Defending Hearts

by Rebecca Crowley

  “Oz, pleasure to play with you today.” Boise’s captain—an American in his late thirties who’d had a successful career in Europe—spoke enthusiastically as they shook hands. “I know there was some noise around you coming to Boise and I really appreciate that you gave us a chance. We’re trying to build a strong franchise out here and the last thing we want is for top-flight players to be put off by the hostility of a couple local idiots.”

  “It’s cool,” Oz assured him. “I wish you the best. The more clubs thrive, the better the competition across the league.”

  They parted and Oz joined his teammates in applauding the away fans, who leapt and screamed and waved red-and-navy scarves to celebrate the decisive victory.

  Oz forced a smile as he clapped, his shoulder blades drawing together inadvertently, the space between his eyes tightening. Something was bothering him, something heavy and ominous, compressing his lungs and balling his hands, but he couldn’t trace its source. He couldn’t shake it, either.

  Maybe it was the half-full stadium. The rows and rows of empty seats loomed over the pitch like thousands of hollow eye sockets, and the erratic concentration of spectators made the sound of the crowd echo and fade and swell in strange ways as he moved from one end to the other. He didn’t think he’d ever played for the viewing benefit of so few people in such a big space, even as a youth player for the Swedish national team.

  Or maybe it was the paranoia pervading so many elements of this trip. Kate’s presence at the airport, on the plane, in the hotel, and now in the tunnel was a constant, if not totally unpleasant, reminder that certain people didn’t want him in Boise. And although the welcoming hospitality from Amity’s staff and players was second to none, it was hard to ignore the black-suited security contractors always on the periphery.

  “If the people of Boise didn’t hate you before, they certainly do now.” Laurent Perrin, Skyline’s French central midfielder, slapped him on the back as they started toward the tunnel. “Your goal-line clearance cost them the one chance they had to get on the scoreboard. And it was epic, by the way.”

  “Thanks.” Oz cheered up as he recalled his flat-out sprint to catch the Amity striker who’d burst past Guedes and made a run for goal. Oz caught him on the goal-line and flicked the ball up and over the net. “That was pretty cool, huh?”

  “Super cool. But what else could we expect from the Wizard?”

  “That goal of yours was helpful, too, Lolo. We already had two on the board, but that’s when the Frenchman really excels, producing goals that are late in the match, against a weakened side, and ultimately superfluous.”

  Laurent rolled his eyes as Oz playfully mimicked comments made by a sports journalist earlier in the week. “A goal is a goal is a goal, non?”

  “Oui, my friend.” Oz clapped Laurent on the shoulder as they followed the rest of the team through the tunnel into the changing room.

  Oz dropped onto one of the wooden benches running along the walls. He began unlacing his boots as Roland arrived and took his place at one end of the room.

  “Nice result today, gentlemen. I know it wasn’t our toughest game of the season, but it was good to see everyone playing as if it was and supporting the younger guys in their opportunities to hit the pitch.” The manager nodded to the three young substitutes who’d come on in the second half, one of whom had just made his debut.

  “I know the bright lights of Boise are tempting,” he continued. “But we have an early flight home tomorrow and the bus will be leaving for the airport at nine o’clock sharp. Let’s think about sticking to the hotel for once, okay?”

  Most of the players were too tired to grumble, and the changing room echoed with cleats clunking to the floor and hangers retrieved from hooks. Oz stared at the toes of his boots, turning over Roland’s words in his mind.

  They’d had earlier flights out of wilder cities. Roland wasn’t worried about them partying and missing the bus. He wanted everyone to stay in the hotel where Peak Tactical’s contractors could keep an eye on them.

  An eye on him.

  A wave of weariness washed over him, dragging what was left of his energy with it as it receded. He didn’t have enough space in his brain to think about this now. He only cared about showering, changing, and getting back to the hotel.

