16. Hadley
Hadley
T hey’d prefer if we never left.
Nolan’s words are ominous, alluding to the fact there’s something darker to this sport—maybe all sports—than what’s on the surface.
We only cross through two rooms, but both are elaborate and filled with color and details that many of the classrooms lack.
“What’s going on?” a man wearing a dark blue polo asks. He’s around my dad’s age, his cheeks round and clean-shaven.
“She fell during the cookie run. Can I have you take a look?”
The man nods, waving us toward another door.
Nolan carries me inside and sets me on an examination table. “Hadley this is Holbrook, our lead trainer. Holbrook, Hadley.”
Holbrook nods, his smile gentle. He spends the next twenty minutes examining my ankle and then my knee at Nolan’s request, diagnosing me with a mild sprain.
“You’ll need to fill out a report since you got hurt on Camden property,” Holbrook says. “Let me grab one and some information on taking care of this.”
“I won’t tell anyone if you won’t.”
He barely cracks a smile. “Come see me tomorrow between twelve and three. I want to see how the swelling and bruising are.”
“I’m going to have to contact one of the woman’s trainers to see if they have crutches small enough for you,” Holbrook says.
“Crutches?” Crutches are more embarrassing than Nolan carrying me, which is a really poor comparison because after the initial shock, being held in Nolan’s arms made me feel all the things I knew I shouldn’t. The walk to the facility wasn’t nearly long enough.
Nolan frowns a sympathetic look that has me looking back at Holbrook.
“You’ll need to use them for the first couple of days, at least,” Holbrook says.
“Today and tomorrow, you need to focus on icing your injury. That will help reduce the swelling and bruising. You can do it here in the ice bath or…” he turns to Nolan, “I can have someone bring ice to your dorm if you guys will be there.”
“But it’s only a mild sprain,” I object.
Holbrook laughs, a wonderful high-pitched, wheezing sound that would make me smile under normal circumstances.
“You’re as bad as him,” He pats Nolan on the shoulder, the exchange affectionate.
“Send the ice bucket to my room, if you don’t mind,” Nolan says.
Holbrook nods. “Ice it for twenty minutes every two hours. Wrap it with a tape or bandage in-between, the compression will help with the swelling. And be sure to keep it elevated.” He looks at Nolan again.
“You know the drill.” He gathers different supplies that he drops into a bag before promising ice and crutches will be delivered soon.
“Hop on,” Nolan says, grabbing my shoe and backing up to the table I’m sitting on. I consider objecting or questioning Holbrook again but know it will be futile. And being this close to Nolan seems like the best part of this injury.
The walk to the dorms is short, making me wonder why Nolan was so insistent to move out. Earplugs seem like a worthy exchange for the convenience factor.
“This is so much better than my dorm building last year,” I say, looking across the expanse of the lobby.
“You lived in the dorms?”
“Only for a month, but my room was on the main floor and half of it was underground, so the window was literally ground level. I was always terrified some weirdo or an opossum was going to come into my room while I was sleeping. We didn’t have air conditioning, and I swear it smelled of Kraft mac n cheese, which I can no longer eat thanks to those few weeks. ”
Nolan chuckles as he enters the elevator. I stare at our reflection, how I’m wrapped around his shoulders and neck. It’s an image I won’t soon forget. “Injury aside, how was your first Camden tradition?”
“Surprisingly fun. Are there more traditions?”
He nods. “Camden’s been open for a couple of hundred years. The cookie run is the biggest and most public. Most of the others have more of a secret society/speakeasy kind of vibe.”
“I knew it! How do you find out about them?”
His eyes flash with something that makes me feel starved for his next words. “There’s another one happening in a few weeks at the theater.”
“How do you know when and where it is? We have four theaters on campus.”
“You have to know someone who’s going.”
I lean closer to him, folding my forearms around the front of his neck. “Is this where you ask me to help you get moved back into the house in exchange for an invitation?”
“You keep bringing that up,” he says. “You must miss having me there.”
The elevators open and disappointment bounces through my chest as Nolan turns and I lose the reflection of him as we head down a long hall.
“Camden needs to hire interior designers,” I muse, looking at the endless gray. “This isn’t any better than the sea of beige in most classrooms.”
Nolan stops in front of door 434 and withdraws a keychain from the pocket of his shorts. With a couple of practiced moves, he has the door open, and lights flipped on.
