Page 47 of Forever Offsides

“What the hell made you show up here today?”

Russel has a bag of ice on his nose and a white cloth stained in red.

“Nice to see you too, Dad.”

“Don’t pull that shit on me. This is not what we discussed. We were going to talk this weekend about everything, and if you still wanted to play here, we were going to go through the proper channels.”

Russel shifts his weight. “I took an earlier flight and went to the hospital.”

Rhett’s hands go to his hips, and he’s gripping them so hard I wonder if he’ll bruise.

I didn’t know that. That’s not what Russel told me. He said he called my office, but he went to find me there instead. Hell.

“Why?” Rhett asks, his tone tight.

“I wanted to talk to her before I saw you. Before we worked all this out, if it even can be worked out. The office she works for told me I could find her here. You didn’t tell me she was the team doctor.”

“We never talked about her. Hell, I didn’t know about her until Asher told me. You mentioned her to me the other night for the first time, and no, I didn’t tell you she was here.”

“Why?” Russel plants his free hand into the wall and holds himself up with it.

Rhett grunts and shifts his weight, his hands on his hips, before he redirects the conversation. “Is she why you want to play here?”

Russel shrugs. “I want to play for this team. I want to play for you. She’s… well… I fucked up with her. I was young and selfish, and I never should have left her the way I did. I don’t know if men get a second chance with someone like her.”

I spin on my heels and leave the building. I don’t want to hear anymore.

The staff is slowly exiting a conference room, and I fall in behind them.

“Are you okay?” Beau, one of the trainers, asks.

“I’m fine,” I tell him.

He gives me a questioning look.

“Just some old drama there, that’s all.”

“There are rumors going around that you used to date Russel Jones.” He pauses. “And that he’s the coach’s son.”

“For once the rumors are correct.”

He bobs his head and leaves it at that.

By some miracle, practice resumes. I don’t know how the conversation ended between my brothers and my father, but the boys are on the field, and so is their coach. They’re working hard. Everyone is.

I stand off to the side and keep my eyes on the field and nowhere else. I don’t look to see if Russel is stupid enough to be hanging around. Practice goes on and on, and the longer it goes on, the more annoyed I am with everything. With this assignment and the fact that Russel wants to return to the Rebels and how he showed up unannounced and uninvited after calling me all week. How Rhett is the head coach and my ex’s father. The fact that he didn’t tell me that, and I had to find out the way I did.

Now my brothers are in the middle of this as well as my father.

Russel has a lot of goddamn nerve. Like an epic amount.

By the time practice ends, I’m on fire. Rhett and I talked almost every night for four months, and all of that ended with one two-minute conversation. Not to mention, he realized that same day that his son is my ex and he said nothing about it. Even after he knew that Russel wanted back on the team.

Shitty! It’s fucking shitty!

On top of that, he was at my bar last night. That’s my neighborhood. I live there. I work there. It’s mine! I don’t even care if I sound like a five-year-old.

All the players including my brothers, head to the locker room after Coach’s big speech—blah, boring, who cares? The training staff takes off, as do the independent neurologist and team doctor.