Playing Hard

by Melanie Scott

  Alex shook his head. “You’re still our first baseman.”

  “If I can play.” He said the words that were left unspoken at the end of Alex’s sentence.

  “No reason to think you can’t.” Alex leaned back in the chair, crossed his legs. As usual he wore dark jeans and a sports jacket over a white shirt. A contrast with Lucas in his hand-tailored navy suit. But the two of them were a team. Friends for years. So he didn’t think he’d get any help from Lucas in convincing Alex that he didn’t need to be here. “Mal isn’t going to suddenly appear, is he?” he asked grumpily.

  “Mal isn’t much on medical stuff,” Lucas said. “I think he saw too much of it in the army. So, no. You’re safe.”

  That, at least, was something. Though the look on George Banks’s face when the three of them trooped into the consulting room was almost comical.

  “Am I being graded?” Banks asked drily, directing his comment at Lucas.

  “No. I’m just interested,” Lucas said. “And Alex is paying the bills.”

  For a moment Oliver had a spark of hope that Banks was going to kick Alex out, but the doctor just shrugged good-naturedly and turned his attention to Oliver.

  “How’s the hand?”

  “Sore. The stitches itch like a son of a bitch.”

  “That’s normal. How’s the hand therapy?”

  Oliver was sure Banks must know exactly what was happening in his therapy sessions. “So far, so good.”

  “Any pain after doing the exercises?”

  “Some.”

  “One to ten?”

  “Six.”

  Banks studied him a moment. Then nodded. “All right.” He pulled a wheeled table out from the wall, rolled it over to Oliver, draped it with a green cloth, and pulled out scissors, tweezers, some sort of antiseptic wash, and gauze. “Let’s get those stitches out.”

  Oliver took off his splint. It was still a little awkward using his left hand but he’d gotten the hang of it. George took the bandage off then made him put his hand on the table to peel back the waterproof dressing. Without the splint, his fingers curled up. He resisted the urge to straighten them. For one thing he didn’t want to discover that he couldn’t. And for another, he wasn’t meant to be doing anything that flexed his palm too much.

  When the dressing came off, the row of stitches was the same ugly black mess it had been the last time his dressing had been changed. The skin underneath was red and angry looking. The line of stitches snaked across his palm from the top of his thumb joint to the base of his little finger.

  The cut—as far as anyone had been able to guess, he’d somehow sliced his hand on metal or glass as his car had flipped—had been deep. As Banks touched the flesh gently with his gloved hands, Oliver tried not to flinch. The skin was tender. He tried to imagine the smack of a baseball hitting it right now, or the impact of a bat swung against a pitch. Just the thought made him vaguely queasy.

  He set his teeth. Six months. He had six months. Or four and a half or so until the start of spring training. A lot could happen in six months. His hand would be fine.

  Lucas leaned in and peered at his hand, too. “Nice work,” he said to Banks.

  “That’s what you paid me for,” Banks said and then set to work clipping and tugging the stitches free. It didn’t take too long. After they were all out and Oliver’s hand had been washed, the yellow of the antiseptic matched the bruising on his palm nicely, Banks made him do some of the tests the hand therapist had already been doing. He could flex his fingers a bit and wriggle them up and down but couldn’t get anywhere close to straightening them fully.

  Banks made notes and then poked and prodded some more. Some of it hurt but some of it Oliver couldn’t feel. There seemed to be an area around the base of his thumb that had lost sensation. Banks made another note but didn’t say anything more. Then he taped up the wound.

  “No point letting you pull the scar open. You can wear the splint for another month unless you’re doing your therapy. After that we’ll see. Probably at night, for a bit longer than that. The risk is you overextending the tendons while they’re healing and snapping or tearing one again.” He looked sternly at Oliver. “You are not to attempt to pick up a baseball. Or a bat. Understood?”

  Oliver nodded. He wasn’t going to risk fucking up his hand any more than it already was. “Am I going to get the range of motion back?”

