“I deserved it.”
“— it didn’t cause any damage and it certainly didn’t outweigh all the good he did at the Cup.”
I shifted to the side of Hansen’s desk to look at what she showed him. It was a photo of Lindsey scoring on me, her hands up in the air, my hand just missing the ball. You couldn’t see her face, but you couldfeelLindsey’s joy. And the comments just reinforced that, though a lot of them were about how I might be an asshole but was still good with kids. Notably from my teammate’s profiles.
“The team’s page gained nearly 2k followers across all platforms and Whip Snap had record-breaking ticket sales.”
“See? Completely professional,” I murmured, in awe at the numbers she achieved. Checking ticket sales and donations wasn’t something I’d thought to follow up on, but I should have. Especially after Kodi put so much effort into promoting it over the last week.
“I can’t deny you get results,” Hansen said, rubbing his eyes. “But you’ve got to stop going viral, Kodi. And stay out of the announcer booth.”
Kodi went pink. “Marshall insisted.”
“Yeah, well, maybe don’t let all these guys behavior dictate what you do?”
“Yes, sir,” Kodi said, eyes down.
“You’re a good kid, Kodi. You just gotta stop getting swept up in these things,” he said with a sigh before shaking his head. “All right, you two can go about your business then. Try and go a week without catching my attention, please.”
Kodi gave him a tight nod, shoving her laptop back in her bag before skittering out the room. I hung back, turning to Hansen when she left.
“She’s the same age as I am. She’s not a kid.”
Hansen turned to me, eyebrow raised again. “Is that so? Well, I’m not sure you two being the same age means much since I think you’rebothacting childish.”
I couldn’t exactly argue with that. I wasn’t proud of how I behaved recently. And while Kodi was the cause of my poor behavior, she wasn’t the problem.Iwas.
“She’s matching my behavior, not the other way around. I’ll do better.” Before he could respond, I walked out, closing the door behind me.
Safe in the hallway, I tilted my head up and sighed.
“I heard what you said there,” Kodi said, voice so close I jumped.
“What?” Apparently when she left the room, she needed to do something similar to me, and had her back resting against the wall to the left of the door, staring at the ceiling.
“I don’t get it, though. Why are you trying to take all the blame?”
“Well.” I paused to clear my throat. “You’ve only acted up when I’ve been stubborn.”
“But you weren’t causing trouble before I got here, right? So why stick up for me?” Kodi tilted her head to look at me, brown eyes glistening.
“You’re good at your job,” I said, biting my lip to keep from telling the truth. At this point, I wasn’t telling her because it was embarrassing. The anger at being forgotten was gone and in its place was the hurt of it.
“Ha. I mean, I am. But I don’t think that’s worth sticking up for. Especially since the thing I’mreallygood at is something you hate.”
“I don’t hate it.”
“Oh, come on,” she scoffed. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I don’t,” I repeated. “Honestly. I … I see its appeal now. And I never would have if not for you.”
I chanced a glance at Kodi, worried I went too far. She was staring at me, mouth slightly ajar. And since I couldn’t tell if that was awe or shock or distrust, I turned away and started down the hallway, towards the locker room.
“I gotta go warm up. I’ll send you this week’s errand list after practice.”
I got about ten feet away before Kodi called out, “Kean!”
Shoulders stiff, I turned back to her.
