Game on, Love (Pitch and Pits #1)

32

Oliver

I WAS IN THE kitchen when Raina called for me. The drive back home had been quiet, not uncomfortable, but I could tell that she was nervous. The hair on the back of my neck prickled as I tried to rake through my brain for the reason, but when I came up empty, it only made me more wary.

Pulling back my hand that was on the refrigerator door, I walked back out. I had made myself a protein shake this morning, but I’d rather know what was bothering her and wait a couple of minutes than do it the other way around.

She was standing on the last step of the stairs, a hand on her hip as she bit her lip.

“Yeah?” I took the place in front of her, frowning as she fidgeted. “What’s wrong, love?”

“Nothing is wrong,” She frowned.

“You are fidgeting.”

“Yeah, because I’m nervous, not because there’s something wrong.”

“That’s usually a negative feeling,” I raised a brow. “Otherwise, you would’ve said excited.”

“ Usually. In my case, it’s not,” She piped, and I held back a smile. “You want to do this more or want to see something?”

“Both options are equally tempting.”

Her hands dropped from her side like she had given up. “You’d rather go back and forth with me than see what I got you?”

I shrugged, and she sighed.

“Okay, then.” Turning around she muttered silently as if she was disappointed. “I’ll go wrap everything back up then.”

I chuckled softly at her defeated tone and wrapped my hand around her front before lifting her as she yelped.

“What are you doing!?” Her laugh echoed through the house as I carried her up the stairs. “You said you didn’t want to see it. Put me down!”

“I changed my mind,” I replied, grinning as I set her down in her room.

She turned to me; her expression was one of amusement, but I could see that she was a little flustered, even if she enjoyed it.

“So?” I scanned her room, my eyes lingering on the painting I got her for a second longer before trailing back around to her. “What’s this thing you got me?”

“It’s in your room—aah!”

A laugh left my lips as her words turned into a scream, and I lifted her again.

“Stop doing this!” She grumbled, though as a giggle slipped out, I couldn’t help but grin as I climbed the stairs steadily.

“I’m just making sure you don’t change your mind.”

“I was never going to change my mind!”

She muttered under her breath as I reached the top step. My eyes went in the direction of Rihaan’s room first before I set her down gently and turned her in my hold. He hadn’t been home in a couple of days, because of his shoot, but his door was open today.

Raina frowned, too, noticing it. She whispered like we were doing something we weren’t supposed to. “I thought he wasn’t home.”

“Me too.”

We both stood there in the hallway, unsure what to do, when she nudged me in the direction. “Go check if he is.”

I blinked. “Why me?”

“I haven’t been inside his room before, and I also don’t want to.”

“And you think I want to?” I shot back, a half laugh leaving me.

She shrugged. “You have no choice.”

I rubbed a hand over my face before walking towards his room. I knocked just to be safe, but when I heard nothing, I poked my head in and scanned the familiar but mirrored version of my room.

“He is back, but he isn’t home,” I replied, and she lifted her hand, making me pause.

“Check his bathroom.”

I groaned. “Gorgeous, C’mon.”

“Sure, leave it. That is if you want him to find out about us this way and not actually from us,” she shrugged, her voice teasing, but it made me pause anyway.

I recovered quickly, stepping into his room to check his bathroom before walking back out feeling like I’d committed a crime.

“What was that look on your face?” She asked, her lips pulled in a corner.

“We can talk about it after we do this,” I replied, and she weighed her options for a second before shrugging.

“Okay, close your eyes.”

I cocked a brow, making her shake her head before obliging.

“Don’t peek!”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I replied, amused.

She tugged on my hand as she pulled me towards my room. I heard her open the door, and once we were both inside shut it behind us.

“Okay, open.”

My eyes shot open, and I froze. The room wasn’t transformed; it wasn’t over the top, but a couple of balloons hung from the ceiling with pictures from different matches with Rihaan, some with Noah and Sameer, while the rest were with my parents. A bunting banner that hung over the sofa I had in the corner that read ‘Happy Birthday’, along with a couple of things wrapped up.

“I know it’s tomorrow, and you didn’t want to do anything, but well, there’s something for tonight, so…” She pulled on the hem of her sleeve as she watched my reaction.

I had about fifty different questions in my head, but I settled on the most important one. “How did you even know?”

She released a breath, a soft laugh slipping along with it. “Remember the Christmas shoot?”

I nodded.

“I had to build player profiles for everyone as part of my research, and then I did a little digging around, but then your Mum told me it wasn’t always the case… so I thought I’d find the best of both worlds.”

I blinked, trying to catch on her words. “When did you speak to Mum about this?”

“She and I have been talking since the dinner, and she asked if we had any plans for tomorrow and if we’d have time for brunch.” She replied softly. “But then you said you wanted to sleep in and do nothing, which confused her considering how crazy you used to get before we both guessed the reason and well…”

I stepped closer, my hands sliding onto her waist. “You’re cute when you’re nervous.”

She sighed before clearing her throat. “It doesn’t happen often, so take a picture.”

I chuckled as I pulled her closer. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“I know I didn’t have to. I wanted to.”

Warmth filled my chest as I leaned down. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

Her face lit up, her nervousness melting away, and I closed the gap, capturing her smile as I placed my lips on hers.

Pulling back, I asked. “What is planned for tonight?”

“You have to open the present to find out.”

I pecked her lips. “Okay, what time is it for?”

“7 PM.”

I glanced at the clock on my dresser to check the time before lifting her up. A surprised gasp left her lips which quickly turned into a laugh as her hands gripped onto my shoulders, and as I carried her to my bed and placed my lips on hers, and like it always did, the rest of the world seemed to fade away.

Raina

SOMETHING WAS WRONG. THOUGH I couldn’t exactly tell exactly what it was.

It was nearly 11 PM, and I was sitting on one of their patio chairs, my gaze fixed on the sky. That weird feeling in my gut had landed on me an hour after Oliver had left for dinner with his parents. And even though he had tried to bring me along with him, I knew it was the first time in years that his dad had agreed to go out on a dinner, and I wanted them to be together as they celebrated him and his dad’s remission. They got the results back this evening and it felt like it fit together.

But now that I felt like there was a hand wrapped tightly around my throat that made breathing painful, I was even more glad I hadn’t gone.

As my eyes focused back on the moon, I couldn’t help but feel confused.

Usually, I was able to spot the signs or even feel them creeping up the cracks before it made me feel like my entire world was about to be tilted on its axis… but today, it had been a happy day. I don’t think I had smiled this much in a long time, and having that feeling settle in my bones only made me terrified of what was about to happen.

I had tried to fix it, tried to soothe it but as I felt my ears burn up, the chill of the air making it more evident, I knew I had failed.

“Hey,” A voice called out, making me jump.

Turning my head, I spotted Oliver standing in the doorway with a frown. Though, the way his happiness was radiating off of him, I could tell it was at my expense and not his night.

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I tried my best to make sure my mood didn’t reflect in my voice as I replied. “Hey.”

“Why are you sitting out in the cold?”

I took a deep breath. “I needed some air.”

He stared at me for a beat, before he nodded and turned around.

A minute later, he returned with the throw blanket I got for their couch when I first moved in and walked over to where I was.

Silently, he crouched in front of me and opened it up before he threw it around me. Tugging it tightly at the front, he held it up for me. “What do you need?”

Feeling my throat tighten up, I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

A pained expression crossed his face at my reply. “Want me to go?”

“No,” I replied instantly and his shoulders dropped, like he was relieved. Tracing his face with my eyes, I saw the happiness that lingered from his dinner, and I reached out to touch his face. “How was dinner?”

He leaned into my touch as a smile formed on his lips. “Really good.”

“I’m glad,” I whispered, feeling the lump trying to resolve itself. “I made you a brownie cake.”

He raised his brows. “That’s a thing?”

I nodded, my own lips tipping up.

“I don’t know if I can wait until tomorrow.”

I frowned. “You don’t have to; we can cut it at midnight.”

“Really?” He sounded so excited that I couldn’t help but smile. “I’ve never done that before.”

“Ever?” I asked, as he stood up and settled in next to me. “We always used to have two cakes. One for midnight and one for when we had people over later in the evening.”

“Nope,” He replied, pulling me to snuggle to his side as he threw an arm around me. “I used to only have one. Though I don’t think I can complain, they always used to be the most crazy-themed ones.”

“Which one was your favourite?”

