A smile tugs at my lips. I can still see her in there—the woman who was ready to fight at the bar last night. But she looked completely different then.
When I first saw her on the bus we took to the Tampa arena this morning, I did a double take. Without a baggy hoodie tied tight around her face, I can actually see her, and she’s pretty. Her dark-blond hair is wavy and it falls just past her shoulders. She has it up in a bun right now, small sections of hair framing her face. Her cheeks have more color. In black leggings and a Crush T-shirt, she really looks like a member of our team staff.
“Left foot,” she says, standing at my feet.
I raise my left knee toward my chest and she puts the bottom of my sock-covered foot on her lower stomach. She slowly pushes it forward, stretching my glutes and then my lower back.
I exhale slowly, keeping my gaze on the ceiling.
“Melina said you’re adamant about this one, so we’ll do it, but no more static stretches after this one. Those are for postgame.”
“I know, but I need this one before and after.”
“That’s fine.”
Melina and our goalie, Isaac, come into the training room as Talia is stretching my left side, and Isaac looks like he’s got a boulder on his shoulders. He blames himself for our losing streak, and I know he’s worried about his position as our starting goalie.
One of our third-line forwards, Grayson Mercado, is waiting for them on the other end of the training room. The floor in here is all a big exercise mat, and it’s where we all do pre- and postgame stretching when we play in Tampa.
Carter, lightly riding an exercise bike on one side of the room, groans and stops pedaling.
“Dude.” He scowls at Isaac. “Don’t do your fart yoga in here. The rest of us shouldn’t have to smell your rancid farts.”
Isaac shrugs, putting his hands out. “There’s nowhere else to do it here.”
“Do it in the hallway.”
“There aren’t any mats there.”
Carter gets off the bike and walks over to him. “I think you can handle child’s pose on the floor.”
Talia lowers my foot back to the floor, meeting my eyes in a quick, concerned look.
“Isaac does fart yoga with Melina before every game,” I explain in a low voice. “He likes to get all the gas out of his system because he feels better. He’ll do it now and again right before he dresses.”
“Oh.” Her lips quirk with a smile.
“We’re all sharing the training room,” Melina says, ending their conversation. “No one has to be as close to his fart fest than me, so suck it up, Stanton.”
Carter stalks away, leaving the room. I swear this team is like a family with a bunch of adolescent boys sometimes. We spend more time together than we do with anyone else during the season, so there’s a lot of bickering and bitching. And everyone’s tense because of our losing streak.
Mercado, who just joined our team this season, recently started doing fart yoga with Isaac and Melina. We got both of them “Fart Yoga Master” T-shirts for Christmas.
“Okay if I lead you through some dynamic stretching now?” Talia asks.
I almost say no. I like my pregame routine. Melina’s been trying to talk me into doing the right pregame stretches for a long time. But there’s a note of something in Talia’s voice that won’t let me refuse. I think it’s hope.
She looks like a completely different person today. Still surly, but not like she doesn’t even have the energy to walk. That’s what she looked like last night. Exhausted and defeated.
“Sure, go for it,” I say.
She nods. “Okay, let’s warm up with some jogging in place.”
We both start lightly jogging, and she looks down at her chest, where, if I’m being honest, I was already looking.
“Shit,” she says under her breath. “I don’t have the right bra on for this.”
Her breasts are bouncing up and down, so she puts her arms over her chest to stabilize them. In the moment, I’m disappointed, but it’s probably for the best. Turner would choke the life out of me if he saw me ogling his daughter’s breasts.
