Coach Daddy (Dark Daddies 3)

I go through it all again.

Day after day, I come to work, I do my job, and I hope that he’ll talk to me.

Day after day, I’m disappointed.

I don’t know what to do. He’s incredibly good at avoiding me. There’s never a moment where we’re alone, and there’s never a chance for me to approach him in his office without someone sitting in there with him. All I want to do is tell him that we’re fine, but he keeps avoiding me.

I can tell his leg is bothering him. I can see the strain on his face.

He does a good job keeping it from his gait. His limp is barely noticeable, if there at all.

But I know he’s hurting. Unless he got someone else on the training staff to take a look at him, which I really doubt, he’s just powering through right now.

And I hate it. I hate that he’s in pain because of this. I wish he’d let me help him, even if that means we can’t be anything more than colleagues.

That would be hard, but I could handle it. I could take that truth.

This thing, though, him ignoring me completely, that’s way harder. I don’t even know how he’s handling it, when every day I’m pretty much a mess.

Friday rolls around, and I decide to come in early. I march right to his office, not thinking much about it. Nobody else is around yet, but I wouldn’t care even if they were.

Cole’s sitting behind his desk when I open his door. He looks surprised to see me.

“Can I help you?” he asks.

I glare at him. “Cut the crap.”

That makes him hesitate. “Sorry, but if you don’t need something work-related, I think I need to get back to this.” He gestures at his computer.

“Cole.” I step into his office, shut the door behind me. “I spoke with Sean. He said he doesn’t care, that our secret is safe with him.”

He nods once. “Okay. Thank you.”

I stare at him. I don’t know how he’s doing this. It’s breaking my heart, having him talk to me like I’m some useless employee or something. He has his coach mask on right now, and I can’t seem to get past it.

“You don’t have to do this,” I say softly. “At least let me look at your leg. I could massage it for you. I know you’re hurting.”

“No,” he says quickly. Almost too quickly. “I’m fine. Please, I have more work to do.” He looks away.

I stand there, staring at him. I want to scream. I want to hit him. Snap out of it, you asshole! He doesn’t have to do this right now.

I’m pissed. I’m upset. I feel like an idiot.

I turn and leave his office, and I feel something inside of me start to crumble away into dust.18ColeTwo games pass.

We lose them both.

The first one isn’t even close. We get blown out by Seattle, completely wrecked. It’s the first big loss I’ve experienced in a long time, and it fucking doesn’t feel good.

The second one is closer. We get within inches, literally inches, but Chicago manages to hold us out of the end zone. They get the ball back and run out the clock.

I stand there on the sideline, devastated.

It’s not hard to see what happened. I think Sean knows it, or maybe I’m imagining that. Maybe I’m just imagining the looks he’s giving me, the glares, the angry stares.

Maybe he doesn’t blame me for letting myself get distracted. Maybe he thinks it’s fine if I’m fucking one of my own staff.

It’s not fine. It just isn’t. I can’t let myself…

I know what happened, and I know I have to face the facts eventually.

Even without her, I’m still with her. She’s always on my mind, every day, every hour. It was the hardest thing in the world for me to treat her like she’s nothing when she finally stormed into my office that Friday morning.

I kept it together. I pushed her away.

It hurt like fucking hell.

I’m still aching from it. I was aching that weekend when we got wrecked, and I was aching the next weekend when we lost again. I’m a mess, thinking about her all the time, internally begging to see her again.

But I won’t let myself. I can’t let myself.

I hate it. I’m so fucking pathetic.

But I know why we lost.

It’s because I can’t stop thinking about Leah. No matter what I do, I keep thinking of her.

I consider firing her. Maybe if she’s gone, no longer on the team at all, maybe that would help.

But I can’t do it. I’d hate myself if I fired her. She needs this job, hell, she loves this job. It’s important to her.

I can’t take that away.

I can’t be a total fucking monster.

So I have to live with this. I have to find a way to accept that we aren’t together, that we aren’t ever going to be together. I have to find a way to move on.