  “I’m sorry, it’s still too early to say. The motion you have now is a good sign. But full healing will take six months. Like I said before, we’ll have a better idea a few months down the track. Do your therapy. That’s the key. Whatever they tell you to do, no matter how strange it seems, just do it. I’ll send them my notes from today. Come back in a week to get the taping redone—one of the nurses can do that so Mr. Winters here doesn’t have to worry about my bill—and then see me a week after that and I’ll assess how the scar is healing again.”

  “Maybe I’ll start telling people I fought off a ninja,” Oliver said, staring down at the fresh dressing on his hand.

  Alex laughed beside him. “Yup. That sounds good. You’ll have the girls swooning to look after your battle scars. That should keep you occupied.”

  Oliver didn’t respond to that. He didn’t want girls swooning. Or rather, he only wanted one girl. Amelia.

  He looked forward to her arrival every night after she finished working with an eagerness that was almost disturbing in his intensity. She made him relax. Made him laugh. But also called him on his bullshit when he was cranky.

  He just wished she would call Castro on his. Apparently the guy still hadn’t spoken to her since the incident in the locker room. As much as she insisted that she was fine, he could see that Finn freezing her out was gnawing at her. See that she wasn’t 100 percent happy no matter how brilliant her smile or how eager she was in bed.

  Fucking Castro. Someone needed to show the guy how to be a man. Amelia was a good person. A fucking great one. She didn’t deserve to be taken for granted by people she thought of as family. But she wouldn’t appreciate him getting in Finn’s face. So he didn’t know how to fix the situation for her. Which pissed him off.

  “Are you coming to the party tomorrow night?” Alex asked as they left the office.

  Oliver nodded. Maggie had called him two days ago to announce she was throwing an end-of-season party on Saturday night. He was going. And Amelia was coming with him. No more sneaking around. They were together and he wanted people to know. He’d managed to convince her of that after a day or so of talking about it. It would be easier if everyone knew. Then they could all just deal with the situation. It had been a hard sell, but when Finn hadn’t offered any sort of apology or contact after the first few days, she seemed to have swapped upset for “screw it.” Which was fine by him. After all, Amelia could date whoever the hell she wanted, and he was damned lucky that he was the guy she wanted. He wanted everyone else to know that, too. Fuck Castro.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Amelia tried to look excited rather than nervous as she slipped earrings into her ears and then studied herself in the mirror. She twitched the skirt of the dress she’d bought the day before when she’d agreed to go to the party with Ollie.

  A decision to go public deserved a new dress.

  Battle armor of a kind. She smoothed the dark-teal-and-black lace over her waist.

  It was a gorgeous dress. Sexy. It sleeked over her body like a glove, the green shade making her skin look even paler than normal. The neckline was high but scooped low in back so she’d put her hair up. Left her throat bare but she slipped on glittering green earrings. She looked good. She didn’t know why she was so nervous. Other than Finn, she doubted that any of the Saints were going to have an issue with her dating Oliver. Unless him dating another player’s friend or sister was against some arcane baseball bro code? Oh God.

  She hadn’t thought of that before. Had Oliver? Did such a thing exist? Men were weird about that stuff. But he hadn’t brought that up as a
possible complication when he’d been talking her into coming to the party, so he must not be worried about it. And it wasn’t as though she was actually related to Finn.

  No. The only one to worry about was Finn.

  Trouble was, there was a lot to worry about when it came to him.

  She’d texted him to wish him good luck with his photo shoot on Wednesday but he hadn’t responded. Only the fact that he wasn’t plastered over the news for being drunk and disorderly or starting a fight gave her comfort that he was okay.

  Em had called earlier asking if Amelia had seen him. She’d said no. And that unless Finn called her, she wasn’t going to run after him. Which meant Em was now cranky, too.

  She sighed. Castros.

