Chapter 9
Noah
The locker room was empty except for Dante, who had obviously waited for me.
We both looked across the room when the door slammed open, and I saw Mike Whittaker, the freshman that Hadley had been here to shadow, walk in. He looked like he had lost a fight with an eighteen-wheeler.
“What the fuck happened to you?” I asked him.
“Garrett Benoit.” He flexed his right hand. “I think he broke my hand.”
“Your hand?” Dante asked him, getting to his feet. “Looks like he broke more than your hand. Why aren’t you being seen to by a trainer or medical staff?” Dante demanded.
“Coach told me to wait here.” Mike tried to rub his nose, winced at the pin in his hand, and basically looked ready to pass out.
He sat down. “I have to wait here because I was fighting with the dick.” He looked at his hand and tried to flex it.
“I think Benoit won.” He looked up at us. “What do you think?”
Blood dripped down the left side of his face.
Dante and I exchanged a look. “Up,” I barked. I already knew if Benoit walked through that door, I was going to hurt him. “Let’s get you seen to.”
“Huh? But Coach—”
“We’re telling you to move,” Dante said, his hand on Mike’s arm, pulling him to his feet. “You want to come with me, or will I let Matthews carry you?”
Mike grinned and immediately winced. “I’m coming,” he said, swaying as he stood up.
“We need to tell them to check him for a concussion.” I helped steady Mike, and we walked him between us toward the medical wing.
“Spence!”
The command was sharp and angry as our head coach shouted down the hallway.
“Yes, Coach?” Dante didn’t turn around, and we didn’t stop walking.
“What are you doing?”
“Helping a teammate to the medical wing, Coach.” Dante kept his face straight and his eyes forward.
“That’s not your call!”
“It’s my call,” I shouted back, turning my head to meet the coach’s angry glare. “Unless having the freshman bleed all over the locker room and pass out was what you wanted?”
“Careful,” Dante murmured on the other side of Mike.
“Whittaker, are you going to pass out?” Sutherland demanded.
“Might,” Mike answered honestly. “Feel kind of funny.”
Diana, the new PT, came out of a training room, took one look at Mike, and hurried over. “What happened to you?”
“Got my ass kicked,” Mike told her. “Garrett Benoit started talking shit, I swung, he swung harder.” He sloped slightly to the side, and I tightened my grip on his arm.
“Dante?” she asked, guiding us into the room.
“I think he’s got a concussion. He thinks his hand is broken.”
“What the hell is happening in here?” Coach Sutherland appeared in the doorway, angry and ready to bite anyone’s head off.
Diana dipped her head and started examining Mike. “He’s going to need a doctor,” she said with a frown. She looked up and met Dante’s gaze. “Can you get me one?”
“On it.”
She glanced my way, and there was something familiar in her stare that made me move a little closer.
“Matthews, why are you here?” Coach asked me.
“Saw the state of Whittaker, wasn’t sure why he wasn’t already in here.” I met my coach’s stare with a blank one of my own. Most of my teammates got nervous when Sutherland got angry. I got calmer.
“Don’t leave me.” It was said so softly, I almost didn’t catch it, and I almost reacted to her soft plea. Cold understanding settled in my chest.
Fear. Not Mike’s. Hers.
“What happened?” I asked Coach. “He said Benoit did this to him? They were fighting?”
Coach stalked into the room, and Diana moved closer to me while she assessed Mike. Mike, who was so glassy-eyed and disoriented — if he didn’t have a concussion, I’d be a monkey’s uncle.
Coach Sutherland took one look at Mike and frowned. “He didn’t look this bad out there,” he admitted with a derisive sniff.
“In daylight and training lights, he looked better than right now?” I asked skeptically.
Coach glared at me. “He had his helmet on.”
“He couldn’t have,” I snapped back. “Your face doesn’t look like this when something is covering your head.”
“Well, he must have done it to himself.”
Even Diana looked up at him in surprise.
Mike swayed forward but tried to shake his head. “Why would . . . I wouldn’t.” He shook his head. “I didn’t.”
“Don’t worry.” I placed my hand on his shoulder. “I know you wouldn’t. So does Coach Sutherland, don’t you, Coach?”
Sutherland met and held my stare. “PT girl, outside. Now.”
Diana froze for a second and then shook her head. “Until one of the medical staff is here, I’m not leaving the patient.”
I saw my coach roll his eyes. “He’s hardly a patient.”
“Does he look fucking healthy?” I snapped.
Sutherland’s eyes were back on me. “Watch your tone, Matthews. It’s a long fucking season on the bench.”
Was he threatening me? My temper surged, and I clenched my fists to keep it from showing.
