Chapter 9 Sloane #2
He wasn’t in pads anymore. No jersey. His hoodie was a different one—dark charcoal, soft at the edges, sleeves pushed up to his forearms like he’d done it without thinking.
His joggers were loose, casual, but his cleats were gone.
Clean white sneakers, without any pattern, unlaced.
His hair was still damp, curled at the ends, a few strands falling loose.
He seemed defeated, yet the team won, and he played a hell of a game.
He didn’t move when I stopped beside him. His forearms rested on his knees, fingers interlocked as I approached. Too many shouldn’ts coursed through my mind, but I ignored them and sat down two seats from him. “Hey.”
He glanced up slowly. His eyes were bloodshot, like he hadn’t blinked in too long. Still sharp. Still wary. But tired. More than tired. Exhausted.
“Hi,” I said again, quieter this time. Like anything louder might undo him.
He nodded and kept his eyes on the empty field. His shoulders didn’t drop. His jaw didn’t unclench.
I waited. Two breaths. Three. The silence didn’t feel awkward. But it did feel full.
“I thought you’d be gone by now,” he said finally, voice low and gravelly.
I nodded, scanning his face and tense shoulders. His fingers were curled into fists. “I was leaving, but I saw you here and came down.”
He hummed but didn’t respond, and I had the urge to fill the silence. “Why are you acting like you lost?”
He huffed out a sound that might’ve been a laugh if it had more energy behind it. “Kind of feels like I did.”
“You didn’t,” I said, careful with the words. “You played well. You know you did.”
He didn’t answer. I pulled my knees up slightly, keeping my feet balanced on the edge of the seat below us.
I hated seeing him like this, so unsure.
This was a far cry from the charismatic flirt I was used to seeing.
“Oliver,” I said, letting my voice drop low.
“What’s going on in that head of yours?”
He ran a hand over his face, scrubbing it like he could wipe the day off.
His pale blue eyes softened as his gaze dropped to my mouth, where I caught myself gnawing on my lip again.
I stopped. A flicker of something—humor, maybe—crossed his face.
“Football was my whole life. My only plan. Everyone bought into that, especially my family.”
“Okay,” I said gently. “What changed?”
“Started in college.” He shifted in his seat, posture tight.
“Passed out during practice. Got dizzy after film days. My heart rate spiked when I wasn’t even moving.
I figured out how to manage it. Learned the signs.
Adjusted when I had to. But the second the trainers got involved and I had to start telling the truth about it, everything shifted.
The way people looked at me. Coaches. My family. ”
He exhaled, slow. “My sister called it a liability. Said I was being selfish for playing at all when I should walk away. My dad… he didn’t say anything. Not once. He looked through me like I was already the thing he feared most—wasted potential.”
My chest ached. I knew that language without hearing the words.
“They didn’t want answers,” he said. “They wanted silence. And when I didn’t give it to them, they pulled back. Like I’d put them in this impossible position, just by being sick or whatever the hell I am.”
I nodded once, not pushing. Letting him choose what else to give.
He dragged a hand over his neck. “I thought if I played through it, made the team, did everything right—maybe they’d come back around. Maybe they’d be proud again. Maybe I’d earn it back.”
“You don’t have to earn love that way,” I said softly. “It shouldn’t be conditional.”
He laughed under his breath, no humor in it. “Yeah, well. That’s the theory, right?”
A long beat passed. Then he added, “They texted me tonight. My mom said she was glad I didn’t collapse on national television. My dad sent a thumbs-up emoji which is like an I love you from him.”
I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until it shook in my chest.
My fists clenched before I could stop them.
Every part of me wanted to reach for him, to say something raw, something angry.
To tell him his parents didn’t deserve front-row seats to his suffering.
That their approval didn’t define his worth.
That he could have collapsed on the fifty-yard line and would still be one of the most driven, capable, and loyal people I’d met.
But that wasn’t what he needed from me. Not here. Not yet.
So I exhaled slowly and steadily, then adjusted my tone. My voice stayed even, measured—clinical but still warm.
“Oliver,” I said, sitting forward slightly, “you’re describing psychological trauma layered over medical uncertainty. That kind of feedback loop—where you’re punished for something out of your control—wires you to perform instead of exist. That’s not pressure. That’s survival mode.”
His jaw twitched, but he didn’t look away.
I continued, gentler this time. “And when survival mode becomes your normal, love starts to feel like a transaction. If I perform well, they respond. If I slip, they disappear.”
He kept watching me like he wasn’t sure if he was grateful or furious that I’d named it out loud.
I didn’t push. I said one more thing.
“You didn’t deserve to be abandoned. And you don’t have to carry their silence like it’s something you earned.”
His breath hitched, barely. Then he looked away and nodded once—sharp but not dismissive. Like it hurt to agree with me, but he still did. I let the quiet return. Just for a moment. Because this was where the work started. And I wanted him to know I wasn’t going anywhere.
A few minutes passed, his posture relaxing as he leaned back farther into the bleacher. His arm came out on the chair next to me, his fingers an inch from my shoulder as he faced me again.
“I saw you on the sideline,” he said after a beat. “Right before the screen play. You were watching me, Doc.”
“I was doing my job,” I said, even though my throat felt too tight.
