29. Solomon
TWENTY-NINE
SOLOMON
The email comes on Sunday night. Devon wants to see me in his office first thing in the morning.
Cecelia, still groggy from the stress of the last few days and her pain meds, is next to me in bed, a movie playing in the background while she dozes.
I’m glad she’s not awake. She’s got enough to worry about right now, and I don’t want to tell her about the email. Not until I know what Devon has to say.
The next morning, I pace in front of the training office, feeling like I’m about to be sick. It was easy to push away my suspicions last night, cuddled up with Cecelia in her bed, watching her sleep. My academic career never seems to matter much when I’m close to her.
But standing here in the soccer facility now, I can’t help but think how much it would suck to lose this.
All the work I put in, all my effort. My parents would definitely find out—my grandpa refuses to tell them any specifics about my schooling or life in general, but I know for a fact they have contacts at the university.
I’ve gotten enough disappointed emails when my grades dip even slightly to make me aware they’re keeping their noses in my business.
It’s not that I care about disappointing them—they’d been pissed as hell when I chose athletic training as my major and I still didn’t back down. But the idea of them calling or showing up to lecture me is not appealing.
God, I really hope I don’t get kicked out.
Finally, the office door opens and Devon sticks his head out. “Barnes,” he says, voice flat. My panic swells and I stand to enter his office. He gestures to the seat in front of his desk and I take it, putting my sweaty palms under my thighs.
He studies me for a moment before sighing. “You know what I saw yesterday.”
I nod, mouth dry.
He waits for me to say something, his jaw tightening when I don’t.
The problem is, I’m really bad at lying.
Always have been. It’s because of the way my brain works—things tend to be very black and white in my mind.
Strangely enough, my inability to lie used to drive my parents crazy.
Even harmless white lies seemed beyond my grasp, so I had a bitch of time when, for instance, they wanted me to feign happiness to be at some boring political event.
Or kiss the ass of one of their colleagues who I actually despised.
It’s one of the many, many things they spent years trying to change about me.
I’m better at white lies these days. But I still figure it’s better that I just keep my mouth shut and speak only when spoken to, rather than try to convince Devon that nothing is going on with Cecelia.
His gaze sharpens when I remain silent. “Fine. I guess we’ll get right to it. Are you in a relationship with CeCe Ransome?”
I let out a breath, stomach churning. “Devon, I’m not going to pretend that Cecelia and I have not gotten close. We spend a lot of time together.” I force myself to hold his gaze. “But I can guarantee you that our friendship has not gotten in the way of her treatment.”
Okay, so it’s a partial truth. No one would describe what we have as a mere friendship.
On the other hand, we’ve never explicitly called it anything else.
What is true is that my feelings for CeCe have not gotten in the way of my ability to treat her.
If anything, caring about her as much as I do makes me even more committed to her wellbeing.
If she’d been permanently unable to play because her injury, it would have fucking crushed me.
He studies me for a long time, looking more pissed by the second.
“I asked around,” he finally says. “None of her teammates would say if they’ve seen anything.
” Before relief can hit me, he continues.
“But the student manager mentioned to me that Cecelia wasn’t in her room at curfew the night you accompanied the team to the away match in San Jose. ”
Oh, shit.
“Do you know anything about that?” he asks.
I swallow hard. “We ate dinner together that night,” I tell him. “And hung out for a while. I’m not sure if that would have been the same time as the curfew check.” Again, not a technical lie. And I’m not about to offer up the information that she stayed all night.
He stares at me for a long moment, and I force myself to hold his gaze. Finally, he sighs. “Look, Barnes. You’ve done a good job with Ransome, there’s no denying that. But we have rules in place for a reason, and I have to think about what would happen if people start to talk.”
Shit. Shit. He’s going to kick me out of clinicals. My entire college career is about to explode and there’s nothing I can do. My brain feels too sluggish to even come up with an argument, to even let me attempt lying my way out of this.
“Especially,” he continues, “when we’re talking about such a high-profile athlete.”
