Chapter 18
Logan
With all my reluctance to get to practice, at least I jump right back into the swing of things once I’m on the pitch.
There’s still some residual pain in my shoulder, but I don’t let it hold me back.
I use the pain to keep myself focused, paying more attention to the pitch in front of me than ever before.
Yes, it was an illegal hit that injured me, not any fault of my own, but bad tackles won’t be a problem if I can avoid tackles all around.
Despite some awkwardness at first, the rest of the backs fall into an easy rhythm with me as we run drills, dropping their usual glares and eye rolls and instead locking in, like they’re feeding off my focus and matching it with their own.
There’s not a lot of conversation—not unusual with me—but we seem to be reading each other better than ever.
It’s the best practice I’ve had with the Thunder since I got here.
The only person who can’t get on the same wavelength is Bean, who showed up half an hour later than I did and has barely been able to keep up.
He gets more and more frustrated as the evening goes on, and the coaches clearly don’t know what to do with him because they stop shouting directions at him and turn their focus to the rest of us.
Of course, Moxie’s attention doesn’t shift.
I was late enough that we haven’t had a chance to talk, which is fine by me, but something about the worried look on his face as he watches Bean fumble his fifth pass of the night settles in my belly, leaving me uneasy.
Even when the whole team’s having a poor practice, Moxie doesn’t usually carry that stress so openly.
If he’s worried, things must really be bad.
When we line up for a passing drill and Moxie misses a pass from the scrum-half because he’s looking down the line at Bean, I can’t stand back in silence anymore.
“Hey,” I say, nudging Moxie’s arm as we reset to run the drill again. “Any idea what’s up with Bean?”
Normally, Moxie would brush the question aside and remind me to focus on my own game instead of making things worse, but he frowns at our teammate. “No. And if he can’t pull it together, he won’t see the starting line for the rest of the season.”
“That won’t improve his mood,” I guess.
“Nope.”
“I’ve seen the string bean play. He’s better than this.”
“I know, but if he can’t get over this funk, then—”
“Auxier! Callahan!” Coach shouts, waving at us to pay attention.
Gritting his teeth, Moxie throws one more worried glance in Bean’s direction, then gets into position.
It takes me a few seconds longer, mostly because my mind starts running through all the things I noticed during practices last week.
I tried to watch the team as a whole, but a good chunk of my focus was on Bean.
He’s a solid rugger, and most of his practices are fine.
But whatever he’s dealing with at work must be messing with his head more than ever.
I’ve proven that I’m terrible at giving advice, but considering I got the likes of Savannah Blair to show genuine interest in me, maybe I’ve softened up.
I doubt Bean would tell me what’s really bothering him the way Blaze did on the lacrosse pitch, though.
I worry that, coming from me, even the best advice will only make him hate me more.
Coach blows his whistle, and I do my best to stay focused on my part. But I have a perfect view when Moxie gets the ball and passes to Bean, who fumbles it—again—and drops his head back in frustration as everyone grumbles around him.
On the next pass, Bean’s hands are too stiff to grip the ball.
The next time he drops it, I swear he already knows he won’t make the catch before the ball comes at him.
I know that spiral all too well, and it kills me that I can’t tell him I’ve been where he is. This is more than a rugby problem; the man needs help.
After a particularly messy drill, I pass Bean on my way to reset but pause when he snaps at me.
“No self-righteous pointers today, Hero?”
I glance back, trying not to show my confusion in case he mistakes it for irritation.
“No. I’ve seen you make this play dozens of times; you know what you’re doing.
” Ignoring the stunned look on his face, I get into position, but Savannah’s words from weeks ago play on repeat in my head.
You need to be nicer. If I had actually listened to her then, maybe I could have figured out how to help Bean before he spiraled this hard.
Something tells me a lot of things in my life would have been improved if Savannah was truly a part of it.
