Dolce (Love at Center Court #2)

by Rachel Blaufeld

  “Fine, I’ll fucking go,” I said.

  “There’s my foul-mouthed sailor.”

  Leaning down, he nudged my shoulder with his. Then he draped his arm over me and urged me toward the exit as he tossed my tea in the garbage and then hiked my bag up on his shoulder.

  When we came out of the library, there was a dark blue pickup double-parked on the sidewalk.

  Blane opened the door. “Your chariot awaits.” He slipped in the driver’s seat and buckled up. “You can take the boy out of the swamp, but you can’t take the trailer park out of the boy.”

  “I like the truck. I wouldn’t expect anything less masculine or chauvinistic.”

  “Exactly. Stereotype much?”

  He put the truck in gear and turned onto College Avenue, and then headed to the main road out of town.

  “You good?” he asked, adjusting the heat and tilting the vent toward me.

  I nodded. “You?”

  I noticed he had a leather jacket on that shifted with his every movement, and I imagined his muscles flexing underneath.

  “Am I allowed to ask where we’re going?”

  “Yeah, but I’m not telling.”

  “Okay, as long as you still promise not to rape me.”

  Without warning, Blane whipped to the side of the road and threw the truck into PARK on the shoulder. His eyes were wide as he turned to me.

  “Cate, I was joking, but I hope you know I would never do something like that. It was a bad joke.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you sure?” He stared deep into my eyes as if he was trying to show me the secrets of life.

  “Yeah, women throw themselves at you. No need for rape.”

  When he sucked in a sharp breath and banged his hand into the steering wheel, I said, “Okay, that was a bad joke too.”

  “Good, so we’re clear. I’m a good guy?”

  “The jury’s still out, but at least we know you don’t take advantage of short, chunky girls in the woods.”

  “Cate,” he growled.

  “I’ll stop,” I said, only to shut him up. I didn’t think I would survive another minute on the side of the road in close quarters with the man of my dreams. The way the ends of his hair curled up and caught the moonlight hypnotized me.

  Yep, this feminist is now an alpha-male basketball junkie.

  Blane put the truck back in gear and pulled back in the lane. We continued driving in silence until he turned down a rural road, dark with no street lights, that seemed to lead into a farm.

  “Can we be here?”

  “Don’t worry.”

  We bounced down the rutted dirt road, passing a pasture and a barn, and finally came to a stop outside a sports court. It looked so out of place, a cement blacktop in the middle of nowhere with a hoop erected on either side.

  “What’s this?”

  Ignoring my question, he said, “Come on,” and flung open his door.

  I followed suit, my hand shaking a bit on the handle, my heart fluttering even harder. And it wasn’t just the thought we were trespassing that made me shiver all over.

  Blane opened a trunk positioned at one side of the court and pulled out a basketball and a blanket. He tossed the ball all the way from the other side of the lawn and it whooshed through the hoop, nothing but net. But he didn’t go and retrieve the ball that bounced and rolled to the other side of the grass lining the court.

  Instead, he came and took my hand to lead me to the center of the court. With a flick of his wrists, he arranged the blanket on the ground and then said, “Sit down.”

  I did, surprised that the wool blanket kept my butt warm on the cold surface. Or maybe that was just my butt fat.

  Blane dropped down behind me, straddling me before pulled me back against his chest. I went willingly, but held my breath.

  This kind of stuff didn’t happen to me. This was reserved for the movies and pretty girls.

  “Nice, right?” he asked, his chest humming against my back.

  I felt every syllable float between us. We were so close, I could feel each ripple of his abs. Surely, he felt my body shaking with nerves, my heart beating a frantic pace.

  When I gave a small nod, he said, “This is a booster’s house, so don’t worry.”

  “Oh,” I said softly, not knowing what else to say.

  “He lets us come out here, and he knows I keep the blanket.”

  At that, I tried to pull away. Keep the blanket? All too quickly, I realized I was being introduced to the Stealer’s Grand Plan of Seduction.

  “Stop!” he said, and kissed along my neck. Like a fool, I allowed him access when he was trespassing all my feelings.

