Page 101 of Her Coach

I pressed my nose into the top of her head and inhaled her scent. “Good. I’m… I’m good.”

She paused. “You sure?”

I drew in her scent again. “Just thinking.”

“About what?”

I wasn’t sure if I was ready to talk about New York. To admit my plans, or the fact that I now wanted to throw those plans out the fucking window. After all, we’d only been doing this for a few weeks. I tried tallying up the weeks in my head, only to embarrass myself. Three weeks. In three weeks, this woman had blazed a trail into my world, flipped that shit on its head, and left me scrambling to get upright.

The idea of leaving her made less and less sense as the days ticked by.

But admitting that to her out loud? That I was willing to change all of my life plans in the span of three weeks? Jesus Christ, I didn’t want to scare the poor woman.

I hopped to another topic that I was, at the very least, curious about. “Is your mother all right?”

I felt the curiosity in her pause before she answered. “As far as I know. Why?”

I shrugged. “She just wasn’t at the game, or so the guys say. Apparently, she comes into the⁠—”

She gasped. A bit delayed, but I guess when my words finally registered, she scrambled onto her knees, turning to face me, and gasped.

“Mom wasn’t at the game? Why didn’t you tell me!? What do you mean she wasn’t at the game? Tell me everything. Was she not in the locker room afterward?”

I furrowed my brow. “No. That’s when the guys told me that she’s usually in the locker room celebrating wins with them.”

Without another word, she scrambled out of my bed. I tried reaching for her, but the blankets and sheets and pillows went fucking flying as she yanked at them to get out of the bed just a tad quicker.

“Brynn, I’m sure she’s⁠—”

“I’ll be just a second!” she exclaimed as she raced out of the room.

I chuckled and shook my head as I eyed her pants on the floor. I counted down the seconds in my head from ten, and by the time I got to two, she was already stomping back up the steps.

“I think my phone’s in my pants,” she said as she rushed back into the bedroom.

I just grinned as she snatched her jeans up, digging around in the pockets, and pulled out her cell phone.

I expected her to call. Immediately. Maybe even put it on speakerphone so that someone else could bear witness to the apparent travesty I didn’t understand. But instead, she unlocked her phone and stared at the screen.

“Brynn?” I asked.

She slowly put her finger up to me, her eyes scanning the screen. She must’ve had text messages or something.

“Okaaaay,” she said as her fingers flew across the screen of her phone. “I got one text about an hour before the game saying she was on her way, and then another one ten minutes after that about a flat tire.”

“Did she miss the game because of the flat?”

She shook her head. “No, the message says she’s going to be late. Not that she’s not coming at all.”

I didn’t hesitate. “You know she’s not your responsibility, right?”

She paused before she slowly raked her eyes toward me. I’d never seen an accusatory look in her eye before, but it was there now. “You know you drink too much, right?”

My jaw clenched. “Brynn.”

She turned her body to face me. “Colton.”

I didn’t like this. I didn’t like the way she looked. She deserved more than that. More than this.