Chapter 28
Colin
SAM STEPS INTO my office on Monday and I look up quizzically. I didn’t see her yesterday, and her arrival is unexpected. But welcome. “What’s up?”
“We need to talk about Xavier.”
“He was great as openside flanker yesterday,” I say. And it’s true: the way he gave every bit of himself was fucking beautiful. It’s everything a coach wants to see: a player coming into his own.
“And I told you he was pushing too hard weeks ago,” she says, crossing her arms and scowling at me.
“He’s working with you, right?”
“He shouldn’t have to,” she shoots back.
“Sam, this is part of the game. He’s a professional athlete. You’re his physical therapist. Figure it out.”
Her lips twitch.
I study her. “Wait. Are you messing with me?”
She looks back toward the open door, shrugs, and steps closer. “Maybe.” Her hips swing as she comes around the desk.
I turn in my chair, heart racing at the possibility of getting caught but unable to tell her to stop.
She moves between my legs and rests her hands on the arms of the chair before leaning down. I catch the scent of her, clean and woodsy, before finally remembering myself.
“Sam, no,” I hiss.
Hurt flashes across her face for a millisecond before she recovers. “Of course.” She backs up. “Keeping this quiet is the only way.”
Guilt floods my system as I register the bitterness in her tone. “It’s better this way,” I remind her. “We talked about it.” Not that it makes this any easier.
“I know,” she says, crossing her arms. “Ollie.”
“Ollie,” I agree, wheeling the chair farther away from her and hating myself for it. It’s that or pull her onto my lap and kiss her. “And Scott. And the rest of the team.”
When she doesn’t respond, I try again. “Are you coming over tonight?”
She looks away, her ponytail swishing as she clenches her jaw. Light reflects off the tiny diamond studs in her ears, and it makes me remember the way the lights glinted off her ring the night I slid it onto her finger. Not that I can bring that up.
“Sam,” I cajole. “Come on. I’ll cook. I won’t even burn the chicken this time.”
That does it. She cracks a smile and gives the tiniest of laughs before saying, “Fine.” She won’t meet my gaze, though, and it hurts more than it should.
“Bring an overnight bag. Please?” I add, sensing she’s about to object and desperate for her not to.
“Maybe.”
“Are you two fucking kidding me?” Kari walks in, her face pale. She shuts the door behind her and whirls back to face us.
I meet her eyes, more terrified than anything, only to realize that she isn’t shocked. More like…resigned?
She knew. Lennox was right when he said so. But I still have to confirm, so I look at Sam. “Did she know?” The words are tight.
Kari scoffs and raises a brow. “Of course. Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“How?”
“Please.” She gestures lazily at Sam.
Sam lifts her eyes to mine. It’s only a millisecond, but I see it: fear.
She covers it quickly, lifting her chin in that defiant move I’m so familiar with, her eyes like flint.
“She’s my best friend, Colin. Did you think I’d keep it quiet that I woke up in a Las Vegas hotel, alone and with a ring on my finger? ”
I don’t really have anything to say to that other than, “Oh.” They’re friends before they’re coworkers. As always, I am an idiot.
Kari gives a derisive snort. “Oh,” she mimics. It’s never been clearer that she is no fan of mine. Not like this, anyway.
Sam throws her shoulders back. “I’m leaving.”
Kari steps in her way, blocking her exit. “Stay.”
Sam’s head rears back. “Why?”
Her voice softens. “Because we need to talk about this. What is going on here? Do you two really think it’s going to stay secret if you’re acting like this around here?”
“What we do is none of your business,” Sam says, her body rigid with defiance.
Kari nods, keeping her voice down. “You’re right. Outside of these walls, when we’re just friends, all I want to do is support you and be happy for you. But in here? It becomes my business if your actions affect the team.”
“Okay.” I stand, eager to make all this stop. “We get your point, Kari. We’ll be more careful.”
Sam, on the other hand, isn’t done. Far from it. She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, her arms loose at her sides. “I’m going to say this one time, and one time only. But what I choose to do in my personal life has nothing to do with you.”
