Ready to Score

Chapter 11

11

Jade made it through a ten-minute car ride and to the last turn in the parking lot of Greenbelt Memorial before Lim uttered a drowsy “Wait, do you even know where I live?”

She almost felt bad for what she was about to do, but she knew how serious head injuries were. So much of her job was spent attempting to prevent things like concussions for the kids on her team. Their sport was rife with injury and not enough people to take those injuries and the players who got them seriously. She was not one of those people. Anytime one of her kids took a tough hit to the head or body, she made them see a medic.

Lim was no different.

“Okay, so about that,” Jade said with a grimace. “We’re actually at the emergency room.”

Lim gasped as if she’d been thoroughly betrayed. “Jade, noooo.”

“Look… I’ll… I’ll go in with you if you want. I’ll sit in the waiting room and drive you home when you’re done. But you have to get checked, you know that.”

Lim had spent the entire car ride with her eyes shut, and still Jade could feel her rolling them behind the lids.

“Lim, open your eyes, right now.”

Lim crossed her arms over her chest like a petulant child. “I don’t want to.”

“No, you can’t, because if you do, your head will start hurting even worse, right?” Jade huffed the string of words.

“No.” Lim’s tone could be described as nothing short of bratty. “It’s because I simply don’t want to.”

“Right,” Jade said. She threw open her door and heaved herself out of the car, moving around the front and opening the passenger-side door before Lim found it in her wherewithal to stop her. “Let’s go. You probably have a mild traumatic brain injury, and if you die out of pure stubbornness, I will fucking kill you.”

Lim wouldn’t budge. This time, Jade threw her head to the sky and let out a screech.

“How about this,” she said to Lim through gritted teeth. “If you go in there and get seen by a doctor, I’ll—” She broke off, feeling flushed. Her immediate instinct had been to offer some type of physical service, like a massage or something. Not that she would have referred to that as labor on her part. “I’ll… I’ll big you up to Landry once,” she said instead.

Lim’s ears practically wiggled with the way she perked up. “What will you say?”

Jade rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. I’ll think of it in the moment.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“What do you mean that’s not good enough? I’m the one trying to keep you safe here.”

“I already know I’m fine, so you’re going to have to try harder than that.”

Jade bit down on her lip, stressed. “What would you tell one of the kids, Lim? If they hit their head so hard they could hardly open their eyes. Would you tell them to walk it off?”

“Of course not!”

“Right, so how about you get out of the car before I’m forced to drag you out.”

Immediately, she could tell Lim wanted to argue, but her point had been too good. She didn’t know the other woman that well, but she knew enough that if she was anything like the type of person Jade thought she was, a hypocrite was the last thing she wanted to be.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve threatening me, Dunn,” Lim groaned as she stepped out of the car. Jade was immediately at her side. She put one of Lim’s arms around her neck and rested a hand around her waist, walking her the short distance toward the entrance of the hospital.

“Why don’t you just hush now and focus on not passing out.”

Luckily, the small emergency waiting room at Greenbelt Memorial was close to empty. There was a woman and a child sitting off in one of the corners near the loud vending machine. Aside from that, there was only one other person, filling out paperwork with his right arm secured to his chest with an old T-shirt.

Triage demanded that Lim be taken back first because of the nature of her injury and ensuing symptoms. Jade helped her complete her intake paperwork, then watched as Lim was helped into a wheelchair by a young nurse with kind eyes. She followed after them.

Before going through the double doors that led into the exam rooms, the nurse paused to exchange words with a colleague. It was only a brief moment, but Lim looked up at Jade, an expression coming over her face. Vulnerable, afraid. Jade opened her mouth to suggest that she escort her back for moral support. But nothing came out, because all she could imagine was Lim rebuking her for being inappropriate.

Just as quickly as it came, the moment was gone, and Jade was left to park her ass in one of the uncomfortable waiting room chairs.

It was almost three hours before the doors opened and Lim walked back out to the waiting room. Jade stood up to go meet her halfway to the door.

