Page 14 of Reckless Goals

“I’ll take credit for that.”

She shook her head slowly and looked around her room before finding me on the screen of her phone again. I had laid back against my pillows, propped my head up with my free arm, and couldn't help smiling as I watched the look on her face change a million different times.

“Are you in bed?”

“Yeah I didn’t exactly plan on this being a Facetime call until I realized you thought I was Hunter. I guess that was my bad since I called myself your new coach.”

“Exactly. We had already established that you’re not my coach, you’re…you’re… I don't know what you are. Somebody I play with.”

Her eyes widened as my smile got bigger. She brought out the kid in me. The one that immediately took his mind to the gutter. I waffled my eyes at her to tease her, but I didn’t want to risk her hanging up on me.

“So what’s Hunter’s deal?”

“Geez,” she rolled her eyes at me bringing him back into the conversation. I couldn’t help it, I wanted to know what she knew. How she felt. “Hunter has been acting weird for a few weeks now, and I honestly don’t know why. The way he eyed me when I got to the bench today made my skin crawl.”

“No one should make you feel like that, Ash. You may need to mention it to Colin.”

“If it keeps up, I will. But not until he gets back. He has enough to deal with right now. Plus, this is a new development. Hunter was fine a few weeks ago. Maybe not a normal human, but not creepy, either. I’m sure whatever it is, it's personal, and he needs to work through that.”

“I’ll be around,” I reminded her, making a point to be around even more if I needed to be. Not just for Ash, but for Colin. So he could take care of his sister and not worry about the team.

Yeah, for Colin.

“He’s probably just pissy because Coach brought you in to help me. Speaking of which…”

She started biting her lip, chewing on the words she wanted to say. I was curious, and I liked watching her flustered, so I sat back and waited patiently for her to finish her thought.

“Um…so… Coach told me you needed these practices as much as I did. Why is that?”

That was not what I expected her to say, and I sat back up in the bed, barely able to keep my phone held up. “The fuck?”

Without looking at me, she shrugged and started picking at a string on the quilt that covered her bed. “I was just curious.”

“Well don’t be,” I sighed, keeping my frustration down. The idea that Colin and Coach were worried about me was one thing. The fact that he mentioned something to Ash bothered me.

“Sorry.” I could barely hear her because she spoke so low, almost regretful. I wanted to fix that, tell her it was okay and that it wasn’t even her I was frustrated with, it was Colin.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” I didn't wait for an answer, just hitendand tossed my phone across the bed, feeling like an asshole for cutting our conversation short like that. I just couldn’t risk oversharing with her in an attempt to make her understand.

Not very many people knew about Mel. We kept our relationship a secret from the media and out of the public eye. That meant, when she left me, no one knew. I used to want to shout her name from the rooftops and tell the world how in love I was with Dr. Melanie Simpson. But it wasn’t in our best interest to be open about it. As time went on, Mel wanted to remain out of the spotlight that tended to follow me around.

I respected that, but nothing made me happier than the day she told me she wanted to marry me. That she was ready for the world to see us and couldn’t wait to show our relationship off.

Apart from my brother, Colin and Sandy were the first two to know about Mel. We had been invited to a party hosted by the City of Miami and even though Mel couldn't attend with me, I told them that night that I was in love.

They knew, though. The happiness I felt was contagious and they had long suspected I had found ‘the one.’

Cruz Martin, our goalie and a close friend of mine, wasn’t shocked either when I told him about Mel. He just laughed and told me that he figured I was in love by the way I had been acting. I guess when it came down to it, my relationship wasn’t much of a secret after all. At least not to those who knew me.

But the public never knew. Especially about my plans to propose and the fact that I was left heartbroken. I wanted to keep it that way.

Reaching over, I pulled a black box from the top drawer of my nightstand and flipped it open. Fourcarats, princess cut, and all white gold stared back at me. It was exactly what she said she wanted.

Colin was holding it for me that night, and when it all blew up in my face, he was the last person I saw as he quietly handed me the ring back, repeating over and over again how sorry he was.

Colin carried the responsibility for me on his shoulders, but I had been nothing but hateful and petulant toward him since that day. Now he thought he had found a way to fix it, to heal me. But that couldn’t happen if he started telling my secrets.

I came close to sending a text and telling Colin I was done, that I was no longer going to help him because I didn’t trust him. But I stopped short of hitting send because it didn’t feel like it would be Colin that I would be letting down.

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