Page 67 of Her Player

A pause. Then, quietly: "You won't."

The door closed behind him with a soft click.

I set my pencil down.

I stared at my damn clipboard for a long damn moment without seeing a single number on it.

Then I picked up my phone and called Seth and told him to add a coaching staff relationship disclosure to the league filing queue, and after I hung up I sat in my office in the quiet of the early morning and I thought about paperwork. About a man who wrote four pages of documentation because he believed my daughter was worth it. About the kind of guts it took to walk into a room and lay every single one of your cards face up on the desk of a woman who could end your career with a signature.

Goddamn it.

Ryan would have liked him.

I was almost certain of it.

23

RHETT

The sniffling stopped before I got halfway down the hallway.

I stood still and listened. Nothing. Maybe I imagined it. That was one option. But I couldn’t get Coach’s muttered words out of my head from earlier. Just one bite of food. Why was he having to convince Bry to eat? What the hell could have possibly happened between the time I woke up and eight thirty in the morning?

Another broken breath from behind Victoria’s door answered that question.

I knocked softly. “Miss C? You hungry?”

Nothing.

I tried again. “Can I come in?”

Still nothing, so I let my hand fall to the knob and eased the door open. The room was dark. Every inch of it massive and still. I found her in the corner chair, staring at the empty bookcase. Just sitting there. Robe wrapped around her, hair twisted up in a clip, nightgown wrinkled around her ankles.

She didn’t move when I crossed the room. Didn’t flinch when I crouched beside her. Her eyes tracked nothing. Just that blank, still stare at the wall that tightened something in my gut.

“Victoria,” I said. “Can you look at me?”

Nothing.

I placed my hand on her forearm. “Miss C.”

Still nothing. Just the slow blink of her eyes every few seconds and the rise and fall of her chest telling me she was still in there somewhere.

I left the soup on the stove and went back to check on her. She hadn’t moved.

I knew what day it was.

I’d known since I woke up and heard the quiet of the house sitting differently than it usually did. Coach and Bry were already gone when I got to the kitchen. A note on the counter said they’d tried breakfast out. Tried being the operative word.

I made soup. Brothy, simple, easy to get down. I stood at the stove and stirred it and thought about a Tuesday in April and willow trees and a woman who had been carrying this particular weight alone for fourteen years.

By the time I brought the tray back to her room she still hadn’t moved from the chair.

I set the tray down. I turned on the television. I found Golden Girls without having to think about it and I pulled up a chair beside her and I waited.

She didn’t eat. Not at first. But after a while her eyes drifted toward the screen. Then her breathing changed, just slightly, the tight shallow quality of it easing a fraction. I didn’t say anything. I just sat there beside her and let the laugh track fill the room.

Eventually I got a few spoonfuls of broth into her. She didn’t fight me.