Play of Love: The Gladiator Players Box Set

by Gray, Khardine

  He moved back a little to gaze down at me, but still touched my cheek. “No,” he said with that half smile that numbed my knees.

  My cheeks burned and my lips tingled from the heated blaze of our kiss. I narrowed my gaze, not quite sure what he meant. “No…to what?”

  “No, I won’t be calling Allegra and bed friends.”

  I held his gaze, trying to decide what to say next. “You just kissed me,” I breathed.

  He’d kissed me and he wasn’t drunk. This was the real him.

  “And you didn’t slap me.” He chuckled, running his finger along the edge of my jaw, making my skin tingle there. Tenderly his eyes melted into mine, holding me still. “Remember, it’s Saturday, we aren’t at work and I’m not your boss. Today I’m just Josh.”

  “Josh.” I said his name on the edge of a whisper while he held me under his hypnotic stare.

  It was like the rules had changed somewhat. The kiss had done something to me that I couldn’t quite describe and all I knew was that I craved him and the way he made me feel.

  For those few moments, nothing else mattered and he really was just Josh. Josh, an incredibly handsome man that had just kissed me and made me feel better than I’d ever had.

  I was already tilting my head up before he lowered to my lips again. I welcomed his lips and the divine ecstasy of him like pure oxygen filling my lungs. I allowed myself the indulgence of sliding my palms across the hard surface of the ridged muscles on his chest.

  Blood pounded through my brain, danced frantically around my heart, and weakened my body. I enjoyed the taste of him and embraced the passion that filled me as his tongue tangled with mine. I kissed him back with the same strength and desire as the kiss intensified. He kept his hands at my cheek and stroked my face as if he loved the feel of my skin. But then he stopped and pulled away, leaving my lips swollen and burning with fire.

  “I have to go,” he said quickly.

  “Why? Just stay.”

  “No.” He shook his head.

  “We could just stay here and watch the sea, or catch a movie.” Or kiss.

  After all the time I’d spent with him over the last few weeks I didn’t think I’d ever want to kiss him in this lifetime. But here I was, hoping he’d stay so we could kiss till the sun came up.

  Josh simply looked at me and shook his head. “That sounds real nice, Amy.”

  I liked the way he said my name.

  “But I’m a mess. One big mess. Let’s be realistic here. It’s Saturday night, you aren’t at work, don’t waste your time on me.”

  I blinked several times, feeling defeated as I watched him turn and walk away.

  * * *

  Josh

  * * *

  So that was what it felt like to kiss an angel.

  Like pure energy, running through every fiber in my being and singing through my veins. When I had kissed Amy days ago it didn’t feel like tonight. For a start, the other day I’d been hyped up on alcohol and overloaded with testosterone. I’d wanted sex.

  Tonight was different. I’d never experienced the kiss we shared tonight with anyone. It was the sweetness. I didn’t do sweet. I was downright dirty and liked my women to be the same.

  Sweet was different and tapped into something I didn’t think I could feel. Not me. I’d gone through life on that wild edge of recklessness that made me who I was. Growing up I was the worst kind of guy to take home to meet the parents, and it was against me to even try to aim to be that guy.

  Tonight, Amy made me see something my soul cried out for but couldn’t have.

  It was a shame the kiss wasn’t powerful enough to cure my grief. I’d been sober for a whole day and just ruined it with two bottles of rum. Now as the clock stroke one minute past midnight I was wasted. Completely wasted.

  “Happy Birthday, Clarissa,” I said to the empty living room. I grabbed a bottle of wine from the crate I had set on the floor in front of me. I didn’t bother to pour it into the glass. I just drank straight from the bottle.

  She would have been thirty-three today. Because of me she didn’t even live to see her thirty-third birthday. How sad and cruel.

  How very sad and cruel.

  She and Pete would probably have been getting ready for their wedding. They wanted a summer wedding. Clarissa had asked me to walk her partway down the aisle, then Dad would continue the march and give her away to Pete.

  She’d said I had taken such great care of her all her life that it was important for her to have me be part of her big day. I would have been honored to walk her down the aisle. I would have been honored to do anything for her.

  But now I couldn’t. Not for her, or Mom.

  There was no way I could see Pete or Dad. No way. I knew that now. It wasn’t even an option to contemplate. Not for me. My shame was too great.

  I finished off the bottle of wine and felt that buzz it usually gave me. Now I just needed the other part of my medication: a few women eager to please. I picked up the phone and went to dial Allegra’s number. As I went to press the call button, an image of Amy’s face flashed into my mind. I saw her beautiful, beautiful face, and the tentative look she’d given me as she’d asked if I’d be calling Allegra and bed friends.

  I’d told her no. Usually I wouldn’t make such a promise or even come back with such an answer, but I did for her.

  I looked at the phone, stared at Allegra’s number for a few seconds, then tossed it across the room. Thankfully it didn’t smash like the last one.

  I’d told Amy I wouldn’t and I didn’t want to add liar to the already lengthy list of unsavory things that I was.