He thought about that for a minute before replying. “Probably the one I had for my 15th. That’s when I really got into Batman—so much so that I’d made everyone, even my parent’s friends, be characters from the entire franchise. I had to compromise and have it a weekend earlier so people could get away with it being a Halloween party. But the cake was massive; it had like three tiers, and it had those fondant models stuck to it of just Batman in different poses.”

He wore an expression that was a little far away like he had stepped into the memory as he spoke about it.

“Did you ever have a really random one?”

“Yes. I had a weird EDM phase—where for like six months all I listened to was EDM music, and as a joke, my mum got the DJ mixer made into an actual cake,” He laughed.

I frowned. “Why was it random?”

“By the time my birthday came around, I had heard it so much that I made myself sick of it. I had to pretend the entire evening that I wasn’t cringing when the songs from my playlist were playing in the background because I didn’t want to upset her,” He shook his head. “Still can’t stand it.”

I laughed, and his eyes lit up with warmth.

“Welcome back, love.” He whispered a second later, before placing a kiss on my forehead.

I laid my head on his shoulder, taking a breath as I felt the lump in my throat dissolve slowly. “Hi.”

I felt him lay his head on top of mine. “Want to tell me what happened?”

“I don’t know… sometimes it just happens,” I whispered, as he placed his left hand facing up in my lap.

“What were you thinking about before it happened?”

I hesitated, placing my right hand in his, and he instantly interlinked them. It’s like he could feel my heart picking up the pace under his touch, and tightened his grip.

“I… I was thinking about my Mum.”

“What about her?”

I pressed my lips together, staring at our hands as he ran his thumb on the back of mine.

It was a while before I found the courage to speak again, but for the first time it felt like speaking about her wasn’t wrong. Like he wouldn’t use the memories I had with her against me.

“Have my brothers told you anything about her or when or how she passed?” Pulling my head back, I asked, meeting his eyes, unsure of what he already knew.

“Just that she died suddenly. Neither of them like to talk about her,” He whispered, like he felt bad for even saying it, but I nodded. I… understood where they were coming from.

Taking a deep breath, I spoke. “She had Scleroderma. It’s a rare autoimmune condition where the skin and connective tissues harden, which eventually causes other issues like hypertension, heart issues and other stuff. There are some clinical trials and drugs that can help with… everything. But there’s no cure for it. But that’s not how she died.”

He ran his hand down my back in a comforting gesture.

“She was part of this clinical trial for years, and she used to go through phases of getting better before she got worse and then back again. In 2017, they put her on some new meds, and the phases stopped. When she got better, it was for longer, and there were no more of her really low days, only some bad ones. From being told she only had two years max left to possibly living out a full life, we all were starting to see light at the end of a tunnel.”

I let out a shaky breath as I spoke further. “I don’t even know what it was she had gone out to get but instead of taking the driver like she used to, she had decided to walk to the local market we had nearby. It wasn’t that far away, but you still had to get on the main road and cross a four-way intersection to get to it; it wasn’t the safest, everyone knew that. There wasn’t a red light to navigate either, so you had to always pay extra attention when you were near it. Driving, walking, or even standing by it because one wrong move by one person and so many lives were…”

“I’m so sorry, Raina.”

“No one has any idea what happened. Everyone has a different story because it happened so fast. There was a camera on one of the shops nearby that caught it from a weird angle, but it was where Ma was. She was on the sidewalk, and out of nowhere, a spinning car hit her from the back, and because of her meds, she was already easily bruised, that even on low impact, she died on the spot.” I gulped. “The journal Vedant gave me was from that year. She wrote almost every day, and the last day she wrote was the day she got told the good news, and she was so excited to live, but this all happened within 24 hours of that.”

“It will be six years in a couple of days,” My chest rose and dropped, my breathing uneven as I laid my head on his shoulder, my gaze fixed on the sky. “She had her flaws, just like every person, but she was my favourite person. On her best days, she taught me how to bake and how to be me; and on her worst ones she taught me how not let the decisions other people made for me to hold me back. Those four years where it was just the two of us back at her home were some of the best and worst years of my life.”

Oliver ran a hand down my back, and I could feel the comfort he was trying so hard to give run through me.

“Can I ask something?” He whispered and I turned to look at him. His eyes were filled with understanding and genuine pain like he could feel the heartbreak too, and I nodded. “Why did you stay in India after that?”

