“Do you?”
“Yes.”
He took a step closer to the desk. Not threatening. Too restless to stay still. “Maybe I saw a better play. Maybe I’m tired of having every instinct treated like a problem because it doesn’t fit clean on a whiteboard.”
“Stop interrupting.”
His mouth shut.
Again.
This time, neither of us had the luxury of pretending not to notice.
His chest rose and fell under the hoodie. Mine did the same, slower, controlled only because I had spent a lifetime making control look natural. There was nothing sexual in the moment, not in any way I had language for. Still, it was intimate enough to be dangerous. One command. One immediate response. A silence afterward that did not belong in a coach’s office between a married man and his player.
I straightened. “You’re done for today.”
He stared at me. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“No speech?”
“You heard me.”
His laugh came out quieter this time. “Yeah. I did.”
He turned for the door, then stopped with his hand on the knob.
I should have let him leave.
Instead, I said, “Tomorrow, you hold the structure until I tell you otherwise.”
He didn’t turn around. “And if I don’t?”
“Then you’ll sit again.”
His shoulders went tight.
After a moment, he nodded once and left.
I stood in my office until the hallway sounds returned, footsteps, voices, Milo complaining about someone stealing his recovery drink, Tessa telling him she would sell him for office supplies if he made one more accusation near her media backdrop.
Normal team life.
Normal noise.
Nothing in me felt normal.
That evening, Olivia was in the bedroom packing for a three-day trip to Dallas. I sat at the small desk by the window with my laptop open, practice notes untouched for twenty minutes.
“You’re doing it again,” she said.
I looked over. “What?”
“Working without working.”
I closed the laptop. “Long day.”
