Page 9 of Face Off

I shook my head and bounced on my toes, waiting for him to call the combinations. As we rotated around the ring, I kicked, punched, and growled until I was dripping sweat. I lost sense of time while I zeroed in on those pads and thought about how awful the morning had gone.

Finally, Mitch stepped back and dropped his hands. “Want to talk yet?”

I jumped down and grabbed my water bottle, drinking half of it before taking a breath. “I had a meeting with Coach, Chris, and James.”

“The big guys, huh?” He leaned against the raised platform while two women climbed in from the other side.

“Yeah, it was crap. They said I’m performing at the level they expect and brought up my injury from two seasons ago.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Is that still an issue?”

“Not really. If I get hit wrong, sometimes it will ache for a few days, but that’s pretty normal. Anyone would feel that whether or not they have a past injury.”

He nodded. “And how are your stats? Are they that different from last season?”

“I haven’t been paying close enough attention.” Stats didn’t normally faze me. I trained hard and gave every game all I had. What more could they ask for?

“Well, start there. Get all of your numbers from the office and see where you can make improvements.” He watched the women spar for a second before turning back to me. “I had a feeling there would be some changes with the new management, but I didn’t think they would target individual players. It seems like they’re looking for scapegoats.”

“That’s exactly how I felt.”

“Jessica, lift your elbow,” he called to one of the women. She gave a single nod and adjusted her arm. I checked her out, wondering if Mitch was interested in her, but his attention was already back on me.

“My agent asked them to put together a detailed list of what they want me to improve, with specific numbers. He didn’t want them to be able to say in a month or at the end of the season that I didn’t get to where they wanted.”

“That was a good idea.” He took another sip. “Have they spoken to anyone else?”

“I’m not sure. I didn’t stick around long enough to find out.”

He looked past me, and I waited, letting him think. “Maybe you should see Amelia or Madi. Have them check your ankle and make sure there isn’t any lasting damage to worry about. Then you’ll know if it’s safe or not to push yourself harder.”

“I already got the all-clear from Madi.” It had been over a year ago. Why was this still an issue?

“Things can change. You might have reinjured it without realizing. We’re conditioned to handle more pain than we should.” He pointed at me with the water bottle. “You should check all the boxes, make sure you’ve covered all your bases, so if it comes down to it, you know that you’ve done everything right.”

That was a fair point. I didn’t want to make a small mistake or have an oversight that could give management the excuse they needed to get rid of me.

“They said they would send me to the farm to ride out the last year of my contract,” I admitted.

His brows snapped together. “They can’t do that.”

“They can, and I think they will.”

He shook his head. “There has to be something else going on that we don’t know about.”

“Why wouldn’t Coach Romney give us a heads up?” I asked.

“How did he seem in the meeting?”

I’d been too angry to realize it then, but thinking about it now, I recognized the shock simmering just below the surface. “It didn’t seem like he knew either.”

“Then he probably didn’t. You know how he is. He has his players’ best interests in mind at all times, even when we don’t like it. I don’t think he’d let them throw you under the bus if he’d known beforehand.” He looked past me and I turned, expecting to see Jessica again, but it was a tall, thin man about my age with more tattoos than bare skin on his arms, neck, and torso. He looked like he belonged in a punk rock band, playing the drums.

When I faced him again, Mitch was looking at me. “Try not to stress too much. I know that’s easier said than done, but you can’t let it get in your head and affect your game. You need to prove them wrong and remind them how great of a player you are.”

I flexed my hands and nodded. “I’ll try.”

“Good. You want to keep going?” he asked.