I wasn’t sure if I’d misread his tone, but I felt like it was deliberate . “What do you mean?”

He took a deep breath. “Rihaan told me once that you didn’t move back until you were eighteen. He’d said that you didn’t want to come back with them when they’d gone back for the funeral.”

“Is that what he thinks happened?” I asked, bewildered.

Oliver blinked, clearly not expecting my response. “It’s not?”

“It wasn’t my choice.” I replied, evenly, though a part of me felt the anger rising.

“What do you mean?”

Pressing my lips together, I took a deep breath. The sad part was that I felt no surprise at learning this piece of information.

Taking another breath, I replied. “My dad didn’t want me to come back with them. He said that I was ‘ settled there’, and he didn’t think it was a good idea.”

Oliver’s eyes widened, and I suddenly realised the weight of what I’d just dropped.

“Okay, I know I said that in a very nonchalant way, but with him, I’ve learnt how to… expect things like this.”

His lips turned into a thin line as he shook his head. “No.. I’ve seen how your dad can be, and I always thought Rihaan let it happen because there was more to the story, but I didn’t realise it was with all of you.”

There was a quiet frustration hidden in his voice as he spoke about my dad, and I realised that it was still happening with Rihaan.

“Is it bad?” I asked, unsure how much to ask.

“He’s gotten better at holding his own, and he shrugs it off like it doesn’t bother him, but it’s like he becomes a different person when he is around your dad.”

I blinked at him, caught off guard by his tone. What was frustration before was now pure bitterness.

“Will you tell Rihaan?” Oliver’s voice was softer this time. “About how it was your dad’s decision?”

I sighed, running a hand down my face. “I need to wait.”

“Why?” He frowned, pulling back a little.

“It’s complicated... there were a couple of other things that happened before we moved, and I don’t know how true they are. I was a kid, and a lot of it came out when I got help but I need to see the rest of her journals before I can. I need to be sure that I hadn’t just made those things up to protect myself,” I replied. “I’m going back next week when Dev is back.”

“What about your dad?” He asked, a hard look in his eyes like he didn’t like the thought of me seeing him.

“Dev said he won’t be home.”

He paused, like he realised something. “Have you ever seen him since…”

“The night of the championship party was the first time, but I haven’t been face to face with him, No.”

He nodded, before his eyes softened. “I know I don’t have the right to say this, but I don’t want you to see him. Rihaan may be able to hold his own, but I don’t want you to test that.”

My chest tightened at his words before it filled with warmth.

“I don’t want to either,” I whispered. “But you’re wrong about something.”

“What?” His voice was low, his eyes tracing my face.

“You do have the right to say that.”

His shoulders dropped as he watched me. For a moment the air between us felt charged, and just as he opened his mouth, an alarm went off making us both jump.

Pulling out my phone that I had tucked under me, I remembered I had set an alarm when it was almost midnight so we would cut his cake at the right time.

Turning it off, I looked at him, and we both chuckled.

Leaning into him, I traced his open palm that was still placed on my lap. “Thank you for listening.”

“Anytime, love.” He whispered, like he was giving me his word before placing a kiss on the top of my head before we headed inside.

He watched me silently, with a smile, as I placed the cake in front of him and lit the candles I’d gotten earlier with the rest of the stuff.

“This looks amazing.”

I lifted a shoulder, pleased as he pulled me on his lap. “Do you have your wish ready?”

“I don’t think I’ve made a wish since I was a kid.”

I looked at him in shock. “But you’ve got the ultimate birthday for it! 11/11—it literally doesn’t get more perfect than that.”

I covered his eyes with my hands, and he grinned. “What are you doing?”

“Forcing you to make a wish,” I replied, and I monitored the clock in front of us. As soon as the clock struck midnight, I pulled my hands back. “Now!”

He looked at me with a soft expression, and then gave me that real smile of his, before blowing out the candles.

As he cut his cake, I couldn’t resist it. “Happy Birthday, King.”

He laughed. “That’s been in the vault for a while now.”

“We’ll just leave it for special occasions.”

“Like birthdays?”

I nodded, lifting a piece of cake for him. “Among other things.”

Taking a bite, he kept his eyes on me before snaking his hand around the back of my neck and pulling me to him in a kiss that made me forget my own name.