Staying On Top (Whitman University) (11 page)

“I don’t blame you for what happened to me, Blair, and no one else your dad conned can blame you, either. He’s the criminal. He’s the one who should have known better.” I smiled, my heart doing a stutter-step when she lifted the corner of her lips in response.

I couldn’t decide if her pissy face or her smile made me want her more.

“You’re a good guy, Sam. I know because otherwise he wouldn’t have seen you as an easy mark. You’re
too
nice. You trust people too easily.” The smile fell away. “I’m jealous of that, a little. The way I grew up, especially after my dad’s lifestyle came out . . . I’m not sure I’m capable of trust.”

I felt like a dumbass. After all she had seen and done, she must think I was a real idiot for falling for her dad’s bogus scheme. It didn’t stop my hand from tracing a line down her neck, over her shoulder, and down her arm until it settled on top of hers. Her skin was so silky, so smooth, and contradicted her prickly personality. “Maybe your way is better. At least people can’t take advantage of you.”

“Somewhere in the middle is the sweet spot, Sam. You can’t trust everyone. People are assholes, on the large.” She bit her lip and stared out the window. “But not trusting anyone isn’t the greatest life plan, either.”

The speaker on the bus crackled to life, screeching loud enough to set my teeth on edge before the driver’s voice burst through the static. Most of it was unintelligible—all of it was in Croatian. “Did you catch any of that? I’m pretty sure I caught nothing.”

“Not really, but we should be about ten minutes or so from the last stop in Bosnia. Next up, Belgrade!”

“I never thought I’d be so happy to hear someone say that.” 

Belgrade was not my favorite place in the world even though plenty of people thrived in its cosmopolitan atmosphere. It didn’t even rank in my top fifty, but the people I knew from Serbia were some of my favorites. Aside from Marija, who was hot as fuck and sweet besides, the Serbians on the tour—and there were plenty of them—had a great sense of humor. Jokesters, the lot.

“I’m going to get out at the station and stretch my legs. Try to settle my stomach. It should help me get through the last couple of hours.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Maybe the stinky guy will get off here, too.”

The smell of her body wasn’t quite as nice as it had been when we both had access to showers every day, and I could only imagine that my own wasn’t too pleasant. Still, Blair smelled nothing like the reek of the man stinking up the bus. Blair’s scent of salt and sweat and skin mingled into something earthy and somehow sexy. 

Then again, maybe as a professional athlete, I was prone to find things like sweat and dirt a little sexier than most guys. 

“Why are you whispering? Even if he could hear us over the rattle and cough of this junker bus, what are the chances he understands English?”

“Here’s a pro tip for you, world traveler. Always assume everyone knows how to speak English.”

“Fair point.”

More people spoke English than anything else, especially in the Western world. I knew that, but we seemed so far away from everything out here. Like maybe we
were
two college lovers backpacking their way through Thanksgiving break, intent on seeing new things and experiencing them together.

I wouldn’t mind being that guy. Especially if Blair would consent to being the girl.

Whether or not she would under normal circumstances, she kind of had agreed to it for now. The cover had been her idea, so she couldn’t get mad at me for playing it up. Especially now that she’d been the one to touch me first—and she hadn’t complained when I’d done the same. We were making progress. My initial reaction was pleasure, because nothing would improve this little vacation more than getting to know Blair well enough to have a little fun, but then our conversation a few minutes ago replayed in the back of my mind.

You can’t trust everyone, Sam. People are assholes.

Her included? It was hard to admit, but that she had spent time working cons with her dad bothered me. The way she’d tensed up when she’d admitted it triggered a negative response, too—almost like she hadn’t meant to tell me the truth. If it was the truth.

No.
I was being stupid, overly paranoid because of the situation. She had found me, not the other way around. She wanted to help. And Quinn knew her. He would warn me if he thought she was dirty—not in a fun way.

The bus shuddered to a stop a few minutes later, every bolt and joint creaking and groaning in protest. It bellowed a huge cloud of exhaust, the odor overtaking anything else that might have found its way onto the curb as I followed Blair into the Bosnian evening.

