The culprit behind the team’s weird behavior was the assistant coach standing in the corner of the room by the projection screen with his arms at his sides. No one had to confirm it, but we knew. We all definitely knew.

It was his fault.

When no one else responded to Gardner’s question, I shook my head and answered. “Nope.”

A frown indented the crease between the head coach’s eyebrows as he looked around the room, waiting for someone to say something else.

Fresh words never came, and I could tell by the way his cheeks tightened that he didn’t understand why, either. For one thing, no one exactly lacked confidence. Secondly, if anyone had an issue, they usually didn’t have a problem voicing it.

Except this time, the main problem had two arms and legs.

Dun, dun, dun.

No one was about to give anything away.

“No one?” Gardner asked again, his tone disbelieving.

Nothing.

“Okay. If no one has anything to say, I guess you’re all free to go. We’re meeting up here tomorrow at eight, and we’ll all ride to the field together,” he announced to a collective of nods before the team got up.

I stayed a few minutes longer talking to Genevieve about running trails nearby and had just grabbed my stuff when I heard, “Sal, you got time to come to my office?”

My instinct said I knew exactly what conversation was about to go down. I’d seen Gardner’s face and my gut was well aware that he knew something was up.

Unfortunately, I also knew I’d be the first and more than likely the only one he’d come to with his questions.

Blah. It was the curse of being a well-known shitty liar.

“Sure,” I told him, even though the last thing I wanted was to talk about it.

He grinned at me and beckoned me forward. “Come on, then.“

Damn it. Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I followed. Within a couple minutes, we were turning down a hallway I was all too familiar with and heading into his office.

Gardner pulled the curtains up in the small window that separated his desk from the hall—it was procedure—and took a seat behind his desk, his smile friendly and his eyebrows halfway up to his hairline. “You know I’m not going to beat around the bush with you. Tell me what’s going on.”

And bingo was his name-o.

Where exactly did I start?

It wasn’t like I wanted to bring up anyone’s issues, much less my own conundrum—again—in front of a man that I trusted and respected but ultimately realized was using me as an informant. Okay, more of a snitch. It was the same thing, damn it. Sliding into the chair with my bag at my feet, I raised my eyebrows up at Gardner. I immediately decided to play the dumb card as long as possible.

“With us?”

“You all. The team. What’s going on?”

“G, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Sal.” He blinked like he knew I was playing dumb. I was, but he didn’t know that for sure. “Everyone is acting strange. No one’s chatty. I don’t see anyone playing around like usual. It looks like it’s the first time everyone is playing together. I want to understand what’s going on, that’s all.”

Once I really thought about it, I realized I shouldn’t be surprised he noticed the differences. Of course he would. He noticed because he cared. I complained because Gardner cared and then complained because Kulti didn’t. There was no winning, was there? I needed to embrace the fact Gardner was still around and noticed.

While practices were usually pretty serious, there had always been a playful aspect to our warm-ups and cool downs. We all got along with each other pretty well for the most part, and I think that’s why we worked so well together. No one was a superstar or had a hot-air-balloon-sized ego. We played as a unit.