Realizing my teammates have jumped into motion, I curse and sprint forward, my thoughts still spinning. Moxie throws a pass to me, but the ball slips right through my fingers and hits the ground.
The team collectively groans, and someone grumbles, “If The Hero can’t hack it, we’re doomed.”
“What was that?” Moxie asks, staring at me like I’ve grown two heads.
I shrug, waiting until my frustration subsides. It’s been a long time since I bungled an easy pass like that. “Hands must be a bit cooked today,” I mutter as I pick up the ball.
“It’s not your hands I’m worried about. Is your head in this or not?”
It’s not, but I can fix that. Compartmentalize until I figure out my plan. My time with this team is temporary, but I’ve already let them down enough. They deserve better from me after all I’ve done. “Won’t happen again, Mox.”
He sighs. “Good.”
“Even the best of us have bad days.”
Several guys moan as they make their way to listen to the frustrated coaches.
Behind me, Bean scoffs. “You don’t,” he grumbles.
I may have been an ego-driven jerk when I started with this team, but he has to know I’m not some infallible god.
Doesn’t he? I toss the ball at him without giving him a chance to think, and he catches it easily.
“Mate, I dropped so many passes during my first year with the Wallabies that I almost cost us a spot in the Cup.” I shake my head at the memory. “Nearly got booted from the team.”
His jaw slips open. “You?” he asks, his tone so full of skepticism that it’s like I just told him I used to arrange flowers for a living. “Olympic hero, Logan Callahan?”
“Yeah, me.” I roll my eyes. “The pressure got to me. Playing on a team like that isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, and it took some of the best coaches in the world and eight years to get me to where I am.” I tap my temple. “And they couldn’t do jack until I got out of my own head.”
Frowning, he tightens his hold on the ball but says nothing.
Hopefully that’s a good sign. He hasn’t walked away yet, so he might actually listen to me today.
Especially if I don’t say a word about him.
I think back to those days, when I was nineteen and trying to prove to the world that I deserved my spot on the team, at the same time figuring out how to be a proper adult on my own.
“Funny how it doesn’t matter where the pressure comes from,” I say with a shake of my head. “Coaches, teammates, something off the pitch… Once it gets in your head, you’re cooked. Lose your head, and your hands are quick to follow.”
His anger and frustration slip, his shoulders sagging as he looks around the pitch, like he’s looking for backup.
But the rest of the team has moved to the other side of the pitch, and when Bean realizes we’re on our own, it’s like something in him cracks.
“I can’t turn it off,” he admits, so quietly that I barely hear him.
“Every time I mess up, it doesn’t go away. And it’s not just here.”
My chest throbs with empathy. “Yeah, it was like that for me too, and it started to ruin the thing I loved most. I thought excelling at rugby would fix everything else, but turning the game from an escape into the only thing that mattered just made it worse.”
Though he furrows his brow, like he’s still not sure he can believe me, he takes a slow breath, then quietly asks, “How’d you fix it?”
I gesture for him to throw me the ball. He does without hesitating, and the pass is solid.
“Stopped trying to be perfect,” I tell him and toss the ball back, smiling when he catches it again with ease.
“Started playing again and left the noise off the pitch where it belonged. It’ll be there when you’re ready to face it, but here?
” I chuckle. “Mate, if the game’s not fun, why play?
” Leaving him gawking at me, I jog to where the rest of the guys are forming up for a new drill.
Whether that conversation helped Bean, I can’t stop imagining what Savannah would say if she’d listened in on it.
I reckon she’d be proud of me for admitting my faults and using humility instead of arrogance to get my point across.
She’d be grinning at me with that stomach-clenching smile of hers and looking at me like I’m her favorite snack.
And for the rest of practice, I can’t stop smiling.
“Where’s Sav?”
I’ve lost track of how many blokes have asked me that tonight, which normally would put me in a bad mood as I hand out the steak and rice meals-in-a-jar Savannah dropped off for the team. But the team is talking to me. They started talking to me even before practice ended.