He smiled faintly, one side of his mouth lifting. “Didn’t feel like only your job in the moment. That little wink earlier was something too.”
My stomach pulled, not with embarrassment but something deeper.
I looked at him. Really looked. His eyes were clearer now, but the corners still looked raw.
His posture had loosened, but not fully.
His hands were open now, no longer fists, but the tension still ran through his frame like it didn’t know how to leave.
“I was watching because I care,” I said quietly, meeting him head-on.
His head tilted but not in a teasing way. He seemed surprised.
“I’m not going to force you to talk,” I added, shifting slightly closer on the bench. “But if you ever need to come down off a game and not sit in silence by yourself, I’m usually still up after midnight.”
His eyes flicked to mine, curiosity and something like hope on his face. “Is that an open invitation?”
This was another of those gray area moments, where I had to make a choice. And damn, it was too easy to have the words come right out of my mouth before my brain caught up with me. “I’m saying I make really good grilled cheeses.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t speak right away. But his shoulders dropped another inch. His hand grazed mine where it rested on the back of the chair, his fingers brushing enough to feel warm. Steady. It was subtle, but I felt it.
“Thanks, Doc,” he said.
I shifted, unsure why that simple thank you made something press behind my ribs.
My fingers curled around the edge of my purse.
Not to leave. Just to hold something. A nervous habit.
I blinked toward the field again, trying to focus on the empty rows, the leftover game tape in my head, anything but the heat in my face.
He talked about his family, and it reminded me of mine.
I never let others get into my head, yet Oliver had continually broken the norm for me.
He was so disarming, and that should worry me.
I couldn’t believe my mom texted me. I frowned, hating how the text felt like a brick in my purse. He noticed. Of course he did. He leaned the slightest bit toward me, and his voice dropped enough to make it feel like the tone belonged only to me.
“You frowned.”
“What?”
“Your forehead did that little pinch thing,” he said, nudging me with his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
That startled me. Not because it wasn’t true—but because I hadn’t realized he’d noticed me that closely.
“It’s nothing,” I said quickly, clearly lying.
“Sloane,” he said, quiet but firm. “You don’t lie very well.”
The sound of my name in his voice landed harder than I expected.
He never used it—not in sessions, not in casual teasing, not even in the hallway.
Always Doc. Always a little guarded. But now?
It was different. Closer. More personal.
Like he saw past the role I played and aimed straight for me.
My chest pulled tight, and my pulse skipped like it didn’t know what to do with the shift.
My grip tightened around my phone. I glanced down at the screen, still dark, still heavy with the text I hadn’t responded to. The words burned through the glass like they were waiting for me to speak them aloud.
I sighed and turned toward him. “My mom texted me too. After the game.”
His brow furrowed. “She say something about the broadcast?”
I let out a bitter breath. “She called me a sideline cheerleader among other passive aggressive comments.”
He didn’t react right away. His gaze dropped to my hands. I hadn’t noticed they were so tense until he reached over and placed his palm over mine.
“I’m sorry.” He frowned, the cute wrinkle between his brows directed on my behalf instead of his own issues. “I’d never want to overstep here, because you know your worth and know you’re a badass, but if you ever need a reminder, I’d be glad to help.”
We remained like that, neither speaking for a full minute before someone on the cleaning crew sneezed a section over.
The sound jolted me back to reality, where I was a team doctor and he was a player—a younger player.
One I shouldn’t be sitting with like this, our hands close enough to touch.
I pulled back, breaking our connection and stood. “It’s late. I should go home.”
“Yeah,” he said, not standing with me. His voice had that edge to it again, and he stared out on the field.
My chest ached for him, causing me to do irrational things that the typical Sloane Mercer wouldn’t do. I reached down, placed my hand on his shoulder, and squeezed. “Come on. I’ll drive us.”
He arched a brow, his gaze dropping to where my hand rested on his shoulder.
I started to pull back, instinct already kicking in, but he caught it in his own—steady, warm, and larger than I remembered.
His fingers closed around mine with a kind of gentleness that made everything else fade out.
He didn’t look at me right away but traced the top of my hand like he was memorizing it, his thumb gliding over each knuckle with aching precision.
It wasn’t flirtation. It wasn’t comfort.
It felt like something he needed. Something I didn’t know how to name.
His breath brushed my skin, and I sucked in a sharp inhale, the sound embarrassingly loud in the space between us.
God, when was the last time anyone touched me like that?
Months? We had to be breaking some ethics code, but my body didn’t care.
I didn’t move. Neither did he. We stayed there—his hand around mine, my heart pounding hard enough I swore he could feel it in my palm.
“James, you’re still here? Why?” a familiar masculine voice barked out, causing me to jump back two feet.
I turned sharply, heart in my throat.
Mac.
His expression was unreadable at first—shadow and disapproval molded into one. His eyes flicked from Oliver to me and then down to our hands, way too close. I stepped away fully, tucking my hands behind my back even though the heat of Oliver’s skin still lingered on mine.
Oliver didn’t move. He stared straight ahead, his face unreadable.
Mac’s jaw tensed. “We have a meeting in less than eight hours,” he said, voice clipped. “James, go home. Mercer, walk with me.”
Mac didn’t wait. Each step I took after him made it harder to breathe. I couldn’t blame policy or training this time. I’d crossed a line, and he was about to make sure I knew it.