Players to Lovers (4 Book Collection)

by Ketley Allison

  I cross my arms. Blow an errant strand of hair out of my face. “I panicked.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Woke up thinking I overslept.”

  “You have. Because I let you.” Locke loses his grin just a little bit. “You looked tired.”

  I lick my lips, processing, memory finally kicking into gear. “You slept beside me last night?”

  His grin all but vanishes. “You don’t remember?”

  “No. I do.” I comb a hand through my hair, then casually pull it out when it gets caught in the tangles. “Everything’s taking a minute. I was convinced Lily was—”

  “Left alone to cry in her crib until you came to get her?”

  The words would’ve been cutting, had Locke not gentled them. “Hi, nice to meet you, I’m Lachlan Hayes, Lily’s father, and I’m told I’m a great Plan B.”

  A stone of shame plunks to the bottom of my stomach. “Locke…I didn’t…”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  His flat gaze tells me to worry about it.

  “I should’ve figured you’d be with her,” I try.

  “You’re not at the top of your game. I get it.” But there’s still no liveliness to those eyes. “We’ll be in the main room when you’re ready. I’m sure Lily’d love to play with you a bit before she goes back down.”

  “I remember, Locke.” The hoarseness to my tone gives him pause. I hope. “Not just Lily, but you. I know everything that happened last night.”

  He shows me his profile. “Good for you.”

  Locke clicks the door shut.

  What the fuck just happened? I glance around the room as if it can give me answers. Maybe in a way, it can. Locke and I came in here after…everything…on the floor outside. He helped me out of my dress, and…oh.

  My fingers drifted to the spot on my neck that he kissed while pulling the fabric off me.

  But that’s where it ended. We didn’t go any further. I asked him to stop, and he did. We got into bed together, and when I asked him to put his arms around me, he did. And those lips came down on my neck again—gentle, sweet—before I drifted off.

  It was a perfect, beautiful moment, prefaced only by an extreme ecstasy that makes me shiver—just thinking about his tongue—all of which I ruined in one single, named scream.

  Lily.

  I still didn’t trust him with Lily. Never mind me.

  My reflection catches my eye, and I see the tired bruises in the hollows, the ghostly pallor coating my face. Since Paige died, I’ve been paler than usual, lighter in weight, emptier in a lot more places. But this is a new low of exhaustion, and I press my fingers to my cheeks and stretch the skin there, just to be sure.

  Yep, a skull looks back.

  Paige warned me that all the stress would catch up to me if I wasn’t careful. She said it while prone in a hospital bed, our second visit in a month, another round of chemo dripping through her veins, and instead of listening to her, I made it my fault. Turned it into guilt over Paige worrying about me when she had so much to fear already.

  My best friend being gone forever has me seeing our past a lot more clearly. Like how she could read every transmission of guilt across my face and what she must have felt because of it. About anyone attempting to dismiss their problems in front of Paige because hers were so much worse. How incomplete that must have made her feel because no one was trying to relate to her anymore.

  No, forget that—no one was confiding in her anymore. She was sick. Terminal. Suffering enough. So, other problems morphed into determination to fake it better so Paige could focus on what was more important. Her health. Her survival. Her fight to keep fighting, since anything less would mean she wasn’t trying to beat cancer hard enough.

  And somehow, that determination made me believe I should be less of a friend to her.

  Oh…the guilt. It was in treble now.

  Paige.

  Locke.

  Lily.

  What the fuck am I doing?

  Getting sexually involved with Lily’s father after specifically being warned off by his sister, and my promising to stay away. Not simply for Astor, but for me. My sanity. My everything.

  I whimper at the mirror. Here I am, standing in his T-shirt after a night of fooling around, and instead of having a happy time eating breakfast with him and Lily at the kitchen countertop, I’m hungover and brimming with mistakes—most of which were caused by my stupid mouth.

  The mouth Locke claimed for himself last night, sucked and bit and tongued into submission. I could probably still taste him if I tried.

