Qualified: A Sports Romance (17 page)

Allie deliberately stayed away from
the apartment complex the day after the fiasco at the club. She wanted to avoid
any chance of running into Marc. On a tip from Candace she went to a nearby
community college’s library to try to study her material for the MCATs, but
while she could run, she couldn’t get Marc out of her head. The margins of her
notes filled in with doodles as her eyes glazed and her thoughts wandered. She
was lost in daydreams where the feel of his mouth stole her breath and the
strength of his hands demanded her body.

When she gave up on her work for a while and
checked her phone, Allie found a series of messages from Violet.

Not a word?

How was last
night?

I hope you’re in bed with a wp boy

Allie puffed air out her cheeks and glanced around.
Like there was anyone to scold her for gossiping instead of doing her work.

No

At library. Studying

Boo

You did go out?

It was awful

???

Allie bit her lip as she stared at the tiny keys.
Where would she start?

Gimme a min, I’ll call?

K!

I’m at lunch

It didn’t take Allie long to shove all of her books
back into her bag so she could depart the library’s enforced quiet. Outside she
found a low retaining wall that passed beneath a palm tree’s shade where she
could sit. Dropping her bag by her feet, Allie folded a knee up onto the broad
lip of cement and tapped at her phone to dial her friend.

“Hey, California girl.”

“Hey, Violet.” Allie smiled into the phone, hoping
her friend could hear that through the tired drag of her voice.

“So what happened? I thought you were getting the
VIP treatment up in Hollywood.”

“Yeah,” Allie sighed. “It started great. The place
was amazing, Violet. And Blake had the whole top balcony reserved just for us.”

“Yeah?” Violet was a good enough friend to sound
more eager than jealous. “I told you that boy was worth getting to know. But
what went wrong? Did something happen with him? I’ll kill him.”

Allie smiled at how fast her friend turned from
rooting for the guy to contemplating murder. “Blake was actually … he was
fine. I mean, he’s totally a player.” She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms,
looking along the sunny pathway as a happy group of students walked by. “But it
wasn’t him. It was Marc.”

“That guy.” Allie could hear Violet huffing like a
bull seeing red. “So he is bad news, after all. What happened?”

“I was dancing with him.” More than dancing, but
Allie couldn’t bring herself to admit it, not even to Violet. “But then he got
into a fight with this girl Natalie.”

“His ex?”

“Yeah.” Allie paused, frowning. “You knew about
her?”

“Well, sure. I told you I dug up some things for
that PR event. But it was last decade when they dated. Even you have an ex,
Allie.”

“I guess.” Allie picked her nail at a crack in the
wall. “I feel so pathetically obsessed, Violet. I just lose my mind around him.
I almost went home with him last night and …” she whispered it into the
phone but couldn’t even finish.

“And … tore each other’s clothes off to do the
nasty?”

Allie scuffed out a weak laugh. “Something like
that.” She rubbed a palm over her face. “I can’t think when he’s around. I don’t
know what’s happened to me. I don’t even know him. I didn’t know about him and
Natalie, I still don’t understand why he wasn’t on the team four years ago.
Everyone seems to know he dropped out of college, but no one will say why.

“I didn’t know … I didn’t know he’d try to put
Blake through a wall. It frightens me.” Allie looked down into her lap where
her hand had fallen in a loose curl. Even that reminded her of Marc. How it
felt to touch him, to wrap his fingers, to take his pulse. “It frightens me that
I still can’t stop thinking about him.”

Violet was silent a long moment. “I don’t know what
to tell you, Allie. You’re a smart girl. Trust yourself. Don’t listen to what
anyone else says you should do.” Allie could hear a smile crack into her
friend’s voice. “Not even me. If you want to put on a nun’s habit and spend
every minute you’re not on the clock studying for the MCAT, instead of surfing
with shirtless California boys, then I’ll root for you doing that.”

That got Allie to laugh. “Thanks, Violet.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

“I think so. Adam’s sister Kelsey has been great,
you know,” Allie sought to reassure her friend. “And my bosses, Lindsey and
Everett, I trust them. It’ll be all right. I just need to …” Allie shook
out her hair and took a deep breath. “Focus on what is important.”

“You’ll figure it out. I believe in you. I’m on
your team. Go, Allie!”

Allie laughed again, needlessly ducking her
blushing face.

“All right, I’m going to go check out … I
mean, check
in
, this new group of cyclists. Have fun studying. I guess.”
Allie could hear her friend both rolling her eyes and grinning. “Call me if you
need anything.”

“I will. Have fun with the cyclists.”

“Oh, you know I will.”

Allie prayed that Marc wouldn’t be
the first one down the next morning, but of course she couldn’t be that lucky.

“Hey,” Marc greeted her as he climbed into the
front seat. He never rode in the front seat.