“I figured you would have left by now,” Lim said. Her eyes were open and clear now, but Jade could already see the dark circles beginning to form under them.

“Well, I have your car,” she said. “Is it a concussion, then?”

“No, thank God. Just a migraine triggered by the hit.”

“They gave you a CT scan to be thorough, right?”

Lim rolled her eyes and started walking. “Yes, Mommy, I promise they took the little picture thingy of my brain.”

Jade coughed, suddenly a little warm despite the sterile coldness of the room they were in. “Come on, let’s get you home before you pass out.”

The heavy-duty ibuprofen they’d given her at the hospital mixed with the anti-nausea pills seemed to make Lim drowsy from the way she leaned her head against the window the entire drive. She didn’t fall asleep, but every time Jade took her eyes off the road to peek over and make sure she was all right, Lim was looking at her. It made Jade too nervous to acknowledge, so each time she cut her eyes back ahead as quickly as she could.

“Did you tell Landry to call my old team in Texas?” Lim asked quietly.

Jade choked. “Uh… What? Why?”

“I got a call from my old head coach asking me what I was getting into out here. He told me he’d gotten a call from Landry asking about me. I’m not trying to accuse you of anything. I just figure… that type of thing seems up your alley.”

“Up my alley?”

“Yeah.” Lim sighed and shifted in her seat so her back was pressed against the passenger-side door. “It’s definitely up your alley to try to catch me in a lie, just so you can get me tossed out on my ass.”

Jade’s hand tightened on the wheel. Her stomach flipped like she was taking a long drop off a rickety roller coaster. “And maybe you’re paranoid.”

“Or maybe I’m right.”

They stopped at a red light, and Jade pressed her foot down firmly on the brakes and glanced over at Lim again. She didn’t look high, but she did look tired. Her eyes were heavy, drooping more and more every time she blinked. Jade took in Lim’s ruddy cheeks and her chapped lips and found herself struck by how lovely she looked even still. Those eyes were hard to look away from—they were hard to lie to.

“It’s just protocol, you know,” Jade said. “We need to make sure we’re doing reference checks on everyone. People lie, Lim. You know that.”

Lim blinked at her slowly once, then closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the glass. “Sure, Jade.”

When Jade put her foot on the gas to pull forward, the motion made her feel nauseous.

Lim lived in an older four-unit apartment building just around the corner from where Miri and her mother had lived for over twenty years. Whoever owned the building hadn’t made any updates, but it was clear that it had been kept up well. All cherrywood floors and the original black-and-white subway tile in the bathroom. Lim didn’t seem to have central heating or air, but there were two window units in the place, one in the living room and one in the bedroom. It was stuffy and hot when they walked in the front door, the living room still catching plenty of light from the dusky setting sun.

Immediately, Jade moved to crank both window units up high to get the air moving. Then she sat Lim down on the couch, helping her to get her shoes off.

“If you don’t have a concussion, maybe you should have a little nap.”

“Yeah, okay,” Lim said, nodding with a wince. “Thank you for doing all this, but you really can go now. I’ll be fine.”

Jade sighed, taking the blanket that rested on the back of the couch and throwing it over Lim so that it covered her entire body. “Is this a comfortable temperature?”

“I feel fine.”

Jade narrowed her eyes. “Do you?”

Lim looked at her, heavy eyes wide open for the first time in hours. But it was only for a split second before they were back to the soft, sleepy gaze. “Why do you always have to fight me, Jade?”

“I don’t.” She knew the words were a flat-out lie the second they left her mouth.

Lim giggled. “You’re literally doing it right now.”

Jade watched as she sank farther into the couch, contorting her body until she was in the perfect position. Knees bent, socked feet tucked halfway between two of the cushions until her head of dark hair was barely visible beneath the blanket. They were both silent for a few long seconds. When Jade spoke again, it was only because she figured Lim had finally fallen asleep.

