I shake my head. “False alarm. Is everything all right?”
Ann sighs heavily. “We had to fire Nadine last night.”
“What?” I blurt out way too loudly. “Why?”
“She slept with Eddie Rollins.” Her grim expression gives way to one of disgust. Ann and I have both talked about how creepy Eddie is. “He apparently confessed to HR, and judging by the look on her face yesterday, I know it’s true.”
“Why the hell would he tell HR?”
“I guess a trainer overheard him bragging about it,” Ann replies. “He didn’t deny it because he was probably done with her, and getting her fired is an easy way to get rid of her. Because he’s pond scum.”
“Shit.” I feel sick. I love Nadine. But my stomach isn’t just churning for Nadine. It’s roiling with guilt and angst because—this could be me. “Do they have to fire her? I mean, they aren’t firing Eddie, right?”
Ann frowns. “Of course not,” she replies, her tone edged in bitterness. “The sports double standard is real, Dix. Our HR policy is zero tolerance and immediate termination. The players’ policy is zero tolerance and immediate stern talking-to.”
She’s being sarcastic. It doesn’t say “stern talking-to,” but they must have worded it without the promise of termination for their policy. I get it. They’re not as easily replaced as we are, but it still makes me sick. “I can’t believe she would be so stupid,” Ann laments and sighs.
I can. I am that stupid.
21
Elijah
She’s fucking ghosting me. That’s why I had a shit game. Because I’ve been trying to reach her for the last twenty-four hours, and she’s ignored every text and every call. I even went to her place last night at almost midnight and she either wasn’t home or wasn’t answering. And today when she breezed into the locker room, she purposely stood with her back to my locker and stormed out without so much as a sideways glance. So of course my game was off. We didn’t lose and I didn’t get pulled, but there are twelve-year-old goalies who could have played better than I did tonight. Luckily Levi, Jude and the boys were on fire, so I might have let in three goals, but they scored seven. Still, I’m seething about my performance.
When she marches into the locker room after the game and announces the media will be in shortly and they want to talk to Jude, Levi, Duncan and me, but she still has her back to me and won’t even glance in my direction, I lose it. I stand up. “I’m not doing press tonight.”
“What?” Levi says, confused.
“Yeah. What?” Dixie echoes and finally looks at me. Her face is a mask of nothing—no emotion of any kind, and that fuels this frustration burning like coals inside of me.
“I need to see a trainer about my calf,” I lie.
“You can do that after the media scrum.”
“Yeah, but I’m going to do it now.” I start to walk out of the room. “No press for me.”
I head down the hall toward the training rooms. It takes a second, but I hear her heels clicking away on the concrete behind me. Good, she’s following. She calls my name. I ignore it and keep walking. Her heels click faster. I slow down a little so she can catch me. As soon as I feel her arm on my bicep I turn and slip into an unattended medical room, pulling her in with me. I close the door behind us. The lights aren’t on, so it’s instantly dark.
“What the fuck are you doing?” she demands.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I counter. “You’ve been ignoring me. I fucking hate being ignored.”
“So you’re throwing a temper tantrum?” she says with a condescending look I’ve never seen before and hope to never see again.
“I had a shitty game, and I don’t feel like dealing with a million questions about it,” I tell her. I take a step toward her, turning on the light. “I didn’t have a shitty game last time we were in here. In fact I had my best game.”
She opens her perfectly glossed mouth to say something but freezes. Her blue eyes look startled and then they darken. Her hands move to her hips. “So, what? I should make out with you before every game? Make my lips part of some superstitious ritual?”
It’s more than her lips. It’s her. I want to explain that she’s like a grounding force, that she’s the only one who makes me feel normal since the accident, but I don’t, because then everything gets heavy, and I fucking hate heavy. This doesn’t need to be fucking ruined like everything else in my life. Frustration bubbles up and courses through my veins like adrenaline.
So instead I step closer. “Would that be so bad?”
“Are you going to pay me a salary with full medical coverage and a 401(k)?” she asks hotly. “Because that’s what I’ll lose, and I’m not willing to risk it anymore. I never should have to begin with.”
She starts to walk past me but pauses just short of reaching for the door. She turns back. “You need to see someone about your PTSD.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
