Page 77 of Courtside

He let one of his hands come to rest on the mattress between them. He kept his fingers open, relaxed, on the off-chance that she might need him. Letting out a careful breath, he tilted his head to look at her. “Please tell me what happened so that I can fix it.”

Sage let out a harsh, wet laugh. “You can’t fix it. It’s already done.”

“But it has something to do with Evan White.” He didn’t phrase it as a question.

Somehow her posture stiffened even further. “Do you know him?”

“No,” David quickly replied. “I’ve just heard rumors that he’s an asshole who chases after younger girls.”

She shook her head with a pained smile, her gaze fixed on the door.

“Sage. Look at me.” She turned back to him, eyes squeezed shut. David tried to slow his breathing, to keep his voice calm and controlled. “What did he do to you?”

She opened her mouth to respond, but all that came out was a broken cry.

David was officially over being a gentleman.

He reached for her, gathering her in his arms and tugging her towards him. She barely needed the encouragement, burrowing her head into his chest as her hands grabbed at his shirt, gripping him like he was a lifeline in a storm.

His heart hammered as he held her, and on a whim, he brought a hand up to brush back a piece of hair that was stuck to her tear-streaked cheek. He couldn’t bring himself to take his hand away, instead finding a steady rhythm stroking his fingers over the soft skin of her temple.

“Sage,” he whispered. “Please talk to me. I’ve got you.”

A minute passed, where the only sounds were her ragged sighs against his chest. He felt the rise and fall of her breathing slow.

“I…we…we used to have a thing.”

“A thing.” David tried to keep his touch soft. Steady.

She nodded.

“When?”

He could see her hesitation. “When, Sage?” He couldn’t keep the command from his voice.

He felt her exhale. “It started when I saw a sophomore.”

“At Southeastern?” In his effort to wish away the unthinkable, he willed himself to forget thatshe’d never played college ball.

“No.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

Goddamnit.

David was going to kill that man. He’d never been even remotely violent, but the cold, calculating rage that filled him was quite possibly the most real and potent emotion he’d ever experienced in his life.

But he shoved that down — as much as he could — knowing that Sage didn’t need that from him. She didn’t need his rage on her behalf. He forced himself to take a painfully slow deep breath. “Was he your high school coach?”

“My club coach,” she confirmed.

His stomach turned. “So you guys had a thing?” He was proud of how nonchalant he sounded. Like he wasn’t about to track down the bastard who had preyed on this incredible woman, likelyassaultedher, when she was just a kid.

A fuckingkid.

“Yeah.” Her admission was quiet. “Looking back, it’s such an obvious cliche.” Her voice was starting to regain some of her usual strength. “He told me he was going to leave his girlfriend when I turned eighteen, and I was stupid enough to believe him.”

He hated hearing the harshness that she directed toward herself. How could she think that anything about that situation had been her fault? He opened his mouth to respond, but Sage kept talking.

“Honestly, it wasn’t even the hooking up and all of that that hurt the most.” There was a hitch in her voice. “He…he took basketball away from me. I couldn’t see it at the time. He always said he was trying to make me better. He had me on a diet that sapped all of my strength, saying it would help me get faster. He told me that my high school coach was trying to sabotage me, so I stopped trusting her. I trusted him when he told me that he was reaching out to college coaches, and when no one came to watch me play, I believed him when he told me that I just needed to work harder to get their attention. I don’t know what he was telling them, or if he was even talking to them at all. Whatever he did, it kept them all away.” Another sob shook her body. “Fuck, I was just watching my life-long dream fall to pieces around me and he was there, ready to comfort me, when the whole time he was the one tearing me down.”

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