“Maybe it’s just easier this way.”

“Uh-uh.”

The quiet voice shocked Jade, but not enough to make the embarrassment of her admission fade away.

“You’re just scared is all,” Lim said.

“I’m not scared of anything.”

There was that giggle again. “Sure you are. You’re scared of what people think. And you’re scared that I’m not as awful as you try to convince yourself I am.”

Jade only sniffed, not allowing those words to rest in her head for any longer than it took to bully her brain into trying to forget them.

She expected Lim to reply again, this time waiting for longer than a few seconds of silence. When it was clear that she was finally asleep, Jade ventured into the kitchen.

Soon she’d call Miri or Olivia and beg one of them to pick her up and drop her back off at the school so she could get her car. But first she’d at least make sure Lim had something to eat when she woke up.

Lim’s kitchen wasn’t scant, but Jade could see that she wasn’t much of a snacker. It was also clear that they had some very obvious culinary differences. The ingredients Lim had intrigued her, like perilla seed oil and gochujang, a red chili paste, but she didn’t want to try something new to her and end up making something inedible (though she did jot down a few things in the notes app on her phone for later). Instead, she found everything she needed to make a quick pot of red rice and smoked sausage.

It would be a complete, hearty meal that Lim could get full on and still eat for a couple of days if her migraine stuck around. Jade tried not to think too hard about why she was doing this as she prepared the dish, humming to herself as she fried up some bacon and sautéed some onions and garlic. All in all, it took her under twenty minutes before the tomatoey rice dish was popped into the oven to cook.

She had about forty minutes to kill before the food was done. In lieu of sitting quietly at Lim’s little two-person dining table with her eyes on her phone and anxiety in her chest, Jade decided to tackle a few of the dishes that had been left in the sink. She needed something to do with her hands to distract herself from her current reality. Jade was not supposed to like this woman. In fact, she was supposed to be trying her hardest to hate her, to keep the fire in her belly burning. Instead, here she was cooking for her and doing her dishes.

She tried to convince herself that it was guilt egging her on. If she hadn’t come up behind Lim, the other woman wouldn’t have nearly knocked herself out. It wasn’t a theory that instilled any confidence. She’d had no reason to approach Lim earlier that day after the game. Hell, her car was parked all the way on the other side of the lot, and there she had been, head full of some half-baked statement that she hadn’t even gotten to spew out.

Except, on some level, she knew that wasn’t it—and that she wasn’t ready to acknowledge the truth. Because if she were honest, she’d gone out of her way the entire day for the simple reason that she liked…

Jade shook her head hard enough to make her brain rattle around in her skull. No. She refused. She would not entertain thoughts like that. Certainly not about the woman sleeping on the couch one room away.

Jade started humming again as she finished washing the dishes, not loud enough to disturb Lim but with enough volume that it helped her quiet her own thoughts, until finally she was relieved to hear the oven timer go off.

The sound seemed to wake Lim up, because the moment Jade pulled the hot glass pan from the oven, she heard feet shuffling into the kitchen.

“You cooked?” Lim’s voice was decidedly groggy. Jade guessed that if she’d turned around, she probably would have seen the woman rubbing tiredly at her eyes. Even just the image in her head was adorable, so Jade made sure to keep her gaze fixed on the food, deciding to go ahead and serve it up before she left.

“Not much,” Jade said. “I just figured you hadn’t eaten in hours, so…”

A chair scraped against the linoleum, and then Jade nearly dropped a plate at the almost breathy groan Lim let out as she took a seat at her little dinette table.

“I just made some Charleston red rice with those smoked sausages you had in there. Have you ever had it?”

Lim shook her head, but the look in her eyes was hungry as she gazed at the steaming plate in front of her. “Did you go shopping?” she asked Jade.

“No, you had basically everything I needed.”

There was a long stretch of silence as they sat across from each other in the quiet room. The tentative scraping of Franny’s fork on the plate.

“This is really good,” Lim murmured.