  Impossible to imagine what her life might have been if not for them. They’d given her a safe place. Finn had given her more time with her mom. She loved them all. But maybe Oliver was right. She couldn’t repay them. She could only love them. And that didn’t have to mean putting herself last. Oliver was part of her life now, too. She hoped. She felt a twinge of guilt thinking about Monday and whether there would be a project announcement. Whether she might be offered a transfer.

  What would happen then?

  But no. No point borrowing extra trouble. Tonight might have enough of that as it was. She leaned forward, slicked on red lipstick. There. Battle armor complete.

  So now to go and find her fellow warrior for the night and let him take her to a party.

  * * *

  She didn’t know a lot about Staten Island real estate but it was clear, even though they were driving in darkness, that the area they were in was a wealthy one. The houses were large. Obviously expensive. They only got larger and more exclusive as Oliver’s driver made his way up into the hills. So she was expecting something impressive when they got to Alex and Maggie’s house.

  She just hadn’t expected quite so big. It was practically a mansion. There was even a valet at the entrance of the drive ready to park cars. In their case, he just pointed the driver in the direction he was to go and stepped back to talk to the driver of the low black sports car who’d pulled up behind them. The cars already parked were a mix of town cars like theirs, various BMW and Mercedes sedans, and a good smattering of sports cars. Right.

  Money.

  The Saints might historically have been one of the lower-performing teams in the majors, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t still big business. Everybody involved was wealthy by any standard. And Alex Winters had been a billionaire before he’d bought the Saints.

  “Ready?” Oliver asked, squeezing her hand.

  She looked over at him. He was in black tonight. Suit. Shirt. Tie. It made him look more like a pirate than ever. Out to take no prisoners and do no good. Hopefully with her. Later.

  Once they made it through the party.

  He was gorgeous and he made her happy. Made her heart beat faster and made her feel beautiful. So yes. She was ready to share that with the world.

  “Ready,” she agreed and waited for him to slide out of the car and come around to open the door for her. Apparently pirates prided themselves on good manners these days.

  She slid out, tucking her arm into his good one. He’d left the sling off tonight, and the black plastic splint almost seemed like an extension of his clothing. “Let’s party.”

  * * *

  Everything went well for the first hour or so. She’d relaxed a little when she’d discovered that Finn hadn’t actually arrived yet and even though she wondered where he was, she’d been too distracted by the exciting squeeing that her arrival on Oliver’s arm had provoked from Maggie and Raina and Sara. There’d been hugs and cheek kisses and demands to know the whole story before Oliver had extricated her and started to introduce her around.

  She met Brett Tuckerson, the starting pitcher, who was about Oliver’s age, and his wife, Hana. Hana was a tiny dark-haired woman who looked like she was about six months’ pregnant. She said hello to Amelia and then told Oliver that it was about time he found a woman with a brain after he told her that Amelia was an economist. Maggie, who was not so discreetly trailing them around the room, had laughed.

  “That’s what I told him,” Maggie said to Hana, and the two women exchanged a look of deep satisfaction and understanding that made Amelia think that they were very good friends. She would have liked to keep talking to Hana, but Oliver made excuses and the introductions continued until the list of names and faces started to blur. She’d met a few of the players’ partners at the games but hadn’t spoken to anyone at length. As far as the players themselves were concerned, apart from a couple Finn had introduced her to the night of the party at Raina’s club, she hadn’t met many at all.

  Oliver seemed determined to rectify that situation. Completely. After the players, he started on the coaching staff. They were talking to Dan Ellis, the team manager, and Indy Jones, the team doctor, when Amelia saw Finn appear at the far side of the room.

  And she saw the moment when he noticed her. He smiled at first, then his gaze slid to Oliver standing next to her. Oliver, who had his arm tucked around her waist. The smile fled Finn’s face like a blackout plunging a city into darkness.

  She stiffened and Oliver looked down at her. “Everything okay?” he asked.

  She tried to keep the smile on her face. “Finn just arrived.”

  Oliver’s brows drew together. “Okay.” His hand squeezed her waist gently. “It’s going to be okay. How do you want to do this?”

