I stared at the whiteboard while my assistant coach ran through possible plays for the game against Westview on Friday. The X’s and O’s blurred together as my mind continually drifted back to the sight of Sutton curled up in my bed, her face pinched in pain. I fucking hated that there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
“I was thinking we should run the Unicorn play. Westview won’t know what hit ’em,” Trey said, yanking me back to reality. He stood next to the whiteboard, arms crossed over his chest, brows raised expectantly.
Shit. He’d been talking to me for fuck knew how long while my mind had been a million miles away. Or, more accurately, four miles away.
“Right.” I cleared my throat. “Sounds good.”
Trey’s lips twitched. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said for the past fifteen minutes, have you?”
“’Course I have.”
“Yeah? Then how about you draw up the nonexistent Unicorn play you just agreed to.”
Fuck.
“I thought you said…” I trailed off, mentally flipping through the names of every other play in our book, but none even remotely sounded like Unicorn. “Something else.”
He snorted and shook his head. “Man, I’ve known you for a long damn time, and your head’s somewhere else today. Everything all right?”
“Fine.”
My phone lit up with a notification, and I snatched it up, only to find another kitten name suggestion from Laurel, not a text from Sutton.
Laurel:
Catalie Portman?
Atlas:
No
Trey snorted, eyeing my phone as I set it on the desk harder than necessary. “Sure you are. That’s why you’ve checked your phone seventeen times in the past hour. You’re as bad as the kids.”
I shot him a glare. “You counting now?”
“Don’t get pissed at me for noticing. Bound to happen when my usually laser-focused head coach can’t stay on topic for more than thirty seconds.” He dropped into the chair across from me, kicking his feet up on my desk. “Spill, Steele.”
“Nothing to spill. And get your damn feet off my desk.”
He grinned, linking his hands behind his head and not moving his feet an inch. “It’s the new nurse in town, isn’t it? The one who’s staying at your place?”
“She has a name.”
“I know…Alicia told me. Migraines can be a real bitch.”
I snapped my gaze to his, narrowing my eyes. “How the hell do you know Sutton has one?”
“First of all, my girlfriend works with yours. Second, it’s Starlight Cove, man. Heard about it when I grabbed coffee at the café this morning.”
“Fucking small towns,” I grumbled.
“Aren’t they great?” He dropped his feet from my desk and stood. “Better get your shit figured out quick, Coach. I’ve got the HBCU Pipeline Program after school, so you’re leading practice.”
“I think I can handle it.”
“Sure you can. Let me know how the Unicorn play goes.” His booming laughter lingered even after he strolled out of my office.
Laurel:
