Qualified: A Sports Romance (9 page)

“So do you know Blake very well?”

Allie walked with Adam from their building to
Blake’s house as the sun sank low in front of them. They planned to meet Kelsey
there since she’d left earlier to meet up with some of her old teammates. It
was a bit of a hike, but a few blocks took them down to the street along the
ocean and the evening was beautiful. They weren’t the only ones out. Allie
marveled at some of the bare lengths of leg that she saw, prancing in high
heels. It wasn’t anything like Colorado’s winter, but as the night cooled she
wasn’t sure she’d want to be in a short skirt.

Instead she was comfortable in her stretch jeans
and sandals. Kelsey had pouted at her when she found out what Allie was
intending to wear, but it wasn’t like Adam was dressed up. He just had on jeans
and a button shirt and his favorite flip flops on his feet.

“Not super well,” Adam shrugged careless in answer.
“We’ve been at rival schools, you know? And there are a bunch of guys from that
team on the national squad right now so they kind of stick together. But yeah,
I guess we’ve been playing on the national team almost a year now, off and on.
He’s all right. Kind of stuck up. But his family is fucking loaded, so.”
Another shrug marked that as the way of the world.

“This is pretty insane, that he lives on the
beach.” The houses didn’t look like that much from the inland side, but every
car Allie spotted seemed to have some luxury badge on it, if she recognized the
badge at all. A rearing horse, a trident, and plenty of the circles of Mercedes
and BMW. “And that he just found it last minute.”

“I dunno, his family might have owned it, or one of
their companies. Or maybe they did just buy it. I think Blake’s pretty used to
getting what he wants.”

That made Allie color, though she didn’t comment.
Luckily, Adam didn’t seem to be paying attention to the hue of her cheeks. “Do
you know who all will be there from the women’s team?” she tried to change the
subject.

“Uh, I think Meera and Kim for sure.” Adam
scratched his fingers through his hair and scrunched up his face while he
thought about it. “Ivy is from my school, so I think Blake was letting her
invite some of the girls down from our squad. Katie was texting me earlier,
actually, so some of the college girls will probably be there.”

“Oh. I thought it was going to be more of a guy’s
event, with the whole steak and a … blow job. Thing.” Allie stammered
through the Valentine’s theme alternative.

“You haven’t spent a lot of time around water polo
girls, have you?”

“Not really?” Allie answered weakly as she looked
up the street. They were getting closer to the address, and despite the clever
construction of the houses to keep interior noise from the street, Allie
thought she could hear the faint thump of music. There was definitely a crowing
of female voices.

“Oh yeah, that’s Katie,” Adam said with a huff of
breath.

“This’ll be nice for you.” Allie lifted a smile to
him. She curved her step to jostle at his shoulder. “Seeing some of the crew
from the home turf.” She was trying not to focus on her own nervousness over
meeting new people. And over entering Blake’s mammoth house. It towered over
the street and was guarded by a fancy gate.

“Yeah, it’s just Austin and Marc from my school on
our team, and you know those guys …” Adam was already focused on getting
the gate open.

“Oh, that’s right. It’s hard to think of Marc as a
college player.” Allie tried not to be too obvious as she crossed beneath
Adam’s arm to head in.

“Yeah, way before my time. I thought maybe he’d
have come, but I guess Natalie might be here.” He sounded a little bummed out,
but it only lasted a moment as screams of—
Adam! Get your scrawny ass in
here!
—started to echo from the open door.

“He doesn’t seem very social,” Allie observed as if
offhand, trying to prompt for more.

“Which is crazy, because … whoa, is that
Brittany?”

Allie hung on his words, but he never finished the
thought. Adam was already sucked into the whirlwind of girls who had clad
themselves with little regard for the swimsuit tans they all seemed to be
sporting.

Thankfully her roommate was amongst them. Kelsey
grabbed her wrist and dragged her along. “This is Allie,” she introduced her to
the assembled girls. “She’s working with Lindsey and putting up with the guys
every day
and
she drives them around, so you should be nice to her.”

“Hi Allie!”

“Did the other guys not come with you?”

“Ivy, you know Troy hooked up with that chick from
his business classes.”

