Page 34 of Offside

I thought about Anna’s voice. Figure out what you want.

I stared at the ceiling. Jag vet vad jag vill, I thought. I know what I want. That had never been the problem.

I knew what I wanted. I’d probably known for longer than I was willing to say out loud. The problem wasn’t knowing. The problem was Griffin, and the team, and the C on my jersey and everything that came with it, and the fact that wanting something didn’t mean you got to have it because you’d finally admitted you wanted it.

I thought about what she’d said in the kitchen at Cole’s house. Griffin would lose his mind, and we work together. Then it would be complicated. Three true things she’d laid out like evidence, not objections, and I’d said very to the last one instead of disagreeing, because it was true, it was all true.

I didn’t exactly leave the room.

I pushed off the wall and went to find someplace else to be besides this hallway. I thought about the strand of hair against her neck for the rest of the afternoon, and about the look on her face when I’d said it, and how she hadn’t glanced away.

CHAPTER 8

MAREN

The thing about working with someone you were trying not to think about was that, according to the rules of karma, the job required you to think about them constantly.

Not the way I wanted to think about him. Not the hair tuck or the corridor or the low register of his voice when he’d said I didn’t exactly leave the room when I’d had to lock my knees to stay in place or fall over completely. The regular, professional thinking about Ryan Lindqvist that my job demanded every single day.

His shoulder. His sleep schedule, flagged in a staff meeting as something to monitor. His nutrition log, which he kept more diligently than almost anyone on the roster. He was the most self-disciplined person I’d worked with in four years of sports medicine, which was either admirable or maddening depending on the hour.

I lay awake on Wednesday night telling myself I was reviewing treatment protocols.

I was not reviewing anything but the memories of him barely touching me, his hand grazing my cheek. All of it.

Thursday. Eight o’clock. He knocked on the open door and came in, and when I looked up he was almost smiling, which on Ryan Lindqvist was the equivalent of anyone else walking in grinning.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey.” He set his water bottle on the counter. “You ready for Saturday?”

San Jose. My first road trip with the team, which I’d been trying not to think about too hard because every time I did I remembered I’d be on a charter with forty people including him for two hours each way, and that was a lot of proximity for someone who was actively managing her space from the captain.

“Absolutely,” I said. “Shirt off, lie back.”

He pulled his T-shirt over his head and sat on the edge of the table. “First road trip with the team?”

“First one. The medical staff are rotating, so we’re all taking turns.”

“It’s pretty similar to here. Just not your own equipment.” He sat back on his hands. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Good to know.”

The corner of his eye creased. Then he lay back, one arm behind his head, and found the ceiling, and I got to work.

I positioned myself at the head of the table and started the assessment, moving his arm through rotation with both hands, watching for the places where his breath shifted even when he was working to hide it.

“Still tight here,” I said, pressing into the restriction.

“A little.”

“Did you ice it after practice yesterday?”

Silence.

I dropped my gaze to him. He was studying the ceiling with great focus. “Ryan.”

“I meant to.”