Qualified: A Sports Romance (2 page)

On Saturday Allie checked out the
keys for one of the vans and headed for the airport to pick up her subject.
Last autumn she’d been assigned more shifts in the transport pool, but with
Tracey gone she would be working in the clinic tomorrow to do check-ins when
the majority of the athletes arrived for their camp. Today it was only Marc
Belmont flying in from New York, since Doctor Kaitech requested that study
subjects come to the training center earlier than their teammates.
Theoretically it would reduce the effects of traveling on the athlete’s
baseline measurements which they would take the next day.

Allie found a space for the big van in the
airport’s short-term parking and grabbed the laminated sign that Violet had
made. She hustled through the frigid air and dove through the doors to baggage
claim. Since she was early she picked out a spot beneath the big flight
arrivals board where she could watch the eclectic stream of people making their
way out to the overcast winter’s day. It didn’t do enough to distract her from
the anxious flutter of her heart.

All that keen-edged waiting, and it was nothing to
the flop of Allie’s stomach when she spotted a head of black hair above the
crowd and the tell-tale red piping of the team jacket from the picture in her
file. It looked like Marc had found a comb since then, and today his collar was
zipped up tight to his throat. He was watching the carousel, his winter parka
stuffed into the bungee cording of a large backpack leaned against his leg
while he stood primed to grab a duffle bag as it came around the track.

She was staring. Allie was only vaguely aware of
the fact, mesmerized as she was by the shift of muscle powerful enough to be
seen through thick layers of fabric when he tilted to heft his bags. This was
her chance to get the experience she needed to make her dreams come true.
Opportunity coming towards her in the shape of broad shoulders, towering height
and perfectly dark, dark eyes.

Her jaw was a little slack. It must have happened
when she tipped her chin up to keep hold of Marc’s gaze as he walked up to her.
Allie felt a sudden longing for Violet’s high heels instead of her own
seemingly sensible winter boots. She was still staring.

“Hi.” She shut her teeth around a swallow and then
forced her mouth into a lame smile.

Marc didn’t smile back. Not really. Something
shifted along the shadow-stubbled square of his jaw. His eyes were steady. His
attention was riveted on her. “Hey.”

One of her hands lifted and Allie didn’t catch
herself before her fingers began to fidget girlishly with the end of her braid.
“Marc?” She sounded like an idiot. It only got worse when she dropped her eyes
to the sign she was still holding in her right fist. As if she needed to double
check his name. Marc Belmont. Where had her brain gone? She squeezed her eyes
shut and told herself to take a deep breath.

“Yeah.” There was a gravity in the depth of his
voice that demanded the return of her gaze.

Allie forced her eyes to skim lower while she
stuffed the sign away into her purse. Like everything would be fine as long as
she could avoid the intensity of his eyes. Instead she studied the thick of his
wrist as Marc adjusted his hold on his bag’s shoulder strap.

He re-balanced it so he could shoot a look back towards
the terminal. “We waiting on anyone else?”

“Nope.” Allie looked up and again fell into his
gaze. “I’ve just been waiting for you.” Could she sound more idiotic?

His eyebrows stretched fractionally upward. “Then
let’s go.”

“Yeah.” Allie fluttered a blink. “Yeah.” She shook
sense into her head and started to turn.

“Oh …” Allie jerked back around towards him so
fast Marc almost trod on her heels. “Uhm. I’m …” She painted on a smile.
“Hi. I’m Allie.” She was like an extraterrestrial going through an unknown
greeting ritual. There wasn’t even enough room between them for the hand she
held out to shake. Allie turned it into an awkward gesture towards his bags
instead. “Can I get one of those for you?”

Given the sideways look Marc was giving her, he
might believe she was an alien. “Sure.”

Allie wasn’t expecting him to toss her the big
duffle. She stumbled when he swung it into her arms.

“You got that?” Marc watched her at a lazy sideways
slant while he used his freed hand to tug his parka from the front of his
backpack. He put it on before he shrugged into the bag’s straps.

“Uhm.” Allie puffed a loosened strand of hair out
of her eyes and adjusted her hug of the duffle. She tried to ignore how her
purse had slid down to the crook of her elbow. “I think … I just need to …”
Find the strap. There it was. She got it awkwardly up over one shoulder and
then inched her purse back onto the other. “Ready,” she concluded with a grin.

It was a cold walk out to the van, the weight of
the bag increasing Allie’s struggle as she tried to keep pace with Marc’s long
stride. Her attempted conversation wasn’t any more successful.

“Did you have a good New Year’s?”

“Yeah.”