  Laurent’s comedy singing in the shower perked him up slightly, and after they boarded the bus Rio twisted around in the seat in front of him, wearing his trademark grin. Oz returned it. It was so infectious he’d have to be dead not to.

  “Is nice, boys?” Rio asked.

  Oz frowned, trying to decipher Rio’s Spanglish. “What boys?”

  “Boys.” The Chilean tapped the window.

  “Oh, Boise.”

  “Boy-see,” the midfielder repeated. “Is good?”

  Oz shrugged. “Small.”

  “Is why the boss, he say, go in the hotel, no clubs?”

  “Probably,” he lied.

  “Is fine. All I will want is the big steak. You will come?”

  “To the hotel restaurant?”

  Rio nodded.

  Oz mustered a smile, knowing full well he’d be ordering room service. “Maybe.”

  * * * *

  Kate pressed her ear against the door before she knocked, alert for any sound that might indicate Oz wasn’t alone, any cosmic hint that she should turn around and walk away.

  Nothing.

  She rapped sharply before she lost her nerve.

  “Yeah?” His response was muffled, distracted.

  “It’s Kate.”

  “Hold on.”

  He opened the door looking uncharacteristically scruffy in a loose T-shirt and athletic shorts.

  “What?” he asked without preamble.

  She held up her palms. “I come in peace. I saw the rest of the team in the restaurant, and someone mentioned you decided to stay up here and eat by yourself. I wanted to make sure everything was all right.”

  “Everything’s fine.”

  “Great. I’ll leave you to it.”

  She turned to go back to her own room, genuinely pleased with the relatively low level of hostility in that exchange compared to every other time she’d spoken to Oz on this trip. Given their accord at her office she initially wondered if he was putting on a disgruntled spectacle for his manager’s benefit, but after his third tirade against bodyguards riding on the team bus she stopped caring. Her job was to keep him safe, not happy.

  “Where are you going?”

  She glanced over her shoulder at his question. Oz stood in the still-open doorway.

  “To my room, for an exciting evening of pizza and HBO. Why?”

  His mouth curved in a half-smile. “There’s no pizza on the menu. I checked.”

  “You’re kidding.” She had her heart set on pepperoni and mushrooms.

  “Five-star hotel, five-star menu.” He nodded into the room behind him. “We’ll order one pan-seared salmon and one chicken and waffles, and the squad nutritionist won’t know who ate what.”

  “She checks your room-service receipts?”

  “She’s tough. Is it a deal?”

  Kate exhaled. Even without pizza, the thought of a long, hot bath, an hour of television and an early bedtime was tempting.

  And lonely.

  “Sure.” She let him hold the door as she crossed into his room.

  His room was only slightly larger than hers and equally unmarred by personal items, except his Skyline-branded suit hanging in the open wardrobe and an unzipped sports bag on a chair. The TV was frozen on what she guessed was a video game, with the muzzle of a rifle aimed into a wintry landscape, shown from the shooter’s perspective.

  Oz gestured toward the screen. “An old version of Outlaw Brigade, set in the Eastern Front during World War II.”

  “This is your system?” She
indicated the tangle of wires and controllers on the floor.

  “I bring it with me when we travel. Sometimes I get post-match anxiety and insomnia. It helps me calm down.”

  She picked up the box for the game and scanned the bloody, violent images on the back. “You find this calming?”

  “It’s mindless. Distracting. Stupid, over-the-top death and destruction. Like a horror movie.”

  “I don’t like horror movies.” She put down the box and picked up the in-room phone. “Pan-seared salmon, you said?”

  He nodded, sat down on the floor with his back against the end of the bed and resumed playing. He muted the sound as he said over his shoulder, “Can you double-check there’s no pork in the chicken and waffles?”

  Kate spoke to the room-service operator and placed their order.

  “Twenty minutes,” she informed him, dropping onto the end of the bed. “Definitely no pork in the chicken.”

  “Thanks. I know it sounds paranoid, but pork always seems to find its way into Southern recipes.”

