Page 105 of Play For Me

She’s writhing in pain on the field and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. She won’t even look at me, her face pressed into the grass, but I can see how tight she’s clenching her jaw.

“We’re going to roll you,” Devon says, nodding at me, and I force myself to remember what the hell I’m supposed to be doing. She needs me to help her right now, not lose my shit in front of the entire team and staff. Devon and I each take a shoulder and roll her onto her back. I don’t let myself look at her face, knowing I’ll lose it. Instead, I direct my attention straight to her knee—and wish I hadn’t.

It’s clearly swollen already. And from the way she can’t lay still, I know she’s in pain.

“I heard it,” she grits out, and I move my gaze to her face. The urge to puke doubles—I’ve never seen this expression on her before. Pain and fear and what looks a lot like helpless rage. “Iheardit, Sol. It popped.”

Fuck.

“We don’t know anything yet,” I say, my hand coming up to rest on her shoulder. I want to cup her cheeks, to comfort her, to pull her up into my arms and get her the hell out of here, but there are too many people around. “Try to stay calm.”

Next to me, Devon is checking her knee for any obvious dislocation or fractures. He uses his hands to stabilize the knee while he asks her questions about the pain and what she feltbefore collapsing. “Let’s not catastrophize. There are a dozen minor things that might have gone wrong.”

She takes a deep breath, then another. “Let me try to get up,” she finally says, pulling herself into a seated position. “Let me try to walk.”

I don’t want her to get up or try to walk. I want to get a stretcher out here or, better yet, carry her to the locker room myself. But I know we need to see if she can put weight on it.

“We’ll help you,” Devon says, and I follow his lead, gripping her under the arm and pulling her up. She clings to both of our arms as she hops on one foot for a second before gingerly putting her other foot down. The second it touches the grass, she grimaces.

“Fuck,” she mutters, squeezing her eyes tight.

“Okay,” Devon says, his voice all calm and professional while I want to scream. “Let’s get you to the locker room so I can take a better look. We won’t know anything until we do a scan.”

But I know Cecelia, and I know that look on her face. She doesn’t think she needs to wait for a scan—she thinks this is it.

“Hey.” I duck down a little to look in her face, my heart aching at her expression, at the pain I see in her eyes and the tense set of her jaw. “We don’t know yet.”

She nods once, but I can tell she doesn’t believe me.

Devon and I get her positioned between us, her arms around our shoulders so we can take her weight. Her teammates watch us, expressions ranging from shocked to horrified. Coach Carla’s jaw is set. Everyone can tell that this is bad.

When we reach the sidelines, I look up into the stands and my eyes immediately lock on the Ransomes. They’re all standing, eyes wide with fear, hands over mouths. Cash and Sam are already running down the steps towards the tunnel that will take them back into the building.

Guilt rushes through me. Her father had just asked me, not even two hours ago, to take care of “our girl.” That’s what he called her.Our girl. And now she’s hurt and I can’t do anything. I can’t even hug her or assure her it will be okay.

And then it gets worse. The student manager meets us at the door and moves to take my place. I don’t budge. “I need you on the field,” Devon says, and I stare at him, incredulous.

“We need a trainer on the sidelines and Kyle doesn’t know the players as well as you do,” he tells me, more urgently now.

I want to swear. Anne, the team’s assistant trainer, has been out on maternity leave since her wife had a baby two weeks ago. The department sent over another assistant to cover the soccer team, but Devon is right—the new guy doesn’t know these girls.

But I can’t just turn around and walk away from her.

“She’s my athlete,” I manage to croak out.

He nods like he understands, but he’s barely looking at me, his attention on her. “I know,” he says, distracted. “The match will be over in ten minutes. You can check on her after.”

The team manager nudges me out of the way and takes my place. I stand there, warring with myself. I want to tell them to fuck off, to insist that I’m going inside with her. But how can I do that without alerting them that our relationship is more than what it should be?

Do I even care? Suddenly, my clinicals don’t seem to matter all that much. Not when she’s hurt and they’re telling me to walk away.

Maybe she senses what I’m thinking, because Cecelia looks up and meets my eye. “I’ll be okay,” she says, and I can tell she’s trying to make her voice sound stronger than it is. She widens her eyes a little, clearly trying to tell me something.Go back to the game.

Fuck.

“I’ll be in as soon as I can,” I tell her. The manager gives me a strange look, but I can’t make myself care. I’m too busy watching as Cecelia puts on a brave face and allows them to help her into the locker room, still unable to put any weight on her leg at all.

TWENTY-SEVEN