“Caldwell!”
I startle, my eyes darting from Otto to Coach Green. She’s standing by the line of cones, staring this way with a puzzled smile on her face.
“Yeah?” I call back, standing quickly.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Otto stand too.
“Could you help me with another line of these?” Nicole asks. “I want to make sure they’re straight.”
“Of course.” I jog onto the field.
I don’t look back to see if Otto is staring after me.
But I’m pretty sure he is.
19
OTTO
“What do you think of Caldwell?”
My grip tightens on the plastic arm of the chair. I wish I had my foam ball to squeeze. “What do you mean?” I ask Eliza.
When she asked me to stop by her office after practice, I figured it was about the photos from last night. If Claire saw them, the entire team must have, and I was right.
Practice was filled with whispers and smirks from the Siege players, and I was a fool not to assume the paparazzi I’m fairly certain Juliette’s publicist tipped off would waste no time in plastering the snaps of us all over the place. A model and a professional athlete being spotted together is hardly a rare occurrence, but the public appetite for it remains.
Eliza hasn’t brought the photos up. She asked about my grandfather’s health and updated me on her practice plan for the week.
And now, we’re discussing Claire.
I’d rather explain why I was photographed with my ex-fiancée last night. I’m still shaken from my slipup earlier. I didn’t mean to call her Boston; it just came out. And it might havebeen fine if Claire hadn’t frozen as soon as I said it. Her stricken face haunted me for the rest of practice, along with all the wrong assumptions she’d made about my absence. She had a child with someone else. Why does she care who I eat dinner with?
Eliza leans back in her swivel chair, tapping a pen against her desk. “You watched the game against Chicago?”
I nod. “I did.”
She sighs heavily. “That should have been a win for us. It wasn’t just Caldwell; the entire team underperformed. I thought we had the momentum, coming off such a great preseason.”
“One game won’t ruin the whole season.”
“You’re right. But it’s a bad start. And Caldwell was sloppy during practice earlier.”
I’m seized with a sudden burst of panic. I distracted her today. And I can deal with a lot, but I can’t deal with negatively impacting Claire’s career.
“She is one of the top defenders in the league,” I say. “Her blocks and interceptions are?—”
Eliza interrupts, “I’m aware of her stats, Otto.”
“Right. Of course.” I bounce my knee, then shift in the chair, worried I said too much. That my defensiveness revealed too much.
“Every player has off days,” Eliza continues. “The problem with Caldwell’s, they affect the entire team. She has a captain spot in every way except seniority. She’s who the rest of the team looks up to.”
Pride flares as Eliza mentions what I already recognized from observing the team.
“Her concentration against Chicago was nowhere to be found,” Eliza continues. “I had Caldwell talk to a sports psychologist last season, and it didn’t seem to help. I was wondering if you’d be willing to do a few individual sessionswith her. I think it would be good for her to work with someone unfamiliar. You can offer some new insight.”
This.