  “What is all this?”

  “The Stealer’s Grand Plan of Seduction.” When I pulled away from him, he said, “You said it out loud just a few moments ago . . . like when I spoke my thoughts aloud when we first met.”

  I scrambled to my knees and turned to glare at him.

  “No grand plan,” he said with a grin, holding his hands in the air in surrender. “I’ve never brought a woman here.”

  I gave him the cocked eyebrow again, worried for a moment my eye might stick like that, because that’s what my mom would say. Oh God, did I really just think about my mom right now?

  “Seriously,” he said. “I keep the blanket here for me. I usually come out here after important games and look at the sky so I can thank whatever fucking lucky star for looking down on me. Boys don’t just get out of the trailer park, Cate. Guys like me don’t have the chance to go to school, to finish and get out, and then meet with agents and go pro. It just doesn’t happen. It’s a frickin’ fairy tale, and I can’t fucking believe it.”

  That’s when I fell in love with Blane Steele. I’d secretly watched him play last year and had only met him in person at the beginning of this school year, but I was all-in. Hearing him speak about how lucky he was touched something deep inside me.

  Of course, the love would have to remain my secret until the day I died, and I would lie to myself in order to keep having moments like this. Any normal woman would know this was a disaster waiting to happen. Boy meets girl, he has fun, she falls for him, and it ends in heartbreak. But I couldn’t be bothered right now with that.

  “Maybe you’re just that talented,” I said. “Does it have to be a lucky star?”

  “Cate, my mom was a teenage girl knocked up by a truck driver. This shit doesn’t happen in my world. We live in a trailer park, where all it takes is a tropical storm to rip our house off the ground.”

  He pulled me back into his lap again and propped me up against his hard chest, and leaned forward a little to breathe in my scent. My heart stopped for a moment as his lips ran along my neck, sucking, licking, and nipping.

  “And you too,” he whispered. “I met you, and I thank the fucking stars for that too.”

  I pinched his leg.

  Wrapping his arms around me tighter, he said, “I mean it. I was sitting there at Sonny’s, thinking about how I was sick of the meaningless nameless hookups, ready for something else. I didn’t know what the fuck else, but something else. And poof, there you were. All swearing and falling and knocking shit over.”

  I warmed all over at his words. They were so genuine and sincere, I couldn’t help but allow myself to believe them. Letting out a little sigh, I relaxed some and leaned back into him.

  “I think it’s that one.” Blane pointed toward the sky at a sparkling star, bright in the midnight-blue sky. “That’s the one that brought you to me.”

  I lifted a hand and pointed it at another star, this one bigger and brighter. “And that’s the one that’s been watching over you your whole life.”

  How could a girl not get swept up in this romantic game? With Blane’s aftershave stirring my senses, his hard thighs pressed against mine, and his minty breath warming my collarbone? I was doomed.

  “What about you?” he asked. “Who looks out for you?”

  I smiled, even though h
e couldn’t see my face. “My dad.”

  “Yeah?” He brushed my hair back and ran his tongue along my earlobe.

  “My parents divorced a while back, and I was always closer with my dad. He owns a little Italian bistro, and when I was younger, I wanted to live with him full time. But my mom said no,” I said, thinking I would eat my way into being a cow with him, “so I stayed with her and my two sisters, who are perfect. And well, I’m me. Flawed.”

  “I don’t know about flawed, but definitely huggable.” Blane flipped me, tackling me to the ground, and squeezed me tight.

  Squeals pierced the dark night, and it took me a moment to realize with surprise that they were mine.

  I wanted him to kiss me, to place one of those delicious swipes of his tongue on my lips like he had my neck, but he didn’t. He just grinned as he tickled me silly and then walked us back to the car, his arm around my shoulders.

  My head bumped against his solid chest as we walked. I wanted so badly to stop and turn to him for a kiss, but I didn’t. I took what I could get from the man, and if it was only kisses on the neck, then so be it.

