Glitter on the Web (12 page)

I picked Lisa, just so she wouldn’t have to be selected last—because I knew if Eli had his way, she would be. Like clockwork, he selected Randy, again focusing on the smallest of the group. It got me madder by the second. It finally got down to Lola and Joe, and once again I took my big guy just to spare him from having a sizeist asshat as a team captain. Fortunately Lola was okay with this. She was already a big fan of Eli’s and didn’t mind anything that put her in direct contact.

Our teams in place, Eli turned to me. “Game on?” he challenged with that glint in his eyes.

“Game on,” I said.

After another coin toss, Eli’s team, hereafter known as the Heartbreakers, got the ball. My team, appropriately named the Ballbusters, huddled together to strategize, ready to do anything and everything from allowing the Heartbreakers to score.

A fitting metaphor for my whole year
, I thought with a smile.

“He’s going to run the ball,” I told them. “With an ego like his, he’ll want to make the winning play himself, rather than pass it off to anyone, though I’d bet that is what he’ll want us to think. He’ll keep our focus on Brandon so he can slip right by us. But we’re not going to let him.”

“You want me to cover him?” Antoine asked, but I shook my head.

“You stay with Brandon. Let him think his strategy is working. Leave the pretty boy to me.”

I had a lot of frustration to work out after all these months, and I knew just how to do that.

Just like I predicted, he faked a pass to Brandon. Antoine and Daisy covered him, leaving a straight line between Lisa and me.

I could tell by the look on his face he thought darting between the two big girls would be a piece of proverbial cake. Lisa, following my directive to leave Eli to me, hung back while I dug deep; mustering every iota of frustration and anger I had ever felt for Eli Blake. I charged for him, flinging myself mid-air to take him down in a full-body tackle that brought us both to the ground with breathless grunts.

It took us a moment to catch our breath. “Well, well, well,” he murmured as he reevaluated me. “You came to play.”

“I came to win,” I corrected.

He easily flipped me onto my back. “So did I,” he informed me before he stole yet another kiss. My eyes were wide as he lifted away. As I rose up, I could see the paparazzo texting something furiously on his phone.

Always an agenda
, I thought with a sneer before I joined my team.

The next play he really did pass the ball to Brandon. Antoine and Daisy were ready, easily tackling him and forcing a fumble. Daisy recovered and made her run for it, but Eli didn’t let her get very far.

It was the Ballbusters’ turn to line up their offense, with me as the quarterback. My eyes met Eli’s. His aggravating smirk told me everything I needed to know about his game strategy.

And of course, when he tackled me, he took me down with the same force I had employed before. I glared at him as he kept me pinned to the ground, just because he could. “Let me up,” I growled.

“Pay the toll,” he said as he pursed his lips for a kiss. I caught sight of the paparazzo out of the corner of my eye, so I was forced to comply. That it made Eli even smugger just threw more gasoline on my fire.

But I decided to use it to my advantage. He clearly had something to prove and was determined to keep his focus on me. I informed my crew thusly, and thanks to Antoine’s catlike grace, we scored the first touchdown of the game while I let Eli tackle me again, and didn’t “pay the toll” until my friend spiked the ball.

Eli grinned at me. “You little vixen, you,” he murmured as his eyes scanned my face.

I arched an eyebrow. “I thought there was nothing little about me.”

His eyes trailed across my face and down towards my chest. “More than a mouthful is a waste,” he agreed, before he added, “For little men with little… hands… little minds and limited ways.”

Of course he’d quote his own damnable song to me. He bent closer to complete the chorus.

“I know what to do with you. And girl, you know it too. Give me just a taste.”

I thrust him away and stalked off, leaving him laughing behind me.

Even more annoying, he managed to score on his very next play, using my own frustration against me. He kept me preoccupied as Clem bulldozed her way all the way to the in-zone.

By the time I got the ball again, I was ready to go right through Eli to get my own goddamned touchdown. I knew he wouldn’t expect it, so I faked a pass to Antoine, whom his whole team was covering. I tucked the ball under my arm, put my head down and took off right towards Eli, who watched me coming with a victorious gleam in his eye. I knew he wanted to take me down, but I wasn’t about to let him.

