Page 93 of Thunderstruck
“Tell us,” Wyatt says immediately.
I manage a smile as I nod at him. His support means more than he’ll ever know. “Here’s what we’ll do…”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Carissa
“Carissa, honey, are yousure you want to be here right now?” Mel rubs her hand along my back as we make our way out onto the field after all the Thunder players leave the locker room. “I promise I can handle everything on my own. I was doing it before you came along, and one more game won’t hurt me.”
She has no idea how tempted I am to say yes to her offer. When I read the article last night, I did my best to brush it off, and I mostly succeeded. Only half of what they said about me was true, and I’m smart enough to know that someone’s opinion of me doesn’t matter more than my opinion of myself. At least, I know that in theory.
After a morning of watching whatever romcoms I could find on the hotel TV channels, and an afternoon of fielding Darcy’s calls and apology texts by telling her I’m totally fine, I thought I was doing okay.
But that was before all the staring.
Apparently many of the Portland Pathfinder fans are alsoHot Scoopreaders.
I can’t hear anything they say from the stands, but I can see them pointing and looking at their phones. Even now, as Portland kicks off to start the second half, people are clearly talking about me, none of them with smiles or warmth.
Don’t they have better things to worry about?
The first forty minutes of this game were brutal, and it didn’t help that I spent the whole time trying to distract myself from the crowd by watching Cole, who has looked weighed down by the stress of trying to captain his team while the coach shouts useless insults from the sidelines. Cole has had a permanent crease in his forehead all night, and I worry about what will happen to his spirit if the Thunder lose their first game with him as captain.
Summed up, this game is awful all around.
During the first play of the second half, Noah gets knocked down and stays down, and memories of Moxie’s injury grip my heart in a vise. But when Mel rushes over, neither of them look too concerned as they talk. After a few seconds, Mel looks over at me, nods, and jogs back to the sideline, leaving Noah sitting in the middle of the field.
“He wants you to help,” she says before I can ask.
I frown. “But—”
“Better hurry. Don’t want to waste too much time.”
While I’d much prefer to stay where I am, I grip the straps of my medic backpack and hurry out onto the field, ignoring the whispers that fill the arena like wind. “Where does it hurt?” I ask, crouching in front of Noah.
He grins at me. “Hamstring.”
I cock my head as I reach to feel how tight the muscle is. “I don’t see how that’s a smiling matter, Tinkerbell.”
His smile only grows. “Tape me up?”
More confused than anything, I wrap tape around his thigh and below his knee. “Better?”
“I hope so,” he replies and hops up, holding out his hand to help me stand. “Thanks, Rizzo!” He hurries off to rejoin the rest of the team, and I wander back to Mel with my brow drawn low.
“That was weird,” I mutter.
“I think the boys like you,” Mel replies.
Only a couple of minutes later, Wyatt apparently does something to his arm and rushes over to me, begging me to add some tape to his shoulder even though the ball is still in play. I do what he asks as quickly as I can, and he kisses my cheek before darting back into play just in time to catch the ball Cole throws to him. He skirts around a defender with a spin move and bolts, leaving the other players in the dust as he reaches the try line and sets the ball down dead center field.
The Thunder fans who came up to Portland erupt into cheers, and the guys all congratulate each other while Cole sets up his conversion kick and gets us two more points so we’re only down by three.
After the next scrum, Grayson claims to have pulled a muscle in his calf, though he tells me so with a smile on his face, just like Noah. Not two minutes later, Freddie needs a bandage for a cut I can’t see.
As the game continues, player after player finds himself injured and needing my services, all the while Cole keeps the ball moving forward while we have possession and away from the try zone when we don’t. Every time I make my way onto the field to take care of what I’m starting to expect are fake injuries, Cole sends me a warm, reassuring smile, no matter how far he is from me.
I don’t know what his play is, but he planned this. Whatever this is.