Allie clutched at the steering wheel like it was a
life preserver. “Hi.”

“Did you have a nice day off?” Somehow Marc made it
sound mildly accusatory.

Kelsey had told her that he’d come by while she was
at the library. “Yes,” Allie said and buttoned her lips together. She could see
the elevator doors opening and willed the other guys to hurry up and get to the
car already.

“I spent all day trying to figure out why I didn’t
make you leave without your purse.”

Allie was going to break.
All day
. The ache
was back, low in her belly. Her knuckles were white for how hard she held onto
the steering wheel. She stared through the windshield as Adam waved from the
parking lot, and forced herself to smile. “You think I do anything I don’t
want?” She was so proud of how flippant she sounded as she tossed his words
back at him. Her smile rested a little easier on her lips. “You can’t make me
do anything.”

“We’ll see about that.”

The growl of his voice as he smirked melted her.
Why had she glanced at him? It was all Allie could do not to climb into his lap
and link her hands behind his neck and kiss him like she couldn’t imagine
breathing any other way.

She reminded herself of what Kelsey had said at the
house party about Marc being a world class
player
, never mind the water
polo. He was running his game and she should be too smart to fall for it. He
was all kinds of wrong—a college dropout, violent, not a gentleman at all.
Still, Allie had to grope for something to say other than
do me now
.
“How’s your hand?”

Marc scuffed out a dry chuckle. “Fine. Everett
tossed me out of bed yesterday to have it looked at. He said it wasn’t Blake,
but I bet that fucker ratted on me. He has no sense of loyalty.”

Allie frowned, and maybe she didn’t think long
enough about it before saying: “I told him.”

“What?” The smirk was gone.

Ice trickled down Allie’s spine, dampening her more
dangerous impulses. Perhaps it was just a different kind of danger. She tried
to own it anyway, turning to meet Marc’s gaze more fully. “I told Everett about
the other night.”

“What?” The way Marc shifted in his chair rocked
the car on its shocks. “Why would you do that?”

Allie fought not to shrink under the revolted way
he dragged his gaze over her. She tossed her chin up to anchor her posture. “I
was worried about you,” she answered sensibly. “You’re a client under my care,
and it’s my job to make sure you’re in appropriate physical condition to do
your job.”

“A client.” It twisted ugly on Marc’s lips.

Allie couldn’t speak so she just nodded.

“When you said you wanted to fuck me, this isn’t
quite what I imagined,” Marc muttered low. “Well done, Allie.”

The door rolled open. “Hey, Allie.” Adam bounded
into the back, oblivious to how Marc was glowering in the front seat.
“Recovered after the other night?”

Allie painted on a smile. “Yep.” It took her a
second longer to drag her eyes from Marc. It was difficult to do. Like looking
away from a predator about to lunge. She aimed a strained sort of cheer into
the back seat as the other guys from the team piled in. “I’m ready for another
week of full-tilt training if you are.”

Once Allie put the car into gear,
Marc ignored her, and it was easy enough to avoid each other during his
practice. Allie was cloistered in the office with Lindsey, going over the
paperwork for the team’s upcoming travels to the qualifying tournament.

Allie wasn’t sure if Everett had told anyone that
she was involved with what had happened with Marc until Lindsey paused to look
at the clock. It was nearly time for Allie to collect the day’s post-exercise
data for Doctor Kaitech’s study, but the PT had never paid much notice to her
routine before. “I can stay with you if you like, when Marc comes in.”

Allie felt her cheeks coloring. She shook her head
and put on a smile. “I can handle it. But thank you.”

“Whatever you’re comfortable with.” Lindsey smiled
and patted her hand at the door frame on her way out. “You know where to find
me.”

Allie nodded. “Thank you, Lindsey.”

Marc must have run into the physical trainer while
walking from the pool. He was turning his head over his shoulder when he came
into the office. “Do we need a chaperone now?” he gestured after Lindsey.

Allie kept her posture stiff, standing with her
gloves already on. “I hope that won’t be necessary.”

“Maybe I’d like a chaperone.” Despite the
suggestion, Marc continued to drop his bag on the floor and his butt in the
chair. “No telling what you might say.”

That startled Allie into a speechless second. “Are
you suggesting I would make something up?”

“I don’t know what you’re capable of.”

“I could say the same thing about you.”

“Haven’t you run a full background check on me,
with your DNA samples?” Marc indicated the vial she was holding with a toss of
his chin.

“These aren’t samples of your DNA,” Allie replied
primly. She steeled herself for moving closer to him. It was like he had his
own gravity well, drawing her in with more and more strength the nearer she was.
Marc might be upset but she worried that touching him might still make her own
defenses crumble. She wielded the little brush and asked him to open his mouth,
trying to keep her distance as long as possible.