  “Ugh!” I curl my lip in disgust at myself. Even now, I can’t get my thoughts in line with logic. Astor said last night that Locke and his friends thought mostly with their dicks. I wonder what the equivalent for girls is.

  Grimacing, I think I know the answer and turn away.

  To give myself something else to do other than wallow in my own limited self-worth, I rummage around the bed for my purse, which I’m sure I carried in here at some point, since it has my phone and, more importantly, blush. I must give myself more color before approaching Locke and pleading with him to like me again. Appealing to him as a husk of myself didn’t seem like the right approach.

  I spot the tattered strap of my small leather clutch peeking out from under the bed and bend down to get it. When I drag it out, it snags on something that rattles, and as the item rolls into my vision, my heart doesn’t plummet.

  It stops.

  I pick up the orange cylinder, the pills clicking against each other inside. Even though I’m pretty sure what the prescription will say, I read it anyway.

  * * *

  Lachlan R. Hayes

  HYDROCODONE / ACETAMINOPHEN, 7.5-750 MG

  Take one tablet by mouth

  Every 6 hours as needed for pain

  * * *

  I fall onto my haunches. Every part of my body goes slack, except for the hand holding the bottle. It’s stiff, tight, and if it weren’t for the plastic, I’d shatter it right here and now.

  Breathe.

  I’m nothing but a tornado of fear.

  I stand, holding the pill bottle, and make it to the door in a zombified state.

  I hear them before I see them, Lily blabbering something at Locke while in her high chair. He’s at the stove, cooking eggs.

  “Hey,” he says without turning around. He must hear the creak of the floorboards underneath my feet. “Take a seat.”

  I cut a glance to the small table where Lily also sits near, and notice the place settings, the bagels already toasted and sliced, a tub of cream cheese from the deli around the corner. He’s poured me a cup of coffee. It steams near the chocolate croissants he also bought.

  It’s the perfect breakfast I envisioned before I screwed it up. I ache at the sight because now it’s not me who’s the fucker.

  “Locke,” I scratch out.

  “Hold on.” Locke lifts the frying pan and flips the omelet. He can’t help it. He grins. “You think Lily likes mushroom omelets? Goat cheese? I’m gonna try.”

  “Locke.”

  It’s only a name, one syllable, but I’m tripping over the sound as it clogs in my throat. My hands are shaking—the one holding the pills—white with thinned skin and bone.

  Locke drops the pan back on the stove and turns, concern etched on his face. “What’s wrong?”

  Trembling, I lift my enclosed hand as an answer. His gaze shifts to it, pauses enough that I see his throat bob, then comes back to me. I move closer to Lily, putting a protective hand on her head. She thinks it’s a game and laughs as she tries to grab it.

  Her noises, her giggles, echo in the kitchen like a fire bell. The tinkles of laughter amplify the tension in the room, the stark innocence of it so loud between us.

  It makes my eyes well, and I angrily brush them away with the back of my wrist.

  “Well?” I croak.

  “Well, those must be left over from my surgery. Where’d you find them?”


  My shoulders sag. During my trek across the main room, a sweet, naïve voice inside kept assuring that Locke might not hedge. Maybe he’ll fess up to his addiction to pain killers, tell me about his fight to end it, and this is nothing but forgotten leftovers.

  Locke learned my body last night. Accessed the most precious place I possessed. Shouldn’t that mean I deserve honesty from him?

  Locke seems impatient with my silence, and he jerks forward to grab the pills from my now loose fist and reads it himself. “Yeah, see? The ‘scrip is from six months ago.” He gives it a good shake. “Looks like they’re all there.”

  His voice is friendly, explanatory, but his attention continues to flick in my direction, assessing the situation. And quickly figuring out that his excuses aren’t working. “Carter? Why don’t you say something already?”

  “Because I…” I rub my neck like it’s the reason I can’t speak. “Because your sister told me.”