  Blane

  “Hey, Hafton! Sonny B. here, taking over the daytime airwaves this Friday in gray and dreary Ohio. Let’s see if I can brighten up your day. Phish is in town tonight, and guess who’s going? That’s right, yours truly will be knocking boots before, during, and after. Oh, did I just get naughty on the air? I did. Lucky me, I get to take four lucky listeners with me tonight. Let’s play a little Truth or Dare, or just dare, shall we? How about I play Phish’s ‘Sample in a Jar’ and when I come back, we’ll announce our first dare.”

  “Turn this fucking shit off,” Ashton called from the sinks in the locker room after practice. “I can’t listen to that white boy’s trustafarian hippie wannabe music.”

  “No way,” Demetri hollered back. “Bet you a hundred bucks DJ boy is going to dare something here about our man or his princess.”

  Shit.

  Coach had put us through a grueling practice on that Thursday; he wasn’t happy with us, and we would feel it later. We weren’t hungry enough and taking too much shit for granted, he’d said, and he was right. We were acting like fools, he’d said.

  I knew he mostly meant me, especially when he leaned into the locker room and called me into his office.

  “Yes, Coach?” I took a seat in the plush leather chair across from him, my mind elsewhere, mostly on what kind of dare that fucker Sonny was going to come up with.

  Coach Conley frowned as he looked at me for a moment. “Steele, you know I’m in your corner. Admire you for what you did last year; not many kids would stay and finish their degree when the pros come calling. I get that it’s important, but this year you’re acting like a royal ass. What the hell is going on with the DJ? In our locker room, acting like he’s part of the coaching staff? He’s been looking for a way in for years, hounding my guys.” Coach leaned his elbows on the desk and stared me down. “Christ, he used to make Jamel insane with bribes and deals just to get inside my domain.”

  I focused on his shiny gray hair, not wanting to meet his eyes. One day, I hoped to coach. There was nothing that I loved more than ball. If I wasn’t playing it, I wanted to be rolling in it.

  “I know, he’s gone a bit crazy—Sonny, I mean. But I got it under control,” I lied as the hallway erupted with shouts outside Coach’s office.

  “Oh no, he did not just do that!”

  “Shit, that man has brass balls.”

  Coach stood and went to the door, propping it open with his elbow as he yelled, “Care to enlighten me?”

  “Um, sorry to interrupt,” Ashton said contritely, his eyes twinkling as he faked an apology. He should have been an actor instead of a ballplayer.

  “And now you did, so spill it.”

  “It’s Sonny. He just offered up a pair of Phish tickets to the first dude to get his intern to go on a date with him.”

  “So?” Coach demanded. “What the hell does that have to do with you?”

  I ran my hand over my head and tugged hard on my hair, fearing I was going to pull out every hair on my head. Fucking Ashton, he was going to go into all of it. I knew it.

  “That’s Steele’s lady. He likes her. She’s at the bottom of this mess with Sonny, sir.”

  Sir? What a fucking actor.

  Coach turned toward me. “What the hell is this? I called you in to get to the bottom of what I was hearing about you promising a ’ship to Sonny so he’d allow you to get laid again. He told me you needed to get back on your horse again. His stupid words, not mine. But you really want to hit on his intern?”

  Ashton tried to quickly pass by the office, but Coach caught him by the shirt and pulled him in. I gave him an evil eye and mouthed, I am going to fuck Ava.

  I wasn’t, but let him think that.

  “Well?” Coach shut the door, and now it was the three of us.

  “Don’t shoot the messenger.” Ashton batted his long eyelashes and ran his hand over his recently shaven head.

  “Steele?” Coach looked at me.

  “Sonny has this intern,” I said. “Cate . . . Catie P., and I met her when he threw down the original bet. He was making her do all this ridiculous crap for her job, and I called him on it. That’s why he called me a feminist. I just defended her and he went crazy. Turns out, she’s pretty fun . . . and a women’s studies major. Ironic, huh?”

  “And sexy,” Ashton interrupted. “All woman, Coach, if you know what I mean.”

  “Okay, that’s enough from you, Denube,” Coach growled and redirected his laser focus on me. “So, this intern? You’re hooking up with her or what?”

