“You should go. It would be good for you to reconnect with your friends from college.”
“Maybe.” He took a long swallow of his drink, and she studied him, the way his body moved. Some of that was the nature of her job. She watched every athlete’s body, always looking for signs of injury, watching their body mechanics to see if she could correct anything they did that might point out a weakness. But with Garrett she found she simply enjoyed watching him . . . and his body.
She shook that thought away. “I sense hesitation. How long has it been since you’ve seen your friends?”
“I don’t know. Like I said. It’s been awhile.”
“Oh, you should definitely go. I love hanging out with my college friends.”
He snorted. “You’re a girl.”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“Girls like all that rehashing of the past. Guys . . . not so much. We move forward.”
“That’s such crap. Guys have shown up at our college get-togethers, and they have just as good a time as the women do. So, what’s holding you back?”
He didn’t answer. Then it hit her. “It’s your injury, isn’t it? You want to go back to your friends as a big success. And right now you feel like a failure.”
He narrowed his gaze at her. “That’s not it. I told you, I forgot about it until just now, because I’ve been focusing on rehab.”
She didn’t believe him. “You’ve been a success. You are one. Look at your career.”
“That’s in the past.”
“Oh, please. Look at your accomplishments at such a young age. You’re a Cy Young Award winner. Come on. Don’t you want to celebrate that with your friends?”
“In sports you’re only as good as your current season.”
She wanted to smack him in the shoulder—the uninjured one, anyway. “That sounds like a line fed by media. You watch too many sportscasts. How many athletes do you know of who never even make it to the majors, who never get their shots to play the big games? You have, and you’ve played so well. Don’t let this injury define you when it’s nothing more than a bump in the road.”
Garrett stared at Alicia. She gave a good speech, but he wasn’t sure if he believed her. He wanted to, but she just didn’t know how it was in sports. One day you were on top of the world—the next you were out the door. You were only as good as the last pitch you threw, and he hadn’t thrown one since August of last year. Not only did his team measure his success that way, so would the media. And the fans.
And his friends.
Okay, his friends wouldn’t judge him on his success or lack of it. That’s why they were still his friends. But he judged himself, and that was enough. He just didn’t want to have to . . . explain.
“When’s your get-together?”
“I don’t know. Sometime this month. It’s not a big deal.”
She blew out a breath. “So, when is it?”
“Geez, I don’t know. The date’s in an email Gray—one of my roommates—sent me.”
Alicia rolled her eyes. “Oh, my God, Garrett. Do you have it handy where you could look it up?”
“It’s on my phone.”
“Go get it. Find out when it is.”
“Why are you so interested?”
She gave him a smile. “Just consider it therapy. Will you go get it?”
She was pretty when she smiled. Really pretty. Like not making him think of her as his Attila the Hun therapist kind of pretty. He got up and went down the hall, came back with his phone, which he’d scanned for Gray’s email while he’d made his way back to the sofa. “It’s this weekend, actually. Too late now. We have to head to Florida.”
He handed her his phone so she could read the email. She looked at it then lifted her head to look at him. “It’s not too late at all. It would only delay the trip to Florida by a couple of days. You should definitely go. Are all your friends baseball players?”
“No. We had guys from every sport holed up together in the athletic dorm.”
“That’s so interesting. How many of them have gone on to play professional sports?”
He smiled. He hadn’t thought about the guys in a long time, hadn’t seen them in a while. It would be good to catch up. “From my core group—all of them.”
She arched a brow. “Really? That’s amazing. And now my curiosity is high. I want to know who these guys are.”
He thought about it for a minute. Ridiculous idea. He wasn’t even going. But if he was . . . “You could come with me.”
She looked as surprised by his comment as he was when the thought popped into his head.
“What?”
But now that he’d said it, it made sense. “Sure. Come with me. I’ll introduce you.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. I mean you should totally go. You’ll have a good time. And you really should reconnect with your friends.”
“This was your idea.”
“I know. It was my idea for you to go.”