Earning It

by Angela Quarles

Not bad for a poor, trailer-park kid.

  But while the bodyguard gig utilizes some of my unique skill set, it lacks one major component—working as a team. No camaraderie. Enter—hurling.

  Pepper

  Wham!

  In front of me, a player slams into another, who stumbles to the side, his hand striking the ground and saving him from a complete fall. I’d been leaning back on my hands, but I straighten, cross my legs on the blanket, and lean forward. I’d heard of hurling but had never seen it played. The rules seem whacked, but my first impression is that it’s a rougher, faster version of lacrosse, with a mash-up of baseball, volleyball, field hockey, and rugby to add to the what-the-hell confusion.

  And aside from the minimal lacrosse-style helmets, none of them wear protective gear. Not even shin guards. The testosterone permeates the humid air so thickly, I can almost taste it. None of them appear to be my science fair nemesis, but I can’t get a closer look from where I sit. I know which one it isn’t—I’d introduced myself to the captain when I arrived, letting him know what I needed to accomplish today.

  I count fourteen instead of the fifteen I was told to expect, but then a straggler comes from the parking lot, his steps sure and long.

  He taps a small white ball up, over and over, on the end of his stick, but I sense he’s not showing off, but rather warming up before he enters the fray. Like the others, he has a helmet on, but his stride completely owns the space around him.

  Then I catch myself—what’s wrong with me? Did my completely out-of-character actions yesterday open me to finding men desirable everywhere I look? No doubt exists in my mind, though, that Rick awakened me in a way I didn’t know needed awakening.

  And then he gets closer, and my breath just ups and leaves.

  It’s him.

  Rick.

  My hot-as-hell fling is here. My back straightens, and my palms break out in a totally unfeminine sweat. Everything switches from the Simple column to Complicated.

  Oh shit. He drops his gym bag behind the goal post and hustles to the others, joining them in their drills.

  Panic has my stomach all scrambled. A fling. This was supposed to be a fling. And while, yes, I’d really, really, really love to see where things might lead, I know myself and I have to establish my career as a doctor first.

  I’d already been having a hard time not slipping a note under Rick’s door. I kept repeating, be responsible, whenever that temptation gripped me.

  But now? Out of the question. He’s a patient, and I can’t cross that doctor-patient line again.

  I’m mesmerized watching him play, though. Sure, I’d gotten an up-close-and-personal tour of the abs gracing his torso, but good God, seeing him move through the drills, using his body as an athletic machine, is spellbinding on a whole ’nother level. No doubt about it, his body is meant to be seen moving. There’s also a bit of freedom in observing him from a distance, in the privacy of my…er, blanket, without him being aware. Jeez, I sound like a creeper. But it’s also helping me detach back into work mode.

  That fascination of seeing the human body work as an athletic machine is precisely why I love what I do—helping athletes efficiently and safely use their strength and skills. And helping them heal when injured. I’m a bit of a dork about it actually.

  Soon enough, the captain blows a whistle, and the players stop and beeline for the nearby table lined with water jugs.

  After they quickly hydrate, the captain heads my way with Rick and the rest of the team. I stand because I want to be cool and professional when they greet me, which is a bit difficult, I admit, when my heart is beating so hard I fear it’s going to punch through my ribcage. My lady parts have also received the signal, and I shiver with anticipation and longing.

  I wasn’t supposed to see him again. He’s now my patient.

  But as they approach, Rick catches sight of me and his stride slows. I guess he’s not looking forward to seeing me, and that hurts, even though I knew it was just a fling. Which was my decision, I remind myself.

  I snap open my clipboard, ruthlessly shunting aside this unreasonable pain. When dignity is at risk, take refuge in work, right? And since facing my science fair nemesis might be the distraction I need, I call out, “Luke Haas,” and hold out a medical questionnaire, the paper listlessly flapping in a mild breeze.

  Rick takes a hesitant step forward.

  My brain and body freeze, and I gape at the man I was intimate with only yesterday, trying to process what that action means. Because, because…what?

