“The player Candice is referring to couldn’t be you, could it?”
I narrow my eyes at Tristan. This isn’t the first time he’s accused me of messing around with Candice. “Your jealousy is really starting to show. I guess I’d be envious, too, if a rookie rolled into town and started collecting points like candy. Being shown up as an average player hasreallygot to sting.”
Tristan takes a step toward me and then stops, attention focused over my left shoulder.
“Will, I need to talk with you in my office.”
Coach’s blue eyes impale me as I turn on my heel to find him standing directly behind the weight rack.
How long has he been there, and what the fuck has he heard?
“Sure,” I quickly respond, voice light, like I have nothing to hide.
I don’t like the way he’s looking at me right now, and I suspect it has everything to do with what Tristan just said.
“Good. See you in five minutes.”
A new familyportrait sits on the corner of Coach’s desk when I slide into a seat opposite him and dump my training bag down on the floor.
“I need to say something.” I decide to break the ice quickly.
He shakes his head, refusing to even look at me.
“I can explain what happened with her and set the record straight,” I continue.
Coach holds up a hand. “At this point, Will, out of respect to you and your family, I think it’s best if you stop talking.”
I furrow my brow at him. Why would what happened with Candice implicate our personal history?
“I don’t understand,” I reply.
Coach throws me a look similar to the ones I’ve received from his daughter. “Don’t play dumb with me, Will. You know exactly what you’re doing.”
I fall silent, genuinely disturbed by where this conversation is headed. I sure as shit don’t think it has to do with Candice anymore.
Coach clicks his tongue and sits back in his chair, pushing away his keyboard and paperwork on the desk in front of him. “For the purpose of the next few minutes, I want to be really clear—whatever is said between us stays between us. And that includes me keeping this from my wife because”—he blows a breath into his cheeks—“she’ll lose her mind if I tell her what I’ve witnessed. You got that?”
His intense gaze holds me in place before I nod once.
“Are you into my daughter?”
I knew it was coming, but Coach’s question still hits me square in the chest.
Into her? No.
Falling for her? Yep.
I clear my throat to rid the tension building in it. “Why would you ask me that?”
He looks frustrated at my question, but I need him to answer it and clear up where his suspicions originated.
Did Drew say something, and that’s why she’s been quiet? Did Coach hear about my hookup with Candice, and now he’s convinced I’m moving on to the next workplace fling?
He lifts a brow. “I’m not an idiot, Will, so don’t treat me like one.” He leans forward on the desk. “At the gala, I managed to convince myself that you were staring at Drew because she was dancing with Tristan and you wanted to make sure that she was okay.” His jaw tenses, eyes turning a darker shade of blue. “But then I had a front-row seat at Jensen and Kate’s place. And let’s not even go there with that shit you pulled against the Blades. Did you think that celebration was clever, or do you just like playing games with the press?”
A thousand possible responses race through my mind. If left up to me, I’d own my feelings and confirm them to Coach right here and now. The only thing holding me back is Drew and what she wants her parents to know. After all, she didn’t tell Coach about us. He worked out my attraction to her for himself.
“Completely fucking see-through.”Mason wasn’t wrong when he said I was transparent at the gala.
