“Good. And you know my door is always open should you need to talk about anything.”
“I know. Thanks, Coach.”
“Get out of here. I’ll see you for practice tomorrow.”
“See ya.”
I don’t waste another minute before bolting out of his office and running out of the arena. I’m not in the mood to be stopped again and asked about my performance tonight.
Chapter Twenty-Five
NOAH
“Even with the loss of the Black Diamonds’ star player last season, Noah Fields, the team is looking better than ever. Paddack has stepped in and filled his skates with a fervor any team could hope for.”
“I wasn’t sure what Bexley Hart was thinking when she traded for him, but she saw something the rest of us didn’t. Of course you never like to see a player of Fields’s caliber go down, but Paddack will be a fine young player for Colorado for years to come.”
Of course. The analysts calling tonight’s game don’t know the knife they’re digging into my chest. I can see with my own eyes what a strong player Paddack has become since joining the Black Diamonds. With Hollins and Williams as captain and alternate captain, they’re about the best damn players he could learn from.
Not that I hadn’t been contributing in Nashville. The team has been playing with a renewed intensity. So much so, that we might even have a shot at making the playoffs.
It seems no team needs me.
I’m wallowing. I know it. But I’ve been cooped up at my parents’ house for two weeks, and it’s about a week too long.
Even though I’ve been cleared to not be under concussion watch twenty-four seven, I don’t have anywhere else to go considering I sold my house before I moved to Nashville.
Except I’m still being hovered over all the time.
“Do you need anything, sweetheart?” Mom asks, coming into the living room and smoothing my hair back from my forehead.
If not her, it’s my dad.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you?” She comes around the couch and has her arms crossed in front of her. “You’ve been moping on the couch since you got home.”
“I have not.”
“Then why am I here?” comes my sister’s voice from behind me.
Turning toward her, I see Piper dropping her purse and coat on the kitchen table before coming into the living room and standing next to my mom.
“I don’t know. Why are you here and not at the game?”
The TV has been on with the low drone of the Black Diamonds game playing in the background. Even though I no longer play for them, I still watch them. I have too many friends there not to. Family, really.
“Because Mom didn’t want you by yourself tonight,” Piper tells me.
“Where are you going?” I ask our mom. With the two of them standing together like this, they look eerily similar. Piper has always been the spitting image of her, but with the way her armsare crossed, it’s like I’m looking at two of my mother. “Also, this is freaky. The two of you like this.”
Neither of them say anything, but they both quirk a brow at me like I’m the problem.
“Call me if you need me, dear.” Mom drops a kiss on Piper’s cheek. She points a stern finger at me. “Don’t watch too much TV.”
“Yes, Mother.” I roll my eyes at her—like the moody teenager I feel like I am right now—as she kisses the top of my head and heads out, ignoring my question as to where she’s going.
“Seriously. Why are you moping?” Piper smacks my leg as she takes a spot directly next to me on the oversized couch. I can feel her eyes on me.
