Page 76 of The No Try Zone
“Maybe.”
“Are you two fucking kidding me?” Kari walks in, her face pale. She shuts the door behind her and whirls back to face us.
I meet her eyes, more terrified than anything, only to realize that she isn’t shocked. More like…resigned?
She knew.Lennox was right when he said so. But I still have to confirm, so I look at Sam. “Did she know?” The words are tight.
Kari scoffs and raises a brow. “Of course. Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“How?”
“Please.” She gestures lazily at Sam.
Sam lifts her eyes to mine. It’s only a millisecond, but I see it: fear. She covers it quickly, lifting her chin in that defiant move I’m so familiar with, her eyes like flint. “She’s my best friend, Colin. Did you think I’d keep it quiet that I woke up in a Las Vegas hotel,aloneand with a ring on my finger?”
I don’t really have anything to say to that other than, “Oh.” They’re friends before they’re coworkers. As always, I am an idiot.
Kari gives a derisive snort. “Oh,” she mimics. It’s never been clearer that she is no fan of mine. Not like this, anyway.
Sam throws her shoulders back. “I’m leaving.”
Kari steps in her way, blocking her exit. “Stay.”
Sam’s head rears back. “Why?”
Her voice softens. “Because we need to talk about this. What is going on here? Do you two really think it’s going to stay secret if you’re acting like this around here?”
“What we do is none of your business,” Sam says, her body rigid with defiance.
Kari nods, keeping her voice down. “You’re right. Outside of these walls, when we’re just friends, all I want to do is support you and be happy for you. But in here? It becomes my business if your actions affect the team.”
“Okay.” I stand, eager to make all this stop. “We get your point, Kari. We’ll be more careful.”
Sam, on the other hand, isn’t done. Far from it. She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, her arms loose at her sides. “I’m going to say this one time, and one time only. But what I choose to do in my personal life has nothing to do with you.”
Kari’s eyes flash with indignation. “Except it’s got everything to do with me, because you’re screwing my team’s head coach and you don’t seem to care who knows! That could have been anyone,” she hisses, waving her hand at the door. “And then what would you have done?”
“Fuck you, Kari.”
My jaw drops. For as furious as I’ve seen Sam, this is something completely different. Deeper.
Kari doesn’t flinch. If anything, she grows taller. “I’m not out to get you, Sam. This is business.”
“It’s my fuckinglife, Kari.” Sam practically snarls the words, and I stay silent.
They glare at each other for another moment, the air thick with tension. Then Sam shakes her head and pivots to the door. She leaves without another word, leaving me staring after her and wondering what in the hell we’d gotten ourselves into.
When the door is shut once more, Kari turns back to me. Any semblance of warmth has seeped away, and I’m left with the woman who is, for all intents and purposes, in charge of PR around here. She assesses me silently, folding her arms and waiting.
And I don’t know if it’s that I still feel like shit for fleeing that morning, or if I’m shaken by what I just saw, but I fold. “What do you want me to say?”
“That you’re sorry,” she snaps. “That this should never have happened. That no one else knows.”
“Lennox knows.” I blurt the words out before she scares me into total silence.
She startles. “Lennox?”
I nod.
