Defending Hearts

by Rebecca Crowley

  Oz’s tight jaw and thinned lips illustrated his unhappiness with her answer. She braced for another argument when a crash resonated from the kitchen. Oz was past her and racing down the stairs before she could say his name.

  She should chase after him, she thought, be ready to smooth over whatever catastrophe had occurred. She should shield the poor technician who was probably already on the receiving end of Oz’s misdirected anger. She should fix this situation. She should own it.

  Instead she drifted to the window and gazed over the front yard.

  Oz’s house was beautiful. His life was beautiful. He had more money than he needed, more space than he needed, more cars than any single man needed. He was a professional athlete, paid ridiculous sums to play a game, and not even a particularly popular game. According to his Instagram, he had friends, family, and plenty of time to take exotic vacations.

  Why was he so pissed off?

  Her vision focused on the mailbox at the end of the lush lawn. He’d clearly made an effort to remove the graffiti—a desperate effort, leaving rough scrape marks from what she guessed was steel wool. It hadn’t worked. Though some of the interior of each stroke had disappeared, the outline of the swastika was unmistakable.

  She imagined Oz bent over the mailbox in the evening twilight, scrubbing futilely at the awful symbol while his neighbors slowed their cars as they drove past. Despite everything, her heart tugged.

  She jogged down the stairs, grateful for the website which had informed her Oz was five-foot-eleven—only three inches taller than her—and as such gave her permission to never, ever wear heels in his company. She found the left-back by the sink, examining a superhero-printed coffee mug.

  Bryce, the youngest of the workmen, raised his hands to her in innocence. “It fell into the sink and made a racket but it’s not broken, I swear.”

  She winked at the nineteen-year-old, then spoke in a commanding tone. “How about you quit throwing this man’s possessions around and do something useful. There should be some solvent and scrub brushes in the truck, go outside and fix that mailbox.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Kate watched Bryce scurry out of the room, and when she looked back, Oz’s gaze was on her. His expression had changed very slightly—softened, warmed. She dared a fleeting a smile, but got nothing in return.

  Maybe she was seeing things.

  “I thought of something,” he said, his tone unreadable. “There’s one more room I spend a lot of time in, where it might be hard to hear the alarm or get to a panel quickly.”

  “Which one?”

  “The gym. In the basement.”

  “That’s no problem,” she assured him. “We’ll put a fifth panel down there.”

  He shook his head. “Impossible. The walls are all mirrored.”

  She smiled around gritted teeth. “Let’s have a look and see what we can work out.”

  Had she ever wanted to punch someone as bad as she wanted to punch Oz Terim in that moment? Not enough to remember.

  Chapter 3

  “I had a really nice time tonight, Oz.”

  “Me too.”

  “Let’s do this again soon.”

  He hesitated. He didn’t want to mislead her, but the curb in front of her waiting taxi wasn’t exactly the best place to deliver the let’s-just-be-friends speech, either.

  Thankfully she had more to say. “Or we could keep going, right now. Do you want to come back to my apartment, meet my dog? She’ll love you, I promise.”

  He exhaled in relief. She opened the door. He only had to walk through it.

  “I don’t think so,” he said as gently as he could. “I’m not sure this is going anywhere romantically, but I had a lot of fun. Maybe you should come to my box for a Skyline match. Bring some friends, meet my friends, and we can all hang out. What do you think?”

  Disappointment shimmered in her eyes, but to her credit she kept her chin up and her smile seemed genuine. “Actually, that would be great. Thanks for being honest.”

  “Pick a match and it’ll happen.” He opened the taxi door. “And let me know you got home safely.”

  “I will.” She hugged him, briefly but warmly, then slid into the backseat and pulled the door shut behind her.

  He waved as the car pulled off into the sparse, Thursday-night traffic. As soon as it was out of sight he spun back toward the restaurant and wiped his hand over his eyes.

  What was going on with him lately? This was the third date in as many weeks that was perfect on paper and even better in person, yet he had zero inclination to take any of them further. Jamie was intelligent, hilarious, a medical student at Emory who’d spent two years after college working for an AIDS-prevention charity in Uganda. She was gorgeous, said all the right things, even had a minor interest in soccer. She would absolutely fit into his long-established plan for his post-soccer future—essential criteria for even considering a second date. There was no good reason he shouldn’t want to see her again.

  But the thought of another getting-to-know-you dinner with her filled him with dread.

  He unlocked his phone and swiped to a taxi-hailing app. His thumb hovered over the Request Car button, then he closed the app and looked up. He wasn’t ready to go home yet.

  A neon sign flickered in the window of a rundown, fake-Irish pub three storefronts from the restaurant. Normally he hated dives—the stale-beer smell, the scarred tables, the sing-along-friendly soundtrack of cheesy pop hits—but after his pitch-perfect date he craved a little grime. He shoved his hands into his pockets and walked over.

  The interior was slightly less shabby than he expected, and his sneakers barely stuck to the floor as he made his way to the bar. Only a few other people filled the large space. A couple in a booth, two men in work attire at a high table, and another couple playing pool at the far end of the room.

