Indulgence (260 page)

“And you can stop channeling my mother. You are not going to
be the next Mrs. Doctor Rollings, okay?” He jerked his arm out of her grasp. A
montage of their years together ran through his head. The early weeks of
awkward flirtation…her thrill at being the girlfriend of the school’s soccer
star…the other girls who threw themselves at him and her smugness when he
rebuffed them…the moment they took the last step beyond heavy petting and the
hours since spent exploring each other’s bodies. While an extreme fantasy life
played out in his head, dreaming of different sorts of bodies under his hands,
of long lean torsos and rough faces against his. He sighed and turned back to
her, putting a hand to her cheek.

“You deserve better than me, Chris. I’m no good for you. Not
anymore. It’s not you, I swear it. It really is me. I’m not who you think I
am.”

“You’re exactly who I think you are, Parker. A passive
aggressive shithead.” She flounced past him and threw open the door. “All those
nights we laid in my bed and talked about our future. All the times we….” She
bit her lip, and Parker shut his eyes so he wouldn’t be tempted to take it all
back just for the sake of avoiding this very confrontation.

He hated this, despised disappointing people. He had loved
her, in his way. But his new goal shone like a bright beacon of hope—to
continue to play soccer away from his nagging parents and overbearing
girlfriend. He set his jaw, stayed quiet, and let her have her say.

“Never mind. Go. Play your stupid game on that stupid team.
I hate you and hope I never see you again.” The last spoken at decibels Parker
figured deafened dogs in a three-mile radius. His heart sank in his chest at
the sight of her familiar hair, face, body as she glared at him. His head
jerked back at her slap, but he took it, twice, before gripping her wrist.

“Enough. I’m sorry.” He kept his voice low, his temper under
tight control as always. His upbringing as the only child of strict, boring
Presbyterians whose biggest fear was “making a scene” truly left him no choice.
Even on the field he managed to be the one star player without a hot-headed
tendency to lose it in a fit of emotion. Talented, calm, and strong were three
adjectives always added to his name as a player.

He was a natural leader, coaches always said, but prone to
bouts of introspection—as if that were a bad thing. Never had a single red card
and only one yellow warning only because he had yelled at a ref to stop play on
behalf of an injured player on the opposite team.

His college sweetheart, the one and only sexual partner of
his entire life, despite spirited attempts on the part of many soccer player
groupies to change it, stared at him. “You’ll be sorry, Parker. You aren’t cut
out for that kind of life. Those pros, they’re gonna rip you to shreds.
You....” She threw up her hands and let a tear slip down her face. Parker stood
still, using all of his willpower not to fold her into his arms, to apologize,
and go back to the status quo.

Everything in him he truly believed part and parcel of
Parker “Doc” Rollings rebelled at this scene. But for the first time in his
life he felt compelled to resist what others expected of him—to reach out for
what he wanted.

Being a jerk did not come naturally. He felt like a class-A
one and hated it. He’d watched so many of his friends and teammates through the
years channel their aggression into asshole behavior against women, but he’d
managed to stay above the bullshit, content with Christie.

She turned and left without another word, as panic settled
deep in his gut. His family had temporarily disowned him for this bout of
rebellion, and he had just cut off his one remaining tie to the life he’d led
for the last four years—well, for his whole boring, planned-out destiny, he
supposed.

He caught sight of himself in the hall mirror. Tall, dark
blond hair and blue eyes, jaw rough from lack of attention these past couple of
days, he grimaced at himself.
Happy now, Doc? You just threw away everything
you know for this fucking game. Better get the hell up to Detroit and make the
best of it.

He squared his shoulders and walked out into a new reality.
The niggling doubt and worry about how he could channel his growing sexual
desire still remained. But he’d made his choice. Being a pro athlete left zero
room for alternative lifestyles, and he knew it.

He’d find another girl, likely marry, and have some kids;
being gay no longer was an option. In the meantime, this break had to be
complete, including the sexual one with Christie. He felt strong but weak at
the same time. Sure of himself, yet gut-churning terrified. All of which buoyed
him, and made him even more positive about his decision.

