Coach was whirling his hand like he was waiting for me to say more. When I didn’t add anything else, he threw his arms in Archer’s direction. “Fantastic. But what does that have to do with tonight’s game?”
“Tonight’s game?” I felt my eyebrows pinch together as I glanced at Archer, still perfectly stoic-faced in his chair, almost like he was waiting to be read a sentence in court.
Coach grumbled something, his cleats clinking on the floor as he started pacing behind the desk. “Yes, can he play or not?” My eyebrows stayed together as he continued, “I’ve gotten everyone else’s opinion on the matter, and now I’d like yours. If it wouldn’t be too big of an inconvenience for you to give it, of course.” Coach shot me a look.
I stood quietly confused for another moment. Waving at Archer, the only one sitting in the room, and ripe from ice and heat treatments, I felt like the answer should have been obvious. “No.” My voice seemed to fill the whole room. “He can’t play tonight.”
I didn’t miss the way Archer’s jaw tightened, his eyes narrowing just enough to give away he wasn’t as removed as he was letting on. I also didn’t miss the rest of the bodies in the room shifting. Shepherd huffed under his breath as his head shook.
Coach didn’t seem to notice any of it—he just kept watching me like he was challenging me to change my answer or something. I wouldn’t though. With this kind of injury, playing a game less than forty-eight hours later shouldn’t even be open to discussion. Archer was out for one game at least, if not a few. It was difficult to say for sure since with an injury like his, you had to take it day by day.
“I’ve got four other people in the room telling me the opposite, Eden.” Coach paused his pacing, his hands going to his hips as he studied Archer in his chair. “What reason do you have to give me for why my star player can’t play a big game tonight?”
Three sets of eyes slid in my direction, varying degrees of smugness and superiority on Shepherd’s, Callahan’s, and Turner’s faces. I returned their looks with one of my own. They all damn well knew it wasn’t in Archer’s best interest to return to the game tonight. Maybe it was in the team’s, but it wasn’t for the player.
“Ignoring the fact that he could barely walk unassisted yesterday,” I began, peaking my brow, “if you put him in the game tonight, Archer has a very high likelihood of reinjuring himself—and much worse. Then your star player might have to sit out the rest of the season instead of a couple of games.”
Coach let that process for a minute while I crossed my arms at the three other people in the room who should have been on board with me. I couldn’t believe that a damn doctor, physical therapist, and the lead athletic trainer would look Coach in the eye and tell him Archer could play tonight.
It was the training profession’s equivalent of malpractice.
But Coach had said the four people in the room had told him Archer could play tonight which meant . . .
My head whipped in Archer’s direction when I put it together. I’d told him he couldn’t play tonight. I’d prepared him because I knew he wouldn’t take sitting out a game well. I couldn’t believe he’d hear me tell him one thing, then go on to tell Coach something else. Anger surged in my veins, and my stare progressed to the point of almost willing him to look at me.
He wouldn’t though. His jaw stayed locked as his stare seemed capable of almost melting the wall in front of him.
“Archer?” Coach’s voice boomed in the room. “You’re sitting out tonight.”
Three annoyed sighs sounded through the room, but all Archer did was give a small tip of his head in acknowledgment.
“We’ll reconvene before the next game, but you’d better make sure you’re listening to the medical team and getting this leg fixed. No more of this tough guy shit, Archer. This team needs you, and not in the form of you riding the bench, you hear me?”
Archer lifted his gaze to Coach’s, his hands gripping the armrests of the chair. “Understood.” Then he shoved out of his chair and left the room without so much as a sideways look in my direction.
WE’D LOST. BY a run.
A few of my colleagues who had been in Coach’s office earlier made no attempts to dull their pointed looks of blame my way. Yes, the Shock may very well have won if Archer had been playing, but they also could have been looking at losing a hell of a lot more had he played and injured himself worse.
I shouldn’t feel guilty—I’d made the right call—but I couldn’t fight the sliver of it I felt. Of course second-guessing came into play too, making me question if I should have said something to Coach about the way Archer had been favoring his leg during those last few innings of the game against the Rays. But if I had and Archer had been benched the last few innings, he wouldn’t have been able to make a hit that brought in two runs in the ninth and won the Shock the game.
Second-guessing was part of the job. It was part of life. I tried to make the best decisions I could and not let myself get hung up in the what-ifs. Which was harder to do when it came to Luke Archer than with anything else in my life.
Even though he’d ridden the bench the whole game, cheering his teammates from the dugout, we hadn’t exchanged more than a few clipped words and bags of ice. I told myself that this was the way we’d have to act around each other when we were with the team, but it still felt odd when the man I’d slept with two nights ago wouldn’t make eye contact when I held out a fresh bottle of water for him.
Whether or not this was part of his act to keep our relationship—whatever it was exactly—hidden, I knew one thing for sure—he was angry. I hadn’t sided with him and the rest of the Lip Service Crew, and as a result, he’d had to sit out a game. In his entire professional career, Luke Archer had never sat out a game. Knowing who he was, I guessed that was how he had been planning on retiring from his career.
