‘You wouldn’t,’ Papa puts in with a good-natured chuckle. ‘We’ve already known you for years, son, it’s no skin off our back to feed you a meal. It’s the least we could do. Clearly you’re beyond good for our daughter. It’d be our pleasure. No rush at all. We’d just love to have you come home. Back to where it all started, one might say.’

Damn it, Papa.

After all that, there’s no way Colt can say no. Shit. He blinks a couple times as if digesting everything he’s heard. Finally, he stutters out, ‘Oh, sure.’

‘Beautiful.’ Mumma finally loosens up a bit (the only positive to come out of this situation), giving Colt a relieved smile. ‘We really do appreciate you, Colt. Tell your mom and dad we’re so excited to have you back in town. They’ve raised you well.’

The irony. I could laugh the bitterest of laughs at everything she says, but I hold it in till the hugs are exchanged all around and my parents leave us to excited team chatter about boyfriends and dinners and cooing over Colt’s gesture. ‘Don’t be a stranger, son,’ Papa even goes so far as to add. ‘Come round when you get the chance, alright?’ Son? He’s gone all buddy-buddy.

I get the point. It was a kind gesture, Colt’s heroic run. But it was for the sake of the game plan. There’s nothing to coo about. Is there?

Coach Dillon hops up onto the PT table next to me, and instead of the same warm smile I’ve been seeing for the last hour from spectators and paramedics alike, she purses her lips, her eyebrows rising. ‘You know something, May?’

‘Know what?’

‘Well.’ She shrugs. ‘How do you feel about what Colt did today?’

I go slightly slack-jawed. ‘Coach. You know what’s going on.’

‘Oh, honey, it looks like you don’t.’ She cuts her eyes towards Colt, who’s going all red and gooey amid a conversation with our defenders on the other side of the long room. ‘That boy could’ve taken a pretty severe penalty for running after you like that. You remember what the penalty is for being on the field, don’t you?’

Maybe, but I try not to let on. Instead, I swallow hard. Guilt buries itself in a pit in my stomach that I refuse to acknowledge.

‘Could’ve been fined thousands. Barred from our next few games. Even a subsequent penalty waiting for him in the MLL, sitting out a few games. But when he saw you out there …’ Coach shakes her head knowingly. ‘He didn’t do that to put on a show. I couldn’t hold him back. Didn’t listen to a word I said about the penalties. Just … ran.’

Coach waits for some kind of response, and I really can’t find one.