Playing To Win

by Stacey Lynn

  “Hurting Katie is the last thing I want to do, or plan on doing.”

  “Miss Carter,” a voice calls her name and I turn toward it, unable to stop myself. A woman dressed in the same attire all the therapists wear but several years older has come around a corner. Her hair is pulled back and slicked with her graying hair bundled into a bun that is so tight it looks cemented to her scalp. “My office, please.”

  Shit. Her boss. My gaze shifts to Katie. She has placed a hand on the shoulder of the teenage girl she’s working with and a flash of nerves crosses her face. She swipes her hands down her legs and heads toward the woman and the two disappear into the office.

  I don’t realize I’m gritting my teeth together until Logan says, “Meghan would love any excuse to get rid of Kate. Don’t know why, it’s some personal bullshit. Jealousy probably, woman shit I don’t spend too much time thinking about but doesn’t make it less true even if letting her go is unethical, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. I’ll just say it again. Be careful.”

  He slaps the top of the bike. “Ten more minutes on this, tighten up the intensity after five and come see me when you’re done.”

  He leaves me pedaling and looking through the door where Katie disappeared and feeling like the bottom’s about to fall from everything I want.

  19

  Katie

  Meghan hasn’t given me any indication since I talked to her earlier this week about my time off and whether she’s going to grant it. Considering it’s almost Christmas and my vacation is supposed to start the day after, we’re cutting it down to the final hours of when I need to know.

  Her drawing this out is some maneuver to prove she’s in charge of me or whatever and I’m growing sick of it. It’s consuming me at all hours and I haven’t wanted to let Jude know what I’m planning until I can confirm it. No use in getting his hopes up... and that’s assuming he’ll like my plan.

  But whatever. He’s worth the risk and I’ve already decided on a back-up plan anyway. I have money saved, not a lot, but a cushion. And as much as I love my job here at Lake View and my patients and the experience it gives me as well as loving my coworkers—hyperventilating crazy Avery included—I’ve also come to realize that Lizzie’s been right about me for a long time.

  A stable life and home doesn’t have anything to do with going to the same job, day after day, working in the same office for the rest of my life. I have options.

  I only need to be brave enough to take a chance.

  I take a seat in the chair across from Meghan’s desk, unsurprised that she’s barely glanced at me at all and when she does, her bright red lips thin farther.

  “Katie, I’m going to cut to the chase and give it to you straight.”

  “Okay.” My hands clasp in my lap. They’ve grown clammy on the short walk to her office and I try to hide any hint of my nerves. “I’m assuming this is about my vacation request?”

  She focuses on me with some look I don’t understand at all. It’s no secret she doesn’t like me even if I’ve never quite gotten why, but I’m beyond caring about her personal opinions of me. This is business, and I’ve not only earned this time, I’ve prepared for it and I’m ready to demand it be given to me.

  “I find your request and the timing of it highly suspect.”

  Suspect? I’m already lost. “I don’t—”

  “You have a personal relationship with Jude Taylor.”

  I stare at this woman. My boss. And my body ripples with fear. And I’m not even sure how she’d know, or what she knows, or how bad this can be for me. “It’s true that Jude and I were friends in college, Meghan, but other than that, I’m not sure—”

  “Save it. Do you happen to know where I live, Katie?”

  Oh shit. My heart falls into my lap and my clammy palms sweat so ferociously I’m too scared to wipe them down my thighs. They’ll leave wet marks for certain. “Listen, Meghan. I’m not sure what you think, but yes, it’s true I’ve seen him outside of work, but like I said, we’re friends…”

  “And you expect me to believe friends leave each other’s apartments at six o’clock in the morning.”

  Her lips twist into something so ugly it makes my chest freeze. “And regarding your requested time off, what I started off saying is that I find it suspect you’ve requested three weeks off work at the same time when Mr. Taylor is heading back to North Carolina.”

  “What?” If she slapped me, she couldn’t have surprised me further. He’s leaving?