I charged forward, faking right to get around him. Unfortunately he was ready for that, and agile enough to adapt. He threw his whole body on me. I heard the pop in my ankle before I went down, but it took a second for the blinding pain to set in, causing me to cry out and literally drop the ball.

Eli pounced right on top of it, oblivious at first to my injury. It took Antoine running over for him to get a clue that something had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

To his credit, Eli tossed the ball aside and knelt beside me, where Antoine was examining my foot. I gasped the second he tried to move it. Instantly I knew it was bad. “I sprained my ankle, didn’t I?”

He nodded as he examined my foot, and I gasped as he tested my mobility—of which there was none. “You tore a ligament. I’d bet money on it.”

“I’ll get her to the hospital,” Eli volunteered at once, but I glared daggers at him.

“Haven’t you done enough?”

“Keep your voice down,” he instructed quietly as he nodded off towards the lingering paparazzo shamelessly capturing the whole incident now on video.

I turned back to Antoine. “Take me to the ER.”

Before anyone could say anything, Eli easily swept me up into his arms. “I told you. I’m taking you.”

I wanted to struggle, but I knew I couldn’t. Not under the watchful eye of PING anyway. I gasped from the pain in my foot as he placed me in the passenger side of his car. He was being tender and gentle, but I knew that was more for PING’s benefit than mine. Clementine knelt down to talk to me through the car window.

“Are you going to be okay?”

Eli climbed into the driver’s seat. “I’ll take good care of her. I promise.”

I snorted, to indicate what I thought of his promises. Clem patted my arm. She might have volunteered to go with, but Eli’s car was a two-seater. “I’ll call you later,” I assured as we backed out of the parking lot. I rolled up the window just as we exited and made our way down the hill.

“I hope you’re happy now,” I snapped.

“Not really, no,” he shot back. “They captured all of that on film. You, coming after me, guns blazing. This is bad.”

“Not to mention I’m
injured
,” I reminded.

He simply shrugged. “You were the one who wanted to play tackle.”

My jaw dropped open. “Really? You’re going to blame me for this?”

His eyes briefly met mine. “You set the tone for the game, Carly. Right from the start. You play rough, you risk getting hurt. That’s how it works.”

“Fuck you.”

“Let’s let a doctor look at you first. Then we’ll talk.”

I sputtered and fumed all the way to the ER.

Thanks to his celebrity status, we were ushered back into a private waiting room, to wait our turn behind the other non-critical injuries currently clogging up the hospital ER. An hour ticked painfully by, and my ankle darkened by the minute. It was clearly bruising from my pinkie toe all the way up to my lower calf. Eli smirk fell as he watched, calculating how we were going to handle this new complication.

“You’re going to have to stay with me,” he decided.

“No way in hell,” I replied. I was in a lot of pain, but I wasn’t delirious, for fuck’s sake.

“You can’t stay in your apartment,” he reasoned. “Especially if they put you on crutches.”

I thought about the narrow stairwell at Ling’s place. It would be a bitch to navigate that steep, dark staircase on crutches, but it was infinitely more preferable to staying at Eli’s place.

Then it occurred to me that I only had one month left before I had to move out of my apartment, which meant not only would I have to walk up and down those stairs every day, I was going to have to find a way to move what little stuff I had there into a whole new place entirely.

“You’re such an asshole,” I muttered before I gently held my ankle, which had now swollen twice its size.

“It was an accident, Carly. You know that.”

“Do I?” I shot back. His eyes met mine.

“Yeah. You do. I didn’t hurt you on purpose.”

“No, you never hurt anyone on purpose,” I sneered. “Just behind everyone’s back like the sniveling coward you are.”

It was his turn to get mad. “What do you want me to do? I can’t go back in time and change anything.”

My eyes shot to his. “You could apologize. That’s what normal humans do when they fuck up. ‘Gee, Carly. I seem to have really hurt you. I’m so sorry.’ Not, ‘here, let’s use your injury as an excuse to move in with me, because we can’t let PING to use video against us and hurt my precious career.’” I growled deep in my throat. “Face it. Everything always works out the way you want it to.”

