Lola saw me first, blinking in surprise before her mouth tilted into a grin. “Well, look who’s alive.”
Evie’s eyes narrowed like she was scanning me for symptoms. “Are you feeling better, Cap?”
“Yeah, better,” I said, setting my bag down and pulling out my boots. Keeping my head down was my only option.
Micah entered the room but didn’t say anything at first, though the way the room went still made it obvious every eye was on me. My ears pulsed with heat, but I resisted the urge to shift away.
“Morning, everyone,” she said. I flicked my eyes up to her briefly to see her attention on me, and I looked away again. Could she tell I’d lied? I wasn’t sure. “Alright, we’ve got a shake-up training today. Our first game is next week, so the coaches want us to group with the guys this morning and do a shared session.”
My stomach dropped straight through the floor. No, in fact, it felt like my whole skeleton might fall out of my ass. A group session? Whose idea was that? I bent over and yanked the laces to my boots tight enough to sting, my fingers fumbling and crossing them wrong before starting again. I was going to have to stand beside him today, act like nothing happened between us, and pretend my mind wasn’t replaying it in perfect clarity.
“Fantastic. A shared session with the Knights before ten in the morning. I didn’t carb-load nearly enough for this,” Delany said.
Evie hummed thoughtfully. “I did. For entirely different reasons.”
Lola wiggled her eyebrows. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Absolutely,” Evie replied. “If we’re partnering for drills, I’m calling dibs on someone tall enough to lift me without breaking a sweat.”
“That’s all of them,” Lola pointed out.
“Exactly.”
“I’m sure your boyfriend would have something to say about you being lifted by them,” Lola quipped.
“And your girl would be fine?” Evie retorted.
“Fair point.”
Micah shot them a long-suffering look, though the corner of her mouth twitched, and I was grateful the conversation was distracting. I exhaled under my breath, letting my pulse regain normal rhythm as I listened to them.
“You two do realize the Knights are not here for you to climb like trees, yes?” Micah crossed her arms.
“Oh, we realize,” Lola said breezily. “We just choose to ignore it.”
Evie tilted her head, mock pondering. “Do you think they’ll do those resistance runs again? You know, the ones where someone holds on to your hips from behind while you push forward?”
Lola’s hands flapped in excitement. “Or maybe we can do human sled drills where we hang off their necks and they pull us.”
“Anything to get under a Knight,” Evie joked.
I choked on nothing, scrambling to keep my face neutral. Because if there was one thing I did not need, it was the image of Connor above me. The memory of his warm hands gripping my hips surged to the surface again, stealing the air from my lungs and tightening my muscles like my body had braced for impact.
“You good, Cap?” Evie’s voice brought me back to the present like a cold splash of water.
“Yep,” I said, too fast.
“Alright, enough. Shared sessions are professional opportunities, not auditions for your dating lives.” Micah clapped her hands, stopping the chatter.
Evie grinned. “Can’t it be both?”
“No,” Micah replied dryly. “It really cannot. Don’t make me regret this, girls.”
Lola leaned closer to me and Evie as she passed, whispering conspiratorially, “If the Knights do partner stretches today, I’m throwing myself at fate.”
These girls were all talk and jokes. I wondered what they’d think of me, knowing that I’d climbed the Knights’ captain like a tree two days ago.
My cheeks warmed again as I bent over my bag, pretending to search for my water bottle, just to hide my face.