“Oh yeah, what’s her face. Isn’t she in New York?”

“No, that’s Blake’s ex.”

“Wait, they broke up?”

“I don’t know, you know how he is. Ask him and see
if he says yes by dragging you into a closet.”

It was impossible to keep up with the quick-fire
conversation. Allie’s eyes must have reached critical wideness since Kelsey
roped her in with a hook of elbows.

“What about Marc?” someone was asking, and Allie
would have liked to listen, but she found herself being dragged farther into
the house.

“You look like you could use a drink,” Kelsey said
as she led the way towards what looked to be the kitchen.

“And name tags,” Allie answered by way of sheepish
agreement.

“Don’t worry about it. No one will expect you to
remember.” Kelsey left Allie by the counter and started rummaging through
cupboards and the refrigerator. “So I’m hearing you’ve been doing your research
project with Marc? How has that been going?”

“It’s … fine?” Allie stopped rubbernecking at
the fashionably decorated home and stared at Kelsey’s back.

“He hasn’t been trying to get in your pants, has
he? Or is he seeing someone? They were saying he was seeing some countess or
something in Europe.” Kelsey snorted. “Or was being kept by.”

“Really?” A
countess
. Allie was having
trouble imagining such a thing. “I mean, no. And not … not that I know
about.”

“Huh.” Kelsey thunked a cup down on the counter.
“Blake,” she hollered over the top of Allie’s head. “Where’s the liquor?”

“Hold your panties.” Blake ambled shirtless through
the living room with an emptied platter in one hand and a bottle of beer in the
other.

Allie noticed the ground-level patio from which he
came. Out there a number of guys from the team lounged in chairs where they
could watch the traffic on the beach.

“Ivan ran out to pick up some Bailey’s with Meera
because she forgot it.” There was something predatory about Blake’s gaze even
though he continued casually past her to get at the fridge for another
container full of marinating meat. “The blow job will have to wait. Hey,
Allie.”

“Hey.” Allie found herself watching the easy slip
of his muscles beneath his bare skin while he opened the refrigerator door.
She’d seen those muscles work in the pool, she’d had her hands on them
professionally, but witnessing them close up in a domestic setting seemed too
intimate.

“The wet bar should be stocked with the standards.”
Blake pointed out the glass-shelved alcove as he moved around the kitchen.
“Knock yourselves out.”

“Great.” Kelsey grabbed her again, like she’d
nominated Allie to be her accessory for the evening. “What do you like, Allie?
Tequila? Vodka?”

“I don’t really drink that much.” Allie was getting
the sense that her protests were futile. “Vodka?”

“Vodka,” Kelsey repeated like it was a challenge.
“Shit …” she breathed once she squatted down in front of the wet bar’s
fridge and swung the door open. “Blake, are you sponsored by
Coke
?”

Blake laughed from the kitchen. “Whyever do you
ask?” The fridge was lined with bottles of the company’s products.

“His dad is probably on the fucking board,” Kelsey
muttered. She reached in and grabbed two bottles. “How about a rum and Coke?”

Allie only paused a moment before returning the
other girl’s grin. “Why not.”

After Kelsey poured their drinks she insisted on
taking a tour of the house. They left the thumping stereo and the kick-back
grill party downstairs and wandered their way up to the other floors. Booze
wasn’t the only thing with which Kelsey was liberal. She opened doors like she
owned the place. They found a small weight room and a locked bathroom. Two of
the guys from the team waved at them from the far side of a pool table on the
second floor.

The roommates got less of a welcome when they
walked in on one of the NorCal guys chatting up one of the girls in his room.
“Don’t forget to put a hat on it, kids,” Kelsey yelled as she shut the door
again.

“I can’t believe you said that,” Allie giggled. Her
rum with a splash of Coke was quickly going to her head.

Kelsey winked at her and took her hand to lead up
one more flight. “We’ll have to see who ends up in Ivan’s room tonight. He has
a girlfriend back in France, but I swear he’s training to take the Hat Trick
title from Marc this year.” She rolled her eyes and gulped her drink.

Allie’s feet nearly missed the next stair. Hearing
dirt about the guy Violet had hooked up with was bad enough, but then to get
confirmation that Marc was
worse 
… “I’m surprised they have the
time,” she said hollowly.

