"Are you sure?"
“Yes.”
He leans in and kisses me. “You are not my least favorite person anymore Tenley Garrison.”
“You aren’t my least favorite anymore either,” I confess and it feels like jumping off a cliff.
Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, only time will tell.
Chapter 22
Nash
I am as mentally prepared for this conversation as I can be, as I step into Coach Braddock’s office. Gabby is sitting in one of the chairs across from his desk, which isn’t surprising. She’s the one who witnessed the incident and it’s ethical of her to tell him, even if Bryce didn’t… which I’d bet money he did. I think Coach’s grim face confirms it as he leans forward in his desk chair and motions for me to sit down.
The gravity of what I did really sinks in as I lower myself into the chair next to Gabby. I mean, yeah, I knew there would be consequences, but fuck… something in me will die if he pulls me from the next game, let alone the series, or… god forbid… the rest of the playoffs. He would have reason to, I know this. I knew it as I was doing it. But I did it anyway. And I would do it again. So I square my shoulders and meet his eyes.
Only he doesn’t look pissed or disappointed or aggravated or any of the things I thought he should look. Coach Braddock looks… worried? I turn to glance at Gabby who also looks concerned. “I promise Bryce deserved what happened.”
“Yeah. I know,” Coach says, and my jaw unhinges. I quickly snap my mouth closed. “He told Gabby what he did to Tenley a long time ago, but as we both know the passing time doesn’t make it okay.”
My mouth falls open again. He told Gabby.
“We called you in for something else,” Gabby explains.
“What else is there?”
The words have no sooner left my mouth when there's a curt knock on the door I just closed. One hard rap and the team doctor walks in. He looks even more serious than Coach and Gabby and my stomach suddenly bottoms out like I just crested the dip on a roller coaster. I fucking hate coasters.
"Nash, we got your x-rays back," he says and holds up the iPad in his hand. I see an x-ray in outlines in bright greenish-blue and long slashes of white that make my leg look like a ham hock. "See this?"
I lean toward the tablet and narrow my eyes even though I don’t really have to. There’s a bright white blob in the middle of my leg, kind of behind my knee. It looks like someone dropped a dollop of Greek yogurt there or something. “Yeah. What is it?”
“Well, we aren’t one hundred percent sure. However, it looks like a tumor.”
I hear the word, but I don’t understand it. I don’t know what the hell that means, not in relation to me. My leg. I’m healthy. I’m fine. “That can’t be right. Let’s do another x-ray.”
“This is the other x-ray, remember?” Gabby says gently.
Oh. Right. They asked for this one because ‘something was off’ with the last one. “So it’s another tech issue?”
"It turns out it was never a tech issue," Coach says. He's talking softly, which he never does, and his expression is… well, parental. And it infuriates the hell out of me. Because this isn't happening. "Do you want to call your parents? Crew? We can talk about it more with them present. The doctor can explain it to them too."
“No. There’s nothing to explain.” I stand and the throbbing in my leg reminds me that this isn’t a mistake. Oh God. But it’s not that. “What the fuck? This isn’t happening.”
I sit again because my blood pressure just hit the ceiling and I’m panicking, which is making me lightheaded. Gabby puts a hand on my shoulder. Doc clears his throat. “We’re not saying it’s cancer, Nash. I need to be very crystal clear about that. There are many forms of benign tumors.”
I refuse to grab onto the branch of hope he’s waving in front of me. It feels like it’s too good to be true. “Well, so I need to find out for sure.”
“Yeah.” He nods. “I have a colleague in New York. He’s a top orthopedic oncologist. He can see you tomorrow.”
“I have…” I stop mid-sentence. We don’t have a game yet as the series isn’t finished between the Vegas Vipers and the Arizona Rattlers. They have a game six tonight. The earliest we will play, even if the series ends tonight, is two nights from now. But I had been planning on going to Silver Bay tomorrow. I’d already booked a flight and an Air BnB. I wanted to be there for Tenley.
“Nash,” Coach prods gently. God can he please just go back to being gruff and rough. It’s making me itch with annoyance. “We’ve taken the liberty of booking a red eye out tonight for you and Gabby.”
“Gabby?”
“Because the team is paying, we need a representative there and I can’t get away,” Doc explains.
