There was no reason for me to think the testing had anything to do with me.
Then Gardner called me into his office that afternoon.
“SAL, TAKE A SEAT,” Gardner said from his spot behind his desk.
I gave him an uncomfortable smile and sat down.
Coaches just didn’t call you after practice was over, the day a random drug testing went on, and ask you to come in for a chat. They didn’t. I’d been in the middle of a nursery with Marc choosing some annuals for a project when the call came through. I’d been shitting bricks since.
There were only a few reasons why Gardner wouldn’t just tell me over the phone what he wanted: they were trading me, dropping me, or some superfast test had come back and found something in my urine that said I was doping.
Me, doping. Jesus Christ.
I wasn’t so badass or indestructible that I wasn’t on the verge of losing it. First, I didn’t want to get traded. Second, I sure as shit didn’t want to get dropped from the team; even though my contract was good for another year, you still never knew. Third, I sure as hell wasn’t ingesting anything that was remotely illegal.
But still.
I managed to tell Marc what was going on, and the “oh shit” look he’d given me was enough.
Taking a deep breath, I gripped my thighs and steeled myself. I might as well bite the bullet. “So, what’s going on, G?”
He sat back, crossing his arms over his chest and smiled. “Always to the point, that’s why I like you, Sal.”
Gardner might like me, but he wasn’t telling me what was going on. “Are you letting me go?” To my credit, I sounded calm, not at all like I was on the verge of taking a bat to his office furniture.
A bat to his office? Dear God. I needed to tone it down. “No.” He reeled back. “Where the hell would you get that from?”
“You asked me to come to your office to talk to me privately, and we had a drug test this afternoon.” I just barely kept thehelloto myself.
His eyes rolled up to the ceiling, a hand going to the back of his neck. “Damn. I didn’t think about that. I’m sorry. That’s not why I want to talk to you.”
Yeah, that wasn’t entirely convincing.
“I’m not worried about the results. I’m sure they’re fine, but I did ask you to come in because of the drug test. I had an interesting conversation with Sheena earlier.”
“Okay.”
“She told me that an email came in this weekend with your name and some pretty wild accusations on it.”
That bitch. That fucking bitch. It didn’t take a genius to know where the email had come from. I squeezed my thighs a little tighter, controlling the rage bubbling up inside of me.
First it was someone on the team tattling on me to Cordero, and now Amber was making crap up? I didn’t think I was a bad person. I did community service work from time to time, I mowed my elderly neighbors’ lawn for free, and I smiled at strangers. Sure, sometimes I had bad thoughts about people, but it was never unprovoked, though that didn’t make it any better. There were better people in the world than me, and there were sure as hell people a lot worse too. So I couldn’t help but take it a little personally that these miserable hags were taking their crap out on me.
“Any idea where something like that would come from?”
“Amber.” I gritted my teeth. “It was Amber. No one else would do something like this.”
Gardner wasn’t surprised. I’d told him what happened years ago, when I’d gotten back from the last national team tournament and burst into tears in front of him. “Christ. She’s still not over that mess?”
I couldn’t say that, if I were in her shoes, I would have gotten over it either, but I liked to think I wouldn’t go as far as she had. Actually, I knew I wouldn’t. Only a total asswipe would make bogus allegations that could jeopardize someone’s lifetime of hard work.
I swallowed the bitterness back, reminding myself of all the good things in my life. “Nope.”
With a sigh, he shook his head and scratched at his neck. “In that case, I’m sorry for asking you over. I kept my eye on her during the game, but it didn’t seem like she was doing anything unusual.”
Of course he hadn’t heard all the names she’d been calling me during the game, but whatever.
“I’m going to give her coach a call and tell him he needs to get her under control.”