“How was your flight?”

“Fine.”

Fine
. Allie bit her lip and focused on her
fight with the bag’s strap so she didn’t lose all bloodflow to her arm.

At least it was easy to find where she had parked.
The navy hulk of the transport van loomed above the other cars in the row.
Allie fished the keys from her pocket and unlocked the doors before going
around to the back. Once Marc’s duffle was chucked in, she took a moment to
stretch out her shoulder and plume a long breath out into the steely sky.

Allie needed to get ahold of herself. Since the
start of last autumn, she had been submerged in a constant stream of fit bodies
and justified confidence. Now was no time to start feeling lightheaded around
one of the gold medal hopefuls. Maybe she had spent too much time with Marc’s
file in the last week. It was the clinical study that was important to her, she
reminded herself, not him. Surely he was no different from any other athlete,
and Allie’s plans didn’t involve time wasted on players.

Resolved to be more sensible, Allie slammed the
back of the van shut and went around the front to climb into the driver’s seat.
She noticed that Marc had fitted earbuds into his ears. She waved her hand to
get his attention and pointed towards the stereo. “There’s a cord, if you
wanted to plug into the speakers,” she offered.

Marc shook his head and relaxed back into his chair
with his arms crossed. “This is fine.”

“Fine.” Allie stabbed the key at the ignition.
Apparently he was an asshole. Good. It was better that way. She could look
forward to poking him with needles.

The van coughed to a start. Allie hadn’t finished
taking it out of reverse to start the drive back to the training center when
her phone blinked to life. Its accompanying buzz reverberated through the
dash’s plastic from where she’d dropped it into the front cup holder. She
glanced at the screen in case the message was urgent:

Lycra. Balls.

Get it, girl

She was going to kill Violet.

It seemed to take half the drive for
the color to cool from her cheeks. Allie had refused to look towards Marc after
stuffing her traitorous phone into purse-contained banishment. She mostly
managed to convince herself that he was too self-absorbed to notice. It still
made for a miserable trip back to the training center. Clouds socked in the sky
and obscured the grand mountains rising to the west, making everything feel
too close and quiet.

Some rock song that Allie barely remembered leaked
free from Marc’s headphones. It crawled along her skin, making her hyper-aware
of the man beside her. There were all types that came to train at the Colorado
facility, but he didn’t quite fit the molds to which she had become most
accustomed. She’d worked with kids from junior national team training camps,
and she had been assigned a few projects that put her in close proximity with whippet-like
endurance athletes. There were the resident gymnasts, of course, but with them
she felt a collegiate sort of casualness that made it easy for her to act like
the adult in the room.

With Marc beside her, Allie felt dangerously close
to losing control. More than his sheer size lurked in the seat. There was a
sense of utter maleness that seemed to tingle at the edge of her senses. The
belligerent cut of his jaw was part of it, while he stared out the window at
the passing world like a challenge, as was the masculine musk that settled
naturally on him after hours on an airplane away from laundry lint and
over-perfumed soap. But there was something else, something that reminded her
of dusty drives in a rattly old truck, that didn’t make her feel very adult at
all.

Marc caught her looking at him when one of her
glances lingered too long after checking her mirrors. His head turned, his
short hair whispering against the upholstery. A sweep of his finger pulled one
of his earbuds free by its cord.

It wasn’t just avoidance that kept Allie staring
out the front window a moment. The giant metal globe that fronted the training
center was coming into view as they rolled towards the front gate. Allie wetted
her lips, dodging another quick look at her passenger. Her breath started and
stalled in her chest as she struggled for something to say. “Are you looking
forward to seeing everyone?”

Apparently that wasn’t the right thing. Marc didn’t
bother to answer.

“I think most of your teammates are coming in
tomorrow,” Allie forged on. “It should be quiet in your hall tonight.”

She could feel his eyes studying her and Allie
tried not to fidget. “I’ll show you to your room and give you your schedule for
tomorrow.” She could hear the certainty draining from her voice. Allie deliberately
flicked a more solid glance to meet his gaze. “I’m assisting Doctor Kaitech so
I’ll also be working with you in the clinic.”

That got Marc to walk his shoulders up out of their
slouch. From its more encompassing scan, his attention sharpened its focus to
return her glance. “Yeah?”

Allie nodded. “It’s great that you’ve agreed to
participate.” She reluctantly turned her gaze from him to steer into the van’s
parking spot.

After a brief delay, Marc also turned to look out
the window. They were nearly pulled up to the building that housed the
transportation office. “Tell that to my coach.”

