Page 10 of A Game of Deception
What the fuck was wrong with me?
I turned the water to cold, gasping as it hit my skin. Better. Pain was clarifying. It reminded me I was still alive, still paying for what had happened that night.
By the time I emerged from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around my waist, Leo had coffee and Advil waiting. He handed me both without comment. We’d perfected this dance over the years—his quiet efficiency managing my self-destruction, neither of us acknowledging the codependency of it all.
“Car’s downstairs in fifteen,” he said, scrolling through his phone. “The team facility is about twenty minutes away, traffic permitting.”
I swallowed the pills dry, chasing them with scalding coffee. “What’s the dress code for these things?”
“Athletic casual. I laid something out.” He nodded toward the bed, where a pair of designer joggers and a fitted team polo waited. Of course, he had. Leo always thought of everything.
I yanked on the clothes like a zombie, my brain stuck in rewind mode. The polo squeezed my shoulders too damn tight, with that team logo sitting over my heart like I’d been cattle-branded.
Congratulations! You now belong to Hank Swanson.
Leo hovered by the door, jingling keys and thumbing through emails. He looked up as I shuffled over, his face giving away exactly nothing.
“Ready?”
“Not even close,” I admitted. “But since when has that stopped the world from kicking my ass, anyway?”
The Miami trainingfacility was a glass-and-steel middle finger to fiscal responsibility. The team’s logo dominated the façade in letters big enough to be seen from space, practically screaming, “We have more money than we know what to do with.”
“Fuckin’ hell,” Leo whispered as we pulled into VIP parking. “They’re no’ messin’ aboot. Chelsea’s digs look like a wee YMCA compared to this.”
Our coach named Wilkes waited for us in the lobby. His expression said, plain as day, “I’d rather be getting a root canal.”
“McCrae,” he greeted, extending his hand. “Welcome to the facility.”
His grip was firm, yet his eyes betrayed a different truth—the judgment of a man who’d already decided who I was based on tabloid headlines and social media threads.
“This is Leo Martin, my assistant,” I said. Leo, ever the charmer, quickly engaged Wilkes, offering me a much-needed reprieve.
The tour was exactly what I expected: a blur of state-of-the-art bullshit designed to impress players and justify exorbitant contracts. Hydrotherapy pools with underwater treadmills. Anti-gravity training machines that looked like something out of a sci-fi film. A nutrition bar that served protein shakes with ingredients I couldn’t pronounce.
I nodded with the right intervals, made vague sounds of appreciation, and tried to ignore the pounding in my temples. The Advil was barely touching the hangover, and every bright light and nerve-grating sound in the cavernous facility felt like a personal attack.
“The locker room’s through here,” Wilkes was saying, leading us down yet another pristine corridor. “You’ve got a permanent spot with your name already on it. Owner’s orders.”
Of course.
We rounded a corner, and my eyes caught on a sign: SPORTS MEDICINE WING. My steps faltered.
“Medical facilities are top of the line,” Wilkes continued, not noticing my hesitation. “MRI, X-ray, the works. Dr. Swanson built quite the department.”
We passed an open door, and I glimpsed a series of examination rooms. At the end of the hallway was a larger office, a plaque beside the door:DR. TARA SWANSON, HEAD OF SPORTS MEDICINE.The letters seemed to burn into my vision, each one pulsing in time with the throbbing in my head.
“Speaking of Dr. Swanson,” Wilkes said, checking his watch, “you’re scheduled for your physical assessment at noon. Standard procedure for all new players.”
My stomach twisted. “Today?”
“Owner’s orders,” Wilkes repeated, the phrase becoming an ominous mantra. “He wants you cleared ASAP so you can start training with the team tomorrow.”
Well, shit.
The waitingroom of the medical wing was quiet. I’d been sitting here for twenty-three minutes. I knew because I’d been counting the seconds, watching the digital clock on the wall tick forward like a sadistic tortoise on Xanax.
Leo had abandoned me after the tour, claiming he needed to “sort out some contract rider details” with management. The betrayal pissed me off more than it should have. I was a grown man, for fuck’s sake. I didn’t need a babysitter for a routine physical.