“Are we close to the border? Like, will they check our passports here?”

“I don’t know. Don’t think so.” She wandered down the platform, away from the thin crowd of our fellow passengers.

Some seemed to be getting air and stretching their legs, grabbing snacks from the smattering of vending machines or braving the toilets, but others hurried away, intent on getting home, maybe, or catching another bus to somewhere else. 

“So, what are the chances your dad is hiding out in Serbia? I mean, I know they don’t have a nonextradition treaty, and those places are pretty hard to come by these days, but still. It’s not that parts of it aren’t nice, but it’s not an easy place to spend thirty million dollars of my money.”

Blair didn’t reply, leaning on the crooked wooden railing and staring off toward the mountains. The November air had a sharp chill to it, one that made me shiver, but even out here with no jacket, she didn’t seem to feel it. Or it didn’t bother her, maybe.

“Where are you from? Originally?” It seemed as though she piqued my curiosity more with each passing day, instead of the opposite, which was more typical for me. I wanted to understand what made her tick, guess the reasons she tried to ignore our chemistry so I could convince her to ignore them.

“New York City.” Even though she faced away from me, the smile was clear in her voice.

“You loved it there.”

“I still do. But Florida is okay.”

“Florida’s a shithole, Blair, and as two people who have seen a good portion of the world, we’re uniquely qualified to make that assessment.”

“The weather is nice.”

“You don’t seem to mind the cold.”

She turned then, the wind whipping long strands of brown hair in front of her face. When she brushed them away, her cheeks were red, her dark eyes bright. “I like the chill. I miss the seasons while I’m in Florida. You’re from there, though, aren’t you?”

There she went again, spouting offhand knowledge that she really shouldn’t have. It was possible that Quinn or Toby had mentioned it, or even that I had said something to her while we were in St. Moritz—heaven knew I wasn’t sober enough while we were there to recall the details of every conversation—but it had happened enough times now that I knew she had to be lying. About being a tennis fan or not being attracted to me, I couldn’t be sure. And it made my stomach twist into an impressive knot.

I liked her. I had since we first met, and there didn’t seem to be much point in denying the fact to her or myself, but I had to remind myself to be careful. “Yes. My parents are from central Florida—the middle of the shithole, as it were—but we moved to Bradenton when I started training seriously.”

“Where do you live in the off-season? Melbourne?”

I hated that question. People asked it all the time—reporters, friends, nosy fans—because most players had that place they loved. Sometimes the home they were born into, sometimes one they had fallen in love with and adopted along the way, but not me. My six weeks off were spent wherever sounded good at the time. More of them
had
been spent in Melbourne than other places, because that’s where the new season began and it was nice to not have to rush, but that was the only reason. I had no more affection for Australia than anywhere else.

It didn’t take a shrink to know that it was because home had never been a place of solace for me. The road had given me a life. Refuge. Love. As much as I adored women, enjoyed being in relationships, they’d never had any chance of surviving. My family had cured me of a burning desire to create one of my own—what the tennis world gave me was enough.

*

I had dozed off with less than an hour to go before we arrived in Belgrade. A loud pop and Blair’s fingers squeezing my thigh startled me awake.

“What?”

Her hand flew from my leg to cover my mouth, but her sharp gaze stayed focused on the front of the bus. Mine followed, and a second later, cold fear froze my limbs.

The meth-head guy had a gun.

I pulled her hand off my face and squeezed it between my palms, then slumped down in the seat, tugging her with me so our heads were out of sight.

“What’s happening?” I whispered.

She shook her head, the faint, leftover smell of her shampoo tickling my nose. “He started yelling, then a lady screamed, then he fired the gun.”

“What’s he yelling about?”

“I don’t even know what language he’s speaking,” she said so softly it barely carried over the sound of the engine.

Great. I knew the two of us were going to be in trouble trying to traverse less-traveled European countries like normal people—ones who knew how to handle crises that might pop up—but being on a bus with a loaded gun was outside even my wild imaginings.

For her part, Blair looked unimpressed. The fact that she’d grabbed on to me so hard when it started proved that it frightened her, but now she appeared more annoyed than anything as she peered around the edge of the seat to get a better look.