“And you thought water polo was the game they’re
the best at.” Kelsey snorted a laugh at her own joke while they ascended to the
landing. “This must be Blake’s room.”

Blake had left his door wide open. The master suite
was disgustingly luxurious. There was a jacuzzi tub stationed by the all-glass
wall which opened to a balcony. The view overlooked the ocean where pale sand
stretched to the curl of waves. Gradually the sunset’s stain was filling the
sky.

“I have to get a picture of this,” Allie said in
disbelief.

“Go for it. I’m going to see if Blake has one of
those robot toilets from Japan.” Kelsey slipped through the bathroom door.

Allie stepped back into the room to get more of it
in view, tapping up the messenger to take a photo to send to Violet.

Blake’s room

Holy Shit

You whore ♥

Allie grinned. Then she bit her lip.

Un-Valentine’s
party

Ivan’s here
too

I just found out he has a gf :/

Is that for
me?

Hun, no
worries

BBall is in
the house tonight

Just have fun

Allie

HAVE FUN

“Allie, I think they’re back with
the drinks,” Kelsey called. She had returned out onto the landing and leaned
over the rail to look towards the ground entry.

More people had arrived while they’d be touring.
The stairs were getting crowded once they made their way to the second floor
and lower. There were faces Allie didn’t recognize, mostly the girls from the
Southern California school teams, but there were also some guys who must have
been on Blake’s university squad.

What really stopped Allie in her tracks was a
familiar head of dark hair towering above them all.

“Blow job time,” Kelsey proclaimed. She held fast
to Allie’s hand and pulled her through the thickening crowd.

Allie surreptitiously tried to keep her eye on him
while taking in the crowd. He was there. Marc, standing within a pack of the
girls.

In her distraction she bumped shoulders with
someone when Kelsey pushed her up to the counter. New handles of liquor were
stationed beside a few cans of whipped cream.

“Is this your first blow job?” Blake’s voice made
her head snap around fast.

Allie quickly thought better of letting her mouth
hang open and snapped her jaw shut. It was times like these that made her feel
so nakedly obvious in her sheltered inexperience.

“Let’s take that as a yes.” Kelsey barged ahead,
the bump of her elbow against Allie’s nudging her into Blake.

Allie shuffled her feet and ducked her face to
compose herself before looking to see what Kelsey was doing.

Her roommate put three shot glasses onto the
counter. In went the Bailey’s then liquor from the bottle shaped like a monk,
and finally the whole thing was crowned by a heavy swirl of whipped cream.
Kelsey made lewd eye contact to Allie and Blake as she shook out the can
between swirls.

“Oh, I get it.” Allie’s smile started to curl.
“Because of the, uh, cream.” Her eyes didn’t quite flick all the way up to
Blake’s face.

“And,” Kelsey declared grandly as she caught
Allie’s wrist, “because you don’t use your hands. Behind your back!” Kelsey
proceeded to demonstrate by leaning over the counter to catch the shot glass up
into her mouth, straightening to dump its contents down her throat.

It seemed like an embarrassing disaster waiting to
happen. Allie feared spilling liquor and whipped cream all down her front. She
was scared to look and see if Marc was watching. Bad enough that Blake was at
her elbow.

“I’ll hold your hair,” Blake offered before she had
a chance to think of an excuse to get away. He swept his hand up from Allie’s
temple to catch the fall of her hair back in a twist.

Allie’s flesh prickled at her nape. Maybe it’d be
best to just get it over quickly. She tried to mimic Kelsey in taking the shot.
The rim clicked hard against her teeth. Not only did whipped cream smear across
her cheek, but also a dribble of Bailey’s escaped from the corner of her mouth.

At least nothing got on her shirt. Once she dropped
the glass back on the counter, Allie licked her tongue wide at the mess. She
reached up to reclaim her hair from their host.

He wasn’t letting go.

“Good, isn’t it?” Blake asked with a tick of
eyebrows.

The burn of alcohol gave extra fuel to the panicked
racing of her heart. “It’s sweet,” Allie answered as truthfully as she could
without setting off her blush.

