Page 104 of My Secret Bandit

Jeffrey: But it’s so much fun to let him think I hate him.

Some tension I carried eased as I put my phone away and watched Mateo with the trainer. I hadn’t been back to the office since the injury, and I was lucky as hell to have a kickass boss who understood I’d get more work done next to Mateo than I’d be able to do in my office worrying about him.

“How’s everything else going?” Jacob, the team’s head trainer, asked, moving to put the foam log back under the table and replacing it with a towel. He placed the cloth around Mateo’s foot before handing the ends over to him. Eager to be doing anything resembling physical activity, Mateo immediately started going through the stretches he’d been doing the last couple of days.

“If you consider living in a fog of anger because the pain is worse than the side effects from the pills, good. Then I’m fucking great,” he growled without looking at either of us.

“What are you taking?” Jacob asked, drawing his brows together.

When Mateo shrugged, I answered for him. “Hydrocodone.”

“Have you talked to Doc about it?” he asked, turning his attention from Mateo to me.

“Yeah. We’re already on plan B ’cause he felt worse with the first one.”

Jacob scratched at the side of his scruff and sighed. “Well, you know, just like alcohol or other drugs, pain meds affect everyone differently. You can be a happy drunk, sad, angry, funny. You never really know until it’s in your system messing with your brain, especially if you’ve never used them before. Maybe you don’t need some super strength opioid. Next time you see her, I’d talk about sticking to something milder or even over the counter. You’re already frustrated enough. No sense in adding to it,” he said while keeping most of his focus on Mateo’s knee. “Anyway, Doc and I think we’ve reached the point where it’s safe to get you back into upper body exercises.”

Mateo’s stare flicked up to Jacob, a small glimmer of hope shining through the dark angst that had taken over.

“This is us trusting you not to go overboard or do anything crazy, got it? Keep it light. No lower body. Obviously still no weight bearing. Stay. On. The. Crutches.”

With an ice pack secured around his knee, we headed home. Mateo stayed quiet for most of the ride, and I tried once again to get him to tell me what happened out on the field that day.

At first, he met my question with a long, understandably irritated sigh. He was as tired of hearing this question as I was asking it. Those first few days, I told myself I wouldn’t push him. I’d wait for him to talk about it when he felt ready. But now I needed to know why.

“It’s been over a week, Mateo. I gave you your space. I gave you time, but now you’re closed off and you’re distant and I can’t help you if I don’t know why you won’t let me. So please, just be honest with me.”

He hated this; I knew he did. The being chauffeured around, needing help to do anything. Having nowhere to go to escape my questions.

“Fine. You wanna know?” He turned in his seat and stared at me until I nodded. “They were talking about you,” he said, and my heart stopped. “You, Jameson! Talking shit about you! About us! Do you see now why I didn’t want to talk about it?”

The violent stabbing, searing pain, I felt it a million times before. The one where an ice pick jammed into my heart, leaving a permanent crack all the way through.

Only this time it was worse.

Way fucking worse, because I—in some roundabout way—was responsible for Mateo being hurt.

I spent all that time worrying about being a distraction, trying to shelter our relationship from the outside. I thought the field was a sacred space. I thought we’d find compassion in the men who knew better than anyone the scrutiny Mateo lived with.

Not once did I expect his worst offenders to be his peers.

“I-I’m the reason you got hurt,” I said, breathing heavy, trying to keep the car from veering into other lanes.

“I didn’t say that,” he murmured. He may not have said those words directly, but in my head, rationally or not, they were implied.

“You didn’t need to say it, Mateo! They used me to get to you and you ended up hurt!” I yelled; my pain echoed against the cabin of the car.

“I shouldn’t have told you.” He shook his head. “Baby,” he whispered, reaching over to take my hand.

“No, I’m good.” Lying, I shook my head, pulling my hand away and focused on the road.

Regret. Anger. Agony.

Each one filled the car, the most suffocating though was the silence. I should’ve said something, wanted more than anything for him to say something, but neither of us did.

My insides churned.

The walls he’d broken down without even trying, rebuilt.

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