Kari’s eyes flash with indignation. “Except it’s got everything to do with me, because you’re screwing my team’s head coach and you don’t seem to care who knows! That could have been anyone,” she hisses, waving her hand at the door. “And then what would you have done?”
“Fuck you, Kari.”
My jaw drops. For as furious as I’ve seen Sam, this is something completely different. Deeper.
Kari doesn’t flinch. If anything, she grows taller. “I’m not out to get you, Sam. This is business.”
“It’s my fucking life, Kari.” Sam practically snarls the words, and I stay silent.
They glare at each other for another moment, the air thick with tension. Then Sam shakes her head and pivots to the door. She leaves without another word, leaving me staring after her and wondering what in the hell we’d gotten ourselves into.
When the door is shut once more, Kari turns back to me. Any semblance of warmth has seeped away, and I’m left with the woman who is, for all intents and purposes, in charge of PR around here. She assesses me silently, folding her arms and waiting.
And I don’t know if it’s that I still feel like shit for fleeing that morning, or if I’m shaken by what I just saw, but I fold. “What do you want me to say?”
“That you’re sorry,” she snaps. “That this should never have happened. That no one else knows.”
“Lennox knows.” I blurt the words out before she scares me into total silence.
She startles. “Lennox?”
I nod.
“How.” She sounds damn near murderous. “The fuck. Does Lennox Campbell know?”
I shrink. Then I remember that I’m the head coach and straighten once more. “He heard me talking to my sister. He’s not saying anything.”
She throws her hands in the air. “You don’t know that!
Jesus, Colin. He’s Ansel’s best friend. Do you have any idea what a chatterbox that man is?
If he knows…shit. You have no clue how many people know.
All it takes is one wrong move and poof.
This is my nightmare. Nightmare.” She whirls away and starts to pace, hands on hips.
“If the media get hold of this…I need to edit the statements…” She keeps muttering to herself, head down, wearing a path in front of me as she goes back and forth.
I let her go for a few minutes, because as much as I’d like her to leave, this is her job. It’s nauseating to think about what would happen. I’d be fired. Ollie would detest me. And Sam? I can’t even consider it.
Then a thought occurs to me. “Does your boss know?”
She stops, jerking her attention back to me. “Absolutely not.”
Interesting. “He’s the head of PR. It seems he should.”
She raises a brow. “He should definitely not.”
I smirk and lean forward. “Is he as incompetent as I think he is?”
A ghost of a smile crosses her face. “No.”
“Bullshit. He’s a snake.”
She resumes her pacing with a shrug. “He’s effective. He handles the big stuff.”
“Like what?”
“Like when we hired you. He set up the press conference, that sort of thing.”
“And?”
Kari stops and glares. “Stay on topic. What are you doing to fix this? I thought you were getting an annulment.”
I sigh and fall back into my chair, swiveling softly. “It’s not easy to get one. We both have to show up. Better if we get a divorce.” The word tastes bitter and ashy on my tongue.
“So when is that happening?”
I hesitate. “Sam hasn’t told you?”
“I’d rather hear directly from you.”
We stare at each other. I need to tread carefully. Not only for my professional career. Sure, that’s important – it’s why this whole thing is such a mess – but a strange sense of possessiveness makes me want to protect Sam, even if it’s from her best friend.
“We had no idea who the other was that night.”
“Clearly.”
“And the next morning –”
“When you ghosted her like a fucking coward?” she interrupts with a glare.
I hold my hands up. I’m obviously not the only one who feels like Sam needs protecting. “When I thought I could get it annulled without bothering her with it.”
The look of outright disgust and disbelief on her face is almost enough to make me shut up. But I keep going. I’ve already made this bed; it’s time to lie in it.
“And I needed to keep it quiet because my boss, the Granite president, made it very clear that he wanted someone squeaky clean and focused entirely on the upcoming season,” I continue.
“So you bailed on a woman you’d married and didn’t so much as give her your real name?” She steps toward me.
