“It does sound like a lot of fun.” Kendra cast Jared an apologetic look. “I know you’re not into the whole hanging-out-after-work stuff, but we could promise not to get in your way.”
John put up a hand in a mock oath. “We’ll take separate cars. You can pretend we’re not there.”
“We’ll even root for the other team if you want us to,” Whitney said.
Wait—what? Jared looked from face to face, all of them expectant, all of them waiting for his response. They thought he didn’t want to hang out with them?
“It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with you,” he began, unsure of his ground. “It’s just that Gretchen is...” Amazing. Breathtaking. Mine. “Different.”
“Well, obviously.” Whitney released a soft huff. “You might not see much past your enormous conceit, but the rest of us have fairly decent vision. Don’t think we haven’t noticed you mooning around the office lately.”
“I don’t moon.”
John offered an apologetic smile. “There’s been a little mooning.”
Whitney clapped her hands. “So it’s decided? We’re going? All of us by your side, cheering for your lady friend in fishnet tights?”
“My lady friend doesn’t wear fishnet tights.”
“Um, have you ever seen roller derby before? Do you even know what it entails?”
He’d seen Gretchen’s bruises and had a vague idea. Women on roller skates. Piles of bodies as they all crashed. They’d probably be happy to have a medical professional on hand. He surveyed his friends, all of them watching him with giant grins on their faces. Or four medical professionals on hand.
“I looked up the rules online.” Or, rather, he’d tried to. He’d gotten lost somewhere among the jammers.
“Oh, Jared.” Kendra took his arm and gave it a pat. “You’re in for a big surprise. I think you need us there more than you know. For moral support.”
“You’re not coming in my car.”
Whitney snorted. “You’ve always been such a generous soul. Don’t worry. There’s no way we’d all fit. You guys want to meet up at four or so? I need to stop by the school and do my best to convince Matt this was his idea.”
“He seems like one of the most rational men I’ve ever met. Couldn’t you just ask him if he wants to come?” The intricacies of his coworkers’ relationships weren’t something Jared had ever professed an interest in before, but these were strange times.
“You have no idea how this sort of thing works, do you?” Kendra shook her head sadly.
“Mmm. I do.” Whitney ran her hands through her hair, building volume with just a few twitches of her fingers. “And we’d better make it four-thirty. I plan to make this worth his while.”
Chapter Ten
Fishnet tights were the least of Jared’s problems.
“Hey, Gretchen.” His eyes sought a safe place to land, and, finding none, remained resolutely near the top of her head. “You look, um...”
“It’s okay to peek,” she said, laughing. “I’m of legal age. And it’s sort of the point.”
It was probably the first time in Jared’s life he’d been so happy to heed someone else’s command. On the entire drive over, he replayed his friends’ laughter in his head, wondering what sort of spectacle was in store. Nothing could have prepared him for the vision in front of him.
He saw it all in colorful flashes of mind-reeling sensation. Fishnet tights layered under hotpants and the smallest black skirt ever crafted by mankind. Sleek, fuckable skin where her muscular legs peeked through. A tight blue tank top with her team’s logo emblazoned across the front and the name Honey Badger on the back. The shirt had been ripped at the neck to show a nice plunge of skin, but that wasn’t what really set the whole thing off.
It was the hair, slick and straight and separated into playful pigtails. And the makeup, dark and heavy and done up like a bombshell from the forties. And the tattoos, which he realized now were a seamless part of her uniform. And huge, clunky roller skates paired with black socks, kneepads, elbowpads and a helmet—all the safety gear a man could hope for when it came to protecting the tight, compact body underneath it all.
As a plastic surgeon—especially one who recently took up the cosmetic end of things—he saw a lot of the female form. He helped countless women with their tiny flaws, their small changes, a nip here and a tuck there as they rebuilt themselves piece by piece. How much better would these women feel if they realized, as Gretchen seemed to, that it wasn’t a woman’s individual parts, but the summation of them that created real beauty?
Gretchen was stunning.
Not because of the wide angle of her cheekbones or her uniform or the scandalous bits of skin showing or even her tattoos. It was all of it, all wrapped up in a package that was undeniably her.
“You actually play like that?” Not his most articulate compliment, but at least he was capable of forming words. Small triumphs counted for a lot in this moment. “Don’t the, uh, skirts get in the way?”
“Women play tennis in skirts. And female UFC fighters wear almost nothing at all.”
“I don’t watch female fighters.”
“You will tonight, my friend. You will tonight.” She grinned and popped a mouthguard in. It was the least and most sexy thing he’d ever seen. Gretchen looked like a woman who wasn’t afraid of anything.
“I see you brought a support group,” she added, forming the words around her mouthguard. “Afraid to be alone with me?”
“They sort of planned this without my knowledge. My friends are...enthusiastic about things. I think they halfway believe I made you up.”
