Chapter 27
Hunter
By the first week of August, Catherine’s silence was killing me.
I saw her across the treatment room, standing beside Wren with a tablet in one hand and her hair pulled back from her face.
She was listening while Wren explained a shoulder mobility sequence to Luca.
Catherine nodded, asked a question I could not hear, then adjusted the angle of Luca’s arm with careful hands.
Catherine had earned her place in that room.
She knew the rhythm of it now. And I had become the thing that could knock her off it.
I stood near the hallway, gym bag over my shoulder, waiting for Wren to finish with Luca so she could check my shoulder.
Captain. The word sat wrong in my head. I watched Catherine laugh at something Dax said from the next table.
It was quick, there and gone, but it still hit me low in the ribs.
I had not had that laugh directed at me in a week.
Not in my kitchen, my bed, or against my mouth.
Her gaze flicked up suddenly like she felt my eyes on her. For one second, the room narrowed. Then she looked away. Like I was something she had trained herself not to touch. My hand tightened around the strap of my bag.
Wren glanced over. “Russell. Are you waiting for an invitation?”
“No.”
“Then get over here,” Wren said, waving me over to her table.
I moved because that was easier than standing there like an idiot. Catherine stepped back before I reached the table. It wasn’t an obvious move, but it was enough for me to notice and feel the blow in the center of my chest.
“Dr. Patel needs the updated notes,” she said to Wren. “I’ll bring them over.”
She left the room without looking at me again. I sat on the treatment table and stared at the floor.
Wren watched me for a beat. “Shoulder ache or heartache today?”
I looked up. “What?”
She grabbed a resistance band from the counter. “Arm up.”
I did what she asked. For the next twenty minutes, she worked my shoulder and pretended not to notice that my attention had followed Catherine out of the room.
When she finished, I thanked her and went to the locker room.
It was mostly empty. A few stalls had gear in them from guys who trained in Dallas year-round, but the room didn’t have the energy it carried during the season.
It was just me and a silence that meant I was in my head all the time.
I pulled out my phone. Catherine’s last message to me was from a week ago.
We’ll figure it out. We had figured out nothing.
Since then, I had texted her every day. I opened our thread and typed before I could talk myself out of it.
Me: I miss you.
My thumb hovered over the keyboard. Then I added the truth that sat heavy in my chest all week.
Me: I miss us.
I should’ve stopped there.
Me: I know you need space. I’m trying to respect that. But I hate this.
I sent it before I could delete it. I waited longer than any grown man with a career and a child should wait for a text bubble to appear.
Nothing came, which was becoming sadly predictable.
Eventually, I locked the phone and shoved it into my pocket.
My stomach felt hollow. That was when I decided I needed to talk to management.
Every time I looked at the C stitched onto my training gear, I thought about Cole.
About him trusting me with his room. His players.
His family. I broke that trust. And I couldn’t stay captain and have Catherine. Not like this.
The front office felt colder than the rest of the building. I walked into the GM’s office with my hands shoved in my pockets and my gut twisted tight. Tatum Wood looked up from his desk. He was Taylor’s father, but he clearly knew nothing about what had happened with me and Catherine.
“Russell,” he said. “Did we have a meeting?”
“No.”
His brows lifted. “That is usually how I prefer meetings to begin.”
“I know. Sorry,” I apologized. This wasn’t going to be easy, but I didn’t have the time to book a meeting.
He leaned back in his chair. “Sit.”
I did. Tatum studied me for a second, his expression giving nothing away.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
I opened my mouth, but before I could get a word out, the office door opened behind me.
“I have the updated prospect reports,” Cole said.
My entire body went rigid. Cole stopped in the doorway when he saw me sitting across from Tatum. His gaze moved from me to Tatum, then back to me.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Tatum looked between us. “Hunter was just about to tell me something.”
Cole’s eyes narrowed.
I stood because sitting suddenly felt wrong. “Coach.”
His jaw flexed. “What were you about to tell him?”
Tatum rose slowly from his chair, clearly smart enough to know this was not a conversation he wanted to referee. “I’ll give you two the room.”
“Tate,” Cole said, still looking at me.
“No.” Tatum picked up his phone and a folder from his desk. “Whatever this is, it has the air of something I don’t need to be present for yet.”
He walked out and closed the door behind him. The silence after that was brutal. Cole set the prospect reports on the edge of Tatum’s desk.
“Talk.”