Her fingers twitched between my palms but she didn’t pull away.

“What’s happening?”

“Shut up, I’m trying to listen,” she hissed back.

The man and woman continued to shriek at each other in what sounded like babble, and a moment later Blair slid back my direction. Her teeth worried her bottom lip, but other than that, she still didn’t seem too bothered by the fact that a maniac with a gun paced the aisle. “He thinks the woman he’s with is cheating on him. Maybe with his brother.”

“How do you figure?”

“A few Latin roots here and there, plus his hand gestures and the fact that she’s yelling back now.” She shook her head. “It’s the
Maury Show
. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

The bus swerved toward the shoulder of the uneven road, slamming our hips together. I let go of her hand and caught her around the shoulders, steadying us both against the window. My hands were shaking, and even though it was stupid, I hoped she didn’t notice.

More shouting erupted from up front, along with another gunshot that made us both duck on instinct, and the bus swerved back into the proper lane. I guessed the driver’s plan to pull over and deal with this crisis while not moving had failed.

“Fuck this shit,” Blair muttered, and stood up before I could stop her.

To her credit, she didn’t straighten all the way, leaving her chest and torso covered by the seat, but if you asked me she should have been more concerned about her head.

Then again, these seats weren’t stopping a bullet. If the asshole decided to spray the back of the bus, both of us were going to be Swiss cheese.

“Excuse me!” 

Her voice rang over the shrieked argument, too loud, too confrontational. Awe over her balls warred with embarrassment over my cowering, with neither winning out over my worry. 

“Is there any way you could put the gun away and sit your ass down? The rest of us would like to arrive in Belgrade alive, and we’re only, like, ten minutes from the station. You can just pick up where you left off there.” She paused, waiting for a response maybe, but the rest of the bus had a similar reaction to mine—stunned silence.
“
Hinsetzen?
Schnauze? Ja?”

The glance she threw me seemed to ask an opinion on her German. It was translatable, though whether it would be understood was another story. I gave her a baffled nod. I inched upward until my eyes cleared the top of the seat, just in time to see all hell break loose.

Blair’s mouth had shocked the gunman into silence, and two of the bigger organ thieves took advantage of the distraction and rushed him. His gun arm flailed. They wrestled and shouted while the bus swerved again. A shot exploded. Someone screamed and I grabbed Blair around the waist, yanking her down on my lap and curling around her body.

The commotion ceased as quickly as it began. My heart pounded so hard against Blair’s back there was no way she didn’t feel it, and my arms trembled from holding on to her so tight. My eyes were closed and I had to work at opening them for several seconds—the feeling of her breathing said she was alive, but fear that there would be blood everywhere kept ice in my veins.

“Sam.”

I gulped some more air. “Yeah?”

“I can’t breathe.”

“Oh my god, are you hurt? Did he shoot you?”

“No, dumbass. You’re squeezing the shit out of me.”

“Oh.” I loosened my grip and opened my eyes, already feeling a little stupid and expecting to see exasperation and contempt in her gaze. She maneuvered on my lap until she straddled me, and then smiled. For some reason, her reaction swapped my cold fear for hot anger. “What in the hell were you thinking? He could have shot you!”

“Somebody had to do something before the driver freaked out and drove us over a cliff.”

“You didn’t even know what was going on, or what kind of crazy he is! It didn’t have to be you.”

“I was willing. Everyone else was sitting on their hands. Ergo, it had to be me.”

“Blair.” 

She cut me off by placing her palms on my cheeks, hesitating for the tiniest of seconds, then leaning forward to press her lips against mine.

The kiss was soft, so unlike Blair that it took me by surprise. I slid my hands to her hips, squeezing hard enough to keep her in place. She scooted forward on my lap, her palms drifting to my chest while her fingers brushed the exposed skin at the base of my throat.

Her touch drove out my fear and replaced it with shuddering desire, and I tangled a hand in her hair. The slip of her tongue against my bottom lip shot boiling need into my gut and I opened my mouth, greedy for the taste of her.