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Easton follows my gaze. “Whatever’s going on between you two, everyone can see it.”

He turns back toward the defense as Coach calls for us to reset, leaving me staring after him with heat crawling up the back of my neck. Fuck. I knew I was watching Coach too much, but I didn’t know I was doing such a shitty job hiding it that Easton could take one look at me and know exactly where my head keeps going.

Knowing everyone else can see it makes the rest of practice worse. I try to keep my attention where it belongs, but I can’t stop wanting him to be the one who decides he’s ready. Every time I look up and find the distance still there, that hope gets a little harder to ignore. When the final whistle blows, I’m tired of waiting for him to make the first move.

The guys start toward the locker room while I pull off my helmet, but I stay on the field. Coach is talking to JJ near the sideline, and I watch them while the nerves I’ve managed to keep buried beneath football work their way back in. JJ heads toward the facility, leaving Coach alone. My stomach tightens as I tuck my helmet beneath my arm, because crossing the field means getting close enough to see exactly how disappointed he still is, but I make myself go to him before I can find another reason to wait. Coach hears me coming and looks up from the practice sheet in his hand. There’s no irritation in his face at being interrupted, but there isn’t any warmth either, and seeing that same careful distance this close makes it harder to breathe around the knot in my chest.

“Can we talk?”

His eyes stay on mine for a moment. “I told Calliope I’d talk to you when I was ready.”

“I understand, and if you need me to walk away, I will.” My fingers tighten around the facemask of my helmet. “But I’ve been waiting all morning for you to come to me, and I don’t think that’s fair when I’m the one who owes you an apology.”

Coach’s jaw shifts, but he doesn’t tell me to leave. I’ve spent all morning waiting for a chance to talk to him, and now that I have it, I don’t know how to ask the question that’s been eating at me without admitting how much the answer matters.

“I know you’re pissed at me.”

“That’s a pretty safe assumption.”

Normally, I’d hear the dry edge in his voice and know what to do with it. Today, I can’t tell if it means anything, and I hate that I’m searching his face for an answer he hasn’t given me.

“I can handle you being pissed.”

“Can you?” Coach’s eyebrows pull together. “I watched you try to play every position on offense for the last two hours because I wasn’t talking to you.”

Heat crawls up the back of my neck. It was bad enough hearing it from Easton, but Coach knowing exactly what I was doing out there makes me want to deny the whole damn thing. I wasn’t trying to prove anything to the team or take over everybody else’s job. I just couldn’t stand feeling him pull away from me and not knowing how to make him stop.

“I didn’t know where I stood with you.”

Coach’s expression changes, the anger I’ve been bracing against giving way to something I can’t read as easily. He looks down at the practice sheet in his hand, folding it once before his attention comes back to me.

“You thought running yourself into the ground out here was going to answer that?”

“No.” The denial comes automatically, but I can still feel the ache in my shoulder from every rep I refused to leave alone. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“That’s what I thought.”

There’s enough of the coach I know in the response that I want to grab onto it, but I don’t know if he meant to give me anything. I don’t know if hearing him sound like himself for two seconds means we’re going to be okay or if I’m so desperate for something familiar that I’m turning it into more than it is.

“I know I can’t fix this by having a good practice.”

“Do you?”

I almost get defensive before I remember the last two hours. “I wanted there to be something I could do.”

“And what happens when there isn’t?”

I open my mouth, ready to tell him there’s always something, but nothing comes. The silence stretches while my heart pounds harder, and I hate how exposed I feel without an answer to give him. I can handle knowing I fucked up when there’s a way to make it right. I can apologize, work harder, be better, give someone a reason to keep believing in me. Standing here while Coach is angry with me and having nothing I can do to change it scares the shit out of me, because I don’t know what happens to us if being better isn’t enough.

“I don’t know.” My grip tightens around my helmet until the facemask digs into my palm. “I don’t know how to stand here and let you be disappointed in me when I don’t even know if you still want me here.”

Coach’s brow furrows. “Here?”

“With you. I know I’m still your quarterback. You made that pretty damn clear today.” The next part is harder to get out because saying it means admitting this stopped being about football a long time ago. “I don’t know if I’m still anything else.”

Coach goes quiet, and every second he doesn’t answer makes it harder not to take the words back. I can hear my pulse beating in my ears while I watch his face, desperate for something that tells me I haven’t just said out loud how much losing whatever we became matters to me.

“You think I stopped caring about you because I’m angry?”