Page 68 of Her Player

I was gathering the dishes when I heard the front door.

Coach’s boots in the entryway. Then Bry’s voice, closer than I expected, already moving down the hallway toward us. I stepped back from the bed just as she appeared in the doorway.

She took one look at her mother and crossed the room.

I didn’t belong in that room anymore. I stepped back into the hallway and pulled the door almost closed behind me, leaving just enough of a gap that I’d hear if either of them needed anything.

I stood there for a moment listening to the sound of Bry’s voice, low and soft, and Victoria’s silence slowly giving way to something that wasn’t silence anymore.

Then Coach appeared at the end of the hallway.

He looked at me. I looked at him. Neither of us said anything for a second.

“Come on,” he said finally. “Let me look at those bruises.”

I followed him to the kitchen. He pulled an ice pack from the freezer and tossed it to me without ceremony. I pressed it to my ribs and perched on the edge of the counter while he shook three pills into his palm and handed them over.

“Trouble breathing?” he asked.

“No.”

“You lying?”

“Got too important a game coming up for that.”

He looked at my ribs anyway. Pressed on a couple spots that made me hiss. Nodded once. “Just bruising. But if it gets worse you’re seeing the doctor after Monday’s practice.”

I dry swallowed the pills and chased them with the water bottle he tossed me.

We stood there a minute. The house was quiet except for the low murmur of voices from Victoria’s room.

“You love her,” I said. Not a question.

Coach looked at the window. His jaw worked. “Can I really love her the way I want to if I’m the one putting her at risk?”

I thought about that. “Bry doesn’t let you get away with anything. You really think she’d still be around if she didn’t want to be?”

He didn’t answer. But something in his shoulders shifted.

A few minutes later Bry appeared in the kitchen doorway. Her eyes went straight to my bruised ribs and then to Coach, and whatever she’d been about to say got swallowed up in the way she crossed the room to him.

“Rhett?” she said, turning to me after a moment. “She’s asking for you.”

I didn’t hear sniffling when I pushed open her door. That was enough for now.

I crawled into bed behind her. Slid my arm around her waist. Felt her wiggle back against me without waking up.

“Hey,” she said softly, a few minutes later.

“Hey.”

Her voice was rough. “What day is it?”

“Still today,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”

She did.

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