Team Player

by Adriana Locke

  Adrian turned to me and we exchanged a look that held our entire future in it.

  “Médecins Sans Frontières,” Adrian whispered to me. “I even love the name. What is it in English?”

  I whispered back. “Doctors Without Borders.”

  “I love it,” he said, and he leaned over in the darkened theatre to cup my cheek. “I love you, Janey.”

  My heart filled my entire chest, and I leaned closer to brush my lips over his. “I love you, Adrian. So much.”

  “So much,” he whispered and kissed me softly, and I knew, in that moment, the greatest story of my life was about to begin.

  Epilogue: 1975

  Now, Then, and Forever

  Adrian

  Janey dances in the surf.

  Earth, Wind, and Fire plays on the transistor radio I’d rigged up, but she’s lost in her own rhythm. Her lithe body is covered only by a white bikini that makes me want to haul my tired bones off the lounger and race toward her. To touch her skin that is wet and salty with the water of Kompong Som Bay, and kiss her. Her hair is tied back while we work in the tents—me in the emergency medical unit of the refugee camp, her in the communications center. Only at night, it’s down for me to tangle my hands in as she comes undone beneath me. But we have two whole vacation days—mandatory, as Dr. Kouchner insisted we take time off—and now Janey lets it free. The long gold strands catch the sun that is intense in a way I haven’t quite gotten used to.

  “Come join me,” she says, kicking at the blue-green water.

  “I can’t,” I say. “I haven’t lain down during the day in six months, and now I can’t move.”

  “You moved well enough last night,” Janey says with a sly grin.

  I once told her she reminded me of white beaches, blue water and a hot sun. California, maybe. Or Tahiti.

  I never imagined Cambodia.

  I glance over the white sands of the beach. It’s crescent-shaped, with green grasses thickening into forest behind us. The last vestiges of an American military installation is a good kilometer and a half down; the dark green of their Jeeps haul supplies from a small port. Their ships—one warship and the other cargo, sit on the still water, like toys from this distance.

  Janey and I are alone. Or as alone as we can be with MSF’s base two kilometers up the road. Other personnel, also on leave, cavort in the surf too, but there seems to be an unspoken agreement to pretend that the other doesn’t exist.

  I watch Janey, and as I do, no one else does exist. The Cambodian refugee crisis we’ve been working to help feels far away in that moment. I see only Janey and the heat drugs my exhausted mind, and drags it back to how we got here.

  My father’s painting “Khmer” sold for one million francs. I used the money to find a home for him that was clean, professional, where he could be given the proper care and supervision he needed. The hospital has an art therapy program, and I’m hopeful that he’ll find and put back together the pieces of himself the war shattered in him.

  My mother visits my father now. Every week. She writes me that it’s hard, and her guilt for abandoning him when he came back broken haunts her. I imagine her sitting with him while he paints or talks or does nothing at all, and though it might not seem as if she’s getting through to him, I know it matters.

  Sophie, after persuading our mother, attends the Sorbonne now, studying political science. She doesn’t yet know what she wants to do, but she knows she can and will do something important, and that’s good enough for her.

  Back in ’70, Paris Central won that final match I’d been banned from, and tied for third place at 48 points. Turns out, my season goal average gave them the edge and they advanced to Ligue 2. They’ve maintained their position there for years, but Robert has written to they are in the promotion zone. On their way to the Ligue 1.

  A part of me aches at the news, like touching an old bruise. I could be with them, on a pitch with thousands of spectators who watch with their hearts and souls on the edge of their seat as they cheer for their team. Instead, I finished med school and joined Médecins Sans Frontières with Janey before the ink was dry on my diploma.

  We’d been stationed in Cambodia for six months, tending to the sick and wounded Cambodians as they flee the Khmer Rouge. Saigon has fallen and three million people have fled, seeking asylum in China or Thailand. We are stationed to aid them on their journey. To see that they make it somewhere safe. Many won’t, but we won’t abandon them as they try.

  But this day, only one of two days we were willing to take away from our duties, there is just Janey and this beach and me.

  She beckons again and this time I haul myself off the ‘lounge chair’ I’d made from a broken military stretcher. I step out from under the dried palm frond umbrella and the sun beats down on the bare skin of my back.

  Janey laughs at my grimace. “The water isn’t any cooler.”

  “That’s because you’re in it,” I say, wrapping my arms around her waist.

  “Are you trying to lay a line on me?” she laughs, reaching up to ring her arms around my neck.

  “I’m trying to say you’re hot,” I say.

  “Yeah, I get that but if you have to explain it…”

  I tickle her to make her laugh, then haul her close. “I’m tired.”

  Her smile softens and she trails her fingers over my scruff of my beard. “I know you are. You work so hard.”

  “So do you.”

  Janey works tirelessly, writing articles and taking photos of the crisis, and seeing they get published in the New York Times, Time, and Newsweek; as well as French and British publications. In between, she translates bulletins and memos for MSF.

  She’s had bylines and photographs in some of the most prestigious publications in the world but hasn’t eaten a meal in a restaurant in three months.