So he was upset at me for making the right call. That was fine. I could handle a player pouting because I had to tell him he wasn’t immortal and that mortal instruments like flesh and blood were vulnerable. The more time I’d had to think about it, the madder I’d gotten over the whole thing.
Who was he to get all upset at me for making a good, honest call? I’d only been doing my job, and I’d do it again if I felt it was in his best interest to sit out a game. I didn’t care who he was or how he made me feel—my job came first. It had to. It was all I could count on at the end of the season, because I wasn’t sure Archer would still be there. I might have hoped he would be, but I wasn’t a total fool. A relationship as new as ours, as forbidden as ours . . . the probability of it enduring wasn’t on the promising end of the scale.
Since my thoughts had been a bit flustered, I paused to study the wrap I’d just finished on Reynolds’s ankle. “Is that too tight?” I asked, testing beneath the bandage with my finger to make sure I wasn’t cutting off the circulation to his foot.
“Nothing could ever be too tight, Doc.” Reynolds was no doubt grinning down at me with his brows in his hairline.
“You might change your mind if your toes fall off from lack of blood flow.” I tested the wrap on the other side to find it was okay. Reynolds’s toes would live to see another day.
It was a little after the game, and the Shock were dotted around the locker room, not making their usual post-game noises and chest bumps. The mood was somber, if not downright depressing. The sound of the showers and the squeak of locker hinges were about all of the noise spilling about the room.
Well, and of course Reynolds’s unending soliloquy of innuendos.
“While you’re down there, Doc . . .” Reynolds bobbed those raised brows when I looked up at him with a sigh.
“Watch your mouth, Reynolds.” A looming frame towered up behind me.
I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. The tone of his voice might have been unfamiliar, but the way my body responded when his came near was not.
Reynolds’s face creased. “Whoa. Ease up there, Archer.” He lifted his hands. “I meant no d
isrespect. Sorry.”
I pretended to still be busy testing the bandage to keep distracted.
“It’s not me you owe an apology to.”
Reynolds continued to study Archer like he was confused, which he had every right to be. Archer was known for being laid-back and easygoing. There was nothing laid-back or easygoing about his tone or words.
“Sorry, Doc,” Reynolds said as I stood. “I was just being my usual asshole self. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I know you didn’t,” I enunciated slowly, more for the man behind me than the one in front of me. “Forget about it.”
Reynolds looked at Archer, his shrug reading we good?
“Watch your mouth. For once.” Archer passed me without a look, heading for the showers.
“Dude, I didn’t know Archer could be pissy. I didn’t think he had it in him.”
“He’s not mad at you. He’s mad at me for telling Coach he should sit the game out.” I nudged Reynolds.
“Plus you’ve been icing the shit out of his balls, Doc. A man can only take so much of that torture.” Reynolds’s hand went to his crotch, like he was protecting his own balls from getting iced by me.
“Thanks for the tip. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Reynolds fired a salute before starting to tear out of his jersey while I moved onto the next player on my list.
After that, the locker room cleared out faster than normal. It probably had to do with the guys not being in the mood to celebrate. I was in one of the back rooms, restocking my bag with the supplies I’d run through during tonight’s game, when I heard a pair of cleats echo inside the room.
“You are still here, good. Should have figured.” Coach Beckett was still in his jersey and cleats. In fact, I wasn’t sure anyone had ever not seen him in his jersey and cleats, which had led to the rumor that the man slept in them.
“What can I do for you, Coach?” I asked, stuffing a few more rolls of athletic tape into my bag.
“I just wanted to say thanks for giving it to me straight earlier about Archer. I appreciate that. In fact, I need that. Too many of these people are just going to tell me whatever they think I want to hear, but I need someone who’s going to tell me what I need to hear.” Coach crossed his arms and tipped his head. “I hate losing a game, but what I hate more is losing a season. Good job tonight, Eden.” Before I could say anything, he turned to leave. “The team bus already headed out to the hotel, but there’ll be a car waiting for you and Archer when you’re ready to leave.”
My hands froze inside my bag. “Archer’s still here?”
“Yep. Just you two left.” His voice echoed as he moved through the locker room.
I waited inside the backroom for a few minutes, thinking. I wanted to talk to him, but I wasn’t sure if he felt the same.
Stalling for a few more minutes, I decided to go find him. I hadn’t gotten where I had by being timid and complacent. I wouldn’t approach whatever this was between Archer and me like that either.
Heading into the main part of the locker room, I found it dark and empty. All of the lockers had been cleaned out except for one. Number eleven’s. He was nowhere in sight, but then I noticed the sound of the shower. If he was still in the shower room, he was about to qualify for the longest shower ever.
Then again, maybe someone had just forgotten to turn off one of the showers. I broke to a stop when I got inside the shower room. Someone had left a shower on, but that someone was still hovering beneath it, his head and arms pressed into the tile wall below the showerhead. Archer wasn’t moving; he was just standing there, letting the water rain down on his back and spill down his body.
