“Quit your bitching and get after your next set.” She points to the barbell in front of me, and I huff out a small laugh.
When you’re the first female strength and conditioning coach in the league, you reach a certain level of badass that the rest of us just can’t get on. Sage is probably no more than five years older than I am, and she’s easily a foot shorter than me, but what she lacks in height and age, she makes up for in attitude. I’m not much of a rule follower. I have always and will continue to get into antics that get me in trouble, but one person I won’t cross is Sage Owens.
I pick up the barbell, put it down, and then repeat that process four more times.
When I’m done and begin unloading my weights, Sage sits down on an empty bench beside me, yawning again.
“What’s got you so tired, Sagey? Got a new boyfriend?”
Her tired eyes flash to a withering glare in less than a second. “Or girlfriend.” I put my hands up in defense.
“No lover. Just a baby.”
Aside from one single blink, the rest of my body doesn’t move. All the guys had a crush on Sage freshman year, and all it took was one practice and one ass beating for us to see past her shoulder-length dark hair, tattoos, and cute little nose piercing. Since then, she’s remained like a mythical creature to us. Nobody knows anything about her home or family life, or where she came from. I don’t know if she even lives in Linden Creek or one of the neighboring towns, so I shouldn’t be surprised that she has a kid, but it does seem crazy she could get an entire pregnancy past me.
Sage must catch on to my mile-a-minute thoughts, because she frantically starts shaking her head and adds, “Not my baby.”
“Oh.” My face must read as confused as I feel, because thankfully, she elaborates.
“My best friend had a baby last semester, and she’s doing the whole thing by herself, so I just try to help her out when I can.”
I might not know Sage’s hometown, or what drove her to become a strength and conditioning coach, but that one sentence told me all I need to know about the kind of person she is.
“Anyway, I love that kid as if she were my own, but she’s going through something called a sleep regression? And from what I’ve gathered, it’s basically a point in time where she seems to have forgotten how to sleep. And if she doesn’t sleep, no one gets to.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah.” She stretches her arms over her head with a yawn as she stands from the bench. “Damn.”
“Well, hey, I’m heading over to The Den, want me to grab you something, and I could bring it back?”
“No.” She waves me off. “Thank you, though. I appreciate it.”
After Sage leaves, and I get my weights put away, I shower, change, and at a pace much quicker than I’m used to, hurry out of the locker room.
“Whoa.” Noah laughs as we collide in the hallway. “Is your ass on fire?”
“What?” I ask, still trying to slide by him.
“You’re always lagging. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you move so fast off the ice.”
I adjust my grip on my bag, hiking it higher up my back. “Oh. I told Chloe I'd meet her at The Den after practice, we’ve got to run an errand for the elderly.”
“Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?” he asks. “First, you’ve got a girlfriend, and now you’re running errands forthe elderly?”
I don’t answer right away. His mention of Chloe both throws me off and excites me. I’m going to assume Savannah told him something…what that is, I’m not sure. But assuming that is better than him piecing it together from me.
“It’s mandatory,” I say, shrugging with a half-smile tugging at my lips.
“Mhmm. Hey, tell Savvy I’ll be there in a few,” he says, grabbing the handle for the locker room. “I’m going to run over some plays with Coach.”
“Do you call him dad yet?”
He scrunches his face, pretending to laugh, while flipping me off.
I don’t wait for the door to close behind him before I take off down the hall.
Silas and I gave Noah a lot of shit for spending so much time at the campus coffee shop last semester, but when I find Chloe typing away on her laptop, I think he might have had the right idea all along.