  “Evening.” The short, curvy, redheaded bartender was exactly his type. More so when she smiled. “What can I get you?”

  He paused, taking stock of his physical response. Any hint of attraction? Anywhere? Even a twinge?

  Nothing.

  “Whiskey. Neat,” he replied glumly.

  She arched a brow, pivoting so he could see the rows of bottles behind her. “Which label?”

  He peered past her, pointed to one on the top shelf. “Actually, make it a double.”

  She poured the drink and slid it over. “Rough night?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Should’ve swiped left.”

  He shrugged. “Not her fault.”

  “No?” She crossed her arms and leaned against the shelf at her back. “I’d swipe right.”

  He sighed inwardly. Another beautiful, available, interested woman he couldn’t be less excited about. Was this some cosmic joke? Tomorrow he’d probably fall in love with someone who hated him.

  “Hey, can I get another—Oz, hi.”

  He turned at the sound of his name, and then his night got even worse.

  “Kate. Hello.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t see you. Have you been here long?” She flicked her gaze to the bartender, pointing to her empty pint glass.

  “Just arrived.”

  “He had a bad date,” the bartender quipped, passing Kate a fresh beer.

  She looked at him expectantly. He closed his eyes for a second, hoping that when he opened them this might all have been a bad dream.

  Kate came back into focus. No, still awake.

  “It wasn’t that bad.”

  “Bad enough for a double whiskey,” the bartender added. Belatedly he realized the two women knew each other.

  “Really,” Kate mused. “But I thought—”

  “Alcohol is haram, I know.” He rolled his eyes. “I think we’ve established I’m not the poster boy for devout Islam.”

  “I
thought professional athletes didn’t drink during the season,” she corrected.

  Irritation tightened his jaw. As if she knew anything about his grueling training schedule, the aches and pains and recovery periods, trying to ignore social-media onslaughts from angry fans after a loss while trying to focus and harden for the next match.

  “Call my manager if you want to make a complaint,” he retorted icily. “He’ll make sure you get your season ticket refunded.”

  “Whoa, don’t take your bad date out on me. I was merely going to suggest a way to work it off.” She raised her palms in innocence, her smile mischievous as she nodded to the pool table. “I seem to recall you had one of these in your study. Can I tempt you?”

  Without a second’s hesitation he stood and swept up his glass, briskly nodding for her to follow. “Let’s go.”

  Minutes later, as Kate finished racking the balls, he realized how expertly she’d defused him. Even stronger than his tendency toward self-righteous indignation—not his best trait, he’d be the first to admit—was his competitiveness.

  He watched her with a mix of admiration and suspicion. How did she know?

  She selected her cue. “I’ll let you break since you’re having a bad night.”

  He shook his head. “Ladies first.”

  “If you insist.” She leaned over and shot, expertly sending two solid balls into pockets. She sank another one before missing her third shot and finally giving him a turn.

  “I gather you’ve played before,” he remarked dryly, then lined up his cue and sank his first ball.

  “Lots of downtime on deployments. Not much else to do in the desert.”

  He sank one, missed one. “You mentioned. Iraq and Afghanistan. Army, right?”

  “Combat support services, in a transportation battalion. Not the most action-packed job on the ground but not bad for female enlisted.” Crack, another solid into a pocket.

  “And then Saudi Arabia.”

  She missed. “And then Saudi Arabia.”

  “What was that like?” He squinted, lining up his shot.

  “Hell.”

  He missed, put off by her frank response, but too interested to care. “Really? Why?”

  She considered the layout on the table before positioning her cue. “The money was amazing, but everything else was awful. I did personal security for the wife of an American oil executive. The company had a chemical plant in the middle of nowhere, and all the Americans and their families lived in a compound outside the local town. The houses were big, there was a pool, a community center, a school—sounds great, right? It wasn’t.”

  She missed. He picked an angle. “Why not?”

  “The whole place was creepy.” He caught her shiver of distaste in the second before he pocketed a ball. “Everyone knew everyone’s business. Half of the husbands were sleeping with the other half’s wives. I spent all my time with this one woman, who was either too smart to say anything about her husband’s blatant cheating or too dumb to notice. Women aren’t allowed to drive there so we were restricted to the compound, and if we left we had to wear hijab.”

  She raised her cue to take her turn. “After serving in the Middle East I thought the Sharia stuff wouldn’t bother me, but living like that all the time is a whole other kind of crazy. I don’t know how the women in these Muslim countries—” She stopped, looking up guiltily as she missed her shot. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like—”

  “It’s fine,” he said mildly, lining up his cue. “There are over a billion Muslims in the world. We’re not all the same.”

  “I know, I didn’t mean to suggest—”

  “I have as much in common with a Saudi Arabian Muslim as you do with a Nigerian Christian.” He sank a ball. “If you are Christian, that is.”

  “Only by default. I haven’t been to church in about fifteen years.”

