Chapter 21
Sam
I CAN ALMOST convince myself that the man who is the Granite’s head coach is just that: the head coach of the team I work for.
My boss’s boss. He’s not the man I met and married in Las Vegas.
He’s not the man who made me feel safe and seen and loved just for being myself.
He’s not the man who made me come so hard I saw stars and basically said everything we’d done was a mistake.
Nope. He’s just the head coach of the Atlanta Granite, the team that I’m lucky enough to be working for as a physical therapist.
I remind myself that I signed a no-fraternization policy when I started. That I’d broken it before I even signed it. That I blew right through it when I had sex with the head coach in his office.
The head coach. Not my husband. Not the man who cherished me for a few precious hours in the heat of the Las Vegas desert last summer.
That’s what I tell myself as I walk up to his office to see about carving out an hour for some basic yoga stretches with the team three times a week.
We can talk business. We’ve done it well enough over the last couple of weeks.
We’ll keep doing it. And if I die inside a little every time we talk, then that’s fine.
I’ll just keep picking up those pieces of my shattered heart and gluing them back.
He’s standing behind his desk when I rap on the doorframe, holding a piece of paper and staring at it with an unreadable expression on his face.
“Coach?” I use the term on purpose. No more Colin. And definitely no more Matthew.
He looks up, color draining from his face as he drops the paper. Our eyes meet. His mouth opens and closes soundlessly, the picture of anguish.
My chest squeezes and I fold instantly, using the name I hope works. “Colin.”
That seems to snap him out of it. “It’s real,” he croaks.
“What’s real? Are you okay?” I shouldn’t care.
I shouldn’t ask him. It shouldn’t matter.
I fold my arms, reeling my emotions in and reminding myself that whatever problems he has aren’t mine to share or solve.
“You know what? Never mind. Forget I asked that. I think we need to wrap yoga into the team’s –”
He shakes his head. “You’re not listening. It’s real.” His voice cracks on the last word.
I find myself standing in front of his desk with no memory of getting there. God dammit. Closing my eyes, I take a moment to remind my body that it answers to me and not Colin. When I open them, my gaze goes straight to him. But he’s staring at the paper on the desk, so I do the same.
And there, staring up at me, is an oversized piece of paper with the words CERTIFICATE OF MARRIAGE emblazoned across the top. I’m looking at it upside down and the typeset is so fancy it’s almost unreadable, but there is absolutely no mistaking those words.
It’s also painfully easy to read the words below it. COLIN MICHAEL THICKE and SAMANTHA ABIGAIL NASH.
It’s cold in here. Very cold.
“Sam? Shit. Samantha!”
Warm hands wrap around my arms as I tilt sideways, trying and failing to find purchase on the desk. But I’m in his arms instead of on the floor, and he’s so solid, and he’s murmuring my name in a way that feels true, and it makes me swoon, and it breaks my heart.
No. I gather my willpower and push at him, and he lets go. It takes even more of an effort to keep from shaking as I point at the document. “What is that?”
He closes his eyes. “You know what it is.”
I hum as my own eyes close. This isn’t real. It’s real. It’s not real. “No. Because it’s been four months. What. Is. That?”
He scrubs his face, the scratch of his dry hands over his beard sounding in the silence. “It just got forwarded in a bunch of mail from Vermont.”
“No. I went to that place the morning after and –”
“They told you that they didn’t have any paperwork because they hadn’t entered it yet,” he finishes.
I roll my neck. This isn’t happening. This can’t actually be happening. “You had one job, Colin.”
“Believe me, I know,” he answers, his voice strained.
“No,” I seethe, anger finally taking over. I embrace it, so happy to feel something other than numbness or, worse, despair. “No. No! You said they didn’t have it.”
“I never said that.” He’s pale, his voice cracking again as the words come out.
“You have to fix this. This can’t – we can’t…” My words trail off. The anger fizzles, and I can’t find the strength to care. Instead, I walk to the couch and sink onto it, pulling the blanket around me and staring up at him.
He holds my gaze.
We stay like that for what feels like an eternity.
Because why use words? We’ve said them all.
I’ve yelled. I’ve threatened. I’ve held knives against his chest, for fuck’s sake.
None of it helped. None of it can erase the cold fact of that marriage certificate on the desk.
Which, fun fact, is legal even though I’m Australian. I checked.
But somehow, I thought it all might never have happened. That perhaps getting hitched in a tent by a guy in an Elvis costume wouldn’t count.
Finally, I bring myself to standing and let the blanket pile behind me.
He hasn’t stopped staring at me, a thousand emotions warring in his eyes.
I can read all of them, and I think that’s the part that pisses me off the most. I know him.
I know that this is absolutely killing him.
I know that he’s spiraling. That he’s scared but won’t admit it.
That he’s desperate to keep this quiet because he’s certain it’s the way he keeps this job.
And maybe it is. But that’s not my problem.
The marriage certificate, on the other hand, is very much my problem.
“Promise me,” I say, standing so close I can feel the heat of his body on mine. I could be in his embrace so easily. I could be home. But he destroyed that already. “Promise me you’ll fix this.”
His jaw ticks as he closes his eyes.
“Promise. Me.” I repeat, forcing myself to stay put. Not moving. Barely breathing.
He opens those endless eyes and trains them on me. They’re filled with regret. Longing and sorrow, too. “I promise.”
Oath extracted, I step around him.
It takes everything I have not to look back.