7. A Talking To
A Talking To
Olli
“What’s this I hear about you being a dick to your new PA?
” Christenson asked as he sat on the bench next to me.
I huffed, bending over to tie my cleats, looking around for Brooker.
When I spotted him by Carter’s cubby, trying to steal from our teammate's gum stash, I sat up and tossed a bundled-up pair of socks at him.
“I can’t believe you fucking tattled.”
“Hey,” he shouted back, knocking the socks down before they hit his face. “Don’t be a fucking prick to me, too. "
Brooker grabbed my socks, moving to toss them back at me, but Carter smacked them out of his hand.
“Are you stealing my gum again?” he asked.
“No,” Brooker lied.
“Uh-huh. Get your ass away from my cubby, then,” Carter said, taking his pick from the top shelf to smack Brooker’s hand.
“Kean,” Christenson said with that special sternness only a captain could use without getting shit for it. “Why’re you being a dick to her?”
“I’m not,” I grumbled, trying to refocus on my shoes. But before I could finish tying up my other shoe, Brooker slid in next to me, apparently chased off by Carter.
“You totally were. Like, even a bigger dick than you are to us on your bad days. You’d think you didn’t want her there or something.”
“That’s not it.” With a huff, I sat back up, accepting that I wasn’t going to be left alone any time soon.
“Then what is?” Christenson asked.
“If you ask me —” Brooker started.
“Nobody did,” I mumbled and Brooker elbowed me in my side.
“He’s got a little crush on his PA and it’s flustering him so bad he’s forgotten how to act. You should’ve seen how quick he turned into a caveman the second I said I was gonna flirt with her. He —”
I threw my arm into Brooker’s stomach and knocked the breath out of him. He bent over, coughing like I’d smashed in his lungs. But that was par for the course with Brooker; he’d roll around on the field if he so much as stubbed his toe, the dramatic prick.
“Don’t hit your teammate,” Christenson mumbled like an exhausted mom. “And even if you are attracted to her, that doesn’t mean you can be a dick to Brooker. And you especially can’t be a dick to her just because you can’t date her now or whatever.”
“It’s not about dating her,” I grumbled under my breath, looking around the room for a way out of this conversation. A few of my other teammates were meandering around, getting ready for practice, but with the captain on my ass, they were all pointedly looking away from me.
Christenson wasn’t a hard-ass captain, but Coach Boyd wasn’t exactly …
on top of shit. He only showed up to every other practice, yelled a lot of nonsense on the sidelines, and provided little to no advice in strategy meetings.
Had I known what a shit show Boyd was to work with, I probably would’ve searched harder for another team to transfer to.
And the reason I hadn’t realized the Dastards coach was a useless bitch was all because of Christenson.
The man wasn’t captain for nothing, he picked up all the slack.
He planned and called the plays, he kept track of everybody’s schedules, he even went so far as to create spreadsheets for away games of where everybody was staying, room numbers, restaurant suggestions, etcetera.
He was basically a pseudo-coach, and if the Dastards owners didn’t hire him to coach when he was ready to retire, they were idiots and assholes.
“So then you won’t mind if I asked her out?” Brooker asked, suddenly over his feigned injury. I nudged his side with enough force that when he bent over, it wasn’t just dramatics this time.
“Kean,” Christenson muttered, before leaning behind me to nudge Brooker off the bench. “Stop poking the bear and get out of here.”
“But I wanna —” Brooker started but Christenson gave him another rough shove and Brooker tumbled off the bench. He mumbled a few choice words but went off to his cubby.
“So,” Christenson started once Brooker was out of earshot. “What’s up with this PA? She’s barely worked a full day, so I find it hard to believe she’s done anything to deserve this much hostility.”
“I’m not being hostile.”
“That’s not how Brooker described it.”
“That’s because Brooker’s a dramatic bitch.”
“Well, Alvarez backed him up.”
“Hmph. Him and Fuller’ll echo whatever he says. They think he’s so cool, with how he —”
“Kean,” Christenson warned.
“It’s a personal matter,” I grumbled, chewing at the inside of my cheek.