  I search Rick’s eyes. This can’t be right. But what I see there is resignation. And guilt.

  No.

  Shame and anger scour my chest, leaving me hollow and abraded. As if it had scooped out everything, and all I can do is shake from the lack of whatever it was that had been holding me together.

  I raise my chin, plant a shaking hand on my hip, and say, “Hello, Rick.”

  Chapter 5

  Pepper

  The name sits like a weight in the muggy air of the soccer field. An accusing weight. A shame-filled weight. Mocking me.

  God. I’m such an idiot.

  The other guys turn, slow as molasses, and stare with varying degrees of confusion at Rick. Or should I say, Luke.

  “The Haashole,” I whisper, the words barely pushing past my constricted chest. But it must have been loud enough, because his eyes go wide for a split second and then dim into resignation.

  The others are here. Witnesses. But it’s as if they don’t exist, and the world has narrowed to Luke and me and the space between us. And the shame, shame, shame I feel right now.

  He slowly tugs the questionnaire from my stiff, numb fingers, and the rest of the world snaps back into my notice. Voices start talking all at once.

  “That’s me,” he mumbles.

  I want to curl up and die. I want to yell. I want to cry. My throat constricts, and everything goes all blurry, but I pull in a lungful of air. I will be professional here.

  Luke

  Mark crosses his arms. “I don’t know what the fuck’s going on between you and Dr. Rodgers, or why she called you ‘Rick,’ but you’ve gotta fix this, man. She’s not rubberstamping this like Conor thought.”

  We’re still on the practice field, but Mark’s words are like so much blah-blah-blah, because me? I’m still reeling. She’s here. The drills had been my sole focus, so I didn’t notice her on the sideline until our captain, Conor, was walking me toward her.

  Shit.

  This is not how I wanted to come clean. And on top of that, it looks bad to the team. Real bad. I need to get this situation under control before things get more fucked.

  Also? The hurt in her eyes before she slammed down her defenses gutted me. Still does.

  After our disastrous reunion, Pepper took that lifted chin of hers and called the rest of the names down the list. She then arrayed us into a line and began a series of tests. We have to fill out a questionnaire, for Christ’s sake. And apparently this is just the beginning. She plans to observe us over a period of days. Great.

  Not that I expected a different outcome with my original plan other than a piss-off from her, but a tiny sliver of my ego had hoped I’d salvage something out of my screw-up. Now?

  Shot to fucking hell.

  Plus, this has the potential to explode in all our faces.

  Conor joins the conversation without saying a word. Typical.

  Mark waves the remains of his Caveman Bar. “It’s obvious she’s being a hard-ass because of you.” He grips my shoulder, and I resist shrugging it off. “Fix it. Before she gets us on some technicality.”

  God, would she do that?

  To get back at me, she might.

  Shit.

  “Sweet-talk her,” Conor mutters, and I look at him in shock.

  I shake my head. There’s no way she’ll let me near her now.

  But Conor’s having none of it. “Do it. Or we risk losing our sponsorship.”

  A spons
orship that had been my idea. I open my mouth to tell the taciturn Irishman to shove it, but it’s not Conor’s fault. I did fuck this up. And somehow I gotta fix it.

  Pepper shoves the last questionnaire in her clipboard case and bolts for the parking lot. Conor, Mark, and the others fix me with a glare.

  Right then. I flip them off, grab my gear, and race after her. By the time I clear the break in the trees, she’s already getting in her car—the Volvo by mine, of course—and I hustle. She starts to pull away, and I slap my hand on her hood, the blue metal sun-warm against my palm despite being in the shade.

  She glares at me through the windshield, eyes shooting die-now sparks, her luscious mouth in a firm line, and gives a visible sigh. She grips the top of her steering wheel, rolls her fists forward and back, and drops her forehead to her knuckles. And it kills me. I did this to her.