  How long had I known Amy for? Two days shy of three weeks, and yet she’d had such a massive effect on me. Big enough to let me know that, despite my drunken mind, I didn’t want Allegra and bed friends.

  What I wanted was Amy.

  The freaking Disney princess I’d christened Kansas. The thought of it all was just as grievous as the rest of my life.

  It didn’t do me any favors to want something I couldn’t have.

  * * *

  Amy

  * * *

  I got to Josh’s house early again. As early as I could. I didn’t have any problems at my apartment like yesterday because I’d sealed up the crack in my door, but I figured that if I could get to him early enough we could have a day like yesterday.

  I also planned to do something that could make him extremely furious with me , but it was the risk I was willing to take.

  The sun hadn’t even come up yet when I got there. The place stank of booze like it did before Hilda started working there.

  That told me he’d hit the bottle hard, and it could mean that he’d had his bed friends and strippers around too. The thought pulled at my heart but I pushed it aside. I decided that the kiss we had was just a kiss and nothing more. It was really nice and I enjoyed being with him, but he was so wrong for me. I was practically shooting myself in the foot by going after a man like that.

  Just yesterday I’d considered myself fortunate to not have happened upon anyone who could potentially treat me like my father did my mother. Foolishly, I never considered the man sitting next to me.

  There was, however, one thing I was hoping the kiss would help with. I hoped that when he realized that I’d emptied out all his bottles of wine and threw out the beer he’d be calm enough to remember that there must have been some part of him that liked me.

  It took me awhile to find everything, but I did. The pantry was completely full of wine, vodka, and other mixtures of drink. But I got rid of it all. I hated wasting anything, especially when I knew how expensive it was, but it needed to be done. We couldn’t continue like this and his drinking would be both our downfall. He had two weeks of public appearances and promotional work booked. Then it was training. I wanted to get him to that stage.

  Money had been at the forefront of my mind only days ago but things had changed.

  Now there was more. Now I cared.

  I
cared that Josh was drinking too much. And, I cared that he grieved. My heart went out to him and I wanted to help in whatever way I could. This was me helping.

  When I was done I waited for him in the sitting room. This time I didn’t turn on the TV. I just waited, and the longer I waited the more anxious I felt. When I heard him moving around upstairs I stood up and brought my hands together. I heard him come down the stairs and go into the kitchen. Then I heard him roar like the other day when I threw the water in his face.

  Today was worse, though. Today he sounded like some kind of hell beast. That was undoubtedly the result of me swapping the cans of beer in the fridge with elderflower juice. He’d liked it yesterday so I thought hey, maybe this would soften the blow.

  I was beginning to doubt that assumption as I heard him cursing, saying terrible things that literally burned my ears. With courage I gathered my strength and made my way through the living room and into the kitchen. He turned around when he saw me and stared me down like he would kill me.

  “You.” He pointed. His face colored fiercely and his nostrils flared. His eyes blazed. “You did this,” he yelled, picking up one of the empty wine bottles near the recycling bin. The bin had been full and I planned to take that one outside.

  “You are drinking too much. We won’t be able to achieve anything if you don’t stop.” I was trying to make him see my point, but he shocked me by throwing down the bottle on the marble kitchen floor. It smashed on impact and sent shards of glass everywhere.

  He then went for the fridge, grabbed several bottles of elderflower juice, and smashed those too.

  “What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?” he yelled.

  That was when I knew no kiss on this Earth would have softened the blow.

  “Josh.”

  “Shut up,” he snarled and threw his fist into the wall behind me. I froze, thinking he was going to go for me next, but he backed away. “This stops now. You are my assistant. My employee. Don’t cross that line again. You don’t get paid to care. Now get out of my house and don’t come back till nine a.m. tomorrow.”

  I pulled in a breath against the tears that stung the backs of my eyes. I looked at him and tried to find the man I spent the day with yesterday, but he wasn’t there.

  The person standing before me was someone else entirely. I turned and walked out, wishing I never had to return.

  Chapter 12

  Josh

  * * *

  I drove to Bruce’s. It was a sports bar where the guys and I always hung out. Especially after a game. They always had what I wanted and the women who worked here were always hot.

  I grabbed a few beers and stayed there for a while shooting pool and watching baseball on the overhead TV. I did every and anything I could to take my mind off the day, and Amy.

  When I got bored I went to the supermarket, grabbed a case of beer and some wine, then headed out to Dead Man’s Gorge, so called for the jagged, sharp, rock formations that led into a deep chasm. Either jumping off or driving over would result in sure death. Not many came back. Especially the ones that planned it that way.

  I knew a guy once that jumped. He lived two houses down from me and worked as an insurance broker. He was made redundant after his company went through a bad spell. The poor guy was unable to bounce back. Burdened with substantial debts and the damage losing his job caused his family, he thought that death was the only answer. I remembered how his family suffered. At the time I’d wondered how the man could have been so selfish as to take his own life and leave his family behind with no one to care for them.

  What I never thought of was how the man must have felt when he done it.

  I never thought of how doomed the man must have felt for death to be his only answer.

  I understood it now.

