Holding Out for a Hero (11 page)

He pulled out of her grasp as realization sunk in. They’d won. She watched Cam being enthusiastically picked up by his teammates and she thought her heart was going to burst right out of her chest. She’d never seen him so happy and tears came to her eyes.

“We won?” she shouted to an approaching Jake, still amazed and unsure. Still waiting for someone to tell her the score was wrong. Nothing much had gone right in the last two years—it’d be par for the course.

He grinned. “We won.”

Ella felt the tears gain momentum as a heavy weight lifted from her chest. Maybe they could pull it off. “Thank you,” she mouthed to Jake as he was dragged into the maelstrom of seventeen jubilant, hyped-up teenagers. She saw him touch two fingers to his forehead in a small salute to her before he was swallowed in a mass of sweaty bodies, high on their achievement. Her earlier state of arousal roared to life as she watched him laughing and joking, basking in the celebration.

Rosie came up behind her and gave her a huge hug. “Cam was great.” She grinned. “Jake was great.”

“Yes.” Ella nodded, still watching Jake with the team.

Rosie nudged her friend’s shoulder. “You’re thinking about dirty footballer sex again, aren’t you?”

Ella blushed. “Absolutely not.” She waited a beat and then added, “How can you tell?”

“Are you kidding? After that brilliant performance? After watching him prowl up and down the line for eighty minutes? Hell, every woman here wants to jump his bones.”

Ella sucked in a breath.
Over my dead body.

Several hours later Rosie, Simon and Ella sat at one of Jake’s booths drinking, laughing and reliving the game. Something metallic and dreadful was playing on the jukebox but they didn’t care. The man of the moment was caught up at the bar, helping Pete out with the early rush, but he kept on sending over cocktails for the women and beer to Simon and the three of them kept downing them.

Ella was feeling a gentle buzz when Jake finally joined them carrying more cocktails. It anesthetized her to the surge in her pulse and the hum in her veins as he squashed in beside her, his thigh pressed against hers.

“Jake, we’ve been talking about the game and I was wondering—”

His chuckle cut her off and she blinked at him.

“Who’d have thought,” he said, grinning down at her, “Ella Lucas talking football for two whole hours.”

Ella shrugged. “I’m pretty tipsy.”

Jake laughed this time. She was looking up at him with bright eyes and pink cheeks, like the worries of the world had been lifted from her shoulders. He tried to remember if he’d ever seen her so … carefree. “Wondering what?”

“The origin of the term ‘dummy’.”

“Ah.” He nodded sagely, gathering the information from the recesses of his brain as he sucked on some Mexican nectar.

And then Ella picked the bright red cherry off the rim of her glass, held it between her thumb and forefinger and licked the creamy froth from its glazed skin and he completely lost his train of thought. Satisfied it was all gone, she sucked the cherry into her mouth with a moist, wet-sounding
phht
and her lips glistened with sticky glaze. Every ounce of blood he possessed rushed to his dick. Even when she looked at him, blinking cluelessly, waiting for him to respond and then frowning up at him in that impatient school teacher way she’d perfected, the blood refused to shift.

“Jake?”

He nodded, willing himself to speak. Nup. Blood still in pants. Not in brain.

“Jake!” She had this way of speaking that was like a bamboo cane cracking down hard on soft sensitive skin—a school principal dominatrix. That did it. That snapped him out of it. “Right.”

He flicked a look at Rosie, who raised an eyebrow and winked at him. He looked back to Ella. “Don’t know its historical origins I’m afraid, but I assume it came from the fact that you’re a bit of a dummy if you fall for the fake pass.”

“Or it could be referring to the fakeness, like store mannequins, also known as dummies,” Simon added.

“Hmm.” Ella frowned. “What’s the use of having a rugby league legend in your camp if they don’t know important stuff like this?”

Jake shook his head as the use of the word “legend” contributed to the major swelling action in his jeans. Even though he knew it hadn’t been her intention to stroke his ego, his dick had no pride. “That’s not important.”

Ella frowned again. “Says who?”

“Says the rugby league legend.”

“So what’s important?”

“Winning.”

Ella used the straw to swish the creamy content of her drink around the glass. “What about trying hard and doing your best?”

“All bullshit.”

Ella rolled her eyes. “You’re such a jock.”

Jake grinned at her, a smile that she felt all the way down to her toes and she tried to remember why she hated jocks so much.

 “Lucky for you I’m a jock who knows how to win.”

Ella turned to look at Rosie. “There’s that ego again.”

Rosie smiled. “It’s kind of cute.”

Ella shook her head. “Puppies are cute. Fluffy yellow ducklings are cute. Little naked babies in pot plants with flowers on their head are cute. Men with egos the size of Tasmania are not cute.”

They were just damn irresistible.

