Page 31 of Play For Me

Another shrug. “You were rude ‘cause you were having a rough night. You also helped my cousin when she needed it. I’d say that evens things out.”

“Oh. I mean. Okay. Sounds good.”

She nods once and moves to the door, and I suddenly really don’t want her to leave. “So we’re good then?”

“Sure,” she says, without turning back.

“Does that mean you’re not going to give me a hard time about this training arrangement?”

She looks over her shoulder, eyes flashing as a smile curves her lips. “Definitely didn’t say that.” Then she’s walking through the door without another word.

And I don’t know if I should laugh—or be afraid of that glint in her eye.

TEN

SOLOMON

A week later and it’s pretty clear I should have gone with fear. Cecelia has already missed one of our scheduled sessions and spent the other barely acknowledging me while she rushed through the rehab workout I had planned. When I told her I wanted to try some ultrasound therapy, she rolled her eyes, told me she didn’t have time for “this bullshit,” and left the session early.

So, yeah. It’s not going great.

“She hates me,” I tell Jay as we leave the student commons after lunch on Thursday. “Like, shereallyhates me.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t.”

“No, she definitely does.”

“How long you think we’re gonna keep having this conversation?” he asks, stopping to dig through his bag. “Because we’ve been pretty much going back and forth for the past two days.”

Since he has zero spatial awareness and just stopped in the middle of the crowded walkway, I grab his elbow and pull him away, giving an apologetic smile to the girl who nearly walked into us.

“When she thanked me for helping her cousin, I thought that might be it, you know?” I say, ignoring his last comment. “Like maybe we could be on even ground now. But then she?—”

“Skipped a session,” Jay says, sounding bored. “Iknow, Sol.”

“Because she hates me,” I mutter.

He finally finds whatever he was searching for in his bag—a miracle, really, considering what a trash heap it is in there—and nudges me back to the walk. “She doesn’t hate you. She doesn’t even know you. She just doesn’t want to do this training program.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense! She’s obviously driven and motivated to have a good season.” I shake my head, thinking of the first game I’d witnessed yesterday. I figured if she wasn’t coming to work with me directly, I could at least watch her face off against an opposing team, see how her injury was affecting her play.

The answer was not very much. The girl is scary good. Like, probably the best I’ve ever seen. I was supposed to be watching how her knee was responding to her movements, but I kept getting distracted by her play.

She’s aggressive, confident, and fast. So freaking fast. Cecelia is small compared to a lot of girls on the team, but that doesn’t hurt her game in the slightest. The only thing more impressive than her speed is her tenacity—she’s all over every loose ball, forcing turnovers, constantly making herself a nuisance to the opposing players. She seems to delight in getting in the way, causing as much chaos on the field as she possibly can. I couldn’t help laughing when I saw her break a tackle and shoot the defender a wide, “fuck you” grin.

The opposing teams in this conference musthateher. And I’m pretty sure she’s the kind of player who would revel in their animosity.

What really got to me was the look on her face while she was playing. Determination, concentration, and something lighter that I was pretty sure looked like pure joy. It was the expression of someone who was exactly where they were supposed to be and knew it.

“Maybe she’s just busy,” Jay says. “Maybe she wants to focus on school and playing and all this rehab shit feels like it will take up too much time.”

“She’s not going to be able to play at all if she doesn’t keep up with her rehab,” I mutter, knowing how petulant I sound.

I can feel Jay side-eyeing me for a moment before he snorts with laughter. “Oh my God, your feelings are hurt!”

I snap my gaze to him. “What are you talking about?”

He shakes his head, still laughing. “That’s what this is. You have a huge crush on the girl?—”