Page 73 of The Last Five Yards

When they come back, Reese is closer again, instinctively, like the shift was automatic. Natural.

The kids’ voices echo faintly from the locker rooms. Someone laughs. Someone else shouts about how loud the storm is. The noise feels worlds away from the quiet pool deck where the two of them stand, still dripping, still catching up to what just happened.

Reese studies her. Not the bruises already forming. Not the fall. Her.

“You okay to walk?” Reese asks.

“Yes,” Maren says. “I just need a minute.”

“Take all the time you want,” Reese says. “I’m not going to rush you.”

Maren should look away. She knows she should. But the longer she stands in Reese’s orbit, the more that familiar pull settles low and warm in her stomach. Something unguarded leaks into the space between them, something neither of them meant to let out.

Reese shifts her weight like she wants to say something else, something heavier, but instead she takes Maren’s hand and lifts it gently, checking her fingers for bruises.

“You braced on this hand,” she says, her voice quieter now, almost a whisper. “Tell me if anything hurts.”

Her fingers are soft against Maren’s knuckles. Careful. Intentional. It is an impossible thing, how such a simple touch can unravel her more than the fall itself.

“I’m fine,” Maren whispers.

Reese looks up, eyes searching hers, steady and unblinking. “You do not have to be brave every second.”

The words land with a weight Maren is not ready for.

Rain pounds the roof like a drumbeat. The emergency lights buzz again, casting them both in an odd, sickening green glow.

Maren finally looks away, but not quickly enough to hide the way her breath stutters.

Reese keeps her hand against Maren’s back as they walk toward the coach’s office, guiding her without pushing, steady in the way she always is when things go sideways.

Maren lets her.

The coach’s office is dim when they step inside. Only the small emergency light in the corner glows, a cold, pale square that makes everything look washed out. The door to the locker room stays open, so Maren can hear the kids’ voices bouncing around the tiled space. High laughter. Wet feet slapping the floor. The storm dulls beneath the roof, but the rain still pounds hard enough to vibrate through the cinder block walls.

Reese keeps a hand on Maren’s back until she sits on the padded bench beneath the bulletin board.

“Let me see your arm,” Reese says quietly.

Maren lifts it automatically. The elbow is already red and swollen. She hates the sight of it. Hates the weakness of it. Hates that Reese is seeing it at all.

Reese crouches in front of her, knees bending so they are eye level. The closeness should make Maren feel boxed in, but instead her breath loosens a fraction, falling into something that feels almost safe.

“That’s going to bruise,” Reese murmurs.

Maren gives a thin huff of laughter. “Occupational hazard.”

Reese does not smile back. Her brow pulls instead, soft with something much heavier. “Do you have any idea how scared I was when you fell?”

The words land before Maren is ready. She blinks once, twice, trying to pull her thoughts back together.

“I did not want you to see that,” she says. The confession slips out before she can stop it. “I just… I did not want to look like I could not handle myself.”

Reese studies her for a long time. Rain crashes against the roof in a steady drumbeat.

“Maren,” she says softly. “I want to see you. All of you. Even the parts that slip.”

The air thins. Something shifts between them, small but impossible to ignore.