“Is there something to find?” Her genuine curiosity
leaked through her attempt at dispassion. It wasn’t really fair to ask him a
question and take away his ability to answer. But the scientific routine gave
Allie something to focus on other than her inevitable contact with him.

Marc didn’t respond even after she had drawn away.
Allie carried on without pause, holding her palm out for his wrist. It took him
a moment of staring at her before he decided to set his arm into her hold.

“You know,” Marc said with false conviviality.
“You’ve ruined your own study. I used to imagine all the things I was going to
do to you, while you stood over me taking my pulse. Now I’m just thinking about
how I want to leave.”

Sickly things crawled up Allie’s spine. She stared
at her clock but was having trouble reading the numbers. “You were always going
to leave.”

His mouth twitched. “You’re right.”

The days continued to brighten like
gorgeous spring blooms, but to Allie it was as if a cloud had descended. She
tried to tell herself that it was better this way. That this was what she
wanted, a distraction-free focus on her career. The two week point from the
team’s qualifying tournament was fast approaching, and that meant that the
endpoint for Doctor Kaitech’s study with Marc was near. His injury had somewhat
confounded the study, it was true, and he was still in the observation period
instead of being fully cleared. But thanks to Lindsey and Allie’s work, the
health factors were all well documented and Allie completed all the relevant
annotations for submitting the data into Doctor Kaitech’s sample sets.

Her road to med school was looking clearer every
day. So why did Allie feel so miserable?

Kelsey tried to get her to go out, promising they
would find places where they wouldn’t run into the boys from the team. Allie
begged off, claiming she had too much work to do going into the end of the
study and the upcoming departure of the team for the tournament. It wasn’t
really a lie. There
was
a lot of work, and Everett seemed happy to shift
more things onto her plate when Allie went to him after completing her daily
tasks for Lindsey.

Allie was working over the week’s schedules with
Everett when Marc’s endpoint appointment came up. The existing plan was for
Allie to drive the both of them up to the university. It would allow her to
also check in with Doctor Kaitech’s colleague and go over her work with the
data.

“Unfortunately that blockhead never got his
driver’s license reinstated after coming back to the States, so I can’t just
send him up on his own.” Everett puffed out an irritated sigh before slanting a
look towards her. “We’ll drop Marc in a taxi. That way you don’t have to be
locked into his schedule.”

Allie smiled, appreciating the easy way out the
team manager was giving her. She shook her head. “It’s fine. I’ll take him,”
she said with more confidence then she felt. “I’d like to see this project
through.”

“You’ll get the data either way,” Everett made
clear.

“I can do it,” Allie affirmed. “It’s the job I
signed up for.”

“All right.” Everett shifted through the prop of
his arms over the table, pulling the next order of business into view. “I’ll
lend you my car,” was his last comment on the matter. “It gets better gas
mileage then the team hauler, and that way we can get all the guys back from
practice while you’re gone for the day.”

They had barely spoken to each other
all week. Marc had been riding in the back of the big car ever since he found
out Allie had reported him to Everett. Lindsey was working with his injury
rehab, so Allie had little cause to see him and plenty of demands on her time
between her administrative functions and helping the rest of the team through
their standard recovery protocols. As the days went on Allie started to suspect
that Lindsey and Everett were also running some subtle interference to keep her
and Marc apart. That fact made her uncomfortable and she tried not to think
about it too much.

At least they had given her the opportunity to
complete this last task of the study. Marc wasn’t any more sociable on the
drive to his appointment than he had been all week. Since he declined to plug
his music into the stereo, Allie put on the playlist from her own phone. It
included some of the songs that the DJ had been playing in the club the other
night. When the one came on that they had danced to, she snuck a peek towards
her passenger to see if he noticed.

He was running his thumb over his knuckles, one
after the other, as he hung his forearm out the window and watched the world
speed by. Everett had left the top of the convertible down when he had given
her the keys and so the wind was ruffling through Marc’s hair. It made her
heart ache, how perfect he looked in his sunglasses as they drove north towards
the hills labeled with the Hollywood sign.

After she parked, Marc waited while she got her bag
out of the back seat and made sure the car’s top was clicked into place. Allie
fussed a hand over her braided hair and straightened her skirt. Given her
nerves over meeting the professor, she narrowly avoiding asking Marc how she
looked. The way she caught him watching her when she glanced over perhaps was
answer enough.

“You’re almost done with this.” Allie tried to keep
all emotion out of her voice as she climbed the medical center’s stairs beside
him.

Marc edged a brief glance at her and said nothing.

Allie led the way inside the building, deciphering
the directory that was as complex as any hospital’s, and got him checked in at
the correct department’s front desk. He started to walk away with the nurse
without saying a word to her.