“Sure we are.” Jake chuckled. “Maybe you just need another drink.” He turned and gestured to Pete, holding up four fingers.

“Let me just—” she waved in the general direction of the ladies, “go and relieve my bladder of the first few.”

Jake scooted out of the booth, holding his breath as she brushed past him, thanking God he had the good sense to keep the lighting subdued. Hopefully with the temptation of her body out of reach he’d be able to coax some blood flow back to his brain.  

He sat back and tracked her progress. She was wearing one of those flowing skirts that moved with her body and almost brushed her ankles, elongating her shape. She disappeared through the ladies’ door and he turned back to find both Rosie and Simon watching him.

“What?” he asked warily.

“Nothing,” Rosie dismissed, waving her fingers in the air.

Jake wasn’t falling for that. “What?” he demanded again.

Rosie glanced at Simon, who gave her a barely perceptible shake of his head. “Are you two going to step this up?” she asked, ignoring Simon’s heavy sigh. “Or are we going to have to keep watching it in slow motion?”

Jake grinned. His groin was hoping for the fast forward version but there wasn’t enough beer in Mexico to make him think, even for a second, that Ella wouldn’t take her own damn sweet time. He looked at Rosie, so different from Ella and yet somehow so right for her too.

“What’s the story with you and Ella? She said you met in twelfth grade.”

Rosie nodded. She took a moment to respond. “I didn’t get it, you know. She looked perfectly … normal and yet she just didn’t fit into any of the cliques. I mean I was a carnie kid, I was used to being a loner misfit but she took the cake. She was pretty enough to hang with the cool girls but she didn’t. She was geeky enough to hang with the nerds, but she didn’t. She was poor enough to hang with the welfare kids but they didn’t want her either.”

Jake nodded. She’d always been a loner. He’d seen enough of her around Huntley to glean that. All the other girls had hung around in groups or at least pairs but wherever Ella had gone, she’d gone alone.

“I asked her about it at the end of my first week and she just shrugged and said something about the sins of the mother.”

“And yet you stuck?”

“Hell, yeah! If there’s a bigger misfit around than me, I’m in. And besides, she didn’t judge me, you know?”

Jake nodded. “Yeah.” He knew.

“Jake? Jake Prince? Is that you?”

Jake looked up to find a vaguely familiar guy about his age looking at him like a long lost brother. But then he was as used to male adoration as he was female. He plastered on his best public smile and stuck out his hand. “Hi.”

“Roger Hillman.” He shook hands vigorously with Jake. “From Huntley High. We were in the same grade.”

Jake smiled as he searched back through his memory banks.

“My sister Deidre had a major crush on you.”

Ah. Bingo! Roger Hillman, or Rog as he’d been called, had been a prize wanker, always keen to rub Jake’s lack of social standing in his face. But his sister, Deidre, on the other hand, hadn’t been so fussy. In fact he’d go as far to say she’d been downright accommodating that day she’d stripped her top off and let him touch her breasts. It had been the first time he’d ever been allowed that far by a girl and he could still remember the total awe. He’d been a boob man ever since. “Oh right, yes, great to see you again,” Jake lied.

“I’ve followed your career. Man, you were dynamite. Pity that piece of skirt ruined it there for you at the end though, hey?” Roger gave him a playful punch on the shoulder. “You had another couple of seasons in you, I reckon.”

Jake’s fake smile slipped as the ugliness of that time revisited and he pulled his hand out of the other man’s grasp. Rog was too stupid to notice the cool change. “Why don’t you go up to the bar and tell Pete your next one’s on me?”

“Yeah? Cool man. I heard you’d bought a pub. Like father, like son, hey?” Rog gave a belly laugh, clutching his chest with one hand and patting Jake on the shoulder with the other and then ambled off toward the bar.

Twenty years later and a kickass international football career behind him, he was still Mick Prince’s son. Jake turned bleak eyes back to his booth companions.

“What was that about?” Rosie asked.

“Ignore him, Jake,” Simon said. “The guy’s a loser.”

Rosie frowned, and asked again, “What was that about?”

Ella arrived back at the booth. “What was what about?”

Simon looked at Rosie as Ella slid in next to Jake. “I’ll tell you later,” he murmured.

“I think I have room for that drink now,” Ella said, her buzz making her oblivious to the awkward undercurrent.

“Of course.” Jake smiled at her, pleased to be banishing Roger Hillman and his small-town attitude to the wayside.

Pete appeared miraculously with their tray of drinks and Ella kissed his cheek as he set hers down. “You’re a bloody marvel, Pete.”

“I know.” He grinned.

“Where on earth did Jake find you? Did he free you from a lamp or something?”

Pete laughed. “Something like that.”

Ella squinted, trying to picture Pete in nothing but harem pants and exotic turban, but found herself substituting Jake instead. His bare chest bronzed and oiled. His biceps bulging as he crossed his arms and declared her wish was his command. Her wondering if asking for a repeat of his triple-treat counted as one wish or three.

