Redemption

by Jessica Ashe

  I was so used to women wanting me on sight that it hardly occurred to me that Michelle wouldn’t be the same. Arrogant, I know, but it was an opinion built on years of experience of women throwing themselves at me. After a while, that kind of thing does tend to go to your head.

  All the training sessions were supposed to finish at the same time, so if I stuck around until the end of Shaun’s session then maybe I could bump into Michelle again on the way back to the car. I felt like a school kid sometimes, but I had to take things slow with her, or I might scare her off completely. Besides, Shaun would probably want a lift home, so that could be my excuse for staying to the end.

  Shaun had dominated most of the practice sessions already, but in the last half hour he started running rings around everyone else because his higher fitness levels gave him a huge advantage over the others, who were now bent over trying to catch their breath at every stoppage.

  Shaun hated appearing arrogant, so he would make an effort to pass the ball around more instead of running through for tries even though he could have done so easily. I never would have done that, but Shaun was a better person than me, despite being eleven years my junior.

  When the coach blew the whistle and signified the end of training, Shaun walked straight over to me and barely looked out of breath.

  “You alright?” I asked. “How was it?”

  “Fine,” Shaun replied, as quiet as ever.

  “Are you going to go hang out with the other kids now?”

  “No, I don’t think anyone has made any plans. I’ll just go home with you.”

  I’d overheard enough conversations today to know that wasn’t true. Each age group had agreed to meet up at which ever “hang out point” was appropriate for their ages. The pretence was to get to know each other better, but most of them would use it as an excuse to hook up with someone else for a summer romance.

  Shaun didn’t do well socialising in large groups. He was far too quiet and reserved. I’d been trying to bring him out of his shell for years, but with little success. I considered encouraging him to go out, but decided against it. The summer training camp lasted for twelve weeks, which gave him plenty of time to make friends. He might be quiet, but everyone who got close to the kid fell in love with him. He’d make friends eventually.

  “Come on then, mate,” I said. “Let’s head home. You’re going to sleep well tonight.”

  We made our way towards the car park, although we had to walk quickly to make sure we ‘accidentally’ bumped into Michelle and Maisie, who had been about to leave without saying goodbye. Michelle almost looked annoyed when Maisie ran over to speak to us. Like Shaun, she seemed to be bursting with energy still.

  “That was so much fun,” Maisie said, as if I couldn’t tell from the huge grin lighting up her face. “I’ve never had a training session that good before.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it,” I replied. “Although you’re supposed to look a little more tired. I’ll have to tell Terry to push you a bit harder from now on.”

  “She’s the only person I know who gets more energy from jet lag, not less,” Michelle said, walking up behind Maisie. “I’m exhausted.”

  “So I take it you won’t want to join me for dinner tonight?” I asked hopefully.

  “No, sorry,” she replied. “Like I said, I’m too tired for anything other than sleep right now.”

  “Maybe another time.”

  “Maybe.”

  I caught Maisie frown at the chill reaction Michelle had to my friendly suggestion for dinner. I was fairly sure Maisie was oblivious to my feelings for Michelle—even though I’d often asked about her—but it was dangerous to underestimate Maisie. That girl was freakishly perceptive.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce us to your friend?” Maisie asked, nodding towards Shaun who had been stood silently beside me. Shaun was tall for his age and rarely blended into the background, but he looked slight compared to my more muscular frame.

  “Sorry,” I muttered. “This is Shaun. Shaun, this is Maisie and this is Michelle. They’re from America.”

  “We’re his sisters,” Maisie said as she offered her hand to Shaun. Shaun shook her hand gingerly and then did the same with Michelle.

  “Step-sisters,” Michelle and I both said at the same time. At least we were thinking along the same lines on that one.

  “Nice to meet you both,” Shaun said politely.

  An awkward silence hung in the air as Michelle and Maisie waited for me to explain who Shaun was and why we were heading home together.

  I typically said we were brothers, because there was only an eleven-year age gap between us. Shaun being black meant I had to pretend my parents had adopted him, but people were respectful enough of that these days. Unfortunately, Michelle and Maisie knew my family situation well enough to know that I did not have an adopted brother.

  I decided to tell them the truth straight away.

  “Shaun is my son.”

  “I… I don’t understand,” I said slowly. “He’s your son?”

  I glanced at Shaun again and noticed him looking down at his feet. He’d obviously heard reactions like mine before and was used to it, but that didn’t make my question any less inappropriate. The poor kid looked haunted by something and I was acting like he wasn’t there.

  “Yes,” Oliver responded.

  Maisie looked a little taken aback as well, although in typical fashion, she came right out and asked the obvious question. “Unless my biology teacher made a mess of the genetics lessons,” Maisie said, “I’m going to assume you’re adopted, Shaun?”

  Shaun nodded and smiled at Maisie. She’d managed to put him at ease whereas I’d had the opposite effect. What was it about being around Oliver that turned me into such a bad person?

  “I didn’t know you’d adopted anyone,” I said, stating the obvious.

  “It happened after you left in 2007,” Oliver said. “Shaun’s dad was a friend of mine. He… passed away, so Shaun came to live with me. I officially adopted him a few years later.”

