“Positive, princess.” I kiss her cheek and then wave to her teammates.

I head to the gym early and go straight into warmups. It’s an hour before anyone else gets here but I need to burn off some of the worry and guilt I’m holding.

I jog up and down the court with the ball, crossing over every third dribble. I try and think through the situation logically. I should go straight after practice and tell her the truth. All of it. My friends have stuck by my side even after they found out. Then again, I didn’t lie to them, at least not outright. It was more of an omission.

I know I have to tell her. And I want to. I don’t want to keep anything from her, but damn, I can’t help but want to hold on to the way things are right now. She looks at me like I’m her knight in shining armor, swooping in to save my princess, when in reality, she’s the one who saved me. Every day since the day I met her, she’s made me want to be better, but I can’t hide from the shitty things I’ve done, and I have to believe it won’t be the end of us.

Tuesday morning, Coach gives me the good news that I’ve got sign-off to take the job and I call Lincoln as soon as I get back to the house.

“That’s great news, Nathan.” He pauses. “Do you go by Nathan?”

“Yes, sir.”

He chuckles. “Don’t call me sir, makes me feel old as shit. Lincoln or Linc is fine.”

“Got it.”

“The site is still in progress, but I’ll get you an account so you can see what it looks like from the back end. Pretty simple really. Once a client signs up, they have access to view tutorials, read blog posts, and submit questions or videos, depending on their membership. The most basic level is free, and clients can submit questions that are sorted based on sport. That will be your job, answering the questions that come in through the basic package. So far, it’s been a lot of questions on how they can get more advanced help. We’ve got some canned responses for that, but a few sports-related questions have come in too. It might be slow to start, but I’m confident it’ll pick up as the full site goes live.”

“It sounds great. I’m really excited. Thank you for the opportunity.”

“Glad to have you. I saw you play in the Florida Gulf game last year. You’re a hell of a player.”

“Thanks.” This conversation is trippy. Is this my life right now?

“Alright, I gotta go. Flying to Texas tomorrow to do an event with Tiger Woods at a college down there.”

“No way, really?”