  He sent his fifth ball into a pocket. “My point is, sharing a basic religious categorization with someone doesn’t make me empathetic to their way of life. I’ve never been to Saudi Arabia, but I can’t imagine anywhere with state-sanctioned beheadings is a particularly nice place to live.”

  “It’s not. What’s Sweden like?”

  He missed, moved aside for her turn. “It’s amazing. Beautiful, safe, good mix of historic and modern. I’m from Gothenburg, which is a university town, so there’s always something going on. Sweden’s expensive, though.”

  “And cold?” She pocketed a ball, moved to aim for another.

  “I grew up with the weather so I don’t feel it, but it’s cold compared to Atlanta.”

  She missed, straightened. “I grew up in Jasper, about fifty miles north of the city. I can’t remember the last time I saw snow. A Swedish winter would probably kill me.”

  “You’d be fine. Couple pints of Falcon, hot plate of reindeer meat and you won’t even notice the weather.”

  “I would be so up for eating reindeer meat.” She grinned at him across the table as he took his shot, sinking another ball. She had a pretty smile, and it lit up her face in a way its forced, professional equivalent didn’t.

  He gave her a quick onceover before focusing on his last ball. She was too tall for him, too likely to match his height in heels. He liked soft and curvy—she was flat and lean. He dated only super-smart, super-successful women, and he doubted Kate had a college degree.

  So why did bright white heat pulse deep within his rib cage every time he looked at her?

  He sank his final ball, took aim to hit the eight, then changed his mind.

  “Have you ever been to a Skyline match?”

  She shook her head, then nodded toward the table. “Your turn.”

  “I know.” He propped the cue on the floor. “We’re playing Tucson on Saturday. Want to come?”

  “Me? Why?” Surprise brightened her eyes and warmed her expression before she resettled into her typically cool composure. “I mean, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” he replied smoothly, enjoying her momentary bewilderment. “I’ll courier the tickets to your office tomorrow.”

  “Tickets?” she echoed, emphasizing the plural.

  “Bring a friend.”

  Then he angled his cue on the green felt and leaned down, ending the conversation. He looked at the eight ball, squinted at the distance beyond it, but in his mind he saw Kate, eyes crinkled in laughter and then wide with shock.

  He didn’t like her. He couldn’t like her. There was nothing about her to like.

  Except her laugh. And her smile. And her refusal to take him seriously. And her honesty. And her endearing curiosity about his home country. And, and, and.

  And she was being paid to be nice to him, to sweeten him up, to open the door for her employer to provide exclusive security services to Atlanta Skyline.

  He would do well to remember that.

  He drew his arm back and snapped his shot. The eight ball spun, rolled, and dropped into a corner pocket with a satisfying thunk.

  He stood, met her gaze. Didn’t smile.

  “I win.”

  Chapter 4

  “How does this work?” Kate glanced between her ticket and the map showing the various entrances to King Stadium, home of Atlanta Skyline. “This has north, south, east, and west, but our tickets say EB 44. Is that east?”

  “No idea. Let’s ask.” Jared indicated a customer-services desk beside the box office. They walked that way together, and she hustled to keep up with her colleague’s long stride.

  “We’re lost,” she told the woman behind the Plexiglas screen. “Can you tell us how to get to these seats?”

  The woman examined the tickets, then broke into a smile. “You’re in an Executive Box. You can use the VIP entrance by the south gate. Enjoy the match.”

  “Wow, VIP,” Jared remarked as they made their way to the gate. “You sure
do set the first-date bar high, Mitchell.”

  “Funny,” she replied, deadpan. She hadn’t made too many friends in the few months since she’d moved to Atlanta, so she’d asked one of the Area Managers from Peak Tactical to join her for the Saturday-afternoon match. Jared was a former security guard who’d been promoted into an operations-management role, and he was one of the few men in the company who’d been friendly to her from day one. They were of a similar age, but it hadn’t occurred to her that he would read some romantic intent into her invitation.

  Now his flirtation got heavier by the hour. She was embarrassed by her utter failure to see this coming and unsure why it was such a turnoff. He was funny, reasonably attractive, a big muscly country boy who should’ve been right up her alley.

  But she kept thinking about that arrogant, uptight, Swedish-Turkish-Muslim nerd who’d beaten her at pool.

  No one beat her at pool. She’d never imagined losing could be so sexy.

  “Sweet, check this out.” Jared recaptured her attention as they took an elevator up to the VIP tier. They walked through the hushed, carpeted hall until they found a door labeled forty-four. A printed sign hung beneath the number: Reserved—Özkan Terim.

  “What did you say this guy’s name was?” Jared squinted at the sheet.

  “I think his full name is pronounced Erz-kan, but everyone calls him Oz.”

  “If you say so.” He pushed open the door and she followed him inside.

  “My God, this is…uh, hi.” Kate processed only a glimpse of the plush suite—mini fridge full of drinks, several bottles chilling in a bucket, hot and cold buffet lined up on a ledge against the back wall—before her gaze came to rest on the three men lounging in front of the sliding door that overlooked the pitch.

  “Hi,” one of them replied, rising and extending his hand. “I’m Glynn.”