  “So tattoos and alcohol are fine, but pork is off-limits,” she mused aloud.

  “If I adhere to two of the Five Pillars in a week I consider it a victory.”

  “That certainly is a unique brand of Islam.”

  “No one gives Jewish people a hard time if they aren’t Orthodox, and I’ve met plenty of self-proclaimed bad Catholics. I prefer to think of myself as an imperfect Muslim.” He lifted a shoulder.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I met plenty of so-called Muslims in Saudi Arabia who were far worse than imperfect. What’s okay for them is most definitely not okay for their wives, you know? Like, being super devout is fine when it means your wife can’t drive or make any decisions, but if you want to stay out all night gambling and drinking illegal booze, no one better dare say anything about it.”

  He nodded, unmuting the screen. “Using religion as a tool of oppression is never acceptable, no matter what holy book it’s based on.”

  “Yeah. Exactly.” She bit her lower lip, mildly embarrassed that he could so easily and eloquently articulate what she struggled to get across.

  That’s what happens when you go to Harvard instead of scraping through a handful of distance-learning credits.

  The video-game soldier hiked up and down snow-covered hills, then wandered into an abandoned village. He peered into doorways, crouched behind burnt-out cars and then ducked behind a semi-destroyed brick wall as gunfire popped from around the corner. Oz’s soldier returned fire, manually reloading the rifle.

  She wrinkled her nose as red mist filled the air. Why anyone would pay to spend their free time playing games like this was beyond her.

  The frame froze and Oz twisted around to look at her.

  “Am I being an insensitive asshole?”

  She blinked. “What?”

  He tossed the controller on the floor. “I’m playing a shoot-’em-up war game with an actual war veteran in the room. Kate, I am so sorry.”

  “You’re fine.” She dismissed his concern with a wave. “I was in a transportation battalion—combat support, not combat.”

  “Still, you were there.”

  “The game doesn’t bother me. Honestly. I’d tell you if it did.”

  He looked at the screen, then back at her, and tapped the carpet beside him. “Sit with me. We’ll run a mission together. A non-gory one.”

  She joined him on the floor and lifted the spare controller while he scrolled through various screens. She tried her fingers on the unfamiliar buttons, squinting at the options.

  “Things have certainly moved on from Super Nintendo,” she remarked.

  “Hang onto it if you still have yours. Collectors will pay big money for those old systems.”

  “I’m sure my mom sold it years ago. It belonged to one of her boyfriends. He gave it to me and my sister, mostly to justify buying himself something better.”

  “Sounds like a great guy.”

  “On the plus side, he didn’t last long.”

  Oz leaned over and pointed to each button in turn. “These are for movement, so this is to crouch, this is to run, and this one jumps. These two are for your weapon—you can switch, or reload. The ones on the edges…”

  His words devolved into a fuzzy hum as every one of her senses homed in on the details of his proximity. The long, slim fingers brushing against hers as he indicated each button. The warm press of his hard triceps against her shoulder. The scent of eucalyptus, sharp and clean and bright and so intoxicating she could barely think.

  Tremendous pressure settled on her chest, threatening to collapse her lungs as she fought off overwhelming, alien impulses to touch him. To kiss him. To thread her fingers through his hair and close her lips around his tongue. She tried desperately to swim to the surface, kicking and thrashing at the base instincts clasping at her ankles.

  Had she ever been this desperate before? This helpless?

  Never. Not once.

  “Got it?”

  His voice was an unexpectedly cold shower from frozen pipes on a winter morning. She jolted back to herself, shaky and disoriented. “Ready,” she lied.

  He started the game, and their character-selves roamed the snowy Soviet landscape, apparently hunting an enemy sniper. Kate barely managed to keep her soldier moving, occasionally—and comically—transposing the buttons for running and shooting. Oz was enthusiastic nonetheless, making suggestions, letting her character open the door to a barn where they found a clue the sniper was nearby.