“Blake, you didn’t take yours,” Kelsey accused.

“I’m taking it slow.” Blake moved the third shot in
front of Allie with his free hand. “I’m in training for this little competition
later this summer. You might have heard.” He repositioned to stand more
directly behind Allie, tightening his hold of his hair. “Allie will just have
to take it,” he said to Kelsey.

His next words were murmured just to Allie, leaned
to brush against her far ear. “Maybe I’ll have one later.”

“I’m not sure …” Allie balked, her hands
pushing at the counter’s edge.

“You can’t let it go to waste. The whipped cream
will fall,” Kelsey cheered her on.

When Allie took a breath and clasped her hands
behind her back, the curl of her fingers brushed against Blake’s solid-built
thigh. This was the kind of day off a girl was supposed to look forward to, but
her mind was full of all the times at work when she stood close enough to press
at Marc’s knee. Surely she could handle one more shot if it would get them off
her back. Literally, in Blake’s case. Her second try went down more smoothly,
maybe because she was more interested in getting it over with than worried
about who might be watching.

“Good girl,” Blake praised.

Kelsey was already grabbing her arm. “Come on,
we’re getting left behind.”

Allie weaseled out from the pin Blake had made of
her against the counter. She pulled her head free with a twist so she could
look towards the center of the living room where she had last seen Marc. The
music still bumped but all of the people had cleared out except a couple of
guys who were sitting eating steak.

“Where’d everyone go?” Allie wondered, looking for
that one towering form in particular.

“They’ll be back.” Blake’s hand caught her other
wrist.

“Meera wanted to go down to the water for the
sunset.” Kelsey was unstoppable. “Come on Allie, it’s beautiful, you’ll love
it.”

“Across the sand?” Allie’s head was starting to
swim. She wasn’t sure she wanted to go out to the water, but she was certain
she didn’t want to stay in the kitchen. She twisted her wrist from Blake’s hold
and followed after Kelsey.

“We can get to the beach out the back. Right,
Blake?”

“Yeah,” Blake said, relaxing back against the
counter to watch them go.

The breeze off the water felt nice
once they made it outside. They kicked off their shoes before leaving the
patio. Allie giggled at herself when her balance failed, swaying her shoulder
against the fence post as she bent to force her pant legs into a roll up to her
calves.

“Blake was flirting with you big time, Allie,”
Kelsey crooned under her breath as they pushed clear of the patio and scampered
out into the sand.

“I think he just likes to tease me.” Allie shook
her head. It was a mistake and made her path more wobbly as they walked fast to
catch up to the pack moving down towards the water’s edge.

Some genius had brought a water polo ball. It went
sailing back and forth over the herd, causing the group to spread out farther.
The girls were leaping for it, too, and perhaps Allie could see what Adam meant
about them being mean. They played dirty, threatening the guys with their knees
and yanking at the hair of their impromptu opponents.

Marc only had to stretch his arm up to his full
reach and no one had much chance of touching the ball in his grip. Girls hung
from his elbows and clawed at his shoulders in their attempts to bat it loose.
It was one of the women’s team players about Kelsey’s age who made the most
effective attack. She climbed up his front and got her legs wrapped around his
waist.

It was one thing to repress her jealousy over the
easy playfulness that the women athletes had with their male counterparts, but
Allie couldn’t help but stare at this bold display and lack of physical
boundaries. Not when it was Marc. He still seemed nonchalant while he switched
his hold on the ball between one hand and the other, expertly avoiding the
girl’s tugs at his arms. The workmanlike tension in his jaw was an expression
Allie had seen him wear often enough in the pool that she thought she could
detect the marring of a faint curl at one corner of his mouth.

Natalie
, the others from her team cheered
the girl on. When Allie remembered how Adam had mentioned that name her stomach
curdled. She could see that they were talking, Natalie and Marc, but she
couldn’t hear them over the roar of the waves.

Maybe it was giving up when Marc tossed the ball
back to his teammates where they’d walked farther along the shore. He stopped
to try and peel at Natalie’s legs. When she wouldn’t let go he simply turned
and started to wade into the ocean. Soon her voice was loud enough to hear, her
indignant screams turning to threatening shrieks.

