Chapter 3
GRIFFIN
I shove my phone in my pocket and head to Coach Andrews’ office, trying not to limp too obviously.
My knee is worse today than usual. It could have been the fall, but if I had to guess, it’s more likely the stress.
Seeing Jess again was an emotional gut-punch.
The way my body moved without thinking when I reached for her, like muscle memory.
It’s like the last five years never happened.
But I don’t have time to think about it.
Not right now. Right now I’ve got to push Jess out of my head because everything is on the line.
By the time I push through his door, I’m gritting my teeth against the pain.
Coach looks up from his desk. He’s a weathered man in his sixties, though he hasn’t changed a bit over the years. His face is like worn leather and his beady eyes miss nothing. The dude doesn’t suffer fools, never has.
“Callahan. Sit.”
“What’s up Coach?” I ease into the chair across from his desk.
He continues, “I’ve got news. We found you the best sports therapist in the state.
Maybe even in the whole Southeast. Her ACL recovery program has a ninety-five percent success rate.
Players have come back from injuries worse than yours.
Had to move hell and earth to get you in, but her team’s added you to their client list.”
I exhale. Finally, a win. “That’s fantastic. Thank you, it’s the best news I’ve heard all day. When can I start? I’m ready to put in the time.”
“Calm down, there ain’t nothing fast about this recovery.” He slides a folder across the desk. “You’d better get used to the idea that these things take time.”
I open the folder. A wave of emotion washes over me.
Excited isn’t the right word for it, but a flicker of hope bubbles up low in me for the first time in a long time.
Having the right medical team behind me is a step in the right direction.
It means I have a chance at fixing my life, or at least my career.
It’s about time something goes my way, and this could be the fresh start I’ve been searching for.
My eyes roam the folder’s contents.
Then my heart stops.
Jessica Hartwell, PT, DPT, OCS. Founder and lead therapist at Hartwell Sports Medicine.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Her professional headshot stares up at me.
She’s smiling in it. It’s that warm, genuine smile I used to wake up to every morning.
Her hair is pulled back. The look is professional, but I remember exactly how that hair looked spread across my pillow.
How the floral scent of her shampoo lingered on my sheets.
How she’d laugh when I pulled her against my chest and refused to let her get out of bed.
I remember the way she’d trace her fingers across my chest while we talked about nothing and everything.
It was back when she looked at me like I was the only person in the world who mattered.
I close my eyes.
Coach leans back in his chair and puts his hands behind his head. “Nothing but the best around here, as you requested.”
“I didn’t request her.” Because why would I when this is going to be fucking torture?
“You did.” Coach holds a hand up in my direction.
“When you signed the recovery agreement, you checked the box for top-tier specialized care. She’s it, Callahan.
The best. And the Southern Knights are paying triple her usual rate to make sure you get seen.
You can thank me by getting your ass back onto that field. ”
“I checked a box on a form I barely read because I was high on painkillers and desperate.”
Coach rambles on, but I’m lost in my own madness. I didn’t request her. I would never have fucking requested her. I didn’t need the coffee on my shirt to know that having her in charge of my future would be a terrible idea.
But it’s worse than that. I’m looking down the barrel at twelve weeks of her touching me while hating me.
My mind snaps through images of Jess, with her hands on my knee. Her voice telling me what to do and how to move. Jess coaching me on when to push through pain. Her scent filling whatever room we’re in while I lie on a table and pretend I’m not dying inside.
Coach squints at me, and I’ve seen the look before. I need to keep my mouth shut. Unfortunately for me, that’s never been my strong suit.
“I wish you would have let me give some input on this decision.”
“Dammit Callahan, you’d better get real grateful, real fast after all the chances I’m taking for you. You’ll do what she says and get better. Or you’ll walk away with nothing. No job. No money. No contract. Now, do we have a problem?”
I shove my hands in my pockets. Looking at her face now, I realize something with sudden, devastating clarity. Jess might be the last person who should be treating my knee, but she’s also the best.
And right now, she’s my only shot at saving my career.
“No sir.”
I think about all the things I missed and my head spins. Did she cry when she found my note? Did she wait for me to call? How long before she stopped checking her phone, stopped hoping I’d come back and explain? How long before she started hating me?
She didn’t crumble when I left. She built all of this from the wreckage of what I did to her. Her clinic... Her reputation. This life she mentioned, the good one she made on her own. She didn’t fall apart.
She became the best in the fucking state.
Meanwhile, I lost everything.
“When do I start?” I ask.
“Tomorrow morning. Seven a.m. sharp.” Coach’s eyes bore into mine. “Don’t screw this up, Callahan. I don’t know what history you have with Dr. Hartwell, and I don’t want to know. What I know is that your career, your entire future, depends on that knee. And she’s the one who can fix it.”
I close the folder. “Understood, Coach.”
He nods, dismissing me. I stand, folder tucked under my arm, and head for the door.
“Callahan.”
I turn.
“Whatever you did to piss that woman off? Fix it. I need my quarterback healthy, and I need him focused. No distractions.”
I think about Jess’s face in that coffee shop. The fury and the hurt and the something else I couldn’t quite identify. I think about the note I left her years ago. I blew up my life with three sentences and destroyed everything we had.
I’m sorry. I have to go. Please don’t follow me.
Three sentences. That’s all I gave her after three years together. After she’d given me her trust, her future, and her whole heart laid bare. She put it all on the table and I was careless.
But standing here now, seeing what she’s built, knowing she did it while carrying the weight of what I did to her?
“I’ll do my best, Coach,” I say.
But as I walk out into the southern heat with my knee throbbing and my heart somewhere in the vicinity of my shoes, I wonder if my best will be anywhere close to enough.
Tomorrow morning. Seven a.m. Her hands on my knee. Her voice in my ear. Me trying to focus on anything other than the fact that I’d burn this whole city down just to hear her say my name without hatred in it.
Twelve weeks of physical therapy with the woman I destroyed.
I don’t deserve her forgiveness. I know that. I don’t even deserve to be in the same room as her. But if she’s willing to work on my knee, even if it’s just for the money, even if she spends every session imagining new ways to murder me, then I’ll take it.
Having nothing left to lose makes you brave. Or maybe just stupid. The line between the two has always been pretty thin for me.
The move here is to fix my knee. That will save my career. Then I’ll have half a chance at making things right with the only woman I’ve ever loved.