Rafe groaned and rolled over, throwing an arm over the swell
of Maureen’s stomach. “Jesus, woman, you are gonna kill me.”

“Complaining are we, stud muffin?” The beautiful, amazing
woman who’d changed his life forever stretched her long legs and sighed. “I
warned you, remember? In spite of my birth control shots, bam, I’m knocked up.
Your Latino swimmers are a very determined lot.”

“But my love, you are voracious.” Rafe propped up on an
elbow and ran his finger across her lips. “I mean, more than usual.”

“Yep. And it will only get worse.” She grinned and grabbed
his fingertip between her teeth, then gasped and sat straight up making a bolt
of panic hit his brain. He scrambled up beside her.

“What,
querida
, you okay? Shit, did I hurt you? You
kept telling me to go harder. Jesus.” He ran a hand through his hair and stared
at her, worry gnawing at his gut at the sight of her bright red face.

The smile she shot him as she grabbed his hand and put it
against the tight swell of her belly made him temporarily forget how to
breathe. The strange, fluttery movement under his palm alarmed him more than
anything he’d ever experienced. He jerked his hand away. His wife raised an
eyebrow at him, making him feel like a shithead.

“What, did you think I was kidding all this time? Just
gaining weight for the fun of it? That’s your kid in there, Inez. The one you
wanted.” He stared at her, then put his hand on her stomach again, mesmerized
by the activity under his palm. A tear dropped on his hand, surprising him.

“Oh, Maureen, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

She shook her head. “No, I know. I’m an emotional wreck and
that’s only gonna get worse too, lucky you. But I do love you, Rafe. This,” she
held his hand in place as they felt their child move inside her, “just proves
it.”

He leaned in to capture her delicious lips, felt his body
stirring to attention again in spite of the workout she’d given him last night
and this morning.

She moaned and rolled onto her back, pulling him on top of
her. “Now you get the idea,” she whispered as he parted her legs and slipped
inside her once more, body and soul sated by their connection.

*****

Fear stole into his psyche as he sat at the kitchen table,
nursing his second espresso.

“Morning.” Rafe shifted his attention to the young man who
wandered into the kitchen, yawning and rubbing his eyes. “Training today?”
Adam, half of a set of twins, lived at home for the summer between his freshman
and sophomore years at college, helping to coach at a local soccer camp. His
sister Ella had opted to intern at a public policy think tank in Washington
D.C., making her mother insane with worry.

“Yeah,” Adam regarded him a minute in that disconcerting
adult way he had. “Got your first team meeting today?”

“Uh-huh. You can’t come, so don’t ask.”

“Oh, man.” Adam slumped in his seat. “But I wanna meet….”

“You will eventually, but I’m not foisting the family on
these guys right off the bat.” Rafe put a glass of chocolate milk in front of
him. “Your top priority today is to guide twenty rowdy ten-year-olds into the
light of the beautiful game. Focus on that. Drink your milk.”

“Whatever.” Adam smiled and chugged a huge glass of the
stuff. “Hey, are those the uniforms? Can I see ’em?” He made a beeline for the
large brown container near the door.

“Sure, fine. But don’t….” The young man looked at him
expectantly. But Rafe couldn’t think of a single thing he could do to harm the
damn things. “Never mind. Have at it.” He kept sipping coffee, trying to quell
the uneasy jumpiness.

When his phone buzzed he sighed, noting Maureen’s brother’s
name on the screen. “Yeah.”

“Good luck today, Coach.”

“Thanks. I think. How the fuck did you talk me in to this
anyway?”

“Her name is Maureen. You married her, and if I’m not
mistaken, got her knocked up. That’s how.”

“Oh, right.” He put his cup down and decided to end the
conversation before he got even more uptight. Jack expected results, and Rafe
fully intended to deliver them. But his heart pounded a little too hard for his
taste at the moment, and he resented the pressure his brother-in-law put on
him. “Well, I need to….”

“Sara wants you guys to come over tomorrow night. Got some
kind of a celebration dinner planned. Kids welcome.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll let Maureen coordinate it. I really gotta….”