  But today, she’s mine, and if she regrets any of the work we do, it doesn’t show on her beautiful face.

  “I’m happy,” I say. “Are you happy? It seems impossible some days, but in the quiet times, like this, it comes to the surface, how happy I am. With you.”

  Her smile is brilliant and soft. “I’m happy. I’ve never been more happy.”

  I kiss her gently, then harder, and when we break apart, the words fall out. “Marry me. Marry me, Janey. I have nothing to give you. No ring, no fancy proposal…I have nothing. But…”

  “I told you a long time ago,” she says, her lips trembling and her eyes shining. My girl was tough, but for me, she gave everything. “What I want from you can’t be bought.” She leans close to kiss me. “Just you, Adrian.”

  “Just you, Janey,” I say. “Will you?”

  “Oui,” she says in my language and again in hers. “Yes, Adrian. I’m yours. Always.”

  I kiss her then, and her lips are salty with the sea, or her tears, or maybe my own, and it is the taste of perfect happiness.

  The End

  About the Author

  Thank you for reading! For those who are new to me, I am an author of emotional, new adult romances, some of the ugly cry variety, such as Full Tilt and the Butterfly Project. Thanks to my amazing readers, my latest novel—a single-dad romance—Forever Right Now is an international bestseller and, like all of my novels, is FREE on KU.

  Amazon: http://amzn.to/2gA9ktr

  I need to thank Danielle Maurino Thomas, Robin Renee Hill, Grey Ditto, and Joy Kriebel-Sadowski, for their amazing support and help in bringing this story to light. And special thanks to Annette Chivers for schooling this American gal on the intricacies of the European football league system, though any lingering mistakes are mine. I have taken a few liberties—Paris Central is a fictional team, as is there stadium, Stade Jean-Marc.

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  THE END ZONE

  Copyright 2017 L.J. Shen

  Jolie Louis is a smart girl.

  She knows that her best friend, Sage Poirier, is a bad idea.

  He’s a walking, talking cliché. The Adonis quarterback with the bulging biceps and harem of fangirls trailing behind him on campus like a stench you can’t get rid of.

  Sadly, that’s also the reason she can’t stay away from him. Well, that and the fact that they’re roommates.

  Jolie is already straddling the line between friendship and more when Sage comes to her with an offer she cannot refuse: be his fake girlfriend and live for free for the rest of the semester.

  She tells herself that she can handle it.

  He’s just the boy she saved ten years ago, right?

  Wrong. So very wrong.

  He is a man now, and she is his captive

  Heart, body, and soul…

  Prologue

  Ten years ago.

  On the eighth night, she decided to talk to him.

  Eight nights since the Poiriers had waltzed into her life, occupying the house next door.

  Eight nights in which the screaming, yelling, and crying of Mrs. Poirier and the roars of her husband pierced Jolie’s ears, trickled into her soul, and left her trembling under the quilt her grandmama had made for her.

  Eight nights in which their kid—about her age, ten or eleven—stumbled to their squeaky porch, his dirty blond hair sticking out in every direction and his chest heaving with uneven breaths.

  Cheeks stained pink.

  Mouth curled in a dark scowl.

  Eyes blazing hot, red rage she could see even in the pitch-black of the night.

  Eight nights that he’d been climbing the oak tree which divided the land between the Poiriers’ and her house. He sat there, hidden by branches and leaves. Sometimes he howled to the moon like a lonely wolf. Most times, he cried as silently as humanly possible.

  Seven sleepless nights in which she tossed and turned and mourned for the nameless boy and his mama, before she broke down and decided to approach him. Even if he’d yell at her. Even if he’d laugh at her. Even if he’d show her no mercy like his daddy had taught him.

  The girl pushed her window up with a groan, dragged an old case of books across the carpeted floor, hopped on it, and slipped through the open crack, pouring from the safety of her bedroom to the untamed, uncut meadow. The rain pounded hard on her face, the wind swooshing in her ears. It was humid, hot, muggy, and sticky. Her white cotton pajama dress clung to her skin, rain dripping from its hem to her feet. The grass was slippery, and mud coated her toes. The boy was trudging to the tree determinedly. She cautiously ambled in the same direction.

  He slowed when he saw her, so she picked up the pace. Later in life, she’d learn that this was their special tango. One pulls, the other pushes. One wants, the other gives. One loves, the other hurts.

  “What are you doing here?” he yelled through the rain. It was impossible to answer him. Her heart was in her throat, pounding boom, boom, boom like a caged animal craving freedom.

  Step, another step, then another. She wondered if that’s how it felt to be alive. Really alive. Not just living. Wet, uncomfortable, and shivering in the midst of a hot summer storm. Up close, he looked even angrier, his eyes a terrifying hue of midnight blue and ire.

  They stopped about six feet from each other, right next to the tree. He was slightly taller, slightly wider, face slightly tenser, and a lot warier than she expected.

  “Well?” he repeated, brooding. He is far too young to brood, she remembered thinking. And it worried her, despite all reason. “Why the hell are you here?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, swallowing the pain she carried for him. Like stars in her pocket—it was huge, and she couldn’t begin to understand how she’d harbored it for eight nights. He needed help, and she wanted to give it to him.