Jade nodded. “We eat it all the time around here. You’ve really never had it?”

“No, but I appreciate you making it for me; you really didn’t have to.”

Jade looked up and caught Lim’s eye. Even though her face was clearly tired, her eyes remained bright. Dark brown, they were endless pools of warmth. As much as she knew that she shouldn’t sit there and stare at the other woman, she couldn’t help it. There wasn’t a single part of her that wanted to look anywhere else in that moment.

“It’s, uh—” Jade stammered a bit. “It’s not a big deal. Didn’t even take an hour to get it all put together.”

Finally, they broke eye contact when Lim chuckled, looking down at her plate. “It’s definitely a big deal,” she said. “You know how everyone is always talking about their love languages?”

Jade had no food in her mouth, but suddenly her throat felt too thick to swallow. “Yeah.”

“Well, I feel like mine is ‘getting food made for me,’ whichever one that is.”

“Acts of service.”

“Yeah.” Lim smiled at her. “Just like you washing my dishes so I didn’t have to do it later.”

“I could have done that for my own benefit. Maybe I couldn’t navigate the kitchen with them in the sink.”

“Maybe,” Lim said with a shrug. “Either way. If you didn’t hate me so much, I might be inclined to kiss you after coming in here and seeing that you cooked and straightened up for me.”

“I don’t hate you,” Jade said in a rush. A few weeks ago, she could never have made that admission to the woman herself. No matter how true it was.

“You sure act like it sometimes.”

“I have to.” Jade shrugged. “I’ve got to keep my head in the game, and you should too.”

Lim turned one side of her mouth up, and her expression transformed into an unconvinced one. “I don’t have to pretend to hate you in order to get what I want.”

“Maybe not, but you definitely shouldn’t be trying to be buddy-buddy with me either,” Jade said. Jade placed her elbows on the table, leaning forward. “I’m not trying to be an asshole when I say this either, but this is a lot different from what you’re used to. It’s summer now and things are relatively chill, but the politics start when the season starts, and people like us have to show no weakness out there. We can’t second-guess, we can’t falter, and we can’t fuck up.”

She could tell by the look on Lim’s face that she knew what Jade meant when she said people like us .

“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” Lim said. “I just… I think there’s a way for us to both get what we want without all the animosity.”

“I don’t agree,” Jade said plainly.

“Whether you agree or not doesn’t negate the truth, Jade. I see you.” Lim pointed a fork at her. “I see right there through the middle of that fragile heart of yours.”

Jade didn’t know why, but she was willing to play along. “And what do you see?”

Lim hesitated before continuing, “It’s like I said earlier, you’re just scared. You look at me and all you can see is somebody trying to take something you already view as yours. It doesn’t matter how much I try to tell you that it doesn’t have to be a competition; you can’t see the truth through that fear.”

“That’s my issue—you keep using the word truth like you have all the answers to everything, and I’m not buying it.”

Lim shook her head. “I don’t have all the answers, I just know that there’s a reason you were so adamant about rushing me to the hospital today.”

Jade scoffed. “Oh God, don’t tell me you think I’m in love with you now or something.”

“No, but you do care about me,” Lim said, locking eyes with her. “And I think you care about me because as much as you refuse to admit it, you realize that all this shit works better if we do it together. I mean, come on, Jade, once Landry’s gone, who’s going to be your biggest ally on the team? Which one of those guys is going to step up and have your back when you need it? You thought a town hall was bad, what do you think folks will do if Landry names you as his successor? They’re not going to take that lightly. And this one-woman-against-the-world schtick is going to do nothing but burn you out—and fast.”

“It ain’t just me against the world,” Jade argued. “I have people who support me, people who have my back. And plenty of them at that.”

Lim’s gaze softened. “Maybe so, but they don’t know what it’s like the way I do,” she said gently. “They don’t know how it feels to have people assume you’re a team mom when you’re trying to lead tryouts or condescend to you and pretend like you don’t know the game. And that’s just the half of it. I know what you’ve been through because I’ve been through it in my own way.”