  Chancing it, I circle around the front to the passenger door and jerk up on the handle. Locked. Then the decisive thunk as she unlocks the door. My insides are a tangled mess of relief and oh-shit, and that throws me for another what-the-hell loop. I don’t get discombobulated easily. If I did, I wouldn’t have made it through BUD/S training, much less five deployments in hot spots around the world, which were always more grueling than anything we experienced during BUD/S.

  Pepper gets under my skin.

  And I don’t like it.

  And I do, because she can get under it, unlike everything else.

  Then thoughts of her getting under me in other ways flit through my sorry-ass brain. Fuck. See? A what-the-hell loop right there.

  I slip inside the Volvo and angle to face her, the heat of her seat scorching my thighs. Her head is still on her hands, but at least her face is looking my way. Her neck moves with a swallow.

  Okay, now’s the time for words. Words should be coming out of my mouth. Any time now.

  The A/C blasts frigid air, struggling to cut through the heavy, humid heat that’s gathered in her car during practice. Its soft hum fills the empty space.

  I’ve rappelled down ropes suspended from helicopters into hostile compounds, and this situation has me floundering? Yeah, cuz back then I had proper intel. I knew what the fuck was expected of me and knew the team and I could deliver.

  This? No fucking clue.

  “You’re supposed to apologize, Haashole,” she whispers.

  And inexplicably her mindreading makes me laugh, which isn’t helping the situation at all, I know, and her narrowed eyes confirm this.

  Okay, mission parameters laid out.

  I clear my throat. “Pepper. I…I actually am sorry. I don’t expect you to forgive me…”

  I run out of steam.

  “Did you have a good laugh?”

  I frown. What the hell?

  She straightens and locks her arms tight around herself. “Did you go home afterward and laugh about how you’d totally pulled one over on me and got to…got to…” Her brave words falter there, but horror has now clawed into my chest, and I can’t quite pull in enough air.

  “You think I did this to hurt you? Laugh at your expense?”

  She stares at me for a long time, and her eyes register the moment when she realizes that had not been my aim. “Then why?” she asks in a thready voice.

  How can I explain any of it? I wanted a chance to be someone else with you won’t play well, and how pathetic is that? I peer out the windshield as if it’ll hand me the answer and mutter, “I don’t know.”

  By now, the last of the team members are driving out. Aiden waves an over-cheery goodbye. Fucker.

  “Not good enough,” she grits out. “Why did you agree that you were Rick?”

  I open my mouth to tell her that technically I didn’t, but close it.

  I face her, gut roiling. “Pepper. I truly am sorry. I should’ve told you. I know you won’t believe me, but I planned on finding you somehow in order to apologize. Just know that I didn’t do it to make a fool of you.”

  She keeps that stare trained on me, waiting. Waiting for more.

  Fuck. And the killer? She’s got every right to be pissed. I’m pissed at myself too.

  “I… Things got carried away.” I run a shaky hand through my hair and then tug enough to sting. “First, it was just a coffee date, and then…” My hand drops limply to my side.

  “So it’s my fault? You couldn’t help yourself?”

  “No!” I glance out the windshield and tighten my fists. I still haven’t succeeded in getting a full lungful of air. I breathe deliberately in and out. “The truth is…” I glance back at her and drink in the slope of her jaw, the line of her nose. And the steely hurt fierceness of her gaze, the now taut line of her normally pillowy-soft lips.

  Since this mistake—my mistake—has detonated in our lives, it’s only right to own up to the fuse that lit it. “I was drawn to you. A lot. And I found it…extremely difficult to give that up. Other than my lie of omission, everything else between us was real.”

  She scoffs.

  That small sound cuts. I can’t have her doubting. Doubting herself. Protectiveness surges in me, the same urge I felt when we shook hands at the café. She’s special. She can’t ever doubt that. Even back in high school, I saw it. An inner glow that contained a vulnerable—and, to me, volatile—mix of strength and passion and eagerness to make her mark on the world.

  I reach across the cramped space and grip her shoulder. Immediately, the tension ratchets up, bouncing around in the close confines of her car. “You feel it, don’t you?” I brush my thumb up the column of her gorgeous neck, her prim bun bumping against my knuckles. Her breath hitches. She has her arms wrapped tight around herself, though.