  Understood it all. It was that doomed, damning feeling that gripped you and made you feel like there was no way to escape it. I was getting tired of it. Tired of waking up every day and blaming myself. Tired of feeling guilty.

  I’d been parked up in my Range Rover about a meter away from the edge of the gorge for about an hour now, downing more drinks.

  Normally I followed Bruce’s with a visit to Roam Me, my favorite strip club.

  But I couldn’t today. Not only did I want to be alone, but something happened to me when I kissed Amy and I felt that if I was ever going to please myself with a woman it had to be her.

  That would never happen after the way I treated her this morning.

  I was disgusted with myself for the way I spoke to her. Thoroughly disgusted. I was still drunk from the night before and all I knew was anger. All I knew was I’d wanted more beer, and when I discovered what she did I was so furious I couldn’t think. I wanted to shake her for caring, to knock some sense into her so she could see that I didn’t want anyone to care for me. I didn’t care about anything and anyone so she shouldn’t waste her time on me.

  Now I was here. At the precipice of the gorge that signaled the end for a lot of people.

  The depressed, who had no more to give, and those who couldn’t bear any more pain. I fit both categories. I was depressed and I didn’t have the strength to make any more attempts at fixing my life. The pain from the grief was too much for me now and I didn’t know what the hell I was supposed to do.

  So…what now?

  I rested my head back on the seat and closed my eyes. I steadied my ragged breathing and allowed my mind to drift. It seemed to drift forever and into a hole of bottomless nothingness.

  Down, down deep I went trying to get to the bottom of my mind.

  As my mind steadied, the image of my family home in San Francisco came forward. It felt like someone was playing a memory from one of those old-style projectors people used to play their family videos on.

  I saw myself as a very young child running across the lawn with a football. Dad was chasing me. Mom was laughing and so was Clarissa.

  “Throw me the ball, son,” Dad called out.

  I threw the ball and Dad caught it, but as I looked back my father looked older, the way he did now. And I was no longer a child. I was a man playing as a professional with my team.

  In every game I played I always, always looked to where my family sat. The proud looks on their faces would always give me that strength I needed to do my best and more. To be the best at what I did and give me the edge no one else had.

  The pride for me would literally glow on their faces. Every time, every game, no matter how old I got or how many games I played. I played for them, all of them. I played to make them proud.

  I knew without question that they loved me and always would.

  Everything shifted in my mind again but this time it was as if I was running through scenes of my life, memories of Mom and Clarissa. Memories of my happy family.

  When the scenery settled I was in the living room of my family’s house. Mom and Clarissa stood by the grand piano sorting through some clothes they were boxing up for charity.

  “I can’t believe you got Primrose to part with this bag,” Clarissa said, holding up a bag with the Gucci logo printed all over it. They both laughed.

  “I have my ways.”

  I rushed up to them, hoping this was real and it wasn’t just something created by my mind.

  “Mom.” I pulled her in for a hug.

  “Josh, what are you doing here? You have a big game tomorrow.”

  “Yes, we wouldn’t want to suffer the wrath of a tired Mancini Machine,” Clarissa teased, poking me in the stomach. “Hey, do I feel fat?” She continued to poke my stomach.

  “Come here, you.” I hugged her too. “You’re both alive. You’re okay.”

  “Yes, are you okay? I, unhand me, I need air, man.” She pretended to suffocate. I released her and looked at them both.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I’m just happy to see you.”

  “Aww, you’re so sweet. My big brother’s the best,” she said in her usual way and slipped her arm around me.

>   “Let’s go to Italy. Nonnina will be thrilled to see us.” My grandmother spoiled us rotten and they hadn’t been since last summer.

  “Josh, how are we supposed to make time for Italy with your busy schedule? You have a game tomorrow and the season just started.” My mother gazed at me through her hazel eyes.

  “Forget the game. Forget the season. I just want to spend time with you.” I reached out and took her hand.

  “Who are you and where’s my boy?” Mom laughed.

  “I’m being serious. We don’t spend enough time together. I can’t lose you again.”

  She reached up and cupped my face. “You never lost me. Sweetheart, I’m so proud of you. How about you allow your mother the privilege of watching you play so I can cheer for you.”

  “Me too,” Clarissa joined in. “It’s the only chance I get to give you a standing ovation.”

  Tears streaming down my cheeks. “I miss you.”

  “We’re always with you, Josh.” My mother nodded.

  That was something she’d told me countless times. So often I could anticipate when she’d say it. This time, however, held more significance. A warm feeling of hope filled me and I felt the strength I needed come to my aid.

  “Now go home.”

  “Go home, Josh,” Clarissa said, too, but her voice sounded faint as if someone had turned down the volume.

  She said it again but I didn’t hear her. I watched her lips move. I blinked and when I opened my eyes I was back in the real world, staring ahead at the expanse of the gorge. Evening was approaching and a light rain had started to fall.

  I straightened up and pulled in a breath as I focused my gaze ahead. While I knew I’d fallen asleep and all that I saw of my mother and sister was a dream, something felt different. It was the reminder that they were always with me, even now.

  And… I shouldn’t be here.

  No… no, not at this place. A place where so many had taken their last breath.