She stepped forward and poked his shoulder, hard. “You don’t get to ask that question. You lost all right to know how I’m doing when you broke up with me.” She poked him again.
He stepped back, scowling. “I was just trying to make conversation.”
“Well, don’t. You suck at it.” She stormed into the warm-up room, ready to find Elise on her own and get to work.
Elise was staring into the water, her arms folded, pretending she wasn’t listening to them.
Brayden followed her. She turned her head so she didn’t have to stare at his perfect abs.Seriously, Lord, couldn’t you have cursed him with a flat chest, for my sake?
“Hey, you don’t have to be rude.” He put his shirt over his head first and then slipped his arms into the holes.
“And you didn’t have to break up with me. I guess we all have to do things we don’t want to.” She threw his words back in his face. It satisfied her for about 2.3 seconds. Then the light dimmed in his eyes, and she knew she’d hit her mark. It didn’t bring her the satisfaction she was looking for. All it did was make her feel like she’d kicked a puppy. A big, beautiful puppy. “Please go away.” She chewed her bottom lip as her throat swelled with emotion.
He bounced his hand off his thigh. “I’ll soak at the clubhouse at home,” he told Elise. They had a pool and hot tub in their development. They didn’t use it much, but there were a few nights … Tilly squeezed her eyes shut, begging her memory not to bring up those feelings.
Elise nodded once, and he left.
The air left the room with him, and Tilly wilted.
Elise was there, holding her up. “You’re still in love with him,” she noted quietly.
Tilly nodded against her arm. There was no denying her feelings. They were at the surface.
“I’m so sorry. I’ll schedule you two apart from now on.”
Tilly thought about what the coach had said. She shook her head. “You can’t. If Coach Wolfe or Harper finds out that our situation is causing problems, he’ll fire me.”
Elise stepped back and pulled her curly hair up into a ponytail. “I’d like to say that’s not true, but he had that whole no-dating-players rule when I first started working here. He’s a stickler about keeping distractions out of the stadium.”
“I remember you telling me about that.” Tilly rubbed her arms. “Let’s just get to work. I want to pretend that this didn’t happen.”
Elise motioned to the archway. “I’m sure he’s gone by now. Let’s start with some barbells.”
As Elise walked her though each exercise and charted a daily workout routine she could do at home, Tilly did her best to keep a mask of concentration on her face. When they were done, she hugged Elise and said goodbye. The mask stayed while she grocery shopped and pumped gas and didn’t slip until she shut the front door and landed her butt on the tile floor once again.
Chapter Eleven
Brayden
Brayden was still in a fog when his dad picked him up at the player’s entrance of the stadium. He just couldn’t shake the wounded look in Tilly’s eyes when she’d asked him to leave. Had she yelled at him, railed at him, he could have handled it. He deserved to be yelled at. But the level of unhappiness surrounding her was too much.
He settled into the passenger seat and clicked his seat belt in place. His dad had spent the day golfing, and the smell of St. George’s dry air and dust filled the car. In another few days, Brayden would be able to drive himself around. He just needed to be able to turn his head a little more to check his blind spot. It wasn’t that the doctors were holding him back; it was him. He didn’t want to hurt someone on the road.
“How’d it go?”
“Not good.” Brayden rubbed his forehead.
“Wanna tell me about it?”
His dad’s nonchalant question was not threatening. Still, he had no desire for broccoli and cauliflower pizza, so he started in on Gunner. “He’s such a punk. Anything I say is considered an insult. He’s been pampered and told how wonderful he is his whole life and can’t take correction.”
“You mean criticism.”
“I don’t criticize.”
Dad shifted his hands to the bottom of the steering wheel and then ran them back up.
Brayden sighed. “Just tell me.”