I swallowed. “I came to tell him I can’t be your captain anymore.”
Cole stared at me. Then he laughed once, sharp and humorless. “You came up here to resign without talking to me first?”
“I was going to talk to you,” I said.
“When? After you dropped another bomb in my lap?” he scoffed. He had every right to be pissed at me. I wasn’t handling anything right.
“I broke your trust,” I said.
“Yes, you did.” His voice was low and rough. “And right now, I’m so angry with you I don’t trust myself to say half of what I want to say.” The silence stretched between us. Then he exhaled and asked, “Are you in love with my daughter?”
I was tired of hiding.
“Yes.”
Cole swore under his breath and turned away, dragging a hand over his face. When he looked back at me, he was still my coach, but he was also her father, and I had hurt them both.
“You don’t get to blow up my locker room because you feel guilty,” he said. “That’s not leadership.”
“I broke your trust,” I countered.
“Yes, you did.” His voice was low and rough. “But you’re a good captain. You’ve been good for this team. I’m not accepting your resignation today.”
My throat tightened. “I went behind your back.”
“With my daughter,” he snapped.
“I’m sorry.”
Cole picked up the folder from the desk, his grip too tight. “I’m still pissed. I’m not ready to forgive you. But I’m not letting you punish yourself and call it accountability.”
He walked to the door, then stopped with his hand on the handle. “If you hurt her, captain will be the least of what you lose.”
I flinched even though he had every right to threaten me. He walked away, and I felt like I had my heart in my stomach. I stayed standing in Tatum’s office for a full minute after he was gone. I was still captain, Cole was still pissed at me, and Catherine had still not responded to my message.
That night, I met my dad for a beer because I was drowning and I needed his fatherly advice. He chose a place far enough from the arena that no one would bother us. When I slid into the booth across from him, he took one look at my face and pushed the second beer toward me.
“You look like hell.”
“Good to see you too,” I chuckled.
He stood up and gave me a half hug. “What’s going on, son?”
I took a long draw on my beer because I needed something to do with my hands. Dad waited me out. Eventually, I said, “Catherine won’t answer my texts.”
He nodded like he had expected that. “And?”
“I tried to resign as captain today.”
His brows lifted. “Busy day.”
“Cole walked in and stopped me.”
“Good.”
I looked at him.
Dad held my gaze. “You were trying to punish yourself.”
“I was trying to do the right thing. Catherine is really fitting in with the team, and she’s been doing great. I want to be with her, but I don’t want to mess with her future. And how can I be captain when my coach wants to wring my neck?”
“Look, Hunt. There’s no point in sugarcoating this. You got yourself into a fucking pickle,” he said.
I winced.
“I would ask if you loved her, but I don’t need to. I can see it on you,” he said.
I lowered my head until it hung between my shoulders. I felt completely and utterly defeated. Then I looked up. “I’m in love with her.”
It was the first time I had said it out loud without panic chasing it. I was in love with Catherine Celia Davis. With her sharp mouth and soft heart. Her stubbornness. Her laugh. The way she talked to Isla like she mattered. The way she fit into my life.
Dad leaned forward. “Then stop making decisions for her and calling it protection.”
“I don’t want to damage her life,” I argued.
“Then don’t. But don’t decide the only options are losing everything you’ve built or losing everything she’s built,” Dad said.
I exhaled slowly. That was the problem. All week, I had been circling the same two losses. Catherine’s career or mine. Someone always had to give something up.
“What if there isn’t another option?” I asked.
“You find one. Not tonight, maybe not tomorrow. But you do not win back the woman you love by disappearing under the weight of your own guilt.”
“She won’t talk to me,” I confessed.
“Maybe because she doesn’t need another apology.”
“What does she need?” I asked because clearly, I was bad at reading the room.
“She needs action. She needs you to own up,” Dad said. “Does she know you’re in love with her?”
“No.” I dipped my head. When I looked back up, Dad was frowning.
“What?”
“You’re still scared,” he said, his tone laced with pain like he hated my predicament.
“I’m not scared,” I shot back.
His eyes narrowed. “Do you trust her?”
“Obviously,” I said too quickly.
That made his frown deepen. “I mean with your heart. I know it isn’t the same thing, but after my parents died, I shut down emotionally. I didn’t want to love because losing those close to you hurts.”
Whenever Dad spoke of his parents, I saw the pain in his eyes. They had been killed by a drunk driver.