Jade thought back to the conversation they’d had at Minnie’s, when Lim told her about being assaulted by one of the dads on her old team. She hadn’t used that word, but that’s what it had been—an assault. It was obvious that Lim didn’t have as much coaching experience as Jade; she was good but a bit green around the gills. She still had a lot to learn in the way of leadership. But whatever experience she lacked on the field she sure seemed to make up for in trauma.

Jade wasn’t sure if that knowledge was supposed to be comforting or camaraderie-inducing. Because it wasn’t. Instead, it just made her sad. The thing about pretending like she was the only one was that it allowed her the ridiculous, naive hope that no other women were experiencing the things she that was—let alone worse.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” Jade’s words were brittle and weak, even to her own ears.

“You don’t need to say anything. Just keep what I said in mind the next time you think of me as your enemy.”

Lim stood up, grabbed her empty plate, and put it in the sink, leaning back against it with her arms. Jade didn’t know why, but she felt called to stand up too, going to press her back up against the cold refrigerator. She was only a couple of feet away from Lim. The woman had spent all morning sweating on a football field and a lot of her afternoon in an ER; she should have smelled rank. Instead, she smelled heady, deep. No perfume or even shampoo wafted off her body. Jade bit down on the inside of her lip when the desire to bury her nose in Lim’s neck rose up fierce and demanding.

Quickly, rudely, she pulled her phone out of her back pocket and sent Olivia a ping to her location and a desperate request for her friend to pick her up. “Five minutes,” Olivia responded, apparently just leaving the Piggly Wiggly.

“You’re incredibly obstinate. Has anyone ever told you that?” Lim asked her.

“My whole life,” Jade said blandly. “I’m not trying to be, I swear. I just know that no one is going to fight for what I want besides me. I have to go hard, or I won’t get anything.”

“I’m not denying that,” Lim said as she pushed away from the sink and walked forward, stopping close enough for Jade to bury her nose in the little brown birthmark near her collarbone, if she wanted to. “I don’t begrudge you for it either. I’m just saying… you’ve been viewing me as an enemy when I could be an ally.”

Jade’s mouth watered, and she had to swallow. She felt like a teenager locked in a closet with another girl for the first time, eyes wide, anticipating something she was simultaneously desperate for and ignorant of.

What the fuck was happening? How many people had she kissed? Hell, how many people had she fucked? And this woman of all people was making her sweat bullets like some kind of wet-behind-the-ears virgin.

Instinctively, Jade’s body leaned in toward Lim’s. Millimeters apart, their foreheads practically touched.

“We can’t be allies.” Jade’s voice was a whisper. Anything louder felt like it might disrupt the moment. And as much as she knew they shouldn’t have been having it, she didn’t want it to end yet.

“Why not?” Lim inched closer until the tip of her nose brushed against Jade’s cheek.

The warm flesh, the subtle touch, it made Jade’s entire body ache. Her nipples hardened under her shirt. Her belly filled with heat. “Because… uh, because…”

Lim reached up slowly, putting her hand on the same cheek she’d just brushed her nose against. Her thumb, a little rough to the touch, glided over Jade’s warm skin and left a path of heat in its wake.

“Francesca…” Jade breathed the name out slowly, enjoying every bit of it on her tongue.

Francesca’s eyes sparkled. “You’ve never called me that before,” she said. She leaned in farther, until their lips were almost but not quite touching. “Say it again, Jade. Say my name, please. I need to hear it.”

Jade swallowed, her hands instinctively going to rest on Francesca’s hips.

“Francesca,” she said. “Francesca. Francesca. Franc—”

She was cut off by Francesca pressing their mouths together. Warm lips, a little wet from water, tasting like the dinner she’d just enjoyed. Jade shivered at the feeling, then nearly melted when she felt Francesca’s tongue rub against hers.