  “Steele wants to date her,” Ashton offered helpfully. “So, he promised Sonny the ’ship and full access to the team if he lifted the no-girls ban. And now get this, the intern doesn’t want Steele back!”

  Coach reached out and opened the door. “Okay, you can leave, Denube.”

  With the door closed again—and I was more than certain, Ashton’s ear pinned to the wood on the other side—Coach said to me, “I’ll be damned. Steele likes a woman.”

  I nodded like a chump.

  “Not going to work this time. First, she’s a women’s libber—they don’t like the athletes. And second, we don’t promise championships to anyone. We work for them, so get the hell back into practice tomorrow and be the captain of this damn team like you’re supposed to be, and make these guys work for it. Forget the fucking girl for now. You hear me?”

  I nodded again.

  “Okay, get out of here,” he said, dismissing me.

  As I walked toward the Union Building to get some lunch, thoughts whirled in my mind like drinks flying on spring break in Daytona. I liked a girl. A woman. A chick. A young lady. Whatever. I liked Cate.

  Talking to her grounded me, which was good, because at the moment I needed grounding. I’d turned down a shit-ton of interest from the pros the year before to stay in school, to finish my last few credits and graduate. Was it worth it? I didn’t fucking know. At the end of the day, I was going to play ball. It’s all I wanted to do.

  And now I wanted to be with Cate, but that wasn’t going to be so easy. First of all, I didn’t even know how I wanted to be with her, and second, there was Coach and what he just laid down.

  The dare came back to mind, so I turned toward the radio station instead of the student union. I burst through the front doors and made my way toward the studio and banged on the door. Not waiting for an answer, I walked right in, into a zone defense all by myself.

  Another bullshit Phish melody had just ended, and Sonny was making love to his mic when he saw me.

  “Oh, looks like we poked the bear, Hafton. I wouldn’t have believed it myself unless I saw it with my own eyes, which I’m doing right now. The Stealer just stormed into my booth, eyes blazing. I guess he heard my latest dare. Did you know Mr. Steele has a thing for our intern? He’s our Catie P.’s protector and, perhaps, suitor?” He raised an eyeb
row at me, challenging me.

  Asshole.

  “Okay, Haftees, let’s do something about this little challenge in front of me. Last pair of tickets is up for grabs for the first girl to get The Stealer tattooed on her body.”

  I slammed my hand onto the table, shaking the equipment, and imagined it was my fist making contact with Sonny’s pretty-boy face.

  “If your little honey, Hafton’s 96.9’s own Catie, is the first to mark her body with your name, we know it’s meant to be, Steele. It’s only a matter of time!”

  Sonny shoved the mic back in its holder and hit PLAY, sending some awful music blaring into my ears, and I turned to leave. I couldn’t even talk to the jerk.

  His challenges and dares were giving me whiplash. First it was don’t fuck around, then he messed with my intern, goading everyone on campus to ask her out, and now ball babies were going to be running around with my name tattooed on their bodies.

  When my mom named me Blane Steele, I was pretty sure she thought I was going to be a porn star. Thank fuck, shaking my junk wasn’t my big break out; playing ball was.

  Although the thought of having a bunch of women running around with my name inked on their skin made me feel like I was some kind of gigolo, a role I didn’t have to be.

  At least, not anymore.

  Catie

  “Caterina?” Stanwick called my name with disdain. “Please stay after class.”

  Stanwick waited for me at the bottom of the steps, her hair scraped back in a severe bun, her stance stiff and off-putting, a smirk on her lips.

  “Yes?” I clenched my hands, stilling their shaking.

  She towered over me in her pumps, and I found myself wishing for height for the millionth time.

  “Caterina, I need to reconsider having you in this class.”

  “If it’s the paper, I plan to document my stance even further. I’m just trying to see their choice to go into pornography from their side. The girls—”

  She stepped toward me and whispered, “It’s not that, Caterina. Although I do find the whole premise despicable. It’s this job you have at the radio, and the consorting you’re doing with the shock jock and the basketball player.”