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“But what?”
Conor rolls his eyes. “Something has you rattled, otherwise you wouldn’t have brought her up.”
“Nothing has me rattled,” I scoff and then take a swig of the beer.
He watches me with a smug smirk before I roll my eyes.
“Yeah, I guess I see some of myself in her. I can see the want in her eyes, I just hope she has the drive to get there,” I say.
“Make sure she does.”
I look at him, my eyebrows furrowing. “What do you mean?”
“Push her, never let up. Some coaches would take it easy on you because they knew you were good for it. I mean you were a two time Olympian, what was there to coach?”
Conor wasn’t wrong, but he hadn’t met Sage Peters. There was something alluring about her that equally irritated and fascinated me. When I confronted her about her late arrival, I hadn’t expected to be met with a fiery temper. It stirred something in me and I wasn’t sure I liked it.
He clears his throat. “So is she hot?”
“Shut the fuck up,” I say, pushing his shoulder as my lips curl.
Chapter Five
Sage
When I arrive on the pool deck this morning, Coach Amber waves me and a handful of other girls straight to the gym. She says to stretch until Coach Harris joins us and he’ll give us our circuits for the day. It excites me to build muscle; it wasn’t something we worked on a lot at high school considering the gym was permanently taken over by the football and wrestling teams. And whenever I had the chance to train in the camps with local clubs and the national team, they focused more on water skills and drills. Dryland exercise seemed to be something to do on your own time, if you had access to the gym.
Two of the senior girls approach me and my stomach turns in apprehension. They smile as they stand before me. The one with longer dark hair and a tan complexion sticks out her hand.
“I’m Anna. I’ve been captain the past two years, and this is Gwen, our primary goalie.” She points to the pixie redhead next to her.
I grasp her hand. “Sage.”
Gwen snorts, giving me a playful smile. “We know. Everyone knows who you are. Though we thought we would have seen you over the summer.”
Grimacing, I pull my hand back and shrug, knowing it won’t score me any points to say where I was. “Look, I just want to play. I’m not looking to take anyone’s spot.”
Anna tilts her head to the side, confused. “You’re not. Our last center graduated, not that she was all that great. But I know there’s going to be a lot of pressure on you.”
I nod and pinch the inner side of my elbow, wanting to get out of this conversation. “Well, I’ll do the best I can.”
“The other new girl from your school, Emma? She’s a goalie too, right?” Gwen asks.
“Emily,” I correct. “And yeah she is.”
Gwen nods with a smile. “Good, I have my own little prodigy to train to take over.”
I smile back, the previous tension easing away. During high school, I had to deal with some serious jealousy and hazing issues that never seemed to resolve, even after multiple girls were recruited with me. I never got why; I may have been one of the better players at the time but it’s not like I was competing above high school level or taking their scholarships at the same colleges.
“She would appreciate that,” I mumble.
Anna claps her hands together. “Alright, girls. Let’s get those arms and back all loose.”
I watch impressively as she leads us through a series of stretches. Fallon comes in when we’re halfway through, observing us silently. Our gazes lock more than a few times and Itell myself to stop gawking at my coach, that I can go more than a minute before looking at him again. It doesn’t matter if I’ve watched countless videos of his gameplay, if I have an unhealthy amount of memorabilia of the one time he was in a Calvin Klein campaign. That I might have had one or two inappropriate dreams, not that I can control that, but of course they come front and center in my head now, playing on repeat. I turn away from where he’s perched on a pile of foam mats, hiding my burning face.
“With a show of hands, how many of you have experience with weight lifting?” he finally asks, when Anna finishes the last stretch. I glance around as most of the upperclassmen raise their arms. The few other freshmen with me stand there idly. I look up at Fallon to see him already watching me with knitted eyebrows before his gaze moves on.
He waves over the guy who walked in with him. “This is Scott. He’s a close friend of mine and an incredible athletic trainer. He’s going to go over some basic exercises for our newbies. The older girls are with me.”