“This is nice,” I exclaim, peering around. “You really prefer the spider-ridden basement to here?”
Nolan stops in front of a large brown couch and takes a seat with me still on his back. The couch presses me more firmly against him, even as I release my grip on him. It’s delicious.
Nolan slides his hands from under my legs and sets them on top of my thighs. It’s not friendly but it’s not romantic either. Like everything involving Nolan, I don’t know exactly what he’s thinking and feel guaranteed to misunderstand his intentions.
“Let’s get your ankle elevated.” He regrettably stands. “I’ll be right back.” He disappears down a short hall.
I look around at the full-sized kitchen and eat-in dining room, admiring the exposed brick.
His dorm is larger than some of the condos we’ve renovated in downtown Vegas.
While it’s not high-end, it’s nice. Nolan’s belongings are minimal.
There aren’t any pictures on the walls, books, or even cushions on the couch. It’s the definition of a bachelor pad.
Nolan reappears with two pillows in his arm. Without warning, he grabs my calf, his touch surprisingly gentle for how fast he moved. The feel of his rough calluses against my exposed skin is better than I’d imagined. A chill runs down my spine, and goose bumps pepper my skin.
Once my foot is arranged how he wants, he moves so that several feet separate us before he turns to face me, plunging his fingers into his hair. I’ve never wondered what another person’s hair felt like, never had the desire to bury my hands in it, but with Nolan, I crave the idea.
“We have a couple of media professionals for the team, and they train us for different kinds of interviews; radio versus TV versus social media. They’re all slightly different but sometimes they crossover.
One piece of advice that changed my mindset was hearing that everyone else in the room is just as nervous if not more so than me.
Every person who works with the press is working to capture the most cutting-edge story, the most views, and the most clicks.
It helped alleviate some of the pressure I’d felt and reversed the situation.
Now, I consider how to help make their job easier.
In your class, everyone is going to be just as nervous as you to give a speech.
Half of them probably won’t even be able to hear what you’re saying because they’re so worried about their own speech. ”
“I’m pretty sure I caught everyone’s attention last week.”
He gives a faint smile. “Another one told me that most of our fear stems from trying to be perfect and reminded me that they don’t want perfect.
Perfect is boring and rigid. Look at Hollywood—they don’t want to hear about celebrities who are perfect, they want to find the people who are having break-downs, divorces, and peak stress—because that’s when they’re most human—when others can relate or feel better about themselves.
Your audience will appreciate seeing your imperfections. ” His gaze drops to my chest.
“Freudian slip?”
He shakes his head. “What?”
“You just said imperfections and then checked out my breasts.”
“I didn’t…” He closes his eyes. “I wasn’t referring to your breasts.”
The self-conscious part of me wants to pick this apart and find out where he sees imperfections in me, find out if they’re physical traits or personality defects. Self-preservation keeps my jaw clamped shut and my lips twisting with a smirk to pretend I don’t care.
“You’re perfect.” His voice is thick, as though he was trying to keep the words back.
My thoughts and feelings go reeling, like loose spools of yarn, zigzagging around the room and down all four flights that the elevator carried us up. Perfect as in boring and rigid or perfect like my new favorite lasagna recipe?
Nolan clears his throat and paces two steps to the left of me. “You can also try the age-old trick of imagining everyone in their underwear. It gives your mind some kind of fucked up power trip that lets you pretend you’re composed while everyone else is vulnerable.”
There’s a knock on the door that has Nolan crossing the room. On the other side is a guy in Camden gear, who rolls a cart that looks like a luggage rack into the room. “Holbrook ordered this for you.”
“Thanks,” Nolan says, grabbing the large, oval-shaped bucket that’s sitting on the cart.
“It should stay cold enough for the second soak in two hours but if not, give us a call. Otherwise, we’ll see you in four hours.”
Nolan nods, thanking him again before he closes the door.
Nolan brings the bucket to the edge of the couch and puts it beside me. “Twenty minutes,” he says.
I start unwrapping my foot and ankle from the bandage Holbrook had secured while Nolan disappears again down the hall, returning with a large, light blue blanket that he wraps around my shoulders. I swim in it. He grins. “The timer doesn’t start until you put your foot in.”
“I hate being cold.”
“Hence the blanket.”