  No idea. Was that a valid answer? Because she really had no idea. But as she lost sight of Finn in the crowded room, and wondered if he was headed in their direction, she had to think of something. “Let me go talk to him alone. That might be easier. At first.”

  His frown deepened. “Are you sure about that?”

  No.

  But she had to do it anyway. She pasted a smile back on her face. “I’ll be fine.” She made her excuses to Dan and Indy and left Oliver with them. As she worked her way across the room, she could feel Oliver watching her. She turned and gave him a reassuring nod before she started looking for Finn again.

  She found him, predictably, standing near the bar that was set up in another room off the main living area where the party was being held.

  His face went stony as she approached, and he took a slug of his drink. The clear liquid in the tall glass could have been water but she doubted it. Vodka. Finn liked vodka when he wanted to get drunk. She’d even bought the odd bottle for him when he’d been at college and had sweet-talked her into buying booze when she’d visited. She hadn’t seen the harm then. In retrospect she should have started saying no to him then. But she couldn’t change the past. She could only set the ground rules for how things were going to be between them now.

  “Hi,” she said, determined to be the sensible one in the conversation.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. She could smell liquor on him. Not vodka. That didn’t really smell. He must have been drinking something else before he arrived. Whiskey maybe. Which meant he was probably drunk already. Her stomach sank.

  “I was invited—” she started.

  “By Shields?”

  “Yes.” She lifted her chin.

  “So you’re screwing him?” His tone was harsh, eyes cold.

  Temper flared. She was trying to be sensible but frankly, Finn was being an asshole. Had been an asshole too often lately. So maybe it was time somebody told him. “Oliver and I are seeing each other,” she said flatly. “News flash. That has nothing to do with you.”

  “I told you he was trouble,” Finn said.

  “Yes. You did. However, I make my own choices. And since you’re the one standing in front of me half drunk at eight thirty and he’s sober, I’m pretty sure he’s not the one who qualifies as trouble right now.”

  “Yeah? Well, you know, Milly.” He almost sneered her name. “If you don’t want me commenting on who you screw, then you don’t get to comment on how I choose to entertain
myself.”

  “Really? This is entertaining to you? Because I don’t see someone having fun, I see someone who is sulking for America and making an idiot of himself in the process.”

  “You know what? You’re right. You’re not entertaining me. You’re boring me. So you can just go, Milly. Leave me alone.”

  “So you can complete the process and make a dick of yourself at your bosses’ house? You think that’s a good idea?”

  “You’re shagging Shields. So I’m not all that interested in what you think is a good idea.”

  “What exactly is your problem with Oliver?”

  “He’s the enemy,” Finn said viciously. “My rival.”

  “He’s your teammate,” she said, feeling sicker with the second. “You’re on the same side.”

  “He’s too fucking old and he should fucking retire.”

  “So you can have his position? Is that all you care about? Yourself?”

  “I played well in those games.” Finn drained his glass, shoved it toward the bartender. Amelia tried to make eye contact with the guy slinging the booze but he didn’t look at her, just poured vodka into Finn’s glass and topped up the ice before pushing it back without comment.

  “You played great,” Amelia said. “You should be proud.”

  “I did,” he agreed. “That position should be mine.”

  “I’m sure it will be, one day. But right now it’s Oliver’s. Don’t you want people to know you have the position because you earned it, not because you were the alternate and the first pick was hurt?” The words came rushing out of her mouth before she knew what was happening. She knew as soon as she spoke that they were a mistake. Finn’s face went red, eyes blazing.

  “Fuck Shields. You all think he’s so fucking great. Look at everyone, so worried about him and his ridiculous hand. Even you.”

  “We’re worried about him because he’s injured,” Amelia said. She tried to keep her voice low, aware that several of the people nearest them were starting to look in their direction. “An injury he got helping you.”

  “So it’s my fault? I didn’t drive that fucking Hummer. And I didn’t lose the fucking series.”