I shake my head. “Not really. Were you and your siblings?
“Geoff and Lanie were crazy competitive with each other. They still are. Game nights are ugly, and some games are even banned—specifically Parcheesi and Risk. And the wishbone is thrown away before the turkey is placed on the table for Thanksgiving dinner.”
“What was your thing?”
“What wasyourthing?” she counters.
“Sports.”
“Science,” she says, equally matter of factly.
I chuckle. “You might have a little more of that competitiveness than you know.”
Her jaw falls open, a look of shock and innocence that only makes me laugh harder. “I’m not this way with others. Only you bring out this brand of stubbornness in me.”
“Oryou’re just comfortable being yourself around me and you’re actually this competitive and stubborn.”
“Says the guy who refuses to let me walk.”
“I own my stubbornness.”
She rolls her eyes, a smirk tugging at her lips before her attention turns to the wide brick building in front of us. “Last week was my first time here.”
“You’d never watched a game before?”
She shakes her head.
“Those are the dorms,” I nod toward the immense brick building behind us as we pass the doors into the facility.
“It’s always open?” she asks.
“For players.”
“Why?”
“They’d prefer if we never left.”
She pins me with those blue eyes, oblivious to the effect she has over me as I push through the player’s door that leads to the locker room and rooms filled with gear, trainers, a movie theater, and more. “Where are we going?”
“You’re getting the private tour.”
Chapter16
Hadley
They’d prefer if we never left.
Nolan’s words are ominous, alluding to the fact there’s something darker to this sport—maybe all sports—than what’s on the surface.
We only cross through two rooms, but both are elaborate and filled with color and details that many of the classrooms lack.
“What’s going on?” a man wearing a dark blue polo asks. He’s around my dad’s age, his cheeks round and clean-shaven.
“She fell during the cookie run. Can I have you take a look?”
The man nods, waving us toward another door.
Nolan carries me inside and sets me on an examination table. “Hadley this is Holbrook, our lead trainer. Holbrook, Hadley.”