Allie caught at his arm. The quickness with which
Marc snapped his attention back to her made her swallow thickly. She just had
to get through this afternoon, she reminded herself, trying not to remember how
she’d wrongly thought similar before. She forced on a smile. “Text me when
you’re done? I’ll do the same. I’m not sure which one of us is likely to be
through first, so let’s plan to meet in the lobby.”

“Yeah,” Marc said simply.

“Well …” Allie didn’t know why she was still
talking. What was she going to say?
Enjoy having your blood drawn?
She
finished with an awkward nod and backed away from him. She didn’t turn until
after he had disappeared through a door with the nurse.

First challenge done with. Puffing an exhale
through her cheeks, Allie fished in her bag for the map she’d printed out to
find her way to the professor’s office.

“I’m sorry, sir?” Allie reached her
hand forward on the desk to catch the professor’s attention. They’d been going
over the data she’d been formatting during the past months and talking about the
manuscript that he and Doctor Kaitech planned to publish. “You said I might be
in the acknowledgements?”

“Yes.” The professor barely let her question
sidetrack him. “So as you can see, with these two journals working with
different templates, we’re going to need to—”

“I’m sorry,” Allie interrupted again, offering an
apologetic smile. “It’s just that I thought I might be an author. An
acknowledgement is something else, isn’t it?” An impending sense of trepidation
started to peak her brows at the center of her forehead.

This got the professor to take a longer pull of
breath. He turned away from his computer to relax back in his chair and settle
a paternal smile on her. “That is correct, Ms. Hillsten, they are different.
Authorship denotes involvement in study design, data analysis, and manuscript
composition. It is uncustomary for laboratory technicians to appear on the
authors list, but Doctor Kaitech
is
recommending that we acknowledge
your contributions to this study. In the appropriate section.”

“Oh.” Allie sat back, her frown deepening. She
withdrew her hand, her fingers knitting together in her lap. “But,” she said
slowly, stopping the professor in his nod before he could shift back to his
computer. “I thought that I
was
helping Doctor Kaitech with the study
design, during our meetings in Colorado. And aren’t I helping with data
analysis and the manuscript?” She gestured to the screen the professor had open
with the data she’d brought on a flash drive.

The professor’s expression closed more sternly. He
slipped off his glasses. “Ms. Hillsten, I am sorry if you did not appropriately
comprehend this situation earlier. You have been working on a small piece of
this project, which is being overseen by four graduate students in multiple
laboratories. And that’s not including the instrumentation facilities that are
analyzing the samples sent in by our technicians.” Like her, he pointed at
Allie with an arm of his spectacles. “Do you believe that you’ve done more work
than all these people?”

“I—I don’t know,” Allie said weakly, shrinking into
her chair. She bit her lip, looking towards the computer screen because she
couldn’t meet the professor’s eyes any more. “I was hoping to be accepted into
a joint MD, PhD program.” The words came tumbling out from her numbing chest.
“I was hoping … I thought authoring … I’ve been working so hard.” Her
stomach was caving in from the weak pleading she turned to the professor.

The professor shook his head, replacing his glasses
on the bridge of his nose. “It hasn’t gone unnoticed, Ms. Hillsten, I assure
you. But if authorship were your goal, perhaps you would have been better
served by an internship in an academic lab rather than with a sports team. I am
sure you are learning lots of
practical
skills,” he made it sound dirty,
“but that does not justify your inclusion on a list of research authorship. Now
if we may move on …”

Allie hardly registered the rest of
the meeting. The sense of numbness spread. She was glad of that, she supposed.
Otherwise she may have risked embarrassing herself further in front of the
professor.

It was fine, she tried to tell herself. This was
normal. She had come so far from her small town, and made the most of every
opportunity she could grab, and she’d make the most of this one too. After all,
it wasn’t as if the professors sounded disappointed in her work. She was just
disappointed that it wasn’t everything that she thought it would be.

Clutching tight onto her bag’s strap as if it could
hold her together, she walked through the research hospital’s halls and back to
the elevator which would take her down to the lobby. She watched blindly as the
little circle of light tracked her movement from floor to floor. It was an
older building, and the jolt at the end swayed her.

Allie walked out across the shining tile, her gaze
forward to the doors, and for a minute she completely forgot that she wasn’t
there alone. She blinked when she saw him. Ruggedly gorgeous Marc, sitting in
his sunglasses in the streaming sunlight with a sandaled foot propped over his
knee. He was relaxed back into one of the lobby’s cushioned chairs like he was
perfectly confident; a king of his world.

And he was waiting for her.

It would be okay. Allie almost made herself believe
it. And then Marc turned his head to look at her, and he frowned. Like he’d
rather be anywhere else besides the same room as Allie.

It shattered her. Allie’s sobs broke loose from
every restraint she had thrown over herself and it was all she could do to cup
her hands in front of her face as tears flooded down her cheeks. She aimed for
the door and she ran.