Page 26 of Play Dirty

But it was one game. And one game didn’t change anything.

I turned my head, found her, and caught her gaze. Haven stared back at me for a moment with those sharp blue eyes. I thought I saw defiance there, even challenge. If that’s what she was looking for, I could certainly accommodate her.

Eventually though, she looked away.

The coach finished chewing us out, and we finished taking it. By the time we broke off to hit the showers, she and her precious tablet were gone.

I hung back to zip up the rest of my gear, as the guys peeled off. A rush of water filled the room. Steam rolled in, bringing with it the echo of low voices, even laughter.

Haven appeared again in my mind’s eye, looking much too pretty and far too right. I wasn’t sure what I’d seen in those almond-shaped eyes. But there was one thing I did know:

The team was broken, the way it was.

And one way or another, I was getting this fixed.

~ 11 ~

HAVEN

They didn’t say anything about the game. Not the next day. Not the day after that.

But there were hints.

Practice ran like it always did, with Mercer at the helm. The guys were fast and physical; their bodies and actions drowning out whatever words might’ve needed to be said. They were pushed hard, too. Much harder than normal. Coach became ‘Mercer the merciless’ in the implementation of his drills and workouts — a nickname he earned in no time at all.

The players ignored me for the most part, as I gathered my data. But every now and then, I caught it. The extra edge. The sharper hits whenever I near the boards, solely for my benefit. They avoided looking at me whenever possible, and that was fine. But when they finally did, the lingering stares I received were cold enough to give me the shivers.

Not half as cold as my room, though.

Back at the house, things went from bad to worse. What I thought would be an initial hazing period until the guys grew accustomed to me was drawn out and twisted into something else. First, my laundry began disappearing. A sock here. A shirt there. These items would eventually reappear, but not before finding their way into various corners of the dank, add-on mud room that served as our laundromat.

And no matter how fast I was to switch my clothes over, unless I was there when the cycle ended, someone would unceremoniously dump my wet, clean laundry into a pile on the dirty floor.

I didn’t complain. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. I began bringing my tablet into the mud room, to crunch data while keeping an eye on things. And while the place was frigid and creepy and cast in a ghoulish yellow light, at least the floor creaked so badly no one could sneak up on me.

The kitchen however, was a much different story.

I opened the fridge toward mid-week, looking for the chicken I’d prepped. Not only was it missing, but so were most of the groceries I’d purchased. Nearly everything I’d brought in was half-eaten, or gone completely.

I turned, confused, to find Asher and Caleb hanging out in the doorway. Both of them were leaning in, like they’d been there longer than I realized.

“Looking for something?” Caleb asked innocently.

“Food,” I told him.

Asher shrugged.

“I had… stuff in here,” I fumbled. “Blue container. I don’t see it.”

“Yeah,” Caleb chuckled. “That’ll happen.”

I held his gaze.

“That’ll happen?” I repeated.

“Team house,” Asher added. “Not your fridge.”

He said it casually, almost singsongy, like he was choking back laughter.