Below the Belt(81)

“To get ahead of everyone. He’s not running to chase after them, he’s running to get ahead. So if he stopped dead in his tracks, the rest of the team would run smack into him. He’s in their way now.”

“Right. So, what you’re saying is . . . I want her to run into me.”

“There you go.” Looking like a satisfied teacher whose student had finally caught on to the material, Higgs gave him a thumbs up. “So get in her way.”

“Get in her way,” he repeated slowly. The metaphor was making more sense than he wanted to admit. Either Brad was desperate, or Higgs wasn’t half-bad in the romance department. “And I do that . . . how exactly?”

“Sweet Jesus, I have to do everything.” Sitting up with a grunt, Higgs spread his hands out. “What matters to her? Besides you, and maybe family—because involving parents in the wooing of their daughter is just a line that I don’t jump over—what is there?”

“Work. Her career.” That much, at least, was obvious.

“So how can you incorporate that into getting her back? You use her career, some humor, a dash of humility, and you’ve got yourself a surefire way of making sure she can’t miss you.” He settled back against the headboard and grabbed the remote for his small TV from the nightstand. “Get in her way.”

“Get in her way,” Brad mumbled as he walked back to his own room. What the hell was he supposed to do for that? Write “I LOVE YOU” in athletic tape on her training room walls?

He froze with his hand on his bedroom door handle, considering.

Nah. She’d call that a waste of good tape.

There was nothing he could buy . . . she had all the equipment she needed provided to her. He couldn’t help her keep her job . . . Coach Ace had already said he wasn’t going to let her go. So what could he . . .

The lightbulb hit him in the back of the skull like a bolt of lightning. He scrambled over his bed and grabbed his phone and called Tressler.

“Hey. Grab the group and meet me at that craft store off of Western. Yeah, the craft store. No, I’m not bullshitting you, just do it. I’ll be there in twenty. Tressler . . . I need you guys.”

He hung up, feeling hope once more springing through him.

He’d been knocked down, but it was time to get back up and get in Marianne Cook’s way.


*

MARIANNE walked across the gym toward the coach’s office early the next morning, prepared to have her ass handed to her, and then fight like hell to keep her job. As asked, Brad had slipped his report from his doctor and PT under her door the night before. She’d come to the gym early to pick them up and read them through.

Thank God, the damage was minor, and not a real threat to permanent damage. She’d prefer he took the season off to rest and get back to full strength again, but it wasn’t going to cause permanent damage to keep an eye on it, wear the brace and practice with caution.

Three things that could have been happening all along had he just been honest with her.

Since they weren’t due to meet with the coach for another thirty minutes, she wasn’t shocked to see Coach Ace’s door closed. Either he wasn’t in yet, or he was and didn’t want to be disturbed by any early comers.

Prepare to be disturbed.

She knocked, then poked her head in. Coach Ace sat at the computer, staring at the keyboard with disdain. One hand ran over his snowy white hair with agitation. “Coach?”

He glanced up, frustration radiating from his body. “Get in here and type for me.”

“Because I’m a woman?” she asked, deciding to start as she meant to go on: boldly.

“Because you’re half my size and my damn fingers never hit the right keys at the right time.” He stood and held out his chair for her. She sat, because she was at a loss of how else to say no. “Finish typing up this report here in the space. The cursor’s already in place. Last one.” He took a seat in the visitor’s chair and waved at the paper. “Go ahead.”

“Uh, I actually had something important to talk to you about.” She put her fingers on the keys, finding the home buttons, then pulled them back. “We need to talk—”

“About Costa, I know. Type,” he said again, softly. “I’m talking, you’re typing.”

She swallowed, then accepted that not only was she going to get her ass chewed out, she was going to be mildly demeaned in the process. Given some of the hazing she’d seen happen in gyms, typing a single report sheet wasn’t much to complain about. She started at it, typing with the ease born of having a laptop since she was twelve years old.

“Now see? My fingers are too clumsy to go that fast. Or that accurately,” he added, with a small smile. “I spend more time going backward than forward on that thing.”

Marianne couldn’t help but grin at that.

“Now, about Costa.” He settled down in his chair—or rather, the guest chair. His huge frame wasn’t made for a such a flimsy seat. She wondered if she’d be soon dragging him into her training room to ice down a chair-related injury.

“Costa is a leader. He might not be a leader on the scoreboard, but the boy’s got the Pied Piper syndrome.”

Marianne hadn’t ever heard it put quite that way, but could easily follow the coach’s meaning . . . and she agreed with him. She nodded once while glancing between the paper and the computer screen.