He didn’t get a chance to reply before we were taken back to the examination room. He stood by quietly as the doctor began his examination. He ordered X-rays, and, again much to the credit I did not want to give him, Eli helped me into the wheelchair so that they could roll me to the X-ray department.

It took a couple of painful hours, but the doctor confirmed Antoine’s diagnosis. It was a grade III sprain. The “pop” I heard meant I had torn a ligament, which made my injury more severe. Because I couldn’t bear any weight on that ankle, he put my foot in a splint I would have to wear a couple of weeks at least before I graduated to a boot. “You’re going to need to rest, Carly,” he told me as he wrote out some prescriptions for anti-inflammatory medication and limited narcotics to help me deal with the acute agony I currently endured. “The first three weeks, we’re just going to focus on bringing down the swelling. Don’t walk on it at first. Keep it elevated above your heart for the first 48 hours and use ice compresses for twenty minutes at a stretch.”

“Three weeks?” I echoed. “How long is this going to take?”

“Typically we begin weight-bearing treatment by week 3 or 4, where we can start you on physical therapy. That should get you back to your regular activities in six weeks.”

Six weeks
?!

I was going to have a hell of a time relocating out of Ling’s place.

He patted my knee. “You’re in good health, Carly,” he smiled. “We’ll get you back up on your feet in no time.”

Though the doctor gave me the crutches I would need to get around without putting weight on my sprained ankle, they discharged me with full use of a wheelchair to roll me down to Eli’s car, where he waited at the entrance.

He wasn’t alone. That PING vulture from the parking lot had located us, and didn’t even bother hiding the fact he was recording every single thing for posterity.

Eli was quiet as he helped me into the car. He’d already filled my prescriptions in the time it had taken to discharge me, so there was nothing else to do but go home.

I swallowed every protest I had as Eli pointed his car west towards Malibu.

CHAPTER
SEVEN

I ended up moving in with Eli Blake not on Valentine’s Day, like he wanted, but January 17
^th
, just five days into our year-long contract. All because of my Grade III ankle sprain, and the six damnable weeks it would take to heal.

By the time I left the ER, I had a brand new splint and boot for my ankle, along with some crutches, which would make navigating the narrow stairwell of my current apartment practically an Olympian feat, especially given I did this now for an audience of curious camera monkeys who wanted to publicize my every move—the more embarrassing the better.

So I didn’t argue much when Satan—I mean, Eli—offered to let me recuperate in his Malibu beach house.

He kept things quiet on the drive there. He didn’t even play the radio. When we got there, he pulled the car as close as he could to the front door to make it easier on me.

Of course, navigating my new crutches like a newborn gazelle was anything but easy. Eli hovered around me to make sure I didn’t fall.

I so wanted to stick one of my crutches where the sun didn’t shine.

As soon as we entered the hallway, the polished wood floor presented yet another challenge. It took me what felt like an hour and a half to get down to the sunken living room, where I nearly broke my neck maneuvering down the wide steps. I hobbled towards one of the leather sofas, where I collapsed gratefully. The hydrocodone they had given me at the hospital had finally kicked in, though it really didn’t do much to help with the pain. I just didn’t really care I was in it anymore.

Eli was quiet as he grabbed one of the lambskin pillows on the floor, along with the gold ottoman, which he dragged to where I was sitting. He placed the pillow on top of the ottoman and helped me put my swollen leg on top. I winced the minute his hand made contact with my ankle. Though I had never been a huge crier, tears sprang into my eyes. If he took notice, mercifully he didn’t acknowledge it. Instead he headed for the kitchen to grab me something to eat with my dosage of 800mg ibuprofen.

Beau Jangles meowed at me as he jumped up on the sofa to see what was going on. I scratched him by the ears before he hopped over to the ottoman to inspect the doctor’s handiwork.

Since I had a minute, I called Clementine, who answered on the first ring. “Are you okay?” she asked at once, abandoning all superfluous greetings.

I repeated what the doctor had said, and then informed her where I now called home. “For the next six weeks at least,” I corrected. I had no intention to stay there any longer than I had to.