He looked up at the bleachers behind him. The roller derby facilities were set up in some sort of warehouse space on an abandoned fairground just outside east Philadelphia. The smell of farm animals, crisp hay and not-so-crisp manure hung around the edges, but of far more immediate sensory assault were the sights and sounds of several hundred people gathering in a ring around a roller skating track. It was crude, at least as far as professional sporting events went, but the enthusiasm more than made up for it.
The Jared support group/Gretchen fan club took up the whole top tier of one of the bleacher sets. All his friends held beer and were screaming loudly at nothing at all.
He couldn’t help but grin. Beer and screaming for no reason other than the joy of it. And a gorgeous woman in fishnet tights. Was this what he’d been missing all those years?
Emboldened by the rallying crowd and the thought that a full two hours stretched out in front of him in which there were no expectations heaped on his shoulders other than to relax and have fun, he grabbed Gretchen by the hips and pulled her close. And he would have kissed her too, in front of the entire crowd, if it weren’t for that stupid mouthguard. As it was, he settled for leaning in close to her ear and whispering. “Play hard. Kick ass.”
“I always do,” she said, her voice low. “Watch for me. I’ll be the one with the star on her helmet.”
His grip on her tightened, the splay of his hand on her back creeping insistently downward over the curve of her bottom. “I don’t think I’m going to be looking at your head.”
Gretchen’s heart leaped to her throat as Jared released her and sauntered to his place in the bleachers, not once looking back. It was moments like these when she doubted her ability to withstand the Dr. Fine force in this odd, burgeoning relationship of theirs. Grumpy Jared she could handle. Condescending Jared only needed a strong lesson in manners. But Debonair Jared with that low, rumbly tone and his powerful arms holding her firm?
He lit her body on fire.
Her legs wobbled as she turned and skated to join her team, where catcalls and a few raised eyebrows brought a rush of heat to her face. It had been a long time since a man could make her blush.
“Okay, ladies,”
called Rowena, their team captain and a buxom redhead with a wicked hip check. Known to the league as Busty Bruiser, she had a tendency to live up to her namesake every chance she got. “Push the men out of your mind—and yes, Gretchen, I’m talking to you.”
More blushing. This crush on the good doctor was clearly becoming a problem.
“You’ll start as the jammer today,” Rowena added, and rattled off five of her teammates to be the blockers. Rowena tossed her the panty, a helmet cover with a signature black star to denote her position, and Gretchen made short work of slipping it over her head. They set up a rallying cry and waited for the whistle to blow.
Gretchen usually jammed or, on rarer occasions when her friend Leiloni Lay On Me needed a break, played pivot. Smaller than many of the other women and light on her feet, she was better at speed and agility than knocking the others down.
As they gathered near the point line, her body crouched as she waited for the starting whistle, she allowed herself one quick peek up at the crowd. As promised, Jared stood watching her intently, the only person in the stands without his hands up or a shout dangling from his lips. It was just him and his look of intent purpose, as if he was memorizing the way she looked right now.
She felt a surge of affection that was as out of place as it was unfamiliar. Was this what Jared felt when she’d walked through the door of the lecture hall to hear him speak? A sense of pride in showcasing a skill labored over for so long? A nervous flutter at exposing a piece of himself? The everyday joy of a familiar face in the crowd?
Maybe she’d been wrong to punish him for wanting her to see him speak. Yes, there was a certain amount of hubris involved in extending the invitation, but there was also a huge piece of vulnerability lodged inside. He’d given that to her without question.
She might not be paid to play for her team, the Philadelphia Spread Eagles, and she might not have as many stories to tell as Jared, but this sport was her sport, this place her place. The women on the team accepted her at face value, took what she had to offer, crashed and tumbled and helped her to her feet when it was all over.
Asking the same thing of a man had always stretched the bounds of reality. Until now.
As the whistle sounded and she pushed off, whizzing over the polished wood floor with her head bent low, her heart swelled. In a few quarters, her makeup would be a runny disarray of sweat and exertion, her tights would probably sport a giant tear with fishnet burn marring her thighs, and she made no promises about the state of her hair.
But Jared had asked her out in that exact state. Messy, disheveled, insulting him to his face.
She could hardly wait to see what would happen this time around. And then she forgot about anything but speed and making it through the pack.
* * *
Jared felt the familiar buzzing of his phone a few minutes after halftime. He was getting surprisingly good at figuring out what the women were trying to do as they passed one another and created blockades of bodies—not to mention the incredible speed with which Gretchen zoomed around in circles. He would have liked nothing more than to chuck his phone into the nearest garbage can and continue yelling at the top of his lungs for someone to call the jam.
Unfortunately, being a doctor—even one who theoretically worked a casual nine to five—meant answering the phone every time it rang. Digging his cell out of his pocket, he turned to Kendra and mouthed, I’ll be right back.
She nodded and continued jumping up and down, eating up the event with the same enthusiasm all his friends showed. There hadn’t been much time for conversation amidst all the screaming and the perplexed scoring questions they kept throwing at all the people sitting around them, but they were having fun. Better yet—they were having fun with him.
Somehow, Gretchen had managed to accomplish in one night of roller skates and elbow punches what he hadn’t been able to do in months.
