Page 60 of Thunderstruck
“I don’t know why.”
“Cole, I know you’re in a funk right now, but I wouldn’t be friends with you if you weren’t a good guy and worth knowing. So maybe cut the self-deprecation and focus on what you can do about this situation.”
I should have known better than to talk down on myself when Derek Riley is on the phone with me. Considering how perfectly he presents himself, advice like this should come across as insincere, but Derek has spent too long in the limelight to be anything but genuine when it comes to self-image. He knows how hard it is to be in the public eye and the media’s judgment.
He’s said it often enough that I can hear it in his voice: The only opinion a person should worry about is the one they have of themself. The one they can control.
“I don’t know how to make this work,” I say as my eyes lift to find Carissa. She has her purse now and is leaning against a cabinet, watching me. I ask my question as much to her as I do to Derek. “How do I get them to trust me?”
“I think this might be one you’re going to have to figure out on your own,” Derek says.
Carissa tilts her head, a thoughtful look in her eyes. I’m more inclined to listen to her right now, whatever she might have to say.
“But you should start with being open with them,” Derek continues. “Something tells me you haven’t let them know you, especially over the last few months.”
“I’ve been with this team for nearly two years, Derek. If they don’t know me by now…”
He chuckles. “Do they know why you don’t drive?”
“No, but—”
“Do they have any idea why you left football in the first place?” That question has some bitterness on the edges.
I wince, gripping the phone tighter. “No. And they never will.”
“Why not?” I hear what he’s really asking. He’s asking why I haven’t toldhimwhy I left the NFL when he knows how much I loved football. “Cole, I know you have your secrets—we all do—but if you carry everything on your own, eventually it’s going to become too heavy for you and you’ll crumble under the pressure. You need to trust your team so they can trust you in return.”
I genuinely don’t know if he’s talking about the Thunder or our group of friends, and that worries me. Since Sage dumped me, I’ve been pushing my friends away in my pitiful attempts to lick my wounds and heal, and I have known from the beginning that that’s a bad idea. But keeping everyone at a distance is the only way I know to cope with fears. My friends will never let me get far, which is more than I deserve after the way I’ve been acting the last few months.
I can’t keep my teammates at a distance. Not if I’m going to have a chance to keep the Thunder from falling apart without Moxie on the pitch. But Derek’s right. If I want those guys to trust me, I can’t keep up so many walls that theycan’t even see me.
Voices echo in the corridor behind me. Panic shoots through me, and I scurry deeper into the room, shutting the door behind me and flipping off the light.
“Let me call you back,” I whisper into the phone and hang up before Derek can protest, throwing the room into complete darkness.
Turns out I’m a coward.
Chapter Seventeen
Carissa
I wish I hadbeen nosier.
I was trying to be a good friend and give Cole some space so he could talk to Derek in private, but hearing Cole’s side of the conversation made me desperately want to creep closer and try to overhear whatever Derek was saying. Cole didn’t seem to like it, but I could practically see him lowering his shields at the end there.
And now I can’t see anything at all.
If I had had worse self-control, I might have been next to Cole and not freaking out by myself in the dark.
“Cole?” I whisper, my voice trembling against my will. There are too many things in the room for me to trip over if I try to move closer to him.
He swears softly. “Sorry.I panicked.”
That’s great and all, but I don’t like being in the dark, and there aren’t any outside windows in this place. The corridor outside is too dimly lit to offer much light through the frosted glass in the door, so I feel like I’m in a giant, empty void, which might be one of my biggest nightmares coming to life.
“Cole,” I say again, hating how pathetic I sound. I am a grown woman, for goodness’ sake!
He swears again, and I can just barely see his body move in front of the window in the door. The sounds of voices and footsteps passing by offer a nice reprieve from the silence but aren’t as comforting as I would like. “I’d turn the light back on,” Cole says, his voice gentle, “but the guys will get the wrong idea about us. I don’t want to put you in that situation.”