  And he didn’t tell me. Didn’t even hint at the idea he’s going back.

  She carries on like she hasn’t already delivered a deathly blow.

  “As for you carrying on with a patient in our facility, you know very well that an investigation into this matter will be forthcoming. Shall it be determined you’ve broken the code of ethics you’re bound to by your license and your employment contract with Lake View, you should know it’s possible you might not only lose your job but your license as well.”

  “Meghan… Miss Swanson… I…” I close my mouth. I have no excuse. No defense. If she’s honest about seeing me leave his building—potentially her building as well—I have nothing to say to help me right now. She already has the evidence, as circumstantial as it might be. “I understand,” I finish, but if this is her plan, then I won’t be spending it in the office waiting for her forthcoming investigation. “And my time off request? Are you telling me it’s denied?”

  “No. I suggest due to the possibility you’ve behaved inappropriately with a client and patient, it’s best you take the time. Human resources will contact you when they need to speak with you, I’m certain of it.” She rests her elbows on her desk, hands clasped together lightly, and I swear I see a smile on her face as tight and minimal as it may be. I think she’s happy about this.

  Meanwhile, my head is still spinning like I’ve been blindfolded and spun in circles. He’s leaving.

  And he hasn’t mentioned it.

  What does this mean?

  “I will ensure the rest of your patients are taken care of today. I believe it’s best you begin your time off immediately. Shall I have someone brought to see you out?”

  “No.” I shake my head, but it only makes me dizzier. She’s threatening me with the need for security? I can only fathom what this means. “I’ll clear out my locker and head out then. Anything else?”

  She sits back in her chair, easily crosses one leg over the other and gives a pen two quick taps on the desk. “Merry Christmas, Miss Carter. Enjoy your time off.”

  My head jolts back at her venomous cheer, but I can’t take the time to decipher any of this.

  I’ve essentially been fired pending an ethics violation. Jude might be leaving. Again. And all I have is two month’s salary in savings.

  Still, for whatever reason, I find myself standing from the chair and mumbling, “You too.”

  I walk out of her office, back to the locker, and out of the only building where I’ve worked and interned for five years without the opportunity to say goodbye to anyone.

  I head home to an empty apartment, a messy one considering I’ve been spending so much time with Jude I haven’t taken the time to clean it up. I’m assaulted by Whiskers, who jumps onto my kitchen island and hisses.

  She probably hates me. God, I’ve neglected my cat and companion for a man who might be moving halfway across the country and hasn’t felt the need to discuss it with me.

  “Not now, cat,” I mutter and drop my purse and lunch bag down.

  Whiskers swishes her tail and drops her head. Her fangs recede and she comes to me slowly, like she can sense my despair and confusion I’ve been unable to shake. She lets me pick her up and hold her and then the both of us head to my bedroom where I collapse on the bed.

  Whiskers curls up next to me, purring softly.

  She’s being nice and comforting which might possibly be the freakiest part of my day, and she allows me to pet her, while I replay the morning and the las
t few weeks on repeat until my eyes grow heavy and I fall asleep.

  “Katie.” Jude’s voice comes to me in my dreams and I press closer to the noise. The warmth of him.

  “Katie. Wake up.” A hand presses to my forehead. It feels familiar. I like it. I’ll miss it when it’s gone, I think.

  I’m jolted. “Hey. Katie.”

  I cower from the harshness of the touch and something flickers. Something lightens.

  “Katie. Wake the hell up.” I’m shaken again and this time, reality begins to register.

  It’s not Jude’s voice in my dream. It’s simply Jude’s voice.

  “What?” I grumble and roll to the other side of my bed. My eyes crack open and I realize what I’ve done.

  I jump to sitting with confusion raking across my skin and I swipe my eyes. “Jude?”

  “Jesus, Katie. You scared the hell out of me.”

  I blink my eyes and press the heel of my palms into them. “What… where… how….”