Their hips bumped together, both of them seeking closeness, needing friction. Little grunts and moans escaped between kisses that turned increasingly frantic.

Jade bit down on Francesca’s bottom lip, making her giggle so freely that Jade thought her heart might actually explode out of her chest. She tightened her grip on Francesca’s hips. The other woman raised her knee between Jade’s slightly parted ones. The second she felt the pressure against her clothed pussy, Jade shuddered, hard.

Their kiss broke naturally, both of them heavy-lidded and breathing hard. Francesca’s knee stayed right where it was, and Jade made little effort to stop her own hips from slowly bucking against it.

“You’re so fucking sexy,” Francesca said to her lowly. “Even in those corny little visors and khaki shorts. How are you so fucking sexy?”

Jade groaned, her panties now completely soaked through. She wouldn’t have been surprised if the crotch of said khaki shorts was as well. “Shut up,” Jade breathed. “You should see yourself out there with all those tattoos and those long legs. It drives me up a wall every time I see you at practice.”

Francesca trailed a few kisses along the underside of Jade’s jaw. “We should have done this from the beginning. Saved ourselves the trouble.”

Inside, Jade was at war. Feelings versus logic. Future versus now. Everything was gamified, and she had no clue what play to run. This, right now, felt incredible. She didn’t think she’d ever had this heat with someone. No one had been able to turn her on like this in years—if ever. Everything about the woman in front of her was completely intoxicating, and she wanted to fall into it, to let herself get high and ride out the effects until she was completely blissed-out and problem-free.

She’d never been a throw-caution-to-the-wind type of person, though. Her plan Bs had plan Bs. If this turned out to be a mistake, she might as well have kissed her chance at head coach goodbye already. And as incredible as she felt here with Francesca, she’d had that dream nearly as long as she’d been alive.

“Fuck,” Jade groaned. “Fuuuuck.”

Francesca pulled away from where she was working a little passion mark into Jade’s neck to catch her eyes. “Is that a good fuck or a bad fuck?”

“It’s a…” Jade swallowed. “It’s a this-feels-too-good-to-be-real fuck.”

“It’s real.” Francesca grinned at her, all teeth. “It’s real enough that I can feel how wet you are through your pants.” She put a hand flat between Jade’s breasts. “I can feel how your heart thumps every time I kiss you.”

“I—”

“Tell me what you want, Jade.” Francesca’s tone was soft. “Just tell me and I’ll give it to you. Whatever it is.”

Jade had never let sex or the promise of it run or ruin her life. But this felt different. This felt like it was different from just rutting and moaning. She looked into Francesca’s eyes and saw something there that made her want to both hide away and show herself.

Jade swallowed, “I want you to—”

She was cut off by the abrasive sound of her phone ringing. It was Olivia. She was parked outside, waiting.

Suddenly, the fog in her head began to clear. All that mist separated from the heat until reality flowed through her senses once more. Francesca Lim stood before her, cheeks flushed, lips swollen, more beautiful than Jade had ever seen anyone look. And she felt the resolve settle in her belly.

She couldn’t have her.

Not if she wanted to have her dream too.

Infatuation… or lust… whatever it was between them was simply not in the game plan.

Jade cleared her throat and straightened her clothes, ignoring the fact that her thighs were soaked when she pressed them together. “This was a mistake, Lim.”

Lim took a few steps back from her, nodding. “Right.”

“I’m sorry I got all worked up, but we both know… this can’t happen.”

Lim didn’t say anything this time, but she turned her head toward the little window in the kitchen, crossing her arms defensively.

“Take care of yourself, okay?” Jade stressed as she put her shoes on by the door. “Get rest. Take the meds the doctor gave you if you need them.”

“I’ll be fine, Dunn.”

That was it. Her tone was definitive and dismissive, and Jade slipped out of the apartment without another word.

Olivia’s face was full of questions when she got in the car, but Jade was trying to stop the ache building in her chest. “Later,” she told her friend. “I can’t—I don’t want to talk about it right now.”