“I know. I know. I’m micro-managing. God knows I hear it
enough from the missus. It’s just …now that all the players and pieces of the
puzzle are in place and I can back off, I don’t want to.”

“Tell you what, do me a favor and check in over at the new
stadium today if you can. I know you love that shit, and I need to focus on the
room full of prima donnas I just hired to play for me—well for Metin, once he
shows up. But listen, Jack.” Rafe hesitated, unsure how to bring it up. “The
thing with Nicco. It’s a no-go. He’s not interested. I need him to focus, and
the team does not need the negative publicity. Can you tell the marketing
harpies to back off about it?”

“Sure thing. And for the record, I almost regret having you
step aside as coach, now that I see your rapport with those guys. Also, for the
same record, I agree with you about Nicco. The last thing we need is to be a
target for gay-bashing assholes.”

Rafe ran a hand through his hair, weighing how he should
respond but relieved Jack agreed with him about Nicco. “No, Jack, I am not a
coach at this level. I’m better off as his assistant. He’ll need a good cop
figure, because he will likely come in and start bashing heads. I’ll bet you
even money most of the old guard we have on the team will not want to listen to
him at first.”

He ended the call and sat gathering his thoughts. The
marketing department had set up a blog designed to look as if it wasn’t part of
their efforts. It had personal information, photos, and all sorts of crap about
every player. The whole thing made Rafe very uncomfortable but he bowed to the
promotional minds. If they were going to make an impact, break through all the
clutter of options people had for their discretionary income and get them to
buy tickets and attend matches, they had to be in the spotlight, even if they
manufactured it. They had to make romantic heroes out of all the players, and
of the team itself.

The project had cost millions, including their Black Jacks
stadium, which boasted a brew pub, two coffee shops, and several cocktail bars
along with the usual concessions. It also had enough wireless technology
embedded so no one would ever lose a signal, no matter how much bandwidth got
used. Each seat was encoded so when fans checked in on their social networks
they could show themselves via the cameras set into every possible angle with
the “Black Jack Check In App” available for all smart phones for free.

Rafe had spent hours designing the locker room to his
specifications along with state of the art training and workout facilities.
He’d already put up about two thirds of the team in the JW Marriot in a nearby
suburb. Where, thanks to one Nicolas Garza, he already had a huge bill for
damages to one room from red wine spills and god knows what else.

All in all, the fact that he still had no real coach yet and
had to lead this rag-tag group of men into their first season on his own made
him as nervous as a cat. The added bonus of having accidentally gotten his
forty-year-old wife pregnant only made it a thousand times worse.

As he drove he practiced his rah-rah-sis-boom-bah and his
hardcore take-no-bullshit speeches, trying them on and discarding them in equal
measure.
Fuck it. I’ll just tell them my plan and give them their phones,
room keys, and uniforms. They’re grown men. I don’t have to hand-hold them that
much, please God.

When he emerged from his SUV in the baking hot parking lot
of the soccer practice facility they currently shared with a bunch of kids and
parents until the official opening of the Black Jack stadium, he tugged his hat
down and pushed his Ray Bans up, hoping to escape recognition on the way in.

The sight of several high-priced convertibles and at least
two vintage Jags and a Corvette made him grin. Men, boys, there wasn’t much
difference especially among pro athletes. They worked hard and played harder,
spending their money on fast moving things that made a lot of noise, looked
nice, and made them feel important.

Rafe stopped, realizing he could be describing their
automobiles as well as their wives and girlfriends. Because along with every
pro sports team came the WAG contingent, trailing drama and distractions at
every turn. Thank God Nicco had agreed they should keep a lid on the “gay
athlete” thing. He’d said he would lay low and not draw attention to himself.

As long as Rafe kept the media focused on the team, and not
on the fact it boasted a player who, for all intents and purposes, had been
ruined overseas when his ex-wife claimed he “was as queer as a three-dollar
bill.” Squaring his shoulders, he walked in, staying under the radar until he
ducked into the conference room he’d reserved. He took a breath, closed the
shades from prying eyes, turned and faced his team.