Below the Belt(75)

“Ah, yeah.” Here came the tricky part. “She didn’t know. I hid what I could from her so she wouldn’t have the chance to kick me out before the team was final.”

“And yet you came to me with this anyway,” he said quietly, handing the brace back. “Team isn’t final, you know. Why tell me now?”

“Because I didn’t want you to think she was covering for me. You know we’re . . . well.” He felt heat creep up the back of his neck and he rubbed at it. “Together. So I didn’t want you thinking she was giving me preferential treatment. I’m sure if she knew, she would have walked the steps with me to get me healed up.”

The coach nodded, then sat back and laced his fingers over his stomach. “Sounds like we have a problem. Several problems, really. If you can’t be honest with your trainer, then how do we know you’re not going to keep hiding injuries until you get yourself killed or permanently injured?”

He started to speak, but Coach Ace cut him off.

“And if she couldn’t see you were hurting, despite you insisting you were fine, then maybe she doesn’t have quite the backbone for this job I thought she did.”

“No, that’s not it at all.” Aw, hell. He’d come in here to prevent her from getting fired, and now he was walking the entire conversation in that direction on accident. “She pushed me to talk about it, but I chose not to.”

“And she didn’t come to me with her concerns. That’s a problem.”

“I’d rather you take that out on me, Coach. But even if you think there’s a conflict with our relationship, the solution is simple.” With a deep breath, he stood. The ache in his chest bloomed like a wound. He wondered whether, if he looked down, he’d see a puddle where his dreams had bled out of him. “I understand this is the end of the road for me, but I hope you’ll let me talk to my group before I go.”

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

Brad’s ass hit the chair before his brain clicked. “Uh, back to my home base, I assume.”

“I didn’t dismiss you, Marine.” Coach leaned forward, elbows hitting the desk with twin thuds. “You’ve gotta be shittin’ me. You’re ready to give up?”

Give up his dream? No. Sacrifice for Marianne’s sake? Brad debated how to phrase it without sounding sanctimonious . . . and found there wasn’t one. So he simply shook his head.

“But you’d rather walk out the door than have me ask for Cook to go.”

He nodded, figuring words weren’t required.

Coach made an inarticulate sound. One of those neutral sounds that could mean things were turning around for the better . . . or that shit was about to get really bad.

“Why are you so sure you’re done here?”

“I was dishonest.” The situation was pretty cut and dried to Brad. “I should have spoken to Ma—Cook when it started hurting, and I shouldn’t have hidden the prognosis.”

“So instead of letting the heat come down fifty-fifty on her head with yours, you’ll just take it all, pack up and go. Marines,” he muttered. “White knights, every one of them. How about,” he continued in his normal tone, “we choose to not look at it as dishonesty, but rather as a mistake.”

Brad sat at the edge of the chair, feeling suspiciously like a rabbit surrounded by traps. Some were real, some were fake. And he had no clue where to place his next step. So he just sat, blinking, like a genius.

“Some might call it grace,” Coach went on, as if not noticing Brad’s sudden lack of speech. “It’s not an ideal mistake, I’ll grant you. But I have a feeling this isn’t a mistake you’ll be making again. Ever. Is it?”

Brad shook his head at that.

“Besides that, I think you do more good to the team than harm, even if you’ve got a semi-bum leg. Come with me.”

Brad followed him to the door of the office, looking out over the gym. The team was all in a forward fold, with Marianne’s friend Kara leading them through a transition to a half moon. Kara demonstrated both the beginner positon and what Brad assumed was the actual regular position.

Instinctively, Brad’s eyes sought out Marianne. But her compact body wasn’t mixed in with those of the rest of the athletes. She wasn’t there.

“See Tressler?”

Brad fought the urge to roll his eyes. Pavlovian response to the younger man’s name. He glanced through the rows and found him at the back. “Yes, sir.”

“Watch.”

Beside Tressler, Chalfant wobbled, then nearly collapsed on the next transition. Brad winced. The guy had come a long way, but he still carried the heart of a klutz around with him. And falling on his ass in front of Tressler was the worst-case scenario.

To Brad’s surprise, Tressler waited for Chalfant to stand, then nudged him with an elbow, and pointed to his own feet. He was demonstrating a better way to position his lower foot for the pose to make it easier. Chalfant grinned and followed suit, hitting the next pose with more confidence, if not grace.

“Two weeks ago,” the coach’s deep voice said over his shoulder, “Tressler would have been mocking Chalfant for a week for landing ass over elbows during yoga. Now he’s helping out, without any of the coaching staff watching to suck up to. That change in his spirit wasn’t from us. It was you.”