Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Lucien
Once again, Talia Turner is glaring at me. But this time it’s in the Tampa visiting team training room, where I’m waiting for someone to help me stretch.
“Don’t give birth, Beaumont,” she says, exasperated. “This is what Melina told me to do.”
“Go tell her to find someone else. You’re not touching me.”
She shakes her head. “I’ve done this many times. It’ll be me touching you, and it’s fine. Now get on your back. Apparently your routine is long, and I’m not missing lunch just because you’re a pussy.”
My teammate Silas snickers nearby. “Tell him, Talia.”
I scowl at him. “Easy for you to say. I want to keep my sac attached to my body. Why don’t you touch her?”
He puts his palms up in mock surrender. “I’m not touching her, but if Melina wanted her to stretch me, I’d do it. She’s here to help the team.”
Talia’s scornful hum says otherwise. “I’m here because my dad thinks I’ll be happier if I’m contributing to something bigger than myself. But after five months of eating ice cream like it’s my job, I’m not sure there is anything bigger than me.”
There’s a note of amusement in her voice, but Silas and I both give her confused looks.
So she’s down on herself. And no wonder, after what that assfuck Macintire did to her.
I lie back, still worried Turner will come into the room and jump on top of me like a pro wrestler over this.
“I just need my back and glutes stretched a little,” I say warily. “It’ll be quick. And you have to be careful not to push my feet too far.”
“Melina told me what you need. And I have a kinesiology degree, so I’m not going to maim you. Unless you piss me off, so don’t do that.”
A smile tugs at my lips. I can still see her in there—the woman who was ready to fight at the bar last night. But she looked completely different then.
When I first saw her on the bus we took to the Tampa arena this morning, I did a double take.
Without a baggy hoodie tied tight around her face, I can actually see her, and she’s pretty.
Her dark-blond hair is wavy and it falls just past her shoulders.
She has it up in a bun right now, small sections of hair framing her face.
Her cheeks have more color. In black leggings and a Crush T-shirt, she really looks like a member of our team staff.
“Left foot,” she says, standing at my feet.
I raise my left knee toward my chest and she puts the bottom of my sock-covered foot on her lower stomach. She slowly pushes it forward, stretching my glutes and then my lower back.
I exhale slowly, keeping my gaze on the ceiling.
“Melina said you’re adamant about this one, so we’ll do it, but no more static stretches after this one. Those are for postgame.”
“I know, but I need this one before and after.”
“That’s fine.”
Melina and our goalie, Isaac, come into the training room as Talia is stretching my left side, and Isaac looks like he’s got a boulder on his shoulders. He blames himself for our losing streak, and I know he’s worried about his position as our starting goalie.
One of our third-line forwards, Grayson Mercado, is waiting for them on the other end of the training room. The floor in here is all a big exercise mat, and it’s where we all do pre- and postgame stretching when we play in Tampa.
Carter, lightly riding an exercise bike on one side of the room, groans and stops pedaling.
“Dude.” He scowls at Isaac. “Don’t do your fart yoga in here. The rest of us shouldn’t have to smell your rancid farts.”
Isaac shrugs, putting his hands out. “There’s nowhere else to do it here.”
“Do it in the hallway.”
“There aren’t any mats there.”
Carter gets off the bike and walks over to him. “I think you can handle child’s pose on the floor.”
Talia lowers my foot back to the floor, meeting my eyes in a quick, concerned look.
“Isaac does fart yoga with Melina before every game,” I explain in a low voice. “He likes to get all the gas out of his system because he feels better. He’ll do it now and again right before he dresses.”
“Oh.” Her lips quirk with a smile.
“We’re all sharing the training room,” Melina says, ending their conversation. “No one has to be as close to his fart fest than me, so suck it up, Stanton.”
Carter stalks away, leaving the room. I swear this team is like a family with a bunch of adolescent boys sometimes. We spend more time together than we do with anyone else during the season, so there’s a lot of bickering and bitching. And everyone’s tense because of our losing streak.
Mercado, who just joined our team this season, recently started doing fart yoga with Isaac and Melina. We got both of them “Fart Yoga Master” T-shirts for Christmas.
“Okay if I lead you through some dynamic stretching now?” Talia asks.
I almost say no. I like my pregame routine. Melina’s been trying to talk me into doing the right pregame stretches for a long time. But there’s a note of something in Talia’s voice that won’t let me refuse. I think it’s hope.
She looks like a completely different person today. Still surly, but not like she doesn’t even have the energy to walk. That’s what she looked like last night. Exhausted and defeated.
“Sure, go for it,” I say.
She nods. “Okay, let’s warm up with some jogging in place.”
We both start lightly jogging, and she looks down at her chest, where, if I’m being honest, I was already looking.
“Shit,” she says under her breath. “I don’t have the right bra on for this.”
