Page 58 of Sexting the Coach
“Where thehellhave you been?” she asks, but I blow past her, running inside, heading for the bathroom.
“Elsie?” Hattie asks, running to the door. I catch a glimpse of her bunny slippers as I drop to my knees in front of the toilet. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
I open my mouth, but words don’t come out. Instead, I just lean forward, heaving and throwing up, hard, into the bowl.
Hattie and Mabel are there in a second, holding my hair, rubbing my back, telling me everything is going to be okay. But I know them well enough to know that even as they’re saying that to me, they’re definitely giving each otheroh, shitlooks where I can’t see them.
Andoh, shitis right.
Chapter 24
Weston
What a stupid, stupid thing for me to say.
I think about that moment again and again as I drive home, replaying it in my mind like some sort of sick torture tape.
I was feeling too fucking soft. Too vulnerable with her.
After all that talk—her opening up to me about her brother. Us talking about Leda, about my injury. For some reason, I let that get to me, let it make me think that there could ever be something between us.
I’ve forgotten all the reasons why this would never work in the first place.
In fact, the entire reason we’re in this situation, pretending at a relationship that could never be real, is because the coach before me went and did the kind of shit people think about when they see a guy like me and a woman like Elsie.
I’m too old for her. She’s just starting her career, while I’m already in the second stage of my own. Elsie is good. That’s why she lied for me all those months ago, outside that cabin. She didn’t want me to lose my job, my career, my reputation.
But that doesn’t mean she wants a relationship withme.
When I get home, I pull the car in through the gate and take a second to try and breathe through the stupid, pointless rage that’s burning through my body. After a second, I open the car door, ignore the annoying dinging, and stand up.
The moment I do, a little strike of pain shoots through my hip.
“Fuck!”I slam the car door harder than I should and freeze, praying the violence doesn’t shatter the glass. When everything is still, I take another deep, steadying breath and begin the slow walk into my place.
My hip doesn’t hurt that bad.
In fact, it hasn’t been nearly as painful as it was before Elsie insisted on giving me treatments. But that doesn’t mean it’s not just another shitty reminder of the differences between us.
She might have that trauma of hurting her brother, but I’mactuallyinjured. Practically on my way out. And there’s no amount of charm or spark between us that’s going to change that fact.
I resist the urge to text her and force myself to go to sleep. I force myself not to think about the fact that just this morning, we were together in this bed. And now she’s back at her apartment without me, likely talking to her roommates about how she and I are never going to happen.
It’s fine.
It’s good.
It’s exactly what I fucking want.
Elsie was supposed to come with us to New York today for the game, but she called in sick. I realized it the moment I sawanother PT boarding the plane instead, sitting with the other therapists and trainers. The seat next to me remained empty.
When we were getting off the plane, I overheard Loraine—the head of PT—saying she called in sick. A stomach bug, she said, that she hoped the rest of the team would not catch.
I managed to show some restraint and kept from texting her. I only called her once when I got to the arena this morning, asking if we could talk.
And when she didn’t text me back, I figured I would talk to her on the plane. That I could tell her I understand the reasons we can’tactuallybe together. That when I said it would be nice for our relationship to be real, I didn’t mean it was something I actually thought would happen.
“Wolfe,” Bernie says, eyes darting to me now. We’re standing just outside the locker room together. My assistant coach gestures to the clipboard in my hand and pulls me out of my thoughts. “Dude, relax your hold on that thing. You’re going to bust it.”