It started after I tripped on a ball between drills—thinking about the way Sav looked at me before I left her flat—and Bean made a joke about me almost getting cut in Australia.
The jab seemed to surprise him, and several of the backs looked ready to start planning his funeral.
But when I laughed and continued on my way, something changed.
Someone else took a pass at me when I accidentally collided with a teammate, and from that point on, I was human. And an easy target, distracted as I am.
Weirdly, I don’t care if they go after me. None of the ribbing has been cruel, which likely means it’s a way to put me on even footing with them. For them to see me as a teammate instead of an unwanted hero.
It’s nice. “Sav had another client delivery tonight,” I tell French Roast, answering his question, “but I’ll be sure to tell her you’re pining after her.”
His eyes go wide. “No, I’m not—that isn’t—it’s not like—”
“Relax, mate.” I chuckle and toss a jar to him. “If anyone is going to pine over Savannah, it’s me.”
He lifts an eyebrow, almost smiling at me. “Does this mean you’re out of the bet, Callahan?”
“Not on your life. I don’t play to lose.
” Honestly, the bet has been the last thing on my mind lately.
It’s hardly my biggest obstacle keeping me from admitting that I’m flat-out gone for the woman, but I can’t think like that.
If I can’t keep her, I can’t let myself have her in the first place.
“I’m thinking once Moxie cracks, the rest of you will follow. ”
French chuckles and looks to where Moxie is listening to the head athletic trainer, Mel, with a moony-eyed expression on his face. “He’s been in love with Mel for years. It’s never going to happen.”
“So why bet against him?”
He shuffles his weight nervously. “Money? I didn’t want to join at first, but it’s for the best that I did.”
Interesting. “You didn’t want to join?”
“You’re preventing us from eating, French,” Bean says, nudging his friend out of the way so he can take his own meal-in-a-jar. “No, he didn’t want to join, because he’s pretending to date my sister,” he tells me and rolls his eyes.
I pause halfway to handing the next guy his food. “Er, what?”
“I’m just helping her out!” French explains quickly. “It’s a whole thing with her ex, and Bean knows it’s not real. I’m still in the bet.”
“You’d better be,” Bean grumbles, and the pair of them wander off, arguing as they go.
I only catch pieces, like Bean warning French to keep his hands to himself unless strictly necessary and French throwing back something about Bean’s client being a temptation.
With Moxie’s obvious feelings for Mel, and Tink’s female roommate driving him up the wall, the bet feels like the only thing keeping the lads’ heads on straight.
Or is it the problem?
It’ll be interesting to see how things shake out. Interesting to see how long I’ll be able to last before I forfeit my share to one of them and give in to my feelings to Savannah.
Put my heart—my whole way of life—at risk.
Once everyone’s been fed, there’s no real reason for me to hang around, and any other day I would have been gone long before now. But my team doesn’t seem to hate me anymore. What if I come back tomorrow and it was all a fluke? If I leave too early, will they see that as me being a snob?
Logan of a month ago wouldn’t have cared. Now I’m almost desperate for them to like me. Who am I?
Savannah should be done with her delivery by now, so I grab my phone to send her a text and get her opinion. She’s heaps better with the whole people thing than I am and won’t give me some crap answer she thinks I want to hear.
Before I can open my texts, my eyes catch on an email notification from the DNA company.
I get these all the time and usually send them straight to a folder, but why?
I’m not going to open them. Might as well unsubscribe and move on.
I click the notification, hoping there’s an easy unsubscribe link inside, but when I see the content of the email, my stomach twists into a knot.
Likely match: Parent
I curse under my breath as I click the match link before I can think better of it, and then I stare at the name I’ve never wanted to know because I figured he hadn’t wanted me from the start.
At least Lola carried me to full term, so she must have wanted me a little.
But him? If he was ever in the picture, he left before I was born.
I may have just found my dad. And I have no idea what to do about that.