  They’d start school in a couple of weeks—fifth grade—and he’d be the new kid. She decided right then and there that she was going to be his ally. She’d be his friend, whether he liked it or not.

  “You’re sorry?” He snorted out a bitter laugh, shaking his head. Raindrops ran from the tip of his straight nose, his full lips flattening in an angry line. “Well, don’t be. I’m perfectly fine.”

  “You don’t look fine,” she insisted.

  “Well, I am.”

  “I’m here for you.” She hugged her midsection, embarrassed. Her grandmama used to say that honesty made you vulnerable, but that there was nothing stronger than the truth.

  “Whatever you need, I’m here for you. I’m Jolie, by the way.” She stretched her hand between them. He stared at it, contemplating, like she offered him much more than a handshake. And maybe she did. The whole thing felt bizarre. Grown-up. The oak tree beside them looked like a living thing, watching as they made this unlikely pact.

  “Sage,” he said, his palm connecting with hers.

  She squeezed hard; he inhaled harder. He jerked her to his body, buried his head in the crook of her shoulder, and shook with tears she couldn’t see.

  They hugged in the rain, just like in the movies.

  They hugged long, and tight, and desperately, his skin soaking into hers like a kiss.

  The girl thought to herself, this is how beautiful love stories begin. She pressed her ear against his thrumming pulse. His body was warm, but his muscles were rigid like ice.

  The girl closed her eyes and the storm disappeared. Not because it had stopped, but because beside him, she felt fearless.

  And on the eighth night, the girl gave the boy more than friendship and a hug, without even meaning to—and definitely without agreeing to.

  On the eighth night, the girl gave the boy her heart.

  He took it silently, never offering his back.

  Chapter 1

  Jolie

  “Yo, JoJo. Your ass is on wingman duty tonight.” A steaming Starbucks mug slides across the shiny chrome desk he bought for me last Christmas. I lift my head, skeptically examining him through my hazel eyes.

  Sage Poirier. My best friend. Louisiana’s finest college quarterback. The man who put the ‘ho’ in manwhore. My forever crush. The list goes on, but I’m sure you get the point. I rearrange the golden neckline of my sensible powder blue blouse, tossing my strawberry blonde tresses (heavy on the strawberry) across my shoulder.

  “I have an English lit exam tomorrow.” I yawn, my hand already hovering over the keyboard of my MacBook. The bribe—pumpkin spice latte with marshmallows, not technically on the menu, but the barista would throw in her own kidney to get Sage to smile at her—is appreciated, albeit pointless. With the amount of homework I have, I’m not going to budge from my seat tonight. Sage grabs the chair opposite to me and plops on a heavy sigh, his arms bracing its back. He is wearing his black New Orleans Saints cap backwards, his Wayfarers hanging under the brim of his hat from behind. It’s the indisputable, international I’m-a-douchebag badge, and it occurs to me, for the hundredth time since we moved in together freshman year of college, that if I hadn’t known him since age ten, I would probably find him as sexually attractive as a gassy rat.

  “You’re no fun.” He leans forward and flicks his thumb and finger on the tip of my nose. His mischievous, dimpled smile widens when I swat his hand away.

  “I have grades to keep,” I retort.

  “Hmm. So do I.”

  I snort a laugh on an eye roll. “You’re one of the most sought-after quarterbacks in Louisiana. Going pro next year. At this point, you can flake your way to being a brain surgeon if you’d like. Every professor in this college would kiss the earth you walk upon
if they didn’t fear you’d file a restraining order against them.”

  Am I exaggerating here? Nope. Not even a little. Don’t get me wrong—I’m thrilled for my best friend. He deserves everything he’s achieved, which is a lot. At twenty-one, he has his own shiny, burgundy truck, a brand new apartment he rents all by himself (I pay the bills in exchange for my room), and three NFL teams courting him like he is a damsel in a Disney movie. Despite all his success, he’s never once been uppity or conceited to me about it. Instead, he gives me access to his new place, new truck, and new life. He is still the good Southern mama’s boy who takes off his hat whenever he visits the small farm we lived on. The only downside to being Sage’s best friend is, well…

  “Question is—do you want to kiss the ground I walk on, or better yet, me?” His elbows are on the desk now, his head cocked to the side attentively. “Because, Jolie, baby, you’re the only person I’m looking to impress. Ideally between the sheets.” He winks.

  Insert an emoji of moi gagging uncontrollably at his tackiness.

  This is not the first time Sage has made a move on me, and I bet it won’t be the last time I shut him down.

  Recap: A month ago, Sage and I accidentally bumped into each other in the hallway while I was butt naked after a shower (forgot the towel in my room). He was on his way to pee, sporting impressive morning wood through his Orgasm Donor boxers. I was looking down, head hanging in shame as I hurried to my room. He was looking down, rearranging his junk. That’s how we ended up colliding, limbs tangling together, with me tumbling down and him reaching for my ass to make sure I didn’t fall. What a gentleman, right?