  “I’d laugh at how cute you are when you sleep, but what the hell, Katie. What happened today?”

  His question brings it all back, slamming into my hazy, sleep-addled mind.

  All of it. This morning, waking up next to Jude, my hand somehow finding his erection, hard and long even while he slept in my hand. The way he yanked me over him. The orgasm and shower before I left his place to get to mine.

  Work. Meghan…

  “Oh shit.” I drop my head into my face again and groan. “I am so screwed.”

  The bed dips and I finally open my eyes, blinking away sleep and the nightmare that was real only to find Jude at the edge of my bed, solid and huge biceps crossed over his chest, and worry lining his thick brows.

  “What are you doing here?”

  His mouth gapes open and he snaps it closed. “What am I doing here? You disappeared from your office today and no one knew where you went and couldn’t get a hold of you.”

  “Yeah… I know… but…” I brush hair off my face. I need water. Caffeine. I feel blurry and heavy and weird. So weird. “But how did you get here? Inside my place?”

  “Bribed the doorman with tickets to a Chicago game. He let me right up.”

  Nice to know the security in my building sucks. Except… I don’t have security. “What?”

  He rolls his eyes like I’m being the ridiculous one. “I called Garrett. He called Lizzie. She let me swing by and grab her key.”

  “Oh. That makes more sense.”

  He expels a heavy breath and collapses onto the bed next to me. His hand settles on my leg and I drink in his expression. The weight of him. The width of his shoulders. The hardness of his stomach. I try to memorize all of it, remember the feel of all of him. Meghan’s words from the office, the sledgehammer she dropped in my lap is so painful my heart still hurts.

  “You want to tell me what happened with your meeting? When I never saw you leave the meeting and someone else took over the patient you were with, I got worried. Logan went and looked for you and said you were gone.”

  I ignore him. Nice to know my co-workers were worried enough to look for me. I’m surprised Meghan didn’t send out an interoffice emergency email. “You’re leaving.”

  He doesn’t even hesitate. “I was going to tell you. Tonight. Tomorrow. I was originally thinking after Christmas with my family, but then, if you said yes, I wanted to be able to tell them.”

  “When?” Everything inside of me has shut down. I’ve turned into a robot. Nothing seems to work right. My heart doesn’t seem to be beating and all the confusion that spun in my mind in my soon-to-be-former boss’s office has stalled.

  “Katie.” He leans forward closer and his hands go to the sides of his hips. I’m essentially pinned in place on my bed. “My coach wants me back in Charlotte. I need to get back eventually and you’re the one who told me I couldn’t stay for you. I was going to talk to you about it, but I wanted to get dates set in place first, figure everything out. Then you said you had some time to take off and I was hoping, once I figured out my schedule, I could talk you into spending that time with me. In Charlotte. At my home. Meeting my teammates.” He scoots closer and runs a hand down my cheek, just a finger, at my jaw. The sensation is delightful and with a mere touch from Jude, whatever had stalled and frozen inside of me returns to life slowly. “I want you with me. I love you, Katie. But I also want to do this right and if we need the time, if you need the time, keeping it long-distance, I’m willing to wait for that.”

  “You want me with you.”

  “I love you more than anyone outside my family. Of course I want you with me.”

  My hands find their way to his cheeks and I hold on to him. Emotion burns my nose, my eyes, and I sniff away tears.

  “You love me.” Somehow, in the midst and nerves of this morning I’d forgotten. “I love you too.”

  “I know. Why are you going to cry?”

  “Because I’m a girl and we cry over stupid things and it’s been a really weird day.”

  He laughs then and he comes closer. “Can I kiss you now? Tell you I love you with my mouth on you and then get you out of bed, get some dinner in you… then we can talk about the rest of what happened today?”

  “Dinner?”

  “It’s after six. Took me awhile to get a hold of Lizzie.”

