him as she walked past.

  “You have no idea,” Brian murmured back.

  —

  Ty sat on a barstool at the kitchen island and watched Brian cook with a weird sense of déjà vu. He could feel himself getting sucked back in by Brian’s charm and charisma and whatever it was that Ty had always found so fascinating.

  “You gained weight,” he said.

  Brian chuckled. “Gee, thanks for noticing.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” Ty assured him, inwardly cringing at his utter lack of finesse around Brian. He felt like that immature college freshman again. “I just meant you’ve grown up, too.”

  “I hope I have,” Brian told him, tossing the salad in a big bowl Ty hadn’t even known he owned. He’d had a decorator do his place, right down to stocking his kitchen. “I filled out a bit more, is all,” Brian continued. “I’ve hit a good weight and it’s easy to maintain.”

  “You still work out,” Ty observed. Brian’s biceps strained the arms of his plain white T-shirt. He still dressed to fade into the background, plain T-shirt and shorts. Nothing fancy with Brian. Just complicated. “They have special T-shirts for guys with muscles, you know.”

  “Do they?” Brian looke
d down at his arms with mild curiosity. “I didn’t think I needed them. I’m pretty normal looking.” He moved over to the stove to check the pasta. It was one of the only things in Ty’s pantry.

  “Normal looking?” Randi came into the kitchen, smelling like his body wash. She’d changed into a tiny pair of shorts and a tight T-shirt. God bless her for her tiny wardrobe. “Are you kidding me? What planet are you from that you’re normal? Because it isn’t planet Earth.” She hopped up on the barstool next to Ty. “What’s for dinner?” she asked.

  “Pasta,” Brian answered before Ty could. “He didn’t have much else. We’re going to have to go shopping for you, Ty,” he added. “Have you forgotten everything about diet?”

  Ty gave a long-suffering sigh. “No, I haven’t forgotten,” he said. “I just don’t cook for myself. During the season I eat with the team at the facility. They cater for us.”

  “And off-season?” Brian faced him, arms crossed, and the sight of him in his kitchen, cooking for him, lecturing him, made Ty dizzy with that sense of déjà vu again.

  “Off-season I fend for myself,” Ty said. “And before you yell at me, I haven’t gained any weight over the summer. I’ve been a good boy.”

  Randi raised her hand. “I can attest to that. He’s a very good boy.” She looked between them. “Wait. We’re not talking about sex, are we? My bad.”

  “Set the table,” Brian said to no one in particular. Both Ty and Randi hopped down to do his bidding and they laughed.

  “I’m hungry,” she said.

  “You’re always hungry.” There was something about doing the domestic routine with Brian and Randi that felt very good. Ty steeled himself against it. He was tired of wishing for the moon and getting a fistful of nothing for his trouble. Brian had already run from him, and Randi was probably putting on her track shoes, especially since she’d been here for the drama with Brian.

  Dinner was simple, but delicious. Brian had always had a knack for that, for making the simple things seem better than they ought to be. It had grounded Ty back in the day when he was just starting to get attention and special privileges for his football skills. Maybe Brian and the Rebels were right. Maybe he needed that again, the grounding in what was simple and fundamental.