6. Jake
Chapter six
Jake
I stare at the man in my living room. He is certainly not the person I want to spend tonight with. But the team’s owner was clear: both my PT Allie and the team doctor, John Jones, will check on me for the next five days to ensure that I “rest.”
I do plan to rest, but I also plan to romp a little with Allie in between my resting. She looked so cute earlier tonight, standing in her front door with my sister, looking at me with those big, beautiful eyes full of anger. I try not to smile at the memory.
Dr. Jones is surveying the set up in my living room with a critical eye. Some of the staff had brought over as much of the recovery equipment as they reasonably could. I have bands, inflatable balls, rollers, two tables—one for massage and the other to be tortured… I mean worked on… by Allie. For as tiny as she is, she is incredibly strong. Her idea of giving me range of motion in my shoulder includes some intense poking and prodding into my entire back.
I feel a tightness in my groin as I remember prodding her in intimate places in the Eagle’s PT room in the storage closet.
“I hope you are taking this seriously,” Jones says, looking at me with a stern eye. I guess I was smirking a bit thinking about sex with Allie.
I put a serious look on my face. “I want to be on the ice next week, doc. So yeah, I’m taking this seriously. But I can’t believe you agreed to ‘bed rest’ for me. I’m a professional athlete. You’ve got to know that sitting around while I’m in the prime of my health is going to be ridiculously hard.”
He crosses his lean arms and gives me a cold-fish look. “You are not in the prime of health. If you were, then you would be with the team preparing for the season’s opening game.”
I look away. He’s right. I don’t think my mental health is going to win any awards this week if I’m kept totally separate from the guys.
“I’ll take the anti-inflammatory meds you gave me,” I say as a peace offering. Other than those pain pills from Juan, I really don’t like taking meds.
“You do that. And you better hope to your lucky stars that our latest blood tests, and that tissue biopsy we sent out, come back clean. Your PT is sharp,” Jones adds after a little pause where he tested the two tables set up, nodding when he saw how sturdy they are. “If this is an inflammation issue and you’re able to play after full rest, she’ll be a real hero.”
I laugh. Allie, a hero? Who would have thought it? “She is something, isn’t she?” I mumble to myself.
Unfortunately for me, Jones hears it. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you to keep your hands off that young woman, do I?” His tone is stern, but thank the gods he’s finally moving toward my front door, ready to leave me in peace. Allie should be here soon and I don’t want him mucking up the intimate plans I have for her and me tonight.
“Wow, doc, you have no faith in me, do you?” I say, feigning hurt feelings.
He doesn’t chuckle. “On the ice at your best? I have absolute faith in you. With pretty women who are putting their hands on you the way she does? No. I wouldn’t trust you even if she was dressed from head to toe in an oversized marshmallow costume.”
That makes me laugh. And the visual I have of Allie with sugary white stuff all over her that I can lick off just makes me hard for her. He’s looking at me like he expects me to promise to be hands off with our cute little PT. No can do. So I distract him.
“Absolute rest means absolute rest. Nothing more. But I mean I do have a pool out back—would swimming constitute exercise? I am going to need to know the rules here, doc.”
He switches back into doctor mode, leaving my potential connection to Allie alone. “No. Jake,” he sighs, “are you incapable of taking anything seriously here?” He’s irritated. That makes me irritated.
“I’m thirty-two, doc. I can play until I’m, what, thirty-six or thirty-seven? I think everyone is acting like I’m forty and incapable of recovery.” I regret my words as soon as they’re out in the air. His eyes darken at me. He’s accountable to the team owner and to Coach for my health. I may have just crossed a line.
“It is starting to look like I need to stay here for the next five days. I’m unsure you are capable of following orders.”
At that moment, the doorbell rings. I grit my teeth. Great. If Allie shows up in that little mini dress she was wearing earlier, then it is going to make everything look wrong and Jones will certainly be staying with me.
But when Jones opens the door, it’s not Allie. It’s Coach. I try not to groan out loud.
He grins. “How is our favorite patient?” he asks.