  “Nice one.” He elbowed her jovially, eyes on the screen. “We should check outside the barn. Maybe he only just left. I’ll cover you in case he fires.”

  “Great,” she muttered as her heart sank with an all-too-familiar revelation.

  They were just friends. She was one of the guys. Again.

  An unwelcome lump rose in her throat as she struggled to maneuver her character to exit the barn. She should be flattered, not on the verge of bawling like a weak, oversensitive baby. A professional athlete with thousands—tens of thousands, probably—of fans wanted to hang out with her. She was fun. Easygoing. Friendly. Like a sister. Isn’t that what countless numbers of would-be boyfriends had told her, year after year after year?

  At least she knew where she stood, and it was comfortable, familiar, easily navigable ground. No pressure. No stress. She could concentrate on being the friend Oz clearly wanted and shelve her silly, fantastical attraction without ever having to face it head-on, or worry about it diverting her focus from rediscovering herself as an independent, self-sufficient woman with no Army safety net beneath her.

  She risked nothing, would lose nothing. It was the best possible outcome, really.

  And the disappointment dragging down her shoulders—she’d get over it. Eventually.

  Their soldiers moved to the door. Oz’s crouched in readiness, weapon drawn. She fumbled to get her own rifle more or less in position, then sent her character forward into the wilderness.

  Her hand hovered over the button to shoot but suddenly the screen froze. The bare trees on the horizon became odd-looking stalks of pixels and she turned to Oz with a frown.

  “Is it broken?”

  He shook his head. “I paused it.”

  “Why? I was about to kick some sniper ass.”

  He turned to her with a concerned expression. “I think I should kiss you.”

  Her jaw practically hit her lap. After a second or two of stunned silence she managed to yank it back up, realign her teeth and force her mouth to form words.

  “What did you say?”

  “Spoiler alert.” He raised an apologetic hand. “There’s some pretty serious fighting up ahead and I don’t want either of us to be distracted.”

  “So you want to—”

  “Kiss you.” He smiled and, hot damn, he was delicious. “M
aybe I’m wrong, but I think we’re both wondering if it’s going to happen, when it will happen, should it happen… It’s drawing attention away from this mission, which is, frankly, pretty important to the eventual victory of the Allies over the German military forces.”

  “You want to kiss me,” she repeated dumbly, struggling to wade through the shock and disbelief muddying her mind.

  “It’s up to you. I’m just saying, there are ten million Soviet lives at stake.” He shrugged.

  “Okay,” some distant, detached part of her responded.

  And then it happened. He put two fingers beneath her chin, tilted her face toward his and pressed his lips against hers.

  She stiffened, her mind and heart vying for the fastest pace.

  She shouldn’t do this. Getting involved with anyone was the last thing she needed right now, not to mention a client—oh, shit, was this a violation of her terms of employment? Had she even signed terms of employment?

  Her boss wouldn’t care, surely. She saw Rich, his crew-cut, his oversized belt buckle, his habit of spinning a tobacco tin in his hands during meetings. Would he fire her? Not if her sales figures were good. That’s all he cared about. But if they slipped, she bet he wouldn’t hesitate to…Mentally she slapped herself. You’re making out with a guy you really like—the first time you’ve gotten any action in years. Stop thinking about your job. Stop thinking about the bigger picture. Enjoy the goddamn moment for once.

  She wrenched her awareness out of her brain and shoved it into her body, forcing herself to be present, to experience his touch.

  God, he tastes good.

  Peanut butter. Chocolate. Something else, something hot and sweet and exhilaratingly masculine.

  She found the back of his neck, the warm, soft skin, the brush of his hair against the edge of her finger. She raised her other hand to his shoulder, trailed her thumb along his collarbone. The pressure of his mouth was gentle but encouraging. Patient. Confident.

  Her breathing quickened as she parted her lips cautiously. Too soon? Too fast? She didn’t want him to think—