  “This.” I stroke again, my thumb whispering across her so-soft skin. My attention is riveted to its path and the flush marching up her neck and her pulse visibly fluttering. There’s no mistaking those signs. Whatever else is going on between us, it’s fucking clear that we still have chemistry.

  “You want to know why?” I continue, my voice gruff. “This is why, Pepper.”

  Pepper

  The rough pad of Luke’s thumb glides along my skin again. I start to shake, and it’s not from the A/C—it’s taking everything in me not to unravel my arms and launch into the fucker’s lap, the attraction is that strong.

  But I’m still pissed, so there’s no friggin’ way I’m doing something so pathetic. Plus, I want to boot his ass right out of my car.

  I wish Volvos came with Haashole Ejectors.

  At least the anger has eclipsed my earlier feelings of betrayal and shame. But then I’m even more pissed, because anger is not healthy. Back at practice, it took all of my energy and control to hold it together. If I wasn’t shaking, I was swallowing down the urge to curl up and cry. Trying to conduct myself professionally while tears kept wanting to burst out of me? Not fun.

  “So you admit you made a mistake?” I clench my jaw and am quite proud that I kept my voice calm. Especially because I’m also burning with the urge to shake him and go, ‘you know how wrong this is, what you did?’ I want to hear him own it.

  He curls his fingers into a fist against my neck. “Yes. I mean, no.” His eyes narrow. He sighs and leans back against the seat, his head thumping against the head rest.

  I hate that I’m admiring the sharp angles of his jaw and how the position defines the masculine lines of his neck instead of following through on that urge to wrap my hands around said neck and shake him. What does he mean, no?

  He closes his eyes. “What I mean is, yes, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you who I was—that was wrong—but there’s no way I’m calling what happened between us a mistake. It was wrong of me, but I can’t regret it.”

  Ha. I guess the belief that all guys want is sex isn’t as pat as I thought. I’m so naive. “As long as you get your sex in, right?”

  He launches forward, and I arch back against the door. He’s so large, he takes up all of my vision as he stares hard into my eyes.

  He motions toward me
. “Whatever’s going on in there, stop it. It wasn’t just sex. It was—” He stops himself on a curse.

  Clearly, he’d said more than he intended, so that means… That means the sex meant something to him.

  Against my better judgment, I soften a little. Especially when I remember that I’d been the one to say it was only a one-time thing. And hadn’t I used him too? To prove I wasn’t the cold fish Phil accused me of being—to practice becoming a new me?

  He must sense my softening because he murmurs, “Pepper,” in a sexy rumble and strokes my cheek, his gaze darkening and latching onto my lips.

  But the fact that this is Luke Haas hasn’t meshed yet with the man I was with yesterday. Sorting out that mess is too much for me to take on right now.

  I drag in a deep breath, which weakens my resolve as his intoxicating scent is pulled into me like a fresh dose of fuck-me, but I shore up my defense, turn away, and say, with as much calm as I can muster, “I think it’s best if we don’t…don’t do this.”

  From the corner of my eye, I can see his hand clench into a fist. Without a word, he exits.

  And in the stillness in the wake of his absence, I’m struck by how turbulent the air had been when he was here.

  I’m not sure how to take that.

  I don’t like turbulence in my life.

  It makes me lose focus, lose my compass. I need balance in my life to see my clear path.

  And this guy?

  He has the potential to just flip that table of my balanced life and leave me scrambling. Lost.

  Chapter 6

  Luke

  Tonight at the CrossFit box, it’s a fucking blessing when Filthy 50 appears on the Workout of the Day board. The most brutal of the workouts, we’re supposed to do fifty reps of box jumps, jumping pullups, kettlebell swings, walking lunge steps, knees to elbows, push press, back extensions, wallballs, double-unders, and burpees. All as fast as we can. And don’t let the cute name burpee mislead you. I’m on my forty-fifth, and even I’m feeling the strain in my muscles as I drop to the floor for a push-up and then spring up high.