As far as I was concerned, this wasn’t something Christenson needed to bother himself with.
The issue would … I don’t fucking know. I’d have to get over it eventually.
Or maybe she’ll just get moved over to the social media team or whatever.
“Uh-huh. And how is your attitude towards your new PA a ‘personal’ matter? Just because it involves your personal feelings doesn’t negate the fact that it’s happening at work.”
“Fine,” I grumbled, scratching at my beard as I thought through what I actually needed to admit to get out of this conversation. “I knew her when we were kids, that’s all.”
“Holy fuck!” Brooker shouted, sliding back onto the bench beside me, Taylor and Gallagher following close behind. “What do you mean, kids? Like kid-kid or teenager?”
“None of your business,” I said, shoving him into the others.
“Oh, come on, Kean. We’re just curious about you,” Gallagher said, helping Brooker back up.
“Nah, I kinda get where he’s coming from. Brooker’s just digging for ammo.”
I held up my fist and Taylor immediately bumped it before heading out.
“If you don’t answer me, I’m gonna ask Kodi about it.” Brooker started to get up and I instinctively yanked him back down.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I growled, grip tightening on his arm.
“See what I’m talking about?” Brooker said to Christenson, pulling out of my hold to stand up. “I won’t ask Kodi shit, so long as you’re not an ass to her again. And I don’t know what you said, but when I saw her on my way down here, she’d changed into head-to-toe gear.”
“She did?” I asked, heart dropping to my stomach.
She asked if her outfit was bothering me, so I told her the truth.
It was. The leggings she wore hugged the curve of her hips and thighs in a way that …
distracted me. And the top was an extra offense, just low enough to expose her collarbone, a delicate line that led to a rapidly beating pulse.
But I wouldn’t have noticed any of that if it wasn’t Kodi and if she hadn’t taken a beat to eye me like … she was hungry. It was a quick look, dismissed as soon as it appeared. But I caught it, the way her breath hitched, how her eyes darkened and dipped down my body.
She looked at me first. And that look, no matter how brief it was, made every single inch of me burn. I didn’t really want her to change, I just wanted that feeling to stop.
“That’s not cool,” Gallagher said, shaking his head. “You can’t make a woman feel self-conscious like that.”
“I’ll …” I swallowed a lump in my throat, a combination of shame and guilt. “I’ll apologize next time I see her.”
“Good.” Christenson slapped my shoulder. “And if you’re feeling flustered or whatever, just take a second before you speak. It might create an awkward silence, but that’s better than you being a dick.”
With that, Christenson pushed up to his feet and grabbed Brooker by the elbow to drag him away.
“That’s it? You’re not gonna press him about the knowing each other thing?” Brooker whined.
“Nah. Like Kean said, that’s none of our business. I only care when it’s affecting the work place.”
“But —” Brooker started before Christenson dragged him through the door. Beside me Gallagher stood, taking a few steps towards the door before stopping to turn to me.
“I get not wanting Brooker anywhere near a gal you’re close to. I sure as fuck wouldn’t let him in the same room as my sisters. But you gotta chill out. 'Cause if he’s already clocked your issues, it’s only a matter of time before management does, too. Then she’ll be fired no matter what you say.”
As the door squeaked shut behind him, I hung my head.
He was right. Of course, he was right. All of them were right, except Brooker. Kodi had been here a whopping twenty-four hours and I was already making problems for her.
So what if she didn’t remember me? So what if I was butt hurt? She was somebody that meant something to me, meant a lot to me, at one point in my life. The least I could do for that long since faded crush was to not make things worse for her.
I pushed off the bench and went over to my cubby to fish my phone out of my bag.
When Hansen sent me all of Kodi’s contact information, I didn’t save her number.
I thought she’d give it to me when we finally saw each other again and caught up.
Since that didn’t happen, I took the time now to save her number in my phone.
Then I spent a solid minute staring at the new chat window, trying to put the right words together.
“Kean, get your pouting ass out here so we can get started,” Brooker shouted over the intercom. Huffing, I shoved my phone back in my bag and marched out of the locker room, happy to have an excuse to put off apologizing to Kodi.