Whether or not Marc would have actually thrown
Natalie in soon became irrelevant. Like an overexcited puppy drawn to
commotion, Adam bounded over and leapt at them both with a flying bear hug.
They all went down in a tangle of limbs beneath the next crashing wave.

Trailing the group of athletes who still played
catch, Allie watched as the trio picked themselves out of the ocean. They
seemed to argue a moment. The girl gestured at Adam but pushed at Marc. Natalie
stormed up the beach first with Adam trailing apologetically after. Marc was
slowest to return, taking his time to strip the wet of his shirt off his torso.

Allie looked away when he caught her watching him.
She lengthened her stride to be absorbed back into the group, quashing the urge
to tell him to be careful of throwing out his shoulder or getting sick. It
wasn’t like her pathetic excuses for talking to him would mean anything.

Focusing on the view, she tried to ignore the
feelings carving at her insides and fogging behind her eyes. In the distance
the sun set behind the great cranes of a shipping yard, their skeletons like
giant stick insects against the ruddy orange glow. Framing the sight was the
city’s skyline on the right and a lighthouse standing out on the curling spit
of land.

There was a flask being passed around that someone
had brought in a pocket. Allie probably wouldn’t have accepted it if she were
thinking straight. She grabbed at it and took a double swig, passing it on once
she’d made herself cough and her eyes burn. On the other side of the group
Natalie was complaining about the chill. Allie wrapped her arms around herself
even though she wasn’t really cold.

After the rule-less ball game earned a few more
people salty dunkings, everyone seemed ready to drift back towards the scent of
food and the bass call of music. Allie still hadn’t eaten anything and her
stomach was churning.

“Hey, stay off the couch,” Ivan pointed to the guys
wearing seawater and sand when they came tumbling back into Blake’s. He was
back and had settled himself with one of the college girls tucked under his
arm. They watched music videos cycle on the huge flatscreen in the living room.

Have fun
, Allie reminded herself of Violet’s
words. She wound her way through the house towards the kitchen while the pack
of girls put on a song and started jumping in the center of the room, singing
along. A puddle of Bailey’s sloshed on the counter while she poured herself out
a blow job, foregoing the cream. She cheated by using her hands to pitch it
down her throat.

Kelsey discovered another big bottle of vodka in
the wet bar. “Where are the shot glasses?”

The girl’s team captain Meera blew a raspberry. Her
solution was to reach out and hook Marc’s waistband from where he stood just
inside the patio doors nursing a bottle of water. “I’m taking my shot from
this,” she declared.

“Me too!”

“Get your own!”

“
Adam
,” Brittany claimed quickly.

All Allie could see was how the pack of them had
captured Marc. He resisted at first, mostly by virtue of standing his ground to
sip from his water with unreadable stoicism. Maybe he only moved once he
noticed her watching. “I’m still sandy,” he placidly warned Meera.

“I’m not scared of a little grit,” Meera dismissed.
With the cooperation of the other girls she shoved him back against a built-in
shelf next to the mantelpiece. “Right here,” she instructed Kelsey with a tap
at the centerline groove above his belly button.

On a distant level, Allie marveled that she now
knew what it felt like to want to punch someone.

Marc settled with a sigh into an elbow-braced lean
that made a better ramp of his stomach. He seemed more interested in heckling
Adam than in Meera’s tongue. “You gonna be able to suck in that gut, kid?
You’ve been going after those pizzas.”

“Fuck off, Belmont,” Adam laughed from where
Brittany had him in her clutches.

Allie couldn’t laugh. Her brow was knit and her
gaze fixed on the familiar shine of liquid sliding down Marc’s abdomen. She
licked her lips as she watched Meera suck vodka from where it pooled in his
navel. Her feet started to drift towards them without her really realizing. But
then she felt hands on her waist. Breath in her ear.

“Is it everything you expected?” It was Blake.

“Allie, you’re next.” Kelsey spotted her across the
room. Her roommate had the bottle in one fist and her hand gripped at Marc’s
wrist like he was hers to offer. She was holding him right where Allie always
did.

“It looks like the intern already has a shot
glass,” Natalie piped in from where she toweled dry her hair near the stairs.