I stand. “Look. I’ve gone over this with Sam. I don’t need to rehash it with you. I appreciate that you’re her friend.”
“Do you?”
“I do. And I get that you’d like to rip me to shreds. But she’s done that already. And I’ve apologized. Several times.”
“Not to me, you haven’t.”
I chuckle. “Why do you need one?”
She shrugs. “Men should apologize on the regular. Consider it practice.”
I admire her, even if her tactics are questionable. “You’re relentless.”
“I’m loyal. There’s a difference.”
I hum. “Not sure there is.”
She doesn’t respond as she moves to the chair in front of the desk and sits. Her gaze is still sharp, but there’s a softness around the edges now. “We still need to determine next steps.”
I groan. “That’s between me and Sam.”
“It’s not. Because if word gets out that the Granite’s head coach is not only screwing one of the team’s physical therapists, but that they actually got married on a dare in Vegas without knowing who each other were –”
“It wasn’t a dare,” I correct.
Her eyes flash. “Seriously, Colin?”
“If you’re going to try to make me feel bad, you should at least get it right.”
“Fine. If it wasn’t a dare, what was it?”
“It was fifteen coin flips.”
Her eyes widen. “Fifteen –”
“That all landed on heads.”
“All of them?” Disbelief laces her words.
“Every single one. Surrounded by Elvi.”
“Elvi?”
“Plural of Elvis.”
“Holy shit.” She closes her eyes and rubs her temples, her black hair swinging with the movement.
“Seems there are some pieces of the night that Sam kept to herself,” I say smugly.
“Because she couldn’t remember it, asshole!” she snaps, then stops. “Shit.”
I stare at her. “What did you just say?”
Her face pales. “Nothing. Never mind.”
“Oh no you don’t.” Chunks of ice bloom in my stomach even as I sit up in the chair.
“We’re done here,” she says, standing and turning away.
“We are not done here,” I counter. “She…doesn’t remember?”
Kari looks back, her gaze pinned the floor. “I don’t know. I think she didn’t remember at first.”
“And since then?” I prompt. Nausea roils in my gut.
“Maybe…bits and pieces. But I really don’t know. You can’t – you can’t tell her I told you.”
I nod, feeling far too tender and raw. Does she remember the kiss on the dance floor? Because I relive that fucking kiss almost daily.
“And you’re doing the right thing, keeping all this quiet,” she says. “You’re going to continue doing that, yes?”
“Yes.” I know it’s the right thing to do, despite the gurgling in my stomach.
She jerks her chin down. “Good. I want to be clear: I don’t like any of this.
” Her voice lowers. “It’s not just the PR thing.
Sam is…” She trails off and sighs. “Sam is my best friend. And I know I come across as some kind of ice queen, but I’m trying to protect the team.
And you. But mostly her. I’m not –” She cuts off and takes a beat.
When she looks back at me, her eyes are glassy.
“I know I’m not warm and fuzzy. I know I’m a bitch. ”
The word sounds wrong coming out of her mouth. Cruel, even, and it makes my heart hurt for her. “Kari.”
She holds a hand up. “I am. It’s fine. It’s my default setting. But it doesn’t make what I’m about to say any less true: Whatever it is that you two are doing, it’s dangerous. It can’t end well for her. You know that.”
My jaw clenches. I don’t know that. But I don’t know that it will, either.
Because she’s got to go home eventually.
She won’t stay here. It doesn’t matter. My job, my complete focus, needs to be the team.
It needs to stay on the team. And then there’s Ollie.
Him finding out would be the ultimate betrayal: being his mentor while doing whatever it is I’m doing with his sister right under his nose?
No. I can’t. So I nod again all the same. “I’ll handle it.”
“Make sure you do,” she says, her tone all business once more. Then she’s gone, without so much as a backward glance.
My thoughts swirl, unable to settle after having not one, but two women leave my office angry. “What am I supposed to do?” I ask the empty room.
It doesn’t answer.