by Hughes, Maya
Swinging the door shut, I turned to the overly large men crowded into the locker room.
I opened my mouth and Declan piped up before I could get a word in.
“We know you’re busy and have a lot going on, but we’re running out of options, Imo.”
“Help us, Imogen, you’re our only hope.” Heath put on his best Princess Leia impersonation.
My glare intensified.
Emmett grabbed Heath, putting him into a friendly headlock with his hand over Heath’s mouth.
Declan stepped closer. “Preston talked about how much you helped him that summer when he lost it. When he thought he’d never play again.” The words were tight and low.
A lump lodged in his throat. “He told you—”
“Not the specifics, but he told me enough to know that if there’s anyone who might be able to get through to Colm it’s you. Bailey said his chances are slim, and with everything that went down with Ford and Liv...”
“They’re still not talking? What exactly happened?”
“I keep forgetting you haven’t been around.” Declan gave me the run down. The seeing each other behind Colm’s back. The sex tape debacle. The fire at Liv’s apartment, and Colm freaking out that something had happened to her. So many heightened emotions running right into the crescendo of him getting re-injured the night after I dragged him into bed. He was in self-destruct mode that night and what had I done? I’d messed with his head and emotions by bolting, because I had more baggage than Paris Fashion Week.
“We’re not sure what to do. Right now, we’re just trying to be there, even just physically, since he refuses to talk to anyone.” Declan had always been Mr. Laid Back, but now his gaze was intent and his words urgent. Preston used to grumble about how much talent he had, if only he’d take things a little bit more seriously. And he’d been right. A championship banner hung in the stadium thanks to Declan’s talent and dedication last season. “He’s on the edge, Imogen.”
“He’s not going to be happy to see me.” My stomach knotted. Maybe this would at least let me say sorry to his face.
“Welcome to the club,” Ford grumbled with his biceps bunching as he crossed his arms tighter across his chest. “If he hasn’t actually told you to fuck off, you’re doing better than the rest of us.”
“What if I make it worse?” Dragging Preston back from that void hadn’t been easy, but I’d known how Preston ticked. That inside knowledge had been crucial. Even though Colm and I weren’t as close, could I let Colm face the same uncertain future and not even try to help?
Everyone wouldn’t be this worried if it wasn’t serious.
Ford’s jaw clenched. “You’re our Hail Mary, Imo. It can’t get any worse.”
I was the last person who should go near Colm, but I couldn’t come up with a good reason to say no in front of them. My mouth opened and closed. The words wouldn’t come. The fact I’d snuck out after having the best sex of my life didn’t exactly scream responsible friend.
“Let me think about it.”
8
Imo
“You’re Imogen?”
A woman who couldn’t be over five-one stood from her spot on one of the couches in my apartment building lobby. Despite her size, I was still tempted to run back inside the elevator.
“Yes?” I gripped the strap of my bag tighter.
“Was that a question, or are you Imogen?” Her eyes narrowed and I felt like she was inspecting my skeleton with her x-ray vision.
“I’m Imogen.”
Her posture relaxed the tiniest bit. “Good. You’re the third blonde I’ve asked already. Shit was getting awkward.” She stalked toward me like she was six feet tall. “But now that I see you, the descriptions make sense.”
“And you are?”
“Damn, sorry.” She wiped her hand on her jeans and held it out for me. “I’m Bailey. The team trainer. Colm’s trainer.”
“You’re the Bailey.” My gaze darted to the exit, but I had no doubts she’d tackle me to the ground if I tried to escape.
She eyed me up and down. “In the flesh. I’m sure you expected an ogre from how they talk about me.”
“No, you seem about right.” Oversized in every way except her stature. She exuded don’t screw with me, a skill she must have honed over the years working with rough and tumble athletes.
“Oh, nice to meet you.” I shook her hand, trying not to wince as her grip threatened to bruise my bones.
“Sorry. I’m used to shaking hands with those oversized jocks. Didn’t mean to break out the bone crusher.” She raised her hands and backed away a step.
“Did the guys send you?”
“They’re not exactly subtle, are they?” She stood with her arms locked across her chest, exuding confidence that I wasn’t walking out of here without agreeing to whatever she wanted.
“No, they aren’t.” As much as I wanted to be mad at them, the way they rallied around one another when someone needed help was admirable. It showed they cared, even if it meant turning my life upside down. “You want me to work with him.”
“Yes.” Her smile was big and toothy.
“I’m sure there are nine hundred other people out there who’d do better to get him to where he needs to be to get back on the ice.”
“But Declan, Emmett, Heath, and Ford keep coming back to you.”
“They’re so sweet and they think they know what Colm needs, but there are so many other options for him out there.” I turned, trying to gauge how quickly I could close the distance to the door. Why did everyone think I was best for him? Why’d they think I could give him something no one else could?
Maybe I could. I shook my head and took another step back.
“And if there aren’t?” Bailey stood, bringing herself up to her full height. “Do you honestly think I can’t see you trying to get away from me?” Her lips pinched and her eyes narrowed.