But it didn’t stop me from stepping closer, knowing Diana had automatically moved out the way.
“That’s all you’ve got, isn’t it? Threats.
” I spat. “You threaten scholarships because you know you can’t threaten me physically.
” I held his stare. I knew how close I was to him.
I knew the specific calculation Sutherland was making about whether I would do something.
I wasn’t going to, but I let him wonder for one more second before I stepped back.
“Bench me, then,” I said quietly. “See what happens to your defense.”
“Everything alright in here?” Dante asked as he walked into the small room, and one of the medical team followed. They took one look at Mike and arranged transportation to the local hospital.
Their announcement broke Coach’s glare, and he looked at Mike with a mix of frustration and annoyance.
Diana stepped back, taking off her latex gloves, and kept to our side of the room.
“Mike, you want us to come with you?” Dante asked the freshman.
“I’ll go with him.” Coach snarled. “You two get out of here.”
I hesitated; Dante didn’t.
“That’s kind of you, Coach. Hey, Diana, are you free?” Dante asked her without missing a beat. “I was coming here to look for Doug, but my shoulder’s given me a twinge.”
“A twinge?” She asked, pulling on a fresh pair of gloves. “Let’s move into a different room while I have a look.”
I wanted to follow, but I didn’t want Mike in here alone with Coach.
“Mike?”
“I’m sleepy.”
“No, you need to stay awake.” The medical staff weren’t going to leave him unattended.
“You’ll stay with him?” I asked them, and they nodded as they concentrated on stopping the bleeding.
I glanced at Coach Sutherland, who was watching me closely, and I forced myself to follow Dante into the next training room rather than punch my coach like I really wanted to. For one second, I understood exactly how men ended up buried in deserts outside Vegas.
Dante was on the bed, his shirt already off, and Diana was probing at his shoulder blade.
“It’s tender there?” she asked him as she investigated. “I thought we had that issue resolved.” She probed harder, and Dante winced. “Okay, I think one more injection for you, and a half hour on the bed.”
“Half hour?” Dante asked her, and she didn’t meet his gaze as she nodded. “Okay then.”
The look of relief on her face was poorly concealed, and I watched her as she hurried out to get the injection, leaving Dante and me alone.
“She’s terrified of him,” Dante said under his breath.
“Yeah, appears to be.”
“Thirty minutes?” He poked at his shoulder. “I’m never here for more than twenty.”
“She wants to make sure he isn’t hanging around.” I took a seat in the corner of the room. I saw his look. “What? You think I’m missing out on you being stuck with a needle? Think again.”
Dante grinned. When Diana came back in, she looked pleased to see I was still here.
“Okay, you know the drill,” she instructed, and I watched as he got into position and then she stabbed him with a very large needle. I had my fair share of tattoos, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate a big, scary-looking needle.
“Thank you,” Dante told her, his voice still quiet. “For helping Mike.”
Diana smiled. “It’s my job.”
“You prefer to have numbers in the room.” I tilted my head as I watched her. “Why is that?”
She hesitated slightly as she put the needle down. “I like to talk.”
Right.
I watched her as she worked on my friend. She kept her head down, her face averted as she worked, and it was for that very reason I saw what she didn’t want me to see.
When she was finished with Dante, I opened the door and stuck my head out, checking we were alone. I closed the door behind me. “So . . .” I leaned against the door. “You knew Tiffany.”
Dante froze for just a second before he finished getting dressed and hopped off the bed.
Diana looked at me, her eyes wide. “Who?”
“You have the same shady as fuck look as my friend Hadley does when she thinks she’s being sneaky.
And you hide your head and face the same way as Briar does.
Hiding behind your hair.” I spoke over the protest she was about to make.
“There it is again,” I nodded at her hand.
“You’ve done it three times since I said her name.
Every time something rattles you, your thumb goes to the side of your finger, and you rub it, like you’re worrying a ring that isn’t there.
” I pushed off the door. “You did it when Sutherland walked in. And you just did it again when I said Tiffany’s name.
” I looked at her hand. “And you just did it again while listening to me. So . . . what’s the connection? ”
Diana’s hand went still.
Got her.
“There’s no connection.”
I smiled, but it wasn’t meant to be friendly. “You’re lying,” I said calmly. “Try again.”
Diana swallowed, her eyes flicking between Dante and me. “I . . .”
“He’s very observant,” Dante told her quietly. “As you’ve just seen. He sees a lot and picks up on even more. I didn’t even see it,” he murmured, and there was something almost grudging in it. He looked over at me. “How the hell did you notice it?”
“I notice what matters.” I kept my eyes on Diana.