“Yeah?” Eddie asked, glee in his voice.
“I still can’t believe I never got wind of that,” I sulked. I would have totally got involved. My thoughts froze. Heck, I would have lost, which would have been totally mortifying.
“It was popular too. A few grand all up by the time the reports came out.”
I shook my head and noticed Sutton’s mouth twitching. We could have really screwed that up for Pearce, who’d won, if we’d admitted the truth when I was in the hospital. “You do know that was all gossip, and nothing official was announced. What would you all have done if it had been bullshit?”
I glanced over my shoulder, and Pearce shrugged, his cheeks pink. His reaction made me pause. I wondered how he’d felt with all the betting going on? Pearce hadn’t come out publicly yet. He’d already shared with us that his family knew and that he’d had a couple of boyfriends over the years. But we were the only people in the industry who knew.
A stab of sympathy hit me at what that must be like for him.
What had happened between Sutton and me was rare, I expected. I hadn’t had years of being afraid, being in the closet. Hell, being ashamed, as I understood that was a far too familiar feeling. Instead, while my attraction and the depth of my emotions had come out of left field, I’d embraced them, hadn’t hidden from them. That was who I was.
And I was so lucky that was the case.
I made a mental note to talk to Sutton and make a greater effort with Pearce, find out if he had a plan. The young forward didn’t know it, but it was his bravery that had led to Sutton sharing his truth with me, and me opening myself up to the unknown.
We both owed him a lot.
“It’s all good,” I said with a smile, wanting to close the conversation down. I glanced at the gym door ahead. “If I pass out, no drawing dicks on my face or anything, okay?”
Eddie and Pearce snorted. Sutton didn’t. Instead, his concern beat down at me. The man knew I could deflect like it was an Olympic sport.
* * *
The treadmill was goingthe speed of an injured snail that had been doused with salt. But after thirty minutes on the thing, I couldn’t hear the music pumping out of the sound system anymore. Not with the loud beating of my heart in my ears.
A migraine hadn’t brought me to my knees, which was a win. I had a feeling one wasn’t far behind.
“Ten more minutes,” Jimmy instructed, eyeing me carefully. Since the man apparently had a whole laundry list of experience with working with athletes post-concussion, I was willing to trust him.
He’d put me through my paces. I’d been concerned at first after the mountain of questions and the brief physical he’d pulled in the on-site doc to do. But Jimmy didn’t seem to be holding back.
It did wonders for my headspace, if not my abs and ass that weren’t quite as toned as they were a month ago.
“Hey, Sutton,” I called out, trying to steady my breathing so I didn’t come off as an unfit tub of lard.
He grunted at me from the weights bench where Antonio, the other full-time coach, was spotting him.
“You think you can bounce a quarter off my ass yet? It says here I’ve walked 1.8 miles. My glutes are feeling it.”
The metal bar clanged as it hit the frame before the sound of laughter erupted around the gym. Half of the college students were with us as part of their gym routine and “get to know the coaches” task. I expected from the way I’d been running my mouth off, they’d be forming an opinion about me real fast. Just the way I liked it.
“Jay-bomb,” Eddie said with a snort of laughter. “Didn’t we ascertain, what… seven years ago, that you were third in line for the greatest glutes?”
Pearce shot out, “Do we really wanna know?”
“It’s all lies,” I called out to anyone listening. “The contest was rigged. And my twenty-six-year-old ass wasn’t in the glute-envy condition it’s in now. Just ask Sutton.”
“Don’t bring me into whatever you’re talking about,” he said with a grunt, arms straight up in the air, weights bar steady.
“You see, even your boyfriend can’t defend your ass.” Eddie wiped his face with a cloth, throwing it in the laundry bin before moving to the rowing machine.
“Fiancé,” Pearce corrected.
Eddie snorted. “Damn, Jay-bomb, even the man who’s taking one for the team and getting you out of circulation won’t defend your mediocre glutes.”
“Whoa,” I shouted. “Mediocre. I’ll show you fucking medi—”
