Playing to Win

picked at her muffin. “Things are great.”
    “Did I ever mention I have an excellent bullshit meter? Tell me what happened.”
    She could hedge, make something up, but Liz would push until she gave in, so she might as well avoid the battle now. “He asked me if I wanted to move in with him.”
    Liz’s brows lifted. “And that’s a bad thing?”
    “No. But he said it’s because we like each other and we’re compatible.”
    Liz laid her coffee cup down. “Fuck a donut sideways. He did not.”
    “He did.”
    “What the hell does he think you are? A cocker spaniel?”
    Leave it to Liz to make her feel better. “I don’t know. I don’t think I reacted well. I asked him to leave.”
    “Hell, I’d have kicked his ass. What is wrong with that man?”
    She lifted her gaze to Liz. “He’s probably afraid to tell me how he feels. Or maybe he doesn’t feel the same way I feel.”
    “And how do you feel?”
    She sighed. “I’m crazy in love with him. And it scares me.”
    “Why does that scare you?”
    “You know why. I’ve purposely set up my life to be alone so I won’t be hurt.”
    Liz waved her hand. “Yeah, yeah. And how’s that working for you?”
    “Not very well. I didn’t set out to fall in love with Cole, you know. It happened purely by accident.”
    Liz snorted. “It usually does. Honey, you can’t control love. It blindsides you. It’s what you do about it when it does happen that counts. Have you told him how you feel?”
    Savannah’s eyes widened. “Oh, god no.”
    “So he’s supposed to be psychic. Maybe he’s afraid to tell you how he feels because he thinks you don’t feel the same way.”
    She laid her hands on the table and looked at Liz straight on. “Mercy. I never thought about it like that.”
    “I’d like to knock both your heads together. But especially his. Men are such dickheads sometimes. Most of the time, actually.”
    “Please don’t say anything to him. I’ll handle this.”
    Liz shrugged and picked up her coffee. “Whatever you want. My lips are sealed.”
    COLE HAD A TERRIBLE FEW DAYS OF PRACTICE, AND an even lousier game on Sunday. It didn’t help that it was an away game today, even though they weren’t that far away since they’d played Kansas City. It still wasn’t the home crowd.
    Not that it had made a difference.
    The whole team had played like shit, so he couldn’t even chalk it up to it just being him.
    And they’d lost. By two fucking points. A blowout you just accept and move on. But to lose when the game was that close sucked.
    Coupled with that, he hadn’t talked to Savannah in five days. He hadn’t seen her at practice, or at the game. They had even talked earlier about her making the drive over to see the game in Kansas City.
    He’d tried to call her a few times but she wouldn’t return his calls or his text messages. And when he’d gone by her place, her car wasn’t there and she didn’t answer her door.
    She was doing a damn good job of avoiding him, which made it hard to figure out what the fuck he’d done wrong.
    So he was in a piss-poor mood when it came to media interviews after the game.
    “Cole, does it feel like old times again to be on the losing end of a game?”
    “Hey, Cole, do you take personal responsibility for losing this game today?”
    “Riley, do you feel like the jinx is back again since you lost the game?”
    “How about those three dropped passes today?”
    He wanted to tell them all to fuck off, eat shit, and die. Instead, he bit his lip and answered their questions with honesty. He’d played a bad game and he felt like he’d let his team down, but he was going to work harder and do better next week. When they figured out he wasn’t going to take the bait, they moved on to pick on some other poor sucker who’d also had a lousy day.
    At least he found a friendly face waiting for him outside the locker room.
    Liz didn’t look very friendly, though.
    “Yeah, I know,” he said as she walked with him down the tunnel. “I played like shit today.”
    “It was one bad game. You’ll do better next week.”
    “I will.”
    She stopped, turned to him. “I want to talk to you about Savannah.”
    “What about her? Is she okay?”
    “She’s fine. But you’re an asshole.”
    Okay, maybe she’d talked to Savannah and he could gain some insight into what the fuck was going on. “What did I do?”
    “Come on. Let’s go get a drink. You have a couple hours before you have to leave.”
    She