Anticipation (12 page)

It wasn’t even close to enough. He wanted a solemn promise from her that she’d never get behind the wheel of a car, or ride a bike, or go on a ride at the fair. He wanted her to swear that she’d chew every mouthful carefully before swallowing to avoid choking, and never go out without a warm jacket, and that she’d make sure all her shots were up-to-date, even the ones for diseases that were unknown on the Australian continent.

He wanted her to be safe and well and whole. He
needed
it.

“Just…look after yourself,” he said lamely.

“I am. I can. I don’t need you to do it for me. But it’s okay if you feel you have to for a little while longer. I’m sure it’ll wear off in a week or so. In the meantime, I am totally comfortable with you going to Huxtaburger every day to buy me lunch.”

Her grin was utterly unrepentant and he couldn’t help but smile, too.

“As long as you’re not above milking my moment of weakness.”

“I’m five foot tall. There aren’t many things I’m above,” she said.

She headed back to work. He considered it another sign of progress that he only took a half step forward when she got to the door. He watched as she managed to open it and walk through all on her own. A minor miracle.

Man, he hated it when his brother was right. His fly really was down. But there wasn’t much he could do about the way he was feeling right now. He figured he’d forget the sound of the motorbike slamming into her body eventually.

In a decade or two, once it had sunk into his bones that Blue was going to be okay.

Three weeks later, Blue waved to Maggie as she made her way across the deep green grass of Edinburgh Gardens toward the spot Maggie had snagged beside the soccer field. Around her, families picnicked, threw Frisbees, and walked their dogs, and Blue paused for a second as a teenager bolted across her path in pursuit of a ball. The last thing she needed right now was to take a fall.

Her leg was healing well — stupendously so, her doctor had told her earlier this week. Soon, she would be brace- and crutch-free and walking with the aid of only a cane. After that, how soon she could walk without a limp would be down to how hard she worked on her physical therapy — and she planned to work hard. She was fed up with being an invalid. She wanted her life back. Her independence. Her freedom.

And she wanted — needed — Eddie to finally get the message that she was all right and that he could stand down from Freaked Out Mode and resume being his usual casually neglectful self where their friendship was concerned.

God, how she needed that.

“Just in time,” Maggie called out as Blue approached, her crutch sinking into the soft earth as she crossed the final few feet of generously shaded grass. Maggie patted the empty director’s chair next to her, and Blue sank into it with a grateful sigh.

“Bless you,” she said, tossing her crutch onto the grass.

“I figured it would be too hard for you to get up from a picnic blanket,” Maggie said.

“You figured right.” Even though it was better than a cast, the brace still made a lot of everyday activities impossible. Driving, for example.

She couldn’t wait for the day when she could get behind the wheel of her car again. Eddie picking her up and dropping her off every morning and night meant that she began and ended her day with the smell of his aftershave and the sound of his voice.

“It looks as though they’re ready to kick off. Or whatever they call it in soccer,” Maggie said, her gaze on the field.

Blue turned her attention to the loose pack of men ranged across the field, her gaze quickly finding Eddie amongst them. Dressed in black workout shorts and a pale grey T-shirt, he was stretching his hamstrings and as she took in his lean, powerful legs, she knew that it had been a mistake to come today.

The last thing she needed right now was to watch Eddie run around looking muscular and hard and gorgeous on a soccer field. She was already on Eddie overload. She was only human. She could handle only so much temptation and provocation.

“I’m so glad you decided to come,” Maggie said, smiling at her happily. “Perving isn’t as much fun without a partner in crime.”

“I thought we were here to support the Ink boys in their struggle for supremacy against the smart-asses at the local café,” Blue said.

“Well, sure. It’ll be lovely if they win. But watching Raf run around in little shorts for an hour is more than enough incentive to get me here,” Maggie said, her gaze glued to Rafel as he talked briefly with a player from the opposing team.

Blue watched as Raf pulled out a coin to toss for ends. Given that this was supposed to be an informal game, she couldn’t help thinking the coin toss was overkill. But then, she wasn’t a man. More specifically, she wasn’t a Brazilian-Australian man. As she’d learned over the years, Raf and Eddie took their soccer very seriously. In all likelihood, the unsuspecting dupes from the coffee shop were about to have their asses handed to them on a platter.

The game started, one of the café guys getting in a lucky kick that sent the ball careening toward their goal. Maggie shifted to the edge of her seat as one of the opposition players used his body to block Rafel from going after the ball. “I thought this was supposed to be a non-contact sport?”

“There’s no such thing as a non-contact sport when men are involved,” Blue said. “Except maybe tennis.”

“What about car racing?” Maggie asked, her gaze following the men on the field.

Renarto had rescued the ball and sent it flying toward the Brothers Ink end of the field. Eddie used his chest to block it and quickly passed the ball to Raf.

“Have you seen how many accidents those guys have?” Blue pointed out.

“True.” Maggie shot to her feet as Raf lined the ball up and tried for the goal. Blue could already see that the goalkeeper was going to intercept, and she reached out to pat her friend’s shoulder when Maggie sat again, her expression disappointed.

“Don’t get too excited. Soccer is usually a low-scoring game. It’s surprisingly hard to get that ball through those posts and into the net,” Blue said.

Maggie made a disgruntled noise before cupping her hands and yelling encouragement to the men on the field.

“Go Inkies!”

Her call drew Eddie’s attention, and he glanced at them, his face lighting up when he caught sight of Blue. She raised her hand in greeting and tried to ignore the warm glow in her belly that was inspired by his very obvious happiness that she’d shown up.

