Stealing Home(52)

My arms crossed like I was trying to keep myself together. There was nothing to fix, because there’d been nothing between us. You can’t fix something you never had.

“Allie? Please?” His voice was louder now, tight with emotion.

That was when I almost caved. That was when my body angled toward the door, my hand lifting in its direction. That was when I realized how weak I’d become because of him. I could barely control my own body. I was incapable of controlling my own thoughts, he’d rendered me into such a fragile state. The strength I’d known had left me in my most desperate moment, and part of me hated him for that.

I should have known what I’d felt for him wasn’t the real thing. I should have known it was false, because weren’t the people we cared for supposed to make us stronger instead of weaker? Weren’t they supposed to make us steadfast instead of feeble?

“I’m sliding a note under your door with a place and a time tomorrow morning. I’ll be there waiting. You can make me wait all day if you want, just please show up eventually. Please tell me what’s wrong so I can make it right.”

When a folded up piece of paper slipped under my door, I flinched, but I didn’t move. He was still waiting outside the door. I wondered if he’d wait there all night.

“For whatever I did, or for whatever you think I did, I’m sorry.”

His footsteps moved away from my door, but it wasn’t until I heard the elevator doors ping that I felt safe to move. I could have left his note on the carpet, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep with it sitting in plain view. After grabbing it, I rushed into the bathroom and was about to drop it in the garbage can when I thought twice. If I woke up in a moment of weakness, I could grab it and read what he’d written. In another moment of weakness, I could actually show up to wherever he was planning on being in the morning. In the worst moment of weakness possible, I could let him construct a story and an explanation I’d buy until I was reminded of the reality of it when the season ended, taking my employment with the team with it.

Veering toward the toilet, I dropped the letter inside and flushed it before I could change my mind. I tried not to let the irony of that letter’s journey hit me.




THE INEVITABLE. I couldn’t put it off another minute longer. After failing to sleep last night and spending the rest of the day hiding in my room, I was done. I was done feeling weak and acting like it. We were both employees of the Shock, and it wasn’t like I could reasonably avoid him the next two months of the season.

Confrontation. I’d have to do it eventually, and I guessed as soon as I stepped foot in that locker room, it would happen. That was fine. If he wanted to so desperately know why I’d cut him off, I’d let him know. He was an idiot if he didn’t already have an idea why.

Instead of taking the bus the team had chartered over to the stadium, I let Coach know I’d catch a cab over. Shepherd was technically who I reported to, but after our last conversation, which was about as unprofessional as it got, I wasn’t eager to report anything to him. Least of all why I was taking a cab instead of the team bus, because he’d know why. He’d love knowing why. I couldn’t deal with Shepherd’s gloating today. Not with everything else.

The locker room was buzzing when I shoved through the doors. After the win of the home game and the season continuing to go so well, the guys were almost acting like they’d already bagged the pennant. Tonight’s game against the New York Vikings should be a straightforward win. The players knew it too.

Shit-eating grins and Viking jokes were flying around the room. The only holdout was one player sitting on the bench in front of his locker, his head cast down, the only one who hadn’t changed into his uniform.

His back was to me, and I had every intention of getting straight to work, but seeing him like that hit me hard. I’d seen Archer after the two losses the team had taken this season, and he hadn’t looked a fraction as distraught as he did now.

A ball lodged in my throat out of nowhere. I wondered how long he’d waited this morning. I wondered what he’d thought with every minute that passed when I didn’t show up. I wondered what he’d looked like when he left. I wondered about it all when really, I shouldn’t have been wondering about any of it.

As though he could sense my presence or the tone of my thoughts, his back stiffened right before his head rotated over his shoulder. Our eyes locked, and while I was trying to fake the indifference in mine, the hurt in his was the genuine thing.

Shoving to a stand, he turned toward me, making no qualms about where he was heading as he moved through the locker room. The look on his face, the way he was moving toward me, I knew I had to get out of there. From the set of his jaw, I guessed he didn’t care if the whole locker room heard what he was about to say.

Veering to the right, I ducked into the med room. Just as I was closing the door, it shoved open.

“You’re not shutting this door on me too.” Archer moved inside the room, closed the door, and pressed the lock.

If this was the way he wanted to do this, then fine. No time would be opportune for confronting him. Slipping an imaginary coat of armor into place, I crossed my arms at him. “Looks like you didn’t exactly wait all day for me to show up.”

He had to work his jaw loose to respond. “After six hours, I got the hint that you weren’t planning on showing up.”