If Claire finds my first word to her to be pathetic or underwhelming—it’s both—she doesn’t let on. It’s rare I’m unsure what to say, yet common around her.
“Hi.”
Her voice clings to me like smoke. A throaty rasp so distinctive that I would recognize the sound anywhere.
“Do they know?” she continues.
I blink at her, confused by the question. “They? Know what?”
She huffs once, impatiently, like I’m being deliberately obtuse. “Coach Taylor and the rest of the staff. Do they know about…”
Oh. Aboutus.
“No,” I say swiftly. “I didn’t think it—I didn’t say anything.”
Claire nods once, visibly relieved by my reply. “Good.”
I swallow hard. “Sorry I didn’t let you know I was coming. I should have—I should have given you some warning. Things happened fast.”
I don’t add that, up until I stepped on the plane, I wasn’t sure I would be coming. Or that she—that avoiding this exact moment—factored in that decision.
Claire caps her now-full water bottle, breaking eye contact as she twists the lid shut. “I didn’t need a warning. It’s been six years.”
“I know how long it’s been,” I say, softer than I meant to.
Six words to sum up six years. Yet I couldn’t count the number of times Claire has crossed my mind since Paris.
She tucks her water bottle between her thighs, tugging an elastic out of her hair and twisting it into a neat bun. I catch a glimpse of the scar on her right thumb before her hands fall back to her sides. She still uses the same shampoo; I can smell it.
I knew, when I lost Claire, that she mattered to me more than I’d realized. But I never expected that dull ache of regret to linger for this long.
“It’s good to see you,” spills out without me consciously choosing to say the sentiment.
Claire takes a deep breath. “Look, Otto—” She pauses and flushes. “I mean, Coach Berger.”
“Otto’s fine,” I say, trying to ease her embarrassment. Still absorbing the shock wave of hearing her say my name again.
“Coach Berger,” she emphasizes.
I fight a sudden smile. My first real one since the fall that landed me in an operating room.
“None of my teammates know about our…history either, and I’d like it to stay that way. We’re… I mean, we’re basically strangers anyway, right?”
Wrong. We don’t feel like anything similar to strangers. But I wasn’t intending to treat her differently from any other player, which is what she’s concerned with.
“I wasn’t planning on advertising anything, Caldwell. If you haven’t told them about us, they won’t find out from me.”
“Okay then,” she says.
“Okay then,” I echo.
Claire doesn’t walk away, like I’m expecting her to. She’s looking at my chest, specifically at the sling partially covering my Siege polo. “Are you?—”
“Caldy! I thought we were meeting—oh. Hey, Coach Berger.”
It takes me a second too long to drag my gaze away from Claire to look at the newcomer who interrupted whatever Claire was about to say.
Am Iwhat?