Her breasts are bouncing up and down, so she puts her arms over her chest to stabilize them. In the moment, I’m disappointed, but it’s probably for the best. Turner would choke the life out of me if he saw me ogling his daughter’s breasts.
“Those were more manageable before I gained weight,” she says lightly.
I don’t let myself tell her they’re absolutely perfect. She’s curvy, and I wouldn’t change a thing about her body. I prefer women with softness and a nice, squeezable ass.
After about five minutes, she stops jogging, her cheeks flushed a sexy shade of pink. “Okay, now we’ll do some arms. Let’s do arm circles.”
“So you work in kinesiology?” I ask.
Isaac rips a huge fart, his groan so satisfied it sounds sexual. “Oh yeah, that felt good.”
I just shake my head as Talia’s lips quirk.
“He does this before every game?” she asks in a hushed voice.
“Every single one.”
She widens her eyes in an expression that’s half amusement, half disbelief. “I worked at a school for students with physical disabilities before,” she says.
Before Kyle Macintire blew up her world. A fresh wave of disgust for that douchebag flares in my chest.
“Guess you know what happened.” She’s looking away, not meeting my eyes. “Everyone does.”
I’m not pressing her on it. After a moment of silence, she says, “Bigger arm circles now. Really control your range of motion, don’t just let them fly.”
“What did you do there?” I ask.
She gives me a confused look.
“At the school.”
“Oh. I was sort of a gym teacher, but it’s a private school, so they called me their adaptive physical activities instructor.
I made sure every student did some form of exercise every day, and the goal is to make it fun.
” She drops her arms to her sides and walks over to a weight bench, picking up a bar without weights on it.
“You know how to do shoulder pass throughs?”
“Yep.” I take the bar and put it out in front of me, not bending my elbows as I raise it up over my head.
“So we did a lot of wheelchair games, like wheelchair hockey and basketball, and relay races, but with things other than running, like you have to roll your chair around obstacles. Music and motion was always really popular with the kids. I did a lot with exercise bands. It’s not just about the activity, but also inclusion.
Some kids can’t really do much, so they would get to participate with someone pushing their chair.
I never, ever did anything where the kids pick teams because I hate that with a passion.
Someone always ends up last and it’s bullshit. ”
I had observed that she’s attractive, but seeing her talk about her work puts it on a whole new level. She can get worked up—I already knew that—but seeing her get worked up over making sure no kid feels excluded, now that’s just fucking hot. Not that I can act on it.
“Is that as far back as you can get it?” she asks as I lower the bar back behind my head.
“Nah, I could get it farther.”
“Go as far as you can without causing discomfort.”
Another fart tears through the air, Talia laughing this time.
“I get what he’s trying to do with fart yoga,” she says. “The science is there.”
“That’s right!” Isaac calls out from his back-down position on the floor, where he has his arms wrapped around his knees to hold them against his chest. “I’m a trailblazer!”
“That pose is called apanasana, and it’s very similar to the one you wanted to do when we started,” Talia says to me. “It has lots of benefits.”
“Smelling Isaac’s farts isn’t one of them.”
“Torso twists,” she says, meeting my gaze with an amused gleam in her eyes.
“Morning skate, guys!” one of our assistant trainers, Zack, calls out from the doorway.
“I’m not done with fart yoga,” Isaac protests.
“We’ll do it again later,” Melina says.
“I knew you loved fart yoga,” he quips.
“Yeah,” she deadpans. “I love it so much.”
I have to go change and do the morning skate with my teammates, but I’d rather stay and talk to Talia. I linger as long as I can while everyone else files out of the room.
“Thanks,” I say when we’re alone. “Let’s do this again tomorrow, but build in enough time to do everything you want.”
She smiles at me, her expression wry. “I appreciate it, but you don’t have to do that.”
“Do what? Pregame stretches? You want me to get injured, Turner?”
“You know what I mean. You don’t have to make me feel helpful and useful.”
I shrug. “I can’t help it if you actually are helpful and useful. If you had a fashion design degree, there wouldn’t be much you could do here.”
One corner of her mouth tilts up in a smile. “Sure. Guess I have to do something, might as well be this.”
“Better than fart yoga,” I quip.
“Much.”
I clear my throat, my expression turning serious. “Hey, I know you probably don’t want to talk about it, but Kyle Macintire is a piece of shit and you’re much better off without him.”
At the mention of his name, she wilts. Her confidence and lightness are gone.
Good one, Beaumont. You ruined a nice moment.
“You’re right—I don’t want to talk about it.”
She turns and leaves the room and I sigh heavily, wishing I hadn’t said anything about Kyle. I fucked up yet again. Just like I keep fucking up in games.
Even at twenty-seven years old, living my dream of playing in the big league, I don’t have my shit together. Not even close.