  Locke’s eyes turn to slits. “Told you?”

  There’s no turning back now. “About your injury. The surgery. The…the need for more pills.”

  I don’t know how to put it. Screaming you’re an addict at him isn’t the right way to go. Not in front of Lily. I was fearful for her but didn’t want to be fearful to her.

  Yet, I have to make sure Locke understands the seriousness of this discovery. That at any moment, I have every right to pick up Lily, walk out, and go straight to child services.

  It’s that choice giving me a swaying sickness in my belly. The disappointment, fear, the terrible realization that Locke isn’t who he portrays himself to be, swirling into sewage. The rawness of it, the acid, burns my throat.

  “Fucking Astor,” he seethes, rubbing at his face. He opens his mouth—

  “You’ve been lying this whole time,” I say before he can start his excuses. “Forget about your personal battles. Everybody carries shit with them. But it’s the fact that you deliberately left it out of all our discussions this past week. You purposefully kept it from me, because you knew how I’d react, and God knows if you kept it from CPS.”

  He lifts a hand, his expression darkening. “Now, hang on—”

  I can’t contain the fury anymore. I unleash, “I left Lily alone with you!”

  Lily startles at my shout and starts to cry. My lips pull back in a grimace, tears sliding onto my teeth, and I lift her out of her seat. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry, honey. Carter’s mad.” I bury my face in her neck while I rock and soothe her.

  “At least let me explain,” he says, softer.

  “Such a cliché,” I spit. “Let me explain, says the man who sleeps around, the guy who keeps secrets, the idiot who’s too much of a coward to be honest in the first place.”

  This time, his arms splay out in surrender. “I’m not on any meds, Carter.”

  “Then what are those still doing here in the house?” I’m still bouncing Lily, glaring at him over Lily’s shoulder. Her cries aren’t helping, becoming louder, and I fumble for a piece of bagel for her to munch on. She quiets, her elbows bent against my breasts, crumbs dropping onto Locke’s tee. Her warm head is so close to my chin I can smell she’s freshly bathed, and the familiar scent is the only thing that’s keeping me from cracking in half.

  “Because I’ve wanted to take them.”

  Locke’s honesty freezes me mid-bounce. This time, I hold my stare against his. He swallows and continues. “You’re right. I haven’t been straight with you. But if you give me the opportunity, if you sit down with me, I’ll tell you everything.”

  “Now that you’ve been caught?” I fight off a sneer, but my hold tightens on my child.

  She’s not mine.

  He works his jaw. “I guess the time has come to be totally transparent.”

  “I’m pretty sure that time was when you were being approved by the court.”

  “I haven’t hidden anything from them.”

  I clench my teeth.

  “They’re aware of my history. And received statements, affidavits, from my friends, family, that I’m clean. The slight risk is requiring more home visits, but the government has approved my ability to be a dad.”

  His tone acquires a dryness at the end, and if it were any other discussion, I’d’ve sympathized with the law having to turn his life inside out to receive custody of his biological child, when other parents pop a baby out, and it’s theirs on sight.

  But this isn’t how we used to be, as brief as that was. This is a brutal revelation, one he didn’t keep from CPS, but one he did harbor…from me.

  “W—” I can’t even get out the question properly through the hurt. Why did you keep it from me? “I bet they don’t know about this Hail Mary you have laying around.”

  He closes his eyes on a sigh. “No. They don’t. I keep it in an empty bottle of antifreeze at the back of the kitchen sink.”

  I flip back to when I cleaned the apartment and the strange red bottle I found behind all the plumbing, and I almost release a hollow laugh. To think, how stupid I was for merely shrugging and putting the empty bottle back.

  I stiffen. “But the pills weren’t there. They were under your bed.”

  “They must’ve fallen from my nightstand. Sit,” he says before I summon enough breath for another accusation. “Please. I’ll be completely open with you. I promise.”

