Olivia Harding is a lot of things—gorgeous, smart, athletic, talented, and compassionate to name a few—but artistically inclined is not one of them. The girl is tone-deaf as hell and can’t dance for shit, but she swore up and down she ate her performance of “The Boy is Mine” up, and it made her feel better so I cheered her on. Her energy was so infectious I couldn’t help but to be swept up in it. Swept up in her. She went on that day to have the best game of her life. From then on, she had to perform that song before every game, same hoodie and all. If there’s one thing all athletes are, it’s superstitious.

“Oh nah, I’m not saying nothing about it. It’s just you would think the way you fly up and down the field, you wouldn’t run out of breath trying to do both parts of that song.”

The fist comes flying at my arm so fast I don’t even have time to block it. I pretend that the punch hurt while she looks shocked that she even allowed herself to touch me before giving in to her laughter. “Shut your ass up. It’s hard to do both of their ad-libs by yourself! And don’t you tell me I needed a partner. That’s the point of a ritual, jackass. You gotta do it the same way every time.”

I pick up a piece of paper off my desk and wave it like a white flag. “I hear you, I hear you. Don’t bite my head off; I was just trying to be your music video producer.”

Her eyes dance with humor as she narrows them into slits at me. “Mm-hmm, why don’t you produce some results on this knee instead?”

Before I realize what I’m doing, I wrap the end of her ponytail around my fist and give it a small tug before removing my hand and sliding back over to my desk. “Patience.”

She doesn’t say anything about my actions, but the increased rise and fall of her chest and the heated pools of her eyes tell me all I need to know.

“R-right,” she stutters.

We spend another fifteen minutes discussing her recovery plan and tentatively catching up on the last decade plus of our lives.

We stand so I can walk her out, my palm resting against the small of her back, and I feel the shiver run up her spine but neither of us acknowledges it. “Hey, I meant to ask you, how is your dad? You’re staying with him right?” Judging by her reaction, I know that was exactly the wrong question to ask. Her eyes shutter closed and she shrugs my hand off her back, giving me a wide berth. What the fuck just happened?

“He’s fine, I guess. No, I’m not staying with him. Thanks for the session.”

Her dad is a piece of shit, but I didn’t expect the mere mention of him to make her look like she wanted to throw up. I just assumed she would be staying with him while she’s in town. I know for a fact she doesn’t have a place of her own here.