I surrender to the inevitable. They are here to make sure I am not breaking any rules. The best thing I can do is play along. A pair of headlights pulls up in the driveway. It looks like Allie’s little car. Sure enough, she steps out. She waves at the three of us in my doorway, then grabs a small bag from the backseat.
As she walks up, I can see she is in her standard PT outfit. It’s like she knew we were going to be checked on tonight. She avoids my eyes and shakes hands with the doctor, nodding her hello to Coach.
“Looks like we are all here! Great. Just point me to my room and we can have our first on-site meeting about Jake’s recovery.” Her tone is perfectly professional and the brisk little nod she gives me turns me off.
Here I thought we were going to have five days of blissed out sex and passion, but instead it turns out that while three is a crowd, four is even worse. It’s then that I notice Coach’s small bag in his hand.
“I see everyone just decided to invite themselves over,” I say with irritation in my voice. I gesture to Coach’s bag.
He looks gravely at me. “Son, this may be your last chance to get on the ice with the team. I wouldn’t do anything foolish to mess it up.” His eyes flicker to Allie and then back to me. My heart constricts for a briefest moment—does he know she and I hooked up in the PT room?
I look at Allie, but her expression remains unflappable. Somehow, some way, I need to get her alone to catch myself up to speed on what is happening. It’s after ten o’clock and all three of them are on my doorstep? Something fishy is going on.
I grab Coach’s bag, leading him up the stairs and to a guest room in my mansion that is far from my master room. I tell him that he can have the upstairs master room, though I won’t tell him that downstairs on the opposite wing of my home is the true second master bedroom and that is where I’ll put Allie.
I tell him about what Jones and I aligned on with my resting and no swimming in my own pool for recreation and before I know it, I’ve safely put him into his room and invited him downstairs once he’s settled in for something to eat during Allie’s little impromptu meeting.
I all but run down the stairs, looking for my sister’s best friend. A meeting? This late at night? Are you kidding me! I’m starting to doubt that she’s into me at all. Maybe it was all just a joke for her when we had sex. Maybe she was using me to check the box of “sex with a professional athlete.” I narrow my eyes. I need some answers and fast.
I hear her in the living room and round the corner quietly. She and Jones are going over a file—my file, no doubt—and conferring about my diet, from the sounds of it. I approach the two of them and try to catch her eye.
Finally, she glances at me. There isn’t that little spark in her eyes that I enjoyed seeing just before we had sex, and then again when I saw her and my sister a few hours ago. What changed?
“Allison,” I say in a flat tone. “I can show you to a room you can use while you’re here. I chose the one furthest from where Coach and I are, on the east side of the house. So, you’ll have plenty of privacy. The room even has its own private entrance at the side of the house.”
I reach for her bag before she can protest. Jones says he’ll wait for us in the kitchen, assuming he can help himself to some water. I play the role of the perfect host and welcome him to raid my kitchen for anything he needs. Honestly, I just need to buy a few minutes of time alone with Allie.
She trots beside me as we walk down the hallway to the other side of my house. I bought this place as an investment at the advice of my financial advisor. It has eight bedrooms and a five-car garage. The neighborhood does not have a homeowner’s association nor does it have a gate, so the resale value is great for people not looking to be in a subdivision.
I reach the door at the end of the hallway and push it open. I toss her bag on the chaise lounge by the far windows and then turn to her. She’s standing by the king sized bed, on her phone! I am offended.
“Allison,” I say, like she is a naughty little girl in need of a spanking—because she is.
Her blue eyes look into my hazel ones and I see an apology in their depths. “Jake, please understand…” she falters and then recovers herself. She straightens up and moves toward the door. “It would be the end of my career and a setback in yours if what happened in the PT room ever happened again. I’m sorry. But I cannot do that again. Too much is at stake.”
“Allie,” I say softly, moving closer to her.
“Plus, I know you’re on that exclusive, celebrities only dating app,” she says, her eyes turning cold. “Your sister was oh so kind enough to tell me all about the bikini models you’ve been matching with and chatting with lately.”
Allie turns on her heel and only pauses long enough to throw out over her shoulder, “Sure would have been nice to know before you took advantage of me this morning.”
I can only stare at her, my jaw on the floor, as she flounces out of the room.