Our strength and conditioning coach, Sage, starts loading her hundred-pound equipment bag onto her shoulder, and since I’m the last to leave the bench, I snake it from her.
“Thanks.”
“Good lord, what do you got in this bag of tricks, Sagey?” The weight of the bag burns my already smoked shoulders.
“You’ll find out Monday,” she calls over her shoulder with a wave as she heads down the hall to the coach’s office.
There’s a clap on my back and I slow my step in line with Coach Alvarez. “Great game tonight, Hall.”
“Yeah, it was gettin’ chippy out there for a minute,” I say, adjusting the strap on my shoulder.
“But you focused on what needed to be done and cameout on top,” he replies, leveling a pointed look at me. “I’m proud of you, kid.”
He’s never said it, but I know I let him down when I got ejected from that game last year. It doesn’t matter that some duster was ganging up on my guy, Noah. I know the rules, and I broke them anyway. After having to meet with the dean of students, I expected Coach to light my ass up, but he recited the rules, doled out a two game suspension with an ‘I’m sorry’ tacked on the end, and that was that.
It’s imperative that I make it through this season with a squeaky-clean record, now. When I got drafted this last summer, it was by the skin of my fucking teeth. Brian, the player development coach for Toronto, had called me no less than five times this summer, disguising it as a bi-monthly check-in. When in reality, he’s been sent to remind me of what’s on the line this year.
Silas is already showered and changed by the time I make it back to the locker room. His toweled dry hair hangs over his eyebrows, and he lifts his fist, tapping the side of mine. I head for the showers, dropping the equipment bag on the way. As I hang my towel, the boys behind me start to get louder. A mix of whistles and shouts, but I just assume someone got rat-tailed, so I step into the spray anyway.
“Hall!”
I pause, mid lather and twist over my shoulder, finding Chloe—or someone who looks like Chloe, just with a much more pissed off expression on her face—standing with her hands on her hips.
“Coop!” Noah shouts in surprise from the stall beside me. “What the hell are you doing in here?”
“I need to talk to you.” She ignores him, keeping her attention on me while I resume lathering my body.
The sound of Noah’s water abruptly shuts off, and not a second later, he’s sliding behind Chloe with a towel wrappedaround him. He looks at me like I’ve got some balls not cowering to the five-foot-four little stick of dynamite before me. Which is crazy, considering his girlfriend actually hated him when they first met.
“You know, if you wanted to see me naked, all you had to do was ask.” I smile, having no shame when I turn around to face her.
She doesn’t falter, though. In fact, aside from a slight tilt of her head, she doesn’t move at all.
“Why thefuckwould you tell Nathan we were dating?”
Because you might have been avoiding me since that night, but when I close my eyes, I still hear the crack in your voice, and see the salt-laced tear rolling over your cheek.
Her eyes widen, and her chin juts forward as she waits for an answer.
“Is he interested in you now?”
“Yes!” she screams.
“Well, there you go. Congratulations.” I rub the loofah across my chest, and it’s the first time her gaze has strayed.
She shakes her head once, bringing her attention back up to my eyes. “No, not congratulations. Now he thinks we’re dating. I can’t also date him now.”
“So, tell him we broke up.” She’s already mad, so I don’t tack on theduhthat’s on the tip of my tongue.
“Then I look unloyal. Like the first guy that shows interest in me, I’ll just ditch my current boyfriend for.”
“Does it really matter?” I ask, not to challenge her, but out of pure curiosity.
“Yes, Maverick! Loyalty is important to me. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything to you, but it means something to me.”
I ignore the dig and refrain from mentioning that she doesn’t seem to care if someone is loyal to her. Someone forgot to teach this girl that loyalty is a two-way street. Ibelieve her when she says it means something to her, I just find it odd that she’s not expecting it in return.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