He leaped off the back of the bleachers and moved away from the crowd, the hollowness of sudden silence an almost palpable presence around him. But the empty feeling ringing in his ears was nothing compared to what he felt when he recognized the number.
His mother.
It was one thing to ignore his dad for weeks on end, doing his best to pretend the man didn’t exist, but not heeding a summons from his mom was an entirely different level of ungratefulness—and one he had yet to stoop to. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he answered.
“Hey, Mom. Isn’t it kind of late for you to be up and about?”
“You try sleeping when your father is having one of his poker games. I can smell the cigar smoke coming in through the bedroom vents. I’ll have to wash every piece of bedding in the place.”
“Are all the usual suspects present?” he asked politely.
“Oh, you know.” Jared could almost see his mom wafting her hand airily around the phone. “A senator here. A head of surgery there. I think he even has an ambassador. He wouldn’t be your father if he didn’t show off a little bit.”
Jared paused, waiting for the rest. He wasn’t all that close to his mom—he loved her, called her on birthdays, took her to brunch on Easter...at least the ones he managed to be around for. But the silence that pressed against him indicated there was more to this call than plans for next year’s breakfast crepe buffet.
“He also has a Dr. Ortega over.”
His pulse leaped, a burst of adrenaline taking flight in his veins. Ortega was a common enough surname, but the coincidence—one of far too many as of late—was impossible to ignore. The Javier Ortega he knew was a Peruvian surgeon and one of his most respected mentors. He was also the current executive director at Make the World Smile. “What did he say?”
“Did you really turn down the offer for his position?”
Goddammit. Situations like this were exactly why he’d opted to bow out of the organization quietly. What he did or did not do with his career was no one’s business but his own.
“I did.”
“Oh. I see.” A lengthy pause ensued. “Can I ask why? Weren’t they offering enough money?”
His hold on the phone tightened. “Why do people keep asking me that? This has never been about my income—never. Do I appear mercenary?”
“Well, you know.” She paused a moment before launching ahead. “We all assumed when you left Make the World Smile to do boob jobs that you had financial motives. Why else would you give up...” Wisely, she didn’t complete the sentence.
Not so wisely, he finished it for her. “Why would I give up an exalted position in humanitarian aid to go work in a chop shop?”
“Your words, Jared. Not mine.”
He leaned against the doorframe, needing the support. “It’s complicated.”
“Try me.”
“It was time” was all he’d say.
“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
That got him to straighten, steady on his own two feet once again. “Warn me about what?”
“Your father isn’t exactly pleased about this recent turn of events. It’s all he’s talked about for months. He says you won’t call him back.”
Jared didn’t know why he was so surprised that everything kept coming back to his father. For as long as he could remember, the man loomed large in the periphery, not interfering but there just the same. An orthopedic surgeon who excelled at restructuring bones and people according to his own whims, his father had been inadvertently responsible for most of Jared’s career and life choices—particularly as most of them had been a direct retaliation against a genetic code he couldn’t seem to break free of.
And still he couldn’t shake the man. Jared currently resided about as close to rock bottom as a man could possibly get without becoming fossilized. He lived alone. His money—what little enough there was of it—was tied up in New Leaf and a ridiculously dated car. He had nothing
. He was nothing.
So what did his dad want?
“He’s not your enemy, you know,” his mom added.
“Well, he’s certainly not my friend.”
She paused for a moment. “Are you sure you know the difference?”
No. I’m not. For as long as Jared could remember, he’d lived suspended in a world where love and hate coexisted, where self-interest took the place of true affection, and no one bothered to question it.
Well, he was questioning it now. Looking around this place, where women like Gretchen leaped over obstacles and bodies, wiped the blood from their brows and kept moving despite the dangers threatening at every turn, he felt all his inadequacies hit him at once.
Gretchen wouldn’t be afraid to face a man who wielded no real power over her. Gretchen wouldn’t hesitate to tell him exactly where he could stick his interfering self-righteousness. So why can’t I?
“I’ll talk to you later, Mom.” He didn’t trust himself to say more.
He tucked his phone in his pocket and turned to find Whitney standing a few feet away, her hands on her hips and an irritated purse to her lips.
“What are you doing back here?” she asked. “Gretchen just scored like thirty points and almost got run over by that huge Wesley CrushHer woman. You’re missing it.”
Something about the way she spoke set his last nerve twitching. He was willing to accept admonishments from his mother. Cherished them from Gretchen. But Whitney? He was getting fucking tired of always being in the wrong where she was concerned. “I had to take care of something.”
“Well, don’t bite my head off for it. There’s only a quarter left. It would probably behoove you to be visibly in place with Gretchen’s cheering squad for the end.”
“I know that,” he said, his teeth set firmly. Of course he knew that. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Whitney frowned at him, unable, as usual, to take a hint. “I’m just saying. If some guy came all this way to watch me show off my athletic skills, I’d feel a lot more romantically inclined if he actually sat his ass on the bleachers and watched.”
The Derby Girl Page 13
