Marty laughed, “I’m afraid your little friends are leaving,” he said, standing up again and looking over to the door where the two girls were walking out. “Too bad, I was thinking about taking your leftovers, guess neither of us is going to have a date now.”
“Very funny,” he said, then tried to get up again, but the pain was back. “Crap, I think I really hurt myself. Coach is going to kill me.”
“I’ll see if I can find one of the trainers, maybe it’s not that bad,” Marty said. “I’ll be right back.”
He sat there for a second trying to control his annoyance. His ankle would heal in just a matter of hours, even if it was broken; that was one of the gifts he’d received as a shifter, but the whole thing was humiliating. There was no way his other teammates hadn’t seen it all and they’d be teasing him for weeks, and his reputation was sure to suffer. It would be all over campus by the end of the day.
Blowing out a frustrated breath, he moved the ankle a bit, hoping he could get up and disappear into the locker room, but the pain was still there and he knew he’d never be able to walk that far. Resigning himself to having the trainers work him over in full view of the entire team, he sighed, hoping this wasn’t a bad omen for the season, and waited for Marty to come back.
***Maddie***
Maddie watched Walker from the other end of the gym with a growing sense of apprehension that had nothing to do with the fact that he might be hurt and everything to do with having to face him after three years. She’d known that running into him would be inevitable now that basketball season had started, but she’d hoped to put it off for at least a few weeks. Instead, she was about to meet him face to face completely unprepared.
When her advisor had called to tell her the schedule had changed that morning, she’d done everything in her power to get out of the shift covering practice, but here she was watching the man who’d broken her heart flirt with every woman in the gym. There might have been a sick sense of satisfaction when he’d fallen and made a fool of himself, but she couldn’t even feel that since his injury put her smack dab in the hot seat.
It was no surprise when the player who’d been with Walker when he started his antics started walking toward her and shedid her best to calm her beating heart. “Hey…umm…I’m sorry, I don’t know your name,” the player said with a shrug of apology. “Walker tripped over a ball, and I think he sprained his ankle. Could you come take a look?”
Trying to act like she wasn’t trembling inside, she grabbed her bag, “Sure…” she said, then paused. “I don’t know you’re name either.”
The man looked at her like she’d lost her mind, then shrugged, “I’m Marty, the best right guard on the team,” he said, trying to hide the hurt in his voice. “Most people know that, you must be new.”
“I’ve been taking all my classes online for the last two years, but I’m back on campus for my senior year. I can’t do my intern hours from home,” she explained, falling into step next to him. “Don’t take it personally, I don’t know any of the players. I had the same problem during soccer season.”
“Oh, that makes sense,” Marty said, a look of relief on his face, then he looked over at her. “I still don’t know your name, and if you’re going to be taking care of us all season, that seems like a good thing to know.”
She smiled up at him.“My name is Madison, but my friends call me Maddie,” she said. “It’s nice to meet you, Marty.”
“You too,” he said, returning his smile. “Tell you what, I’ll introduce you to the other guys after you take a look at Walker.”
“Sounds good, thanks,” she said, all too aware that Walker was only a few steps away.
She’d been preparing for this moment since she got back to campus earlier that fall, sure that she’d run into him, but the speech she’d prepared didn’t fit the circumstances. Suddenly not ready to face him, afraid that the second he looked at her he’d know all her secrets, she hesitated a second, wishing she had more time to decide if she’d ever share anything with him again.
Before the pain of his betrayal could come to the surface, Marty turned back to her, a questioning look on his face, and she was forced to push it all aside. “Let’s see what we’ve got here,” she said, kneeling next to Walker’s feet without looking directly at him. “I heard that you took a little fall.”
“He was trying to show off for some freshmen up in the bleachers, he tripped over a ball and fell on his…butt,” Marty said, a big grin on his face. “Serves him right for messing around. Do you think it’s broken?”
“It’s not broken,” Walker snapped, clearly annoyed. “I don’t even think it’s sprained.”
“How about we get your shoe off, then we’ll see what we’ve got,” she urged, reaching for the laces. “If it’s fine, no harm done, right…”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m a child,” Walker said, pulling his foot away. “I said I was fine, it already feels better, so back off.”
Pulling her hands away, she got back to her feet. “Sorry, I was just trying to help,” she said, backing up. “I’ll leave you alone now.”
Feeling like the world’s biggest coward, she grabbed her bag and started back across the gym, but she’d only made it a few hundred feet when Walker’s voice rose over the noise. “Wait,” he called. “Maddie, is that you?”
She froze, couldn’t help herself, then tried to keep walking like she hadn’t, but only made it a few steps before she felt a pair of strong hands clamp down on her shoulders. He spun her around so that she was facing him, and she was forced to look up at him, hoping he couldn’t tell her body was going crazy just from his touch. She prayed he didn’t know that she still wanted him just as much as she had the day they met.
“Hey, Walker,” she said, stepping away from him. “It’s been a long time.”
“A long time,” he repeated, staring down at her, his eyes roaming over her body, making her fill with warmth as a blush spread across her cheeks. “It’s been three years, I thought you were gone for good.”
“Well, I wasn’t, I was taking classes online,” she said. “But I’m doing my internship hours now, and I have to be on campus for that.”
He just stared at her, his mouth hanging open, a look on his face she couldn’t read. But when she looked into his eyes, all the old feelings came rushing to the surface, and it felt like no time had passed. The urge to throw herself into his arms began to slowly build inside her, and she knew that she had to get away from him and fast.
“Well, it was nice to see you,” she said, backing away a few more steps. “I really should go. Someone else might need my help.”