She took a large swallow of her cocktail and pushed it aside.
Time to stop drinking
. “Weren’t our boys dynamite today?” she asked changing the subject.

Pete glanced at Jake. “Er … sure, yep. It was great to see them get up.”

Ella was not quite drunk enough to miss the hesitation or the sideways glance at Jake. She looked at the pair of them. “What? Am I missing something?”

Jake glanced at Pete. “No.”

Ella looked at Rosie. “They just did a thing, didn’t they?”

Rosie nodded. “Yep. There was a definite thing happening.”

 “A thing?” Jake asked.

“You did a look thing. He,” Ella pointed at Pete, “hesitated. What’s going on?”

Pete held up his hands, feigning ignorance. Ella narrowed her eyes. “Pete, aren’t genies supposed to tell the truth?”

“Er … I think that was the mirror on the wall.”

Ella turned her gaze on Jake. “Out with it. Don’t bullshit me.”

Jake sighed. “We had a good result today but that’s because we were lucky and the other team thought we’d be a walk over. They didn’t try in the last half. They thought they had it in the bag. They were sloppy. We won on the back of their mistakes.”

Ella turned to Pete, who nodded. Even Simon seemed to agree. She pulled her drink closer and took another hit. Rosie looked at her and shrugged.

“Does it matter?” Rosie asked.

Jake rolled his eyes. “Yes. It matters. It’s alright for now, for the first game, but it’s going to get tougher and if we want to win the comp we’re only going to win it if we’re the best. Don’t forget this is just the first step in a long road. If, by some miracle, we win the public school comp we still have the Schools Cup. Counting on the other team being lazy or choking is not a strategy. We didn’t win today. The other team lost.”

Rosie and Ella looked at each other. “But you were so good with them after,” Ella said. “So full of praise.”

Jake shrugged. “They deserved their moment in the sun, to feel ten feet tall and bulletproof for a couple of days. But Monday afternoon they’ll be coming right back down to earth.”

She reached her hand out and covered Jake’s. “Don’t be too hard on them,” she said. “They were so euphoric.”

Jake nodded. “It’s not going to win them the cup though.” He watched her as she chewed on her bottom lip and looked anxious all over again. He sighed. “Don’t worry, I’ll tread carefully, I promise. We’ll mainly be reviewing the tape with them so they can see their mistakes. It’s often easier to show than tell, isn’t it, Pete?”

“Absolutely. It’s an invaluable tool.”

Ella looked up at the skinny kid who didn’t even look old enough to drink let alone work in a pub. He sounded so old sometimes. “Or maybe we can just rub our genie and make a wish?” She gave Pete’s arm a rub.

Pete gave her a wicked grin. “Lower.”

Ella laughed at Pete’s non-threatening banter. “Pete,” Jake growled. “I think you’re needed at the bar.”

Pete winked at Ella. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

They watched him go. “I should sack him,” Jake mused. Pete had been giving him cheek and telling him how it was for the last seven years.

Rosie nodded. “We can take him home with us.”

“Just what your place needs,” Simon mused. “Another stray.”

“Plenty of room,” Rosie said.

“True,” Ella agreed. “And Cameron would probably appreciate another male around.”

“What’s Pete’s story?” Simon asked Jake.

Jake took a long pull of his beer. “Pete used to come and watch the Hero training sessions and home games religiously. He was a skinny thirteen-year-old with a quick wit and smart mouth. I was out late one night jogging along the river bank and I discovered he was sleeping under one of the bridges, doing it really tough. I kind of gave him a bit of a hand up. Haven’t been able to get rid of him since.”

Rosie beamed at him. “So, you collect strays too, huh?”

“Nah. Just Pete.”

“And Cerberus,” Ella chimed in.

“And the footy team,” Simon added for good measure.

“Of course.” Ella nodded. “A team full of strays.”

“No wonder Daisy and Iris like him so much,” Rosie added.

Jake watched them looking at him with a new appreciation. It seemed, suddenly, he was a regular caped crusader. It was a tag he really didn’t want. Mother Theresa he wasn’t. Roger Hillman’s crack earlier had brought his thoughts around to Trish. She knew better than anyone that his feet were most definitely made of clay. The night was turning into a real downer—first Rog and now this. All he needed was Tony Winchester to walk through the door. Not that the son of a bitch would dare.

“You’re actually a pretty decent guy, Jake, do you know that?” Ella said. Considering he’d been raised in a town that never let him forget he was the son of a drunk, it was amazing he had any humanity at all.

“No. I’m not.”

Had she not been several cocktails down, Ella may have recognized the warning blazing in his eyes. “Sure you are,” she insisted. “I think you’re very gallant.”