classes. Let him take a psychiatric evaluation if you’re worried about his conduct. Work with him, help him to improve his behavior so he will be cognizant of his strength.”
“And if we don’t agree?”
I tapped the binder before me. “Then we’ll go through this, line by line, with all the best attorneys Mr. Hawthorne’s money can buy—and, honestly, gentlemen?” I smiled. “He has an awful lot of money.”
Frank was silenced, tensed and furious. He pointed at Coach Scott.
“Four games.” He slammed his briefcase down and gathered his things. “I want him suspended for four games.”
Coach Scott nodded. “I won’t appeal that. Maddy?”
Dad didn’t have anything to say to me. He stared though, surprised. Proud?
How dare he even speak in front of me.
“I taught her well,” he said.
He’d taught me nothing. “Jude Owens wouldn’t want Cole Hawthorne expelled from the league. He knows it was a clean hit.”
“Right now, I’m not sure he knows his own name.” Dad hesitated. “But, if I were in his shoes, I’d be glad someone came to defend me. I’d want someone in my corner who cared about me. Someone to make sure Hawthorne won’t accidentally hurt an innocent person.”
“You don’t know anything about Cole.”
“I learned a lot today.”
“And?”
“I owe that man an apology.”
Dad thanked Coach Scott and the others. He shook hands with Frank Bennett as the league reps stormed from the conference room.
Coach Scott didn’t let me leave. He waited for the doors to close before speaking.
“The team’s gonna talk, Miss Madison. And we’re gonna think about what to do. We’ll call you next week with what we decide.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “Should I tell Cole to pack his locker?”
“We’ll let you know.”
That told me everything I needed to know. My stomach sank, and I calculated the time before the trade deadline in my head.
Two weeks.
We had two weeks to either convince the Monarchs to keep Cole or…
Or I didn’t know what he’d do, what he’d say, what would happen.
Cole feared leaving the team, and he worried his strength would be abused by other teams in the league. Was that enough for him to give up on the game?
I exited the conference room. The click of the door broke the silence in the hall. Cole sat on the floor, suit jacket pitched across the linoleum, tie practically clawed from his throat. He slowly rose to his feet, but he wouldn’t look at me.
“You have a four game suspension,” I said.
He didn’t hear me, or he didn’t care. “Why does your father talk to you like that?”
“Why did your dad hit you?”
Cole snorted. “He said he wanted to mold me into a better man.”
“And my father wanted me to be a perfect lady—educated at college, married at twenty-two, and giving my husband as many babies as he liked. It was his way of taking care of me.”
“You deserve better than that.”
“I can fight my own battles, Cole. Right now, we need to worry about yours. The suspension means you can’t be at the facility, you can’t practice with the team, you can’t play—”
“I know what it means.”
I doubted that. If he understood what it meant, he’d have raged, stormed the halls, lost himself in vicious profanity.
Instead he picked up his coat and walked away from me.
He didn’t even wait. Didn’t look to see if I followed.
It was like…he didn’t care.
Or he wasn’t letting himself care.
“Cole, I just risked everything to help you.” I chased after him. “We have to talk about it.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“You’re still in the league. It’s just a suspension, I was able to negotiate—”
“You wasted your time.”
I stopped, my stomach knotting in my pounding heart. His words hurt.
“None of my time is wasted with you, Cole.” Even my whisper couldn’t slow his steps. “These past few months have been the best of my life.”
His voice hollowed, raw, but flat.
“Then you must be just as broken as me.”
19
Cole
I didn’t trust myself drunk, but blacking out would have been safer.
It might have helped me sleep. I wasn’t getting much lately. That made it harder to work out, to lift, to heal. But it was easy to hate myself. Easier than usual.
It was always a laugh-riot to realize what a fucking asshole I was.
Those realizations were generally silenced by on the field or under the weights. Without that exertion, I was trapped in my own straight-jacket of fucked-up emotions.
Was this what it would be like without the game to protect me from myself?
Without the uniform and pads, practices and playbooks,