My heart skipped and I tightened my grip on my bag. “It wouldn’t be a good fit. Like, at all. Trust me, he’d be better off in someone else’s hands.” I’m ninety percent sure I bolted from the building in only three steps before she could get out another word. Thankfully, she didn’t chase me.
The rest of the day went by as it usually did. Cecily had to bust out the duct tape when our water cooler did its shimmy dance across the floor of the break room, and I had to modify my sessions when our bench press bench collapsed. At least no one had been sitting on it at that moment.
“Imogen. Terry wants to see you.”
I stashed my folders in my slot behind the desk, trying to close up that pit in my stomach. No one liked being called into their boss’s office, even if they hadn’t done anything wrong. Had I? I wracked my brain to think of anything I might’ve screwed up. Now that the summer was finished, my modified schedule was over, but Terry had been cool with that.
Why hadn’t she come out to talk to me, if it was no big deal?
I knocked on her door, shifting my bag on my shoulder.
Her ‘come in’ didn’t sound ominous at all. It sounded chipper.
“Hey, Terry, Cecily said you wanted to see me?” I pushed the door all the way open and jerked when I spotted Bailey tossing a baseball from hand to hand beside Terry.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!” She slapped down the papers in her hand onto her desk.
“Tell you what?” I tore my gaze away from Bailey.
“About the offer! This is going to do so much for the center. Get so much new equipment and make the repairs.”
“Imogen hasn’t given me her final answer yet.” Bailey smirked, tossing the ball up in the air.
“How could she not?” Terry’s head whipped from me to Bailey.
“Maybe she wanted to discuss it with you first.” The dry smack of the ball hitting her palm punctuated the silence in the room.
“The donation for taking on the case is so generous. Imogen, don’t worry if he doesn’t make the progress you expected, even that would be enou
gh to tide us over for a while. But if you are able to get him back to pro form, that money could change everything for everyone here.”
“That’s what I told her.” Thwap against her palm as she snatched the ball out of the air. “But you know how modest she is. Always trying to stay out of the spotlight. She doesn’t think she has the skills to get the job done.”
Terry made an indignant noise. “Imogen, you’re one of the best we have here. Don’t ever doubt yourself. And think of the good this money could do for the center.” Her eyes shone bright with hope.
I glared at Bailey whose smile widened over Terry’s shoulder. Bailey’d played me. She honed in on my weakness and taken me out like a Great White shark attacking a lone swimmer. No wonder the guys were all afraid of her. If this was her playing nice, what did mean Bailey look like?
Twenty minutes later, Terry was laying out all the changes and improvements she’d make to the center, and treating me getting Colm back on the ice like it was a foregone conclusion.
“Crap, I have a meeting to get to. Thank you so much for everything, Bailey.” Terry clung to Bailey’s hand like she might take back everything she’d already agreed to.
“No problem at all. And we’re so happy to have Imogen on board.”
“Use my office as long as you need.” Terry gathered up stacks of paper. “I’ll see you later.” She brushed past me with flushed cheeks and a Grand Canyon-sized smile, and I was surprised she didn’t kiss me full on the lips.
“I can’t believe you just did that.” I whirled on Bailey.
Her smirk was firmly in place. “You gotta do what you gotta do.” She shrugged.
“You don’t look desperate.”
“I hide it well.”
“How am I supposed to get him ready to play this season in such a short amount of time? He’s not even cleared to get back on the ice yet.”
“Except, he is.”
I dropped my bag from my shoulder with the strap in my hand. “What do you mean?”
One quick glance over her shoulder, like we weren’t all alone in Terry’s office, and she leaned in. “This didn’t come from me, but the doctor cleared him for practice four weeks ago. Colm’s been ice ready since then, but won’t come to the rink. Won’t work out with anyone and won’t even tell me if he plans on coming back this season.”
“And you think I can fix this?” He wouldn’t want to see my face let alone work with me.
Her gaze swept over me from top to bottom. “The guys think you’re the one who can get his ass back in action, so I’m trusting them, which means I’m trusting you. I’m willing to try, are you?”
“You don’t even know me.”
“No shit. I don’t, but we’re—well, I’m desperate at this point. We have the healthy player bonus and you’d get paid for each session.”
“It’s not about the money. I just don’t think I’m the best person for the job.”
“There are no people left. He’s blown up every relationship I have with sports physiotherapists in the tri-state area. I’m calling in favors to get other injured guys back on the ice.” She dragged her hands over her face. The weight of the situation seemed to be hitting her harder than she let on.
“Look. He was my first recruit. I’m trying to move into scouting more. Colm was my first pick and the four others I’ve chosen have washed out already. He’s kind of my last shot to not be relegated to the team gym for the rest of my career. You’ll get paid on top of your regular fee, since you’ll need to go to him.”
“I’m not doing this for the money.”
Her head perked up. “But you’ll do it? Will you please give it a shot?” She stressed that word and it was probably the closest she got to begging.
I dropped my bag beside the desk. “Can I see his file?”
Rocking back, she reached over her shoulder and picked it up off Terry’s desk.