Maybe it was the way he muttered it. Whatever it
was, it made Allie’s brow crease in vague worry. She sat with the key clutched
into her hand and studied his profile a moment after switching off the car.
When he started to look towards her, she folded over to release her seatbelt
and gather her purse. “I have to return the key, it’ll just take a second.”

“I’ll get my bag from the back.” Marc got his door
open first, letting winter spill in to sting at her cheeks.

“Right,” Allie mumbled to herself as she jammed her
gloves on and hustled to get the car squared away with the office attendant.

If she hadn’t seen his file, Allie would have
thought Marc had been at the training center recently. After grabbing his bag
he started off alone along the correct path for the residential buildings. She
had to jog to catch up with him.

“We’re in eighty-five?” Marc barely flicked a
glance towards her when Allie fell into step with a crystallizing huff of
breath.

“Eighty-seven. Actually. The last one.” Allie
gestured towards the dorm, though it didn’t do much good seeing how the three
buildings they walked towards were lined up in a row. “I have your key card.”
She patted at her pocket, keeping it hostage in case he and his longer legs
thought about taking off without her.

“I didn’t know I signed up for bed inspections.”

Allie almost tripped over her own feet. She
shouldn’t have been able to blush with the cold draining her cheeks. “It’s just
the one card.” She didn’t know who she was trying to reassure. “I’ll be giving
it to you.”

She didn’t hear his laugh, but she saw it puffing
out into the freezing air. “Okay.” Marc tilted a fractional glance towards her.
“What did you say your name was?”

“Allie.”

She held the doors for him once they got into the
building. After they’d climbed to the second floor she had to squeeze past Marc
in order to beat him to his room. “It’s this one.” Allie didn’t complete the
look over her shoulder, too busy with fishing out his key card and using it on
the lock. She walked in with the surety of habit, her instincts only faltering
when the desk wasn’t in the right place for her to toss the card. One floor up
and two doors down in her near-identical room, her desk had a basket to catch
her key.

What her room didn’t have was a large body that
crowded in behind her. The fine hairs at the back of Allie’s neck started to
prickle. Her breath caught as she heard the door settle shut in its frame. A
quick spin found Marc near enough to touch. She gripped at the key card and
lifted her startled eyes.

Marc didn’t flinch from her. He just unslung his
duffle from his shoulder and tossed it to the nearest bed as if it were a thing
far lighter than the thump it made.

Allie could feel her breath quickening. Marc was
reaching towards her.

He was reaching for his key card.

Of course. Allie ducked her head to hide her
embarrassment once he plucked it from her fingers. She shifted her arms to
clutch her purse to her side.

“Are you going to take off your jacket?”

“What?” Allie snapped her glance upward again.

Her motions were jerky, but Marc was casually
smooth. He brushed against her, careless in his path as he let his backpack
slide from his other shoulder and swung it to rest in the desk’s chair. “Were
you going to explain all this stuff?” He dropped his key to the desk and nudged
a knuckle at the small box sitting in its center.

“Oh.” As she swiveled to continue facing him, Allie
rubbed at her elbow where he had touched her. Like doing so would lock in the
sense of him. Static still crawled up her spine. “Yeah, sure.” She stepped
tentatively to the other corner of the desk and set her purse down on the
surface. Allie was too aware of the man beside her as she worked her jacket loose
and shrugged it off so she wasn’t overheating. Although maybe if she left it
on, it could have served as an excuse for the red in her cheeks.

He was taking his parka off, too. Allie frowned
down at the desk, trying desperately to concentrate. She knew everything that
was there. She’d gone by Violet’s office to collect the standard orientation
packet herself. Doctor Kaitech had tasked her with making sure that the
additional materials related to the study were delivered to Marc so that he’d
have them before his appointment the next day.

Allie should have known it all backwards and
forwards, but her mind kept slipping to the man beside her. Marc didn’t stop
undressing at his outermost layer. The sound of his team jacket’s zipper sung
in her ear and he tossed that aside onto one of the three beds as well.

“I’ve put your schedule here on top.” Allie patted
at it with her palm to keep herself oriented. The henley that Marc wore was
made of a thin material that seemed to hug every bulge of bicep and ridge of
abdomen. In peeling off his jacket he had snagged the shirt’s hem into a high
hitch at one side. Her peripheral vision noticed a tantalizing sliver of bare
flesh above the brand-stitched waistband of his undershorts.

Her fingertip stroked over the stapled corners of
the documents but she still managed to lose her place. “Uhm.” Allie put her
palm over the box he had asked about. “This is your wearable. Its instructions
are in the packet with the study’s FAQ. There’s also the dorm guidelines, and …”
She trailed off when his hand overlapped hers, claiming the box from her
fingers.