  “I’m sorry, Shaun,” I said, although he still wouldn’t look at me.

  “Do you want to go wait in the car?” Oliver asked Shaun. Shaun quickly nodded and took the keys from Oliver. No doubt he was eager to get away from me and my stupid comments.

  “He doesn’t speak a lot,” Oliver said, once Shaun was out of earshot.

  “He doesn’t have to when he looks that good,” Maisie said. “Sometimes the body can communicate everything it needs to.”

  I went to scold Maisie, but Oliver laughed and I couldn’t help but join in.

  “He’s cute,” she added. “That’s all.”

  “Well, you’ll be seeing plenty more of him over the summer,” Oliver said.

  How could Oliver have a son? And how could I not know about it? I know I’d been out of his life for eight years, but I just assumed that kind of news would get out. I guess they made an effort to keep it out of the press, and Oliver hadn’t told Maisie either judging by her reaction.

  Oliver having a son was going to make it so much harder to hate him. It had been hard enough not to look at him every ten seconds today, while he stood there in full view wearing those tight shorts and crossing his arms to reveal his toned biceps. Now I had to factor in that he was a father to a kid whose parents had died. Oliver wasn’t making it easy on me.

  Perhaps he really had changed? He’d only been eighteen when I last saw him. He was old enough to play for England, but still immature enough to take his mistakes out on me. But Oliver was twenty-six now and he looked every bit the grownup he hadn’t been before.

  “We should be going,” I said. “It’s hard enough driving on the wrong side of the road. I don’t want to be tired while I’m doing it.”

  “I can drive you to the hotel,” Oliver offered. “Or you can stay at my place.”

  Maisie looked at me excitedly. I didn’t need to be fully awake to figure out what she wanted to do and why, but I rejected the
offer anyway.

  “My team’s playing at the weekend,” Oliver said, just as I was about to turn and head back to the car. “It’s a top of the table clash, so the game’s sold out, but I can get you VIP tickets if you want them.”

  “That’s really not—” I began, before Oliver interrupted.

  “You’ve already rejected dinner and a ride home. I do hope you’re not going to reject this offer as well. Maisie, tell your sister it’s rude to reject a polite invitation.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said quickly, not wanting Maisie on my case as well. “Thank you Oliver, we’d love to watch you play.”

  “Excellent. I’ll give you all the details tomorrow.”

  Oliver walked off and Maisie and I headed back to the car, although we both walked to the wrong door on the first attempt.

  “You’re in a weird mood,” Maisie said once the engine was running. “Why don’t you want to hang out with Oliver more?”

  Because I don’t trust myself around him, I thought. Because if I see him playing rugby there’s a good chance I will want to run onto the pitch and let him tackle me to the floor.

  “I’m just tired,” I replied. “It’s been a long day. And an eventful one at that.”

  “I know,” Maisie agreed. “I can’t believe Oliver adopted Shaun. Although, I guess it’s not that different to you and me.”

  “Of course it’s different.”

  “Not really,” Maisie insisted. “You look after me more than Mom for the most part. And you’re insanely protective of me, because you still blame yourself for the attack.”

  “You’re making me feel really old right now.”

  “Well, you act it sometimes. You need to chill out a bit.”

  “I agreed to go to Oliver’s rugby game,” I said. “I’ll be better once I’ve gotten over the jet lag.”

  “You don’t need to watch me play all day either. I noticed Oliver is finished with his work just after lunch. Why don’t the two of you hang out and do fun things instead of just watching me training?”

  I wanted nothing more than to spend the afternoon doing “fun things” with Oliver, but that couldn’t happen. I used to hang out with him all the time eight years ago, and that ended in my heartbreak. I couldn’t go through all that again.

  The summer would be over before I knew it, and then I’d be back in Virginia working two jobs and volunteering at the center, while Oliver made millions playing rugby.

  Oliver might have changed, but perhaps the problem was with me. I hadn’t changed. I’d never moved on from what happened eight years ago. How could I when I was reminded of it every time I looked at my sister?

  I’d have to move past it. I couldn’t spend the entire summer avoiding Oliver, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. He looked every bit as delicious as he had eight years ago, and now he might not be a complete asshole. That made him the perfect package, except for one thing—he was my stepbrother.

  That should have cooled my desires, but it hadn’t eight years ago, and it didn’t now. If anything, it made me want him more. What would Maisie say if she knew how I looked at our stepbrother? If she knew I thought about him at night and in… intimate moments, both when I was with other men and when I was alone?

  “Am I Shaun’s auntie?” Maisie asked after a rare few minutes of silence.

  “No,” I replied instantly. I didn’t want to be an auntie to Oliver’s adopted son. Things were weird enough as it was.

  “Good,” Maisie said. “That’s a relief.”

  “Why don’t you want… Actually, never mind.” I knew full well why she didn’t want to be Shaun’s auntie and I was hardly in a position to judge. In many ways, Maisie and I couldn’t have been more different, but when it came to men, we clearly had some things in common.

  I kept expecting Michelle to cancel on me, right up until I saw her and Maisie pull up in their rental car outside the stadium. Maisie popped out of the car the second it stopped moving and looked up in awe at the stadium.