My throat ran dry watching him like this: naked, braced against the wall, water rolling down him, steam fogging around him. I had to remind myself I was mad at him because damn, there was nothing infuriating about the man stationed in front of me right now.
I felt other things, but anger wasn’t part of the spectrum.
“Archer?”
He didn’t respond. He didn’t move.
“Is this how we’re going to deal with this stuff when it comes up?” I took a few more steps inside the big shower room. “Giving each other the silent treatment?”
I waited a minute. Then two. I was about to turn and leave when he shifted.
“I could have played.” His voice was low, guarded, but at least he was communicating.
“Yeah, you probably could have.”
His head tipped over his shoulder. “Then why didn’t you say that earlier?”
Crossing my arms, I moved closer. “Because I didn’t think you should play.”
A sharp exhale rolled out of his mouth. “I’m a ball player. I get paid to play. My job is to swing the bat and play the field. It isn’t to ride the bench with a bag of ice between my legs.”
“And I’m an athletic trainer. I get paid to take care of the players. My job is to prevent and treat injuries. It isn’t to tell the coaching staff whatever they want to hear.” I didn’t stop moving until I’d reached the wall he was leaning into. Still keeping him at a distance, I turned so I was facing him.
“I’ve got a job to do.” When his head turned toward me, his eyes found mine.
My hands lifted. “So do I, Luke. My job is to make sure you can continue to do yours. So back off.” My voice was growing, bouncing off the walls of the shower room. “If you want someone who will tell you what you want to hear, Shepherd’s really good at that.”
His brows came together as he inspected me. “You’re mad at me?” He sounded incredulous—he almost looked it too.
I gave him the same look right back. “Yeah, I tend to get a little touchy when people question my calls.”
“Good.” He shoved off the wall, turning to face me. Having the full view of him a few feet in front of me made me feel something I shouldn’t have been experiencing in a locker room with a man I was upset with. “I’m kind of angry too.”
“How is that good?”
A fire ignited in his eyes. “You’re about to find out.”
“Luke . . .” I warned, checking the entrance to the shower room.
This was too risky; I didn’t care what Coach had said about us being the last two here. All it took was one of the players realizing he’d forgotten something and popping back in. Or one of the stadium janitorial staff coming in thinking the visiting team had all left. Luke Archer wasn’t just some guy—he was arguably the best player in the sport. If anyone found out we’d done what I could tell he had in mind, the headlines would haunt me until the day I died.
“So I’m done talking with Doc now.” His voice was low still, but this time, it was from desire instead of anger. “I want to talk with Allie.”
When my eyes dropped from his, my theory about what he had in mind was confirmed. “You are talking to Allie.”
“Just making sure.” Going from frozen to a flash of heat, Archer grabbed me by the waist and pulled me in front of him. He shoved my back into the wet tile wall, pressing his body into mine to hold me there. “Hi.”
His hands slipped around my waist as his mouth lowered to my neck. So much for being upset at me for benching him. Not that I was exactly upset at him for challenging my call anymore either. Not with the way he was ever so gently flexing his hips into mine, managing to stroke me with his erection through my pants.
“I missed you,” he said.
“I thought you wanted to talk with Allie.” My words seemed to echo off the tile walls as he continued to suck at my neck. “I don’t think what you have in mind is talking.”
I felt his smile curve against my skin. “It starts with talking. Talking can even be interspersed throughout.” He tugged my shirt out of my pants, his hands instantly sliding up the plane of my stomach until they were molding around my chest. He pried my bra cups down to expose my nipples, and his fingers explored them until I could feel my heartbeat pulsing between my legs.
“What are you doing, Luke?”
&
nbsp; Nipping at the skin stretching across my collarbone, he leaned back just enough to rip my shirt over my head. He threw it down the row of showers. “Getting ready to fuck you up against this tile wall. What do you think I’ve been doing in here all night?”
My thighs squeezed together. “Waiting for me?”
His hands returned to my chest, the look on his face intent. “Waiting to be inside you.”
“I thought you were avoiding me.”
“No, I definitely wasn’t avoiding you. I was biding my time for you.” His grip tightened around my breasts, his hips sliding me down the wall until I was directly beneath the shower stream. I was already damp from before, but it only took a few seconds for the rest of my body and clothes to get soaked.
“Why does sex tend to start with you getting me wet?” I asked, blinking shower water from my eyes.
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Because I like you wet. I like making you wet. Everywhere.”
When he flexed his hips against me this time, my head fell back. After the never-ending night of sex we’d had two nights ago, and having to go without him last night, my body was quivering from withdrawal. I’d never felt this kind of desire before. This kind of desperation that clouded all degree of reason and resolve.
In this moment, all that mattered was Luke Archer’s body and mine connecting in every way two bodies could connect. I was a one-track-minded organism who would do anything to get her fix.
“I need you, Allie.” His fingers pulled the button of my khakis free, his finger plunging inside my panties before the zipper was down. “Can I have you? Can I use your body to get what I need?”
My fists curled against the tile wall when his finger circled me a few times.
“Yes,” I breathed, “if I can use yours for the same.”