“So this is how you keep track of me?”

“Sort of.” Allie skewed a weak smile as she watched
Marc crack open the packaging.

“You’re not injecting a chip behind my ear?”

“That will be phase two of the trial.”

Perhaps her joke didn’t go over so well. Marc
merely settled his intensely dark gaze on her for a moment before continuing to
pick the wristband out of the box. “This is going to get torn off the second we
start to scrimmage.”

Finally a burst of her academic instincts kicked
in. Allie nodded agreement, shifting forward to take the rubber strip from his
hand. “We know that devices can screw up fine-tuned performance, and we
certainly wouldn’t want to do anything to inhibit our athletes’ training. These
are designed to withstand submersion.”

She plucked out the computer element as well,
slipping it into the casing to show him how it all went together.

“So if you’re able to wear it for any part of your
workout, that would be excellent, but mostly we ask that you remember to put it
back on when you’re not in your main practice.” Allie didn’t notice that she
had put her hands around Marc’s wrist until she was done fastening the band.
His skin was hot beneath her fingers.

“See?” Allie didn’t dare look up at him for more
than a peek. “Easy.” The sight of his hand resting in the hold of hers wasn’t
much better. Her touch grazed over the faint tracery of his veins. “And …
and, the cool part is.” She was having trouble remembering. “It’ll connect to an
app that you can download to your phone. The tech team has been integrating the
dining hall, so it can do a lot of the dietary tracking for you. You can just …”
She tilted his wrist into a swiping motion towards the desk.

She started to, anyway, until the slack weight of
Marc’s arm turned into active intention. “I guess it’s better than an ankle
band.”

Allie didn’t know if she was supposed to laugh. She
didn’t know how he’d twisted in her grasp so fast, so that now he held
her
wrist.
With his other hand Marc was setting the packaging aside on the desk.

“It’s a full service operation you have going here,
isn’t it?”

“I guess?” Beyond the ridiculous nerves Allie was
trying to deny, something discordant started to lace tension across her
forehead. Her eyes were fixed to Marc’s, so she wasn’t exactly surprised when
his weight shifted. He took a step away from the desk and tugged her along by
her wrist. It seemed calibrated to pull her off balance.

Allie tripped forward on her toes and caught
herself with her free palm flattened against his chest.

“What are you doing?” She wasn’t really worried,
not yet. Bewilderment puckered between her eyebrows when she looked down and
found Marc’s other hand curving to fit at her hip.

“What you want me to,” Marc said placidly.

“I …” Allie bent her shoulders away from him,
but she remained transfixed by the wicked promise of his stare. She shook her
head weakly. “What?”

“You keep looking at me like you want me to fuck
you.”

What?
Allie’s heart raced and her body
froze. Her lips parted. She couldn’t quite convince them to shape a protest.

Marc shifted, leaning closer.

A strangled noise cracked free from the tightness
of her throat. The sound of it startled Allie back to what she
should
do.

“No.” She ducked her chin away from him. “I
didn’t.” She wasn’t here to fraternize with the athletes. She’d never had
problems with putting her work first. Why was she having so much trouble
sounding sure, now? “I mean, I don’t … I don’t want you to … to …
do that.” Allie pressed her hand harder against his chest and felt the firm
flex of muscle beneath her palm.

Even in periphery, she could tell that Marc didn’t
look convinced. For a second Allie was achingly aware of how little she was
able to budge him. Then it was like a string snapped. He was gone, a gap of
distance widened between them, and she was left with the tingling absence of
his touch.

“My bad.” The words may have been ones of apology,
and Marc did turn his palms up like surrender, but there was nothing guilty or
contrite in his unwavering gaze.

“Must have been a misunderstanding.” One corner of
his mouth twitched. “Culture shock.”

The electricity of his
misunderstanding
thudded
wild in her chest. “Yeah.” Allie curled her arms in close and pressed her palm
over her heart like she needed to muffle its betrayal. “Just, don’t. Don’t let
it …” Happen again. That’s what she should say. Allie wasn’t sure if she
ought to insist he be more apologetic, or …

“If that’s what you want.”

Or if she wanted him to come back.

Marc didn’t give her time to decide. He kept
moving, brushing roughly past her again to get at his bag. With him behind her,
Allie tried to force herself to composure by scrunching her eyes closed and
rolling her lips into the pinning bite of her teeth. She heard the zipper of his
bag singing open and the muted rustle of him pulling things out of it.