I think back to the beginning of the semester, the email I’d gotten from my advisor about my assignment and my first meetings with Coach Carla and the training staff. There had been so much talk about the need for discretion, about protecting Cecelia.
His subtext is clear—I put her privacy at risk.
“There isn’t enough evidence here for me to get you dismissed from the program,” he goes on, and relief crashes through me. Before I can get too excited, he goes on. “But you will not be working with Ransome anymore. I’m not risking it.”
I swallow hard. I should be happy, I know that. This could have gone a lot worse. He isn’t completely kicking me out. But the idea of not being able to help her through this recent injury scare turns my stomach leaden.
“Who will take over with her?” I ask. I hope it’s Kelly. Jeff, the other student trainer, is way too meek. Cecelia will walk all over him.
“Me,” Devon says. “It makes the most sense after the scare with her knee.”
I nod, feeling a little better. She seems to respond well to Devon, though I know she doesn’t trust him as much as she trusts me. She won’t be as comfortable being honest with him or asking for help.
God, I fucked up. We only had to get through two more weeks of the regular season. What if switching trainers right now, when she’s in the midst of recovering from her sprain, fucks with her ability to play? The idea that my carelessness could affect her season makes me sick.
“For the rest of the regular season, you’ll be picking up the slack with some of the other players,” he goes on. “You can meet with Jeff and Kelly to get their training notes.”
They way he phrased that has me sitting up straighter. “For the rest of the regular season?” I ask.
That’s technically the day clinicals end, but most teams will give the student trainers the option of continuing to help out through the playoffs, should their teams make it.
Devon’s expression is cold. “I’ll re-evaluate before the tournament begins.” He jerks his chin toward the door, clearly dismissing me, and I rise on numb legs.
“Barnes,” he calls once I’m at the door. I look over my shoulder to see him staring at the files on his desk, not meeting my eye. “Good job keeping her off the leg this weekend. That couldn’t have been easy.”
If he’s saying he guesses I was with her at her house—in her bed—all weekend, I don’t want to stay to find out. So I mutter a quick affirmative and speed walk out of the office.
I leave the soccer facility feeling numb.
It could have gone so much worse. He could have kicked me out right then and there.
But I have no idea what this is going to do to my grade or if he’s going to talk to my advisor.
And if he decides that he doesn’t want me back for the conference tournament, there’s just no way to spin that.
It’s going to be obvious the head trainer hasn’t been pleased with my work.
But worse than all that is how shitty I feel about not being able to help Cecelia through the rest of the season.
I know what it means to her. I know how scared she is that things will go wrong.
And I went and fucked everything up all because I couldn’t keep my hands off her when I knew Devon and the team doctor were nearby.
The rest of the day is kind of a blur. It’s hard to concentrate on my classes when my brain is still back at Devon’s office, going over and over how badly I fucked up.
The team has a weight training and tape review session this evening and I wonder if Devon will tell her then, that he’ll be taking over her treatment. I wonder what her reaction will be.
I should have figured out a way to tell her myself. I could have skipped a class—it’s not like I got a lot out of sitting there in a numb daze anyhow. But I guess I’m too much of a chickenshit to tell her how badly I messed up.
It’s a relief to get home after classes. I haven’t looked at my phone all day but I know I’m going to have to call her eventually, and I need to try to get myself calmed down before then. This is definitely the kind of thing I could shut down over, and I don’t want to do that to Cecelia.
But my plans of sitting in a dark room for a few hours are thwarted when I get off the elevator on my floor and see who’s standing outside the door to my apartment.
“There you are,” Brent Barnes says, and I freeze in place. “I’ve been calling you for weeks.”
I blink at him, praying that I’m imagining his presence. But no. My father is standing right there, wearing the same expression he always used to give me—frustration and barely disguised disgust.
“Dad,” I say, my voice tight. I’m struck by the sudden, insane urge to run away. To literally drop my backpack and just take off in a sprint. Anything to avoid what I’m sure is going to be a miserable conversation.
“Oh, so you do remember that I exist,” he mutters. “The fact that you can’t pick up your fucking phone says otherwise.”