Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 37217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 186(@200wpm)___ 149(@250wpm)___ 124(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 37217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 186(@200wpm)___ 149(@250wpm)___ 124(@300wpm)
“Listen, you stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours,” Ryder says.
“Fine with me. But you don’t go near Cami again. You don’t even think about her.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
Ryder turns and heads for the facility, leaving me standing there feeling like I just got kicked in the balls with the revelation of Cami’s parentage.
11
CAMI
When my father told me he’d spoken with Ryder and Carter about what happened in the training room, it felt like I’d swallowed a bowling ball.
I was shocked that he had dared to call out his prized rookie and pricey free agent addition. But I’m not going to lie. There’s a part of me that’s grateful he decided to be my dad and to protect me first, and be a coach second for a change.
Of course, the downside of that is that Carter seems to have been avoiding me the last couple of days. He hasn’t returned my calls or texts, and when I see him in the facility, he turns and heads the other way. He had other trainers handle his taping before practice and his treatments afterward, and on those rare occasions when we were in the same place at the same time, he refused to look me in the eye.
That's just not working for me, so I decide it’s time to take matters into my own hands. I raise my hand and knock on the door—probably a little harder than I'd intended to but whatever. Taking a step back, I cross my arms over my chest and wait. A moment later, it opens, and Carter looks at me with an expression of surprise on his face.
“Cami,” he says. “Jesus, I thought a SWAT team was about to kick my door in.”
“Sorry. No, I’m not. Not really. What the fuck, Carter?”
“Seems like I’m the one who should be asking that question. I mean, there seems to be something you forgot to tell me. Something rather important, as it turns out.”
I push my way past him and walk into his place, stomping my way down the short hallway and into the living room. Putting my hands on my hips, I turn and look at him.
“Sure. Come on in,” he says and closes the door.
He leans against the rounded archway that leads into the living room and watches me in silence. Carter’s place is nice and well put together, but it’s also very generic. The furniture and artwork on the walls are all plain and look like something that came straight off the IKEA showroom floor. He’s got no memorabilia, no knick-knacks, no photographs. There are literally no personal touches anywhere.
“Jesus, Carter, is this an Airbnb?”
“Yeah, actually it is. I’ve been a little busy and haven’t had a chance to get out and look for a place of my own just yet.”
“Oh. That makes sense. Don’t you have people for that?”
“I’m not going to have somebody else find a place for me to live.” He manages to sound offended. “I’m the one who has to live here.”
“Yeah, okay. I get that.”
We both fall silent and look at each other. I came storming in here with such a head of steam up, but now that I’m staring into those deep, rich blue eyes, all the anger that fueled me seems to have evaporated. I give my head a shake and try to gather my wits about me again.
“What are you doing here, Cami?” he asks softly.
“I came to find out why you’re ignoring me.”
“Coach Blankenship—I mean, your father—told me to stay away from you. He said he’d cut me if I didn’t.”
My mouth turns dry, and his words feel like a punch to the gut that leaves me breathless. I look up at Carter, suddenly not sure what to say.
“I-I didn’t mean to keep that from you, Carter. You have to believe me.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me your father is my coach?”
“It just never really came up, I guess.”
“You had plenty of opportunities. I mean, you told me you were born into the game and have been around it all your life. And your father being the coach of the team I’m playing on didn’t come up? That seems like something that should have come up.”
“That’s fair. I just… he’s made such a point of making sure I don’t disclose our relationship to anybody. It’s just not something I talk about. It’s not on purpose. It’s just second nature now.”
“Why doesn’t he want people to know you’re his daughter? Coaches hire family members all the time. It’s not like it’s unprecedented.”
“He’s built a reputation on making people earn what they get,” I tell him. “He’s afraid people will see me being with the team as nepotism. That I didn’t earn it. He’s afraid it will undermine his brand.”
“That’s ridiculous. Seriously. That’s fucking stupid. I mean, if you were competing for a roster spot, I might understand. There are only so many of those. But you’re with the training staff. There isn’t a set number of trainers we can have.”