That was why she was here today, of course, when she could have had a whole Eddie-free Sunday to herself — because he’d asked her to come. She’d managed to resist Raf’s and Maggie’s entreaties, but then Eddie had cornered her in the staff room and asked why she wouldn’t be cheering them on. She’d looked into his green eyes and every self-preserving thought she’d possessed had simply evaporated.

Before the accident, she’d been good at creating boundaries for herself where he was concerned. She’d made sure she had a social life that didn’t always include him. She’d had lovers. She’d gone on holidays without him. She’d insisted on preserving a sense of herself separate from her feelings for him.

Since the accident, however, those boundaries kept on crumbling, driven by her own inability to say no and Eddie’s sweet, flattering attentiveness and concern for her wellbeing.

You should have told him to back off when you had the chance
, a voice in her head said as she watched Eddie shepherd the ball up the field with enviable ease.

He’d given her the perfect opportunity when he told her that Raf had accused him of crowding her. She could have agreed and told him she needed more space and he would have given it to her. Instead, she’d gone out of her way to reassure him and had practically given him permission to keep shadowing her. At the time she’d told herself it was because he was so patently worried about her. She could see it in his eyes every time he looked at her. He wanted her to be okay, and the evidence of his concern — his love — was like a drug for her.

She knew it would never be the type of love she craved from him, but that didn’t mean she was immune to its allure.

Now that she’d suffered through four weeks of his attentiveness, however, she understood that even having a little bit of what she craved was bad for her.

“Hey, they’re really good, aren’t they?” Maggie said as Eddie and Rafel passed the ball back and forth between them, eating up the field before lining up another shot at goal.

This time, it looked good, and Blue tensed as Eddie’s foot connected with the ball. The goalie leaped, arms stretched out…and smashed into the ground without intercepting the ball.

“Woo hoo!” Blue punched the air as Maggie jumped to her feet with excitement. “Score one, Team Ink.”

Eddie and Raf gave each other high fives, then Eddie glanced toward them. His gaze caught Blue’s and she could see how much he was enjoying himself. Her chest filled with an almost painful warmth as their gazes held. Then a shout drew his attention to the game and he was once again chasing the ball down the pitch. She watched in silent admiration as he hijacked the ball off the other team, his footwork so fast at times it was a blur.

“Here — pinch me,” Maggie demanded, thrusting her forearm at Blue.

“Um…why?” Blue asked, looking askance at her friend.

“I need to know I’m not dreaming and that that god out there is really mine,” Maggie said, her avid gaze locked on Rafel.

Blue reached out and gave her friend a gentle nip on the arm. “Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” Maggie sighed, and Blue guessed she wasn’t talking about the pain Blue had just inflicted on her.

Blue concentrated on the game, aware of an ungenerous, ugly twist of envy in her heart. Any day now, Blue expected to hear that Rafel had popped the question. Then it would simply be a matter of time before there were babies and all the other accoutrements of happy coupledom.

Meanwhile, she would still be sitting on the sidelines, eating her heart out over Eddie. It was such a miserable outlook, she ground her teeth together.

“You okay?” Maggie asked.

Blue nodded, not taking her eyes from the men on the field.

Okay,
man
, singular. Why pretend she was interested in anyone else? She was fooling only herself.

“Yep. All good.”

“Are you sure?” Maggie asked.

Blue frowned and shot Maggie a look. “I am. Why?”

“You just seem…tense lately. You’re not in pain or anything?”

Not the kind you’re talking about
.

“Nope. No pain.”

“And there’s nothing else going on?”

“Not that I can think of,” Blue said, her tone deliberately light.

“Okay. Well, good.”

Maggie frowned as she refocused on the soccer game and Blue fought off a sense of guilt. It was lovely having a friend who gave a crap about her happiness, but that didn’t mean she had to spill her guts at the slightest provocation - especially when doing so wouldn’t change a damn thing.

Chapter Nine

On the field, the Ink team fought for possession of the ball in the other team’s goal zone. Blue frowned as she saw Eddie take a knock, then shot to her feet when another player hip and shouldered him, sending him sprawling. The urge to go to him was primal, but somehow she managed to stop herself. Eddie stood, a big grin on his face as he shook hands with the player who’d knocked him over.

Blue sat, rolling her eyes. Men. She would never fully understand them.

Despite the protection of the tree they were under, she started to get hot and slipped out of her denim jacket. The day was turning out to be warmer than expected — and, of course, it didn't help that she was staring at Eddie.

A few minutes later, Yuri stripped off his shirt, baring his pale, Eastern European skin to the afternoon sun. Clearly, she wasn’t the only one feeling the heat.

“Here we go,” Maggie said, rubbing her hands together in anticipation.

Sure enough, the rest of the men began shedding their shirts, baring chests, shoulders, and bellies, then tossing their discarded shirts behind the goal posts.

“Now we are
talking
,” Maggie said with obvious relish.

Blue forced a smile, even as she instructed herself not to stare. It was an impossible feat. Eddie’s body was superb, the epitome of male perfection — at least, to her eyes. She’d always loved his shoulders and lean torso, and his olive skin stood out amongst the paler bodies on the pitch. She watched the controlled bounce of his pec muscles as he jogged slowly to the center of the field and felt her mouth go dry as she imagined how firm and hot his chest would feel beneath her hands.

Very firm. Very hot. Very hard.

He lifted a hand and pushed his too-long hair off his forehead, the action flexing his biceps and about million other delicious-looking muscles.

Holy shit. This is like being trapped inside a Diet Coke ad
.

It was. And for the life of her she couldn’t do the smart thing and look away. Just as she’d lapped up his attentiveness at work, she lapped up the sight of his body over the course of the game, growing more and more aroused as the minutes went by.