  The only factor that keeps me from storming out of here with Lily in my arms is the idea that I need as much information as I can gather before going to the proper authorities. So, I sit, but I am so far from sympathizing with him that it’s hard for me to reconcile the man on top of me last night with the felled football star I’m staring at now.

  And he’s fallen. There’s a gauntness to his face I’ve never noticed before, a sloping of his shoulders that this usually arrogant, cocky bastard never allows to slip.

  I set Lily at my feet, handing her a whisk and a plastic bowl for entertainment. “The instant she gets bored, I’m out of here. With her.”

  “Fine,” Locke says, but he’s looking at Lily with a gleaming sadness like he already knows he’s lost her.

  I lean back, arms folded. “Go ahead. Speak.”

  “It’s messed up that I still have those pills, I know. But it’s a comfort. To know, at any point, they were there. As a test.” He shakes his head, his hand, resting on the table, fisting. “And I know it’s messed up because I haven’t told anyone. Until now.”

  “The fact that you have them, Locke…it means you’ll use them. If not today, then some other—”

  “No. I haven’t touched them. And I’d never—fuck, it’s so hard to get across, but that’s all they were—a comfort. An easy out. A reminder of the fucked-up situation I landed myself in and how I should never go back.”

  “Do you go to meetings? Talk to someone?”

  “Yes.”

  I blink, the only break in my composure. So much. So many things go on with him that I don’t know, and the reasoning is trying to break through the hurt feelings. “I realize I came here with a lot more baggage than your regular girl. These issues, the battles you’ve gone through—you don’t have to tell anyone until you’re ready. But I’m different, Locke.” I put a hand to my chest, then point to the little girl between us. “I’m different because I came with her. And I deserved a lot more answers than what you gave me.”

  “I don’t consider you to be just any other girl.”

  “But you treated me like one.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Oh, no?” I gesture to the bottle of pills, placed innocently between us, but directly above Lily’s head. “These are things any mother would want to know when giving up their child to a stranger. And that’s what you were to me, Locke—some guy who slept with my friend and knocked her up. An aged college hero who had a brilliant career ahead of him until it was torn away. A dude who buried his issues in beer and women—and that was before the injury.”

  Locke rubs at his jaw and looks at the wall behind
my shoulder.

  “When I came here, that’s all I expected,” I continue. “But you changed all that. In a matter of a week, you turned everything I thought about you into a caricature. You were nothing like the reputation you crafted for yourself. You showed kindness, sweetness, a love for this child and the determination to sacrifice everything for her—to learn. You cleaned up your act for her. You weren’t afraid to look stupid and ask questions if it meant caring for her better. And that’s all I could ever ask for. What I see in you when you look at her, you can’t fake that kind of devotion.” My voice cracks. “Because I look at her in the exact same way.”

  At last, Locke pins me with his brilliant blue eyes. “I love Lily, Carter.”

  I watch the brightness go out when I say, “You betrayed all of that love with this single bottle.”

  He nods, but I’m not finished. “You betrayed me by keeping this to yourself. Especially after last night when you…when we…you saw all of me, Locke, because I let you in. I trusted you, but it turns out you don’t trust me.”

  “Can you blame me?” Locke looks up from the table, and I’m about to flay him for that response until he adds, “I didn’t know shit about you, Carter. All I was aware of when we first met was that you hated me, you were losing a baby that’s like a daughter to you because of me, and you judged me a prick the instant you saw me.”

  “That’s not fair—”

  “No?”

  “No! You had a half-naked chick tumbling out of the bedroom with you!”

  He guffaws. “So, I have sex. That doesn’t give you the right to—”

  “You didn’t even know her name.”

  His expression hardens. “That’s not true.”

  “Then what was it?”

  His muscles grind through his cheeks. “Candace.”

  “Tara,” I add, deadpan. “I asked.”

  Locke bangs his fist against the table. “Damn it.”

  “And you question why I assumed you were a loser player who didn’t deserve to touch Lily’s baby toe, never mind be granted sole custody of her.”