CHAPTER FORTY
Hardy
“ D on’t like hospitals much?”
I open my eyes from where I’m sitting outside of the hospital, hands behind me on the grass, face to the sky as I welcome the sun on my face, and look over to see Whitney’s best friend, Suri. She’s been a godsend the past few days. A go-between for the doctors, the questions, the everything that comes with it and me.
“Nah.” I sit up and glance at my phone. “Not my favorite place. How’s she doing?”
“Good. Better. They think she’ll come around a bit more by morning. Then she’ll get assessed and we’ll see when she’s going home.”
“That’s great news.” I blow out a breath. “She had me ...” I can’t even finish.
“The trouble is going to be keeping her away from work and her kids so she doesn’t overdo it before she gets cleared.” She sighs. “The woman’s hardheaded.”
“I’ve got that part handled.”
She snorts. “Uh-huh.”
“I’m serious. I’ve been on the phone with Martin on and off. He’s taking over the day-to-day, and I have some other things in the works to help out while she’s recovering.”
“Yeah, but—”
“I may be a football player, Suri, but I also know how to get things done.”
“Apparently,” she says, not offended by my subtle rebuke. She leans back and studies me. “Wow.” She nods. “So this is where we are.”
“Meaning?”
“You really do care for her, don’t you?”
“Yes. I do.” There is zero hesitation on my part. None. And that’s ... a new concept for me. “It wasn’t a planned thing, I assure you.”
“I was there the first night you met, remember?” She chuckles. “The two of you were oil and water ... or rather arrogance and defiance.”
“True.”
Whitney’s lying on the floor. Her skin’s clammy and her eyes are rolled back . I shake my head to rid it of the images.
“Has she told you anything about her life, Hardy? Any part of it to understand why those words right there—that you like her—are her ticket to run?”
“Bits. Pieces. Enough to know it wasn’t easy and why she has every validation if she wants to run.” Her expression reflects genuine shock at my response. “But I’m patient and she’s worth it.”
“You know, you make it really hard not to like you,” she teases, and we both fall silent when sirens near and race past us toward the emergency entrance. “That academy is all she has. You ... you’ve helped it by showing up. Like I said, she’s a stubborn woman so she might not say thank you, but she appreciates that you did.”
“She doesn’t have to say anything.” I glance at my phone and an incoming text from Martin, but it can wait.
“She had so much potential, so many dreams, and to have it all stripped away was hard. But nothing has ever come easy in her life, so to just pivot and keep going was definitely par for the course for her.”
“She’d be an excellent coach.”
“She is an excellent coach.”
“I mean for college level or semi-pros. She knows her stuff.”
“I’ll take your word for it. Me and soccer or football or whatever confusing thing you guys call the same sport is limited. But you know, if you get kicked in the teeth enough times, you forget what it’s like to have to chew. That’s Whitney. First, the shit hand dealt with her mom and drugs. Then the endless foster system. But she found Patrick and this academy and it saved her. It built her up only to tear her down when she lost the scholarship.”
“I can’t imagine.”
“She got a few coaching jobs after that but could never advance. She didn’t have her own team experience. No one took her seriously. She was struggling with it all—losing her passion and her dream—and, just like when she was a teenager, Patrick stepped into her life significantly by leaving her the academy.”
This is how the game saved me.
Clearly, I’m not the only one it saved.
“If you think the academy is rough now, you should have seen it when she took it over.” She gives me a dubious look. “ It was bad . She’s improved it so much but ... it’s never enough for her. That’s why she was writing letters to Mayhem for donations and sponsorships. That’s why we’re sitting here right now together.”
“Yeah, well, hopefully we don’t have to sit out here much longer because she’ll get released soon.”
“Agreed.”
“I’m taking her to my place,” I say. “To recover.”
“I was going to take her—”
“Let me take care of her, Suri. I want to.” I need to .
Our eyes meet and whatever she sees in them, she believes. “Okay.” She chews over the word and then adds, “But if you knock down those walls and make her fall for you, and then you break her heart? It’s going to be you up there in that hospital bed because I’ll be the one who puts you there.”
I bark out a laugh but feel the love and fierceness of her loyalty to protect her best friend. Oddly, I feel some of that too. “Deal,” I say as I stand with her.
“I’m going to go back in. You sure you don’t want to come with?”
I’ve conquered my fears enough these past three days, forcing myself to go in the hospital and face the assault of memories. Now that I know Whitney’s okay, I’m good. “Nah, my feet are way more stable out here.”
“Okay.” She pauses. “You’re nothing like I thought you were, Hardy. You should show the world this side of you more.”
“Being the arsehole is way easier.”
She laughs, starts to walk away, but then turns and surprises the shit out of me when she grabs me in a bear hug. “Thank you for saving her. For ... just thank you.”
And without waiting for me to say anything else, she turns on her heel and walks away.