“You came prepared.”
“Always.”
And that’s how I left the center with a new client added to my roster. A client who most likely hated me, but that would have to take a backseat to everything else. He wasn’t skating even though the doctor’d cleared him. Preston’s reaction after his diagnosis had been hard, probably one of the hardest things outside of losing him, but Colm could get back to his pro career. It was different—less complicated.
I could do this. Keep it together, Imogen. How bad could it be?
9
Colm
“Are you going to pretend we’re not here?” Liv dropped her purse on the kitchen island.
I knew I should’ve saved my food run for once the guys had left for the day.
“Anyone else want pizza?” Declan tugged the playing card off his forehead and stood.
Emmett followed right behind. “Lorenzo’s?”
“Yeah, let’s get the hell out of here before things get even more awkward.” Heath raced for the front door with all the subtlety of a fifty-person marching band.
It closed behind them and now it was the three of us.
Ford stood at Liv’s side just like he had the morning I’d found out they were sleeping together.
I grabbed a bowl from the cabinet and found a box of cereal.
“This is the game you’re playing? The silent treatment? Real fucking mature, Colm.” Liv leaned in, splaying her fingers on the countertop.
I dumped the contents into my bowl and took the milk out of the fridge.
“Have you reconsidered the MCATs and med school?” My hand tightened around the cold plastic.
“No. I’m not going to med school. I don’t want to be a doctor. I’m going to teach dance.”
“Then no, I don’t feel the need to talk to you.”
“Why won’t you hear me out?”
“Because that wasn’t the plan, Liv. I didn’t sit through summer sessions of biology so I could help you with your homework, or traipse across the country visiting thirty-seven colleges until you decided on the one I’d suggested in the first place, or give up all my vacations to take you to pre-med summer camp in Upstate New York for four summers so you could flip a switch and decide it wasn’t for you anymore.”
She bit her lip. “And I’m grateful you did all of that. But… It’s my life.”
“And it was my life too. But did you ever care about what I had to give up? What responsibilities I had to deal with? What I wanted to do?”
“It’s not all about you.”
“And it’s not all about you either. You made your choice, so why are you here?”
“I didn’t make a choice. You forced a choice on me. I’d never want to choose between you and Ford. You’re my brother, you’ll always be my brother. But I love Ford. Shouldn’t you want that for me?”
“And when that switch is flipped again and you realize you’ve made a mistake, or he breaks your heart, then what? I already know he can’t protect you.”
Ford took a step forward.
I bared my teeth at him, clenching my jaw to keep myself from snapping at him like a damn wild animal.
“Come to do a bit more damage to my knee and my career?”
“You took a swing at me.”
“After you kept her nearly dying in a fire a secret from me. And after I was forced to watch a damn public sex tape of my sister!” The glass in the cabinets rattled from the force of my yell.
“I’d said it was a mistake. We didn’t know anyone was watching.” That zapped some of the anger from both of them.
“It shouldn’t have happened in the first place.”
“We got carried away. No one was supposed to see us. Especially not you.”
“But I did. So excuse me if I don’t think you’re the best person for my sister.”
“Shouldn’t that be my choice?” Liv stepped closer.
I poured the milk on my cereal and took a bite, not tasting it. “Who’s stopping you?” I shrugged.
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say to me.”
“You want
to live your own life and do your own thing. Go ahead. I’m not stopping you.”
“You’re going to shut me out.”
“I’ve cut you off.”
“This isn’t about the damn money. Not everything is about money, Colm. You think you can use it to control me, but you can’t. I’ll prove it and then maybe you’ll see that I get to decide what happens in my life. Me and only me.” She jabbed her finger at the center of her chest, before flinging the front door open.
Ford closed his hand around the strap of her purse. “You were always the one with your head on straighter than the rest of us, but you’re dead wrong when it comes to me and Liv. I love her and she loves me. We’re not doing this to get back at you or piss you off. We fell in love and I’ll do everything in my power to make her happy every day we have together. Life is short, man. You know that. Is this how you want to spend the rest of your days? Old and bitter before your time? She needs a brother, not a dad.”
I’d been the only person she could count on for so long and just like that she doesn’t need me anymore?
“You don’t know what she needs, and you don’t know anything about what our lives have been like.”
“Like I wasn’t there trying to help you along the way. Like I didn’t go to those weekly dinners with you half the time. Like I didn’t help bake those shitty brownies with you. Or I didn’t go buy a new microwave that time you accidentally hit thirty minutes instead of three, trying to make popcorn during one of her sleepovers.”
A smile tugged at the corners of my lips, but I forced it away. He’d been there, which made him being with Liv even worse.
“You always tried to cast me as her brother and yourself as her dad. That wasn’t how it was. I was a friend. And I stepped back when my feelings for her got complicated, but she’s twenty-one now. She’ll be graduating from college this spring.”
He stuck his hand into her bag and pulled out a white envelope with metallic writing on it. “She came over to give you this.” He slid it across the counter. “She’s your family, man. Get your head out of your ass.”