  I’ve slept the day away. I’ve never done this. I saw Meghan around ten in the morning and came straight home and slept for hours. No wonder I feel hazy and strange. Fortunately, there’s a thought in my mind, a very real one that’s more reality than a thought, swinging bright.

  “I love you,” I tell him again, and then I lean closer to him the rest of the way, clearing my mind and my body and reminding me of why I’ve done what I’ve done in the first place. I pull back from the kiss, savoring the taste and feel of him and smile. “Before we do all that, will you go grab the red box on the island? I want you to have your Christmas present early.”

  Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve. I was going to give it to him then anyway.

  “What?”

  “Just go get it. I think you’ll like it.”

  “We were going to do those tomorrow.”

  “Trust me. After today, this can’t wait.”

  It won’t seem like anything. A small red box used for dress shirts and it’ll feel empty. Wrapping the gift was most likely pretty lame, but I couldn’t just hand him an envelope. It’ll seem like nothing to him on the outside.

  I’m hoping that when he opens it, he’ll see it’s anything but.

  It’s everything.

  Hopefully.

  20

  Jude

  Katie’s been acting loopy ever since I showed up, but holy hell have I been nervous all day. When she didn’t come out of the office before my appointment was up, I waited as long as I could without it seeming obvious. But then her boss came out and sent me a look that had me fighting against sneering at the woman. The last thing I wanted was to make anything worse for Katie, so I took off, ordered an Uber and immediately started calling Katie.

  She never answered and then I started panicking. It took me hours to get a hold of Garrett due to his morning skate warm-up before their home game tonight and then it took even longer to get a hold of Lizzie since she was at work.

  The entire day had my chest squeezed tight and my stomach rolling. There was no good reason for Katie to have disappeared and start ignoring my calls. I don’t have skeletons in my closet I’m afraid of jumping out and I have no clue why her boss sent me that dirty look.

  But she’s safe. She’s home. And she loves me. The pressure in my chest releases like a valve has been pulled and I head toward her kitchen. Whiskers didn’t even attack me when I entered, something I was instinctively prepared for given her psychotic tendencies and when I reach the kitchen slash living area, I find the cat on the back of the couch. Her green eyes are on me as she licks her front paw and I swear she’s sharpening her claws with the way she’s watching me.

  I can almo
st hear the cat’s thoughts. You made my feeder cry. I shall end you in your sleep.

  I shiver and turn from Whiskers and find the package Katie told me to grab. It’s a red box, small and lighter than I expect. The thing feels almost empty, but a quick side shake tells me there’s something inside. Sounds like paper. It can’t be clothes based on the light weight.

  My curiosity is piqued. I give the box another shake or twelve while I make my way back to her bedroom where I find Katie hasn’t moved except to sit up and take her hair down from the ponytail she always wears it in to work. Soft waves fall over her chest hiding some of her best assets. She has that same sleepy, soft look in her eyes that she did when I woke her up, but at least now she’s alert.

  I hold up the box. “You sure you want me to open this now?”

  I have her gift at my apartment, wrapped in the gift bag it came in when I ordered it online. A Carolina Ice Kings sweatshirt so I never have to see her in another Chicago sweatshirt. I have a smaller gift for her too, a necklace with a solitaire diamond that will hopefully settle at the hollow of her throat. It’s a precursor to what will follow a different diamond in a different piece of jewelry as soon as I can figure out how to make that happen.

  “Yes. Absolutely.” She pats the bed next to her and I climb on in. As I move and settle with my legs up, back to her metal headboard, she scrambles to her knees and presses them against my thigh.

  “Are you nervous?” Her hands are clasped together and she keeps rubbing them.

  “No.” She shakes her head. “Not anymore.”

  My curiosity meter notches higher and I give the box another shake. “Feels like paper.”

  She laughs that beautiful soft sound I love so much and always have. “You’re not entirely wrong. Open it.”

  She nudges the box into my lap. I’m grinning like an idiot at her excitement. This has something to do with me telling her I want her with me, but I can’t fathom what that is that can fit into the box.