longest time because they don’t want to deal with potential lawsuits and risk someone who’s four times your age and has a quarter of your muscle mass trying to run up the stairs though they haven’t run up any stairs in twenty years.” He rocks his weight forward and then back to his heels again. “You’re not ready to get back out there yet, but there’s no reason you should be waiting a full year and kissing any chance of getting drafted. You’re a force to be reckoned with out there on the field, and you can see the team misses you. You’re a leader.”
“I’m hoping they’re wrong, too. I’ve told my doctor I want to accelerate things as much as possible,” I tell him.
He nods, turning his attention back to the field as Coach Harris blows his whistle for the next play to start. “A couple of steroid and cortisone injections and you would have no problem getting back out there in a month or two.”
“Spring season is about to end in a few weeks.”
He pulls his shoulders back. “You know that’s not all Coach Harris pays attention to. He looks to those who push boundaries and work when they aren’t forced. To him, those are the guys who deserve a place on this team. You see our team. We’re aging. Next year, nearly a third of our team will be seniors. We have to start getting some new freshman recruits, or we’re going to lose our balls the following year. Harris is going to be looking at the senior team through a magnifying glass come summer.”
Coach Harris blows his whistle in three rapid bursts, calling an end to the practice. Coach Evans doesn’t look at me before he walks to the center of the field, leaving me with a million thoughts and even more doubts about what he said and might have implied.
I drive to Jade’s with my thoughts stuck in a maze—the start and finish both blurry. Last fall, I was a star at Brighton, living the single life to its fullest. Crude remarks and sex with faceless strangers were high on my list of daily activities. Now, I’m nursing an injury that might derail my future and find myself realizing the relationship I’d been considering late last fall with Jade may not have been what I’d expected—or wanted.
“Hey,” Jade says, answering the door wearing a red dress and a smile that shrinks as she sees it’s me. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought we should talk.”
She pulls her dark blonde hair back, exposing the flock of birds tattooed on her collarbone. Taking a step back into her apartment, she opens the door wider, inviting me inside. “I wish you’d called,” she says, closing the door behind us.
“I didn’t want to get sent to voicemail again. And I figured we should talk in person.”
She looks nervous. It reminds me of the first night we hung out when she walked up to me and kissed me at a party. She’d been nervous then, too. “I’m going out with some friends tonight…” She wrings her hands. “And by friends, I mean friend.”
“A guy?”
She nods.
“So, you got mad at me for taking a friend who is a girl to the hospital, and you’re here getting ready to go out on a date? What kind of mixed messages are you trying to send?”
Jade’s eyes narrow, but I see curiosity instead of anger. “I can cancel if you want to talk, but I’m not in the mood to fight and argue.”
“I don’t want to fight, either. I just want to figure this shit out because we never did, and we should have.” Closure—that’s what Rae Rae said I need.
She wets her lips. “Let me cancel. We can go get dinner, or stay in and … whatever.”
“Whatever?” I raise my eyebrows. “We’re not going to have sex, Jade. We need to talk.”
The skin between her brow creases and her eyes pinch—this time with anger.
She reaches for her phone, sighing. “Fine, give me a second to cancel.” A couple of weeks ago, I might have been jealous, wondering who the guy was and if I knew him—if they were together. But now, I’m just annoyed, wondering how long this is going to take and if she’s going to make it easy or difficult.
“So, before we start. Who is she?”
Difficult it is.
I shake my head because there’s no way I heard her correctly. Not when I’m standing here, waiting for her to cancel her date.