“I’ve got four other people in the room telling me the opposite, Eden.” Coach paused his pacing, his hands going to his hips as he studied Archer in his chair. “What reason do you have to give me for why my star player can’t play a big game tonight?”
Three sets of eyes slid in my direction, varying degrees of smugness and superiority on Shepherd’s, Callahan’s, and Turner’s faces. I returned their looks with one of my own. They all damn well knew it wasn’t in Archer’s best interest to return to the game tonight. Maybe it was in the team’s, but it wasn’t for the player.
“Ignoring the fact that he could barely walk unassisted yesterday,” I began, peaking my brow, “if you put him in the game tonight, Archer has a very high likelihood of reinjuring himself—and much worse. Then your star player might have to sit out the rest of the season instead of a couple of games.”
Coach let that process for a minute while I crossed my arms at the three other people in the room who should have been on board with me. I couldn’t believe that a damn doctor, physical therapist, and the lead athletic trainer would look Coach in the eye and tell him Archer could play tonight.
It was the training profession’s equivalent of malpractice.
But Coach had said the four people in the room had told him Archer could play tonight which meant . . .
My head whipped in Archer’s direction when I put it together. I’d told him he couldn’t play tonight. I’d prepared him because I knew he wouldn’t take sitting out a game well. I couldn’t believe he’d hear me tell him one thing, then go on to tell Coach something else. Anger surged in my veins, and my stare progressed to the point of almost willing him to look at me.
He wouldn’t though. His jaw stayed locked as his stare seemed capable of almost melting the wall in front of him.
“Archer?” Coach’s voice boomed in the room. “You’re sitting out tonight.”
Three annoyed sighs sounded through the room, but all Archer did was give a small tip of his head in acknowledgment.
“We’ll reconvene before the next game, but you’d better make sure you’re listening to the medical team and getting this leg fixed. No more of this tough guy shit, Archer. This team needs you, and not in the form of you riding the bench, you hear me?”
Archer lifted his gaze to Coach’s, his hands gripping the armrests of the chair. “Understood.” Then he shoved out of his chair and left the room without so much as a sideways look in my direction.
WE’D LOST. BY a run.
A few of my colleagues who had been in Coach’s office earlier made no attempts to dull their pointed looks of blame my way. Yes, the Shock may very well have won if Archer had been playing, but they also could have been looking at losing a hell of a lot more had he played and injured himself worse.
I shouldn’t feel guilty—I’d made the right call—but I couldn’t fight the sliver of it I felt. Of course second-guessing came into play too, making me question if I should have said something to Coach about the way Archer had been favoring his leg during those last few innings of the game against the Rays. But if I had and Archer had been benched the last few innings, he wouldn’t have been able to make a hit that brought in two runs in the ninth and won the Shock the game.
Second-guessing was part of the job. It was part of life. I tried to make the best decisions I could and not let myself get hung up in the what-ifs. Which was harder to do when it came to Luke Archer than with anything else in my life.
Even though he’d ridden the bench the whole game, cheering his teammates from the dugout, we hadn’t exchanged more than a few clipped words and bags of ice. I told myself that this was the way we’d have to act around each other when we were with the team, but it still felt odd when the man I’d slept with two nights ago wouldn’t make eye contact when I held out a fresh bottle of water for him.
Whether or not this was part of his act to keep our relationship—whatever it was exactly—hidden, I knew one thing for sure—he was angry. I hadn’t sided with him and the rest of the Lip Service Crew, and as a result, he’d had to sit out a game. In his entire professional career, Luke Archer had never sat out a game. Knowing who he was, I guessed that was how he had been planning on retiring from his career.
So he was upset at me for making the right call. That was fine. I could handle a player pouting because I had to tell him he wasn’t immortal and that mortal instruments like flesh and blood were vulnerable. The more time I’d had to think about it, the madder I’d gotten over the whole thing.