  I loved the ground, but I was biased. Compared to the stadiums they were used to in the US, this one should have looked insignificant: old, small, and likely in violation of safety codes.

  I didn’t know a lot about US sports, but I did know that their university teams often played in front of over one hundred thousand people. West London R.F.C. was a popular team, but we considered ourselves lucky to get thirty thousand.

  Fortunately, those thirty thousand people were the best thirty thousand rugby fans in the world as far as I was concerned. They made a noise that reverberated around the small ground and intimidated every opposition team that visited, even those who were used to playing in front of much larger crowds.

  The fans were the reason I chose West London over the other clubs that had come in for me after my disastrous performance in the 2007 World Cup Final. After that debacle, what I needed more than anything was the support of a loyal fan base. I got all that here and a lot more. The only thing that could make the crowd better was having Michelle in it and today that dream was coming true.

  Michelle’s legs appeared from the car; I could swear my heart literally skipped a beat. If my physio had been here he would have hooked me up to machines and made me take a physical.

  For the first time since she’d arrived, Michelle wore a skirt, and a short one at that. Her legs were slightly tanned, but far from golden. They were also toned, so all those self-defence classes she taught obviously kept her in shape.

  With such a short skirt, it was all too easy to imagine me burying my head between her legs and tasting the sweet goodness of her sex. I closed my eyes and took deep breaths, trying to calm down and stop the blood rushing to my cock, but that just made the mental image clearer.

  I grabbed a glass of cold water and necked it back before stepping outside to greet them. Don’t stare at her legs. Don’t stare at her legs.

  “I’m so glad you came,” I said, as we met halfway and I ushered them through security. Now that I was deliberately not looking at Michelle’s legs, I noticed she was wearing a cardigan again, despite it being a hot day. She seemed rather attached to those things, but fortunately she had it open to reveal her chest. Damn it. Don’t stare at her chest. Don’t stare at her chest.

  “Wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” Maisie said, still looking up in awe at the stadium.

  “It’s a little old,” I explained. “But I like it.”

  “Do we get a tour?” Maisie asked.

  “We don’t want to be any trouble,” Michelle said apologetically.

  “It’s no trouble at all,” I said. “But first, we need to get you into a rugby shirt. Can’t have you wandering around looking like tourists. Plus, you might get to meet some players and they’ll be happy to sign it.”

  I couldn’t deny having an ulterior motive. There was little in life sexier than seeing a hot woman in a rugby shirt. The tight fit would show off Michelle’s body, but there was also something primal and raw about rugby shirts on a woman that drove me wild.

  Michelle insisted on getting a long sleeved shirt, but damn, she still looked good in it. I couldn’t see her breasts any more, but the sacrifice was worth it. The curves of the shirt around her chest were almost more appealing than actually seeing her chest, if that was at all possible. The not-so-subtle hint at what lay underneath was enough to prove distracting during the game if I wasn’t careful.

  We swung by the changing rooms first because they were empty at the moment, much to Maisie’s disappointment. My teammates were all tall and muscular like me, and I had no intention of inadvertently creating any competition for myself by letting Michelle walk in on them half-naked.

  We did come across a few players hanging out in the halls, so I introduced them to Maisie and encouraged her to get a few signatures.

  “You can sign right here,” she said, pointing to her left breast. “And you can sign here,” she said to the other player, pointing to her right breast this time.

  “Uh, how
old are you?” my teammate Nigel asked. He was six foot four and weighed over one hundred kilos, but right now he looked terrified by a fourteen-year-old girl. That tended to be the appropriate reaction where Maisie was concerned.

  “Probably best to just sign her sleeves,” I said, as Maisie rolled her eyes at me. Now I knew how Michelle felt. Maisie had a way of making you feel like the bad guy all the time for spoiling her fun.

  “Thanks lads,” I said when they’d finished signing her shirt.

  Just before we walked away, two young boys about Maisie’s age ran up to Nigel, one of them holding a rugby ball, and asked him to sign it.

  “You want a signature from Olly as well?” Nigel asked. Nigel looked a little surprised to see that he had been asked for the signature first because most people gravitated towards me.

  For good or bad, I was one of the most famous rugby players in the country, even though I hadn’t played for England since the World Cup Final in 2007. Anyone who liked rugby had an opinion on me, and that meant I was a popular choice to sign merchandise.

  “God no,” the kid said, and grabbed the ball from Nigel’s hand. “He might drop it.” The two kids ran off, laughing at how funny they were.

  “Little shits,” Nigel said.

  “I can’t believe they said that,” Maisie exclaimed.

  “Don’t worry, it happens,” I said with a shrug. “I don’t care.”

  I really didn’t. I had done for a couple of years, but not any more. If the worst thing that stuck with me from that day was “dropping” the ball, then I was fortunate. If they knew the truth, well, that would be far worse.

  I took Maisie and Michelle upstairs to an executive suite that I had claimed for the day, and introduced them to the waiter who would be looking after them while I played.

  “He’ll get you whatever you want to eat or drink,” I said. “Just name it.”

  “The view is incredible,” Maisie said, as she stared through the glass towards the pitch.