It was a simple side-step that landed the body bigger than mine just a foot away.

I knew it wasn’t Gardner. Gardner had been on the other side of the field when I’d been playing, and there were only three other men on staff it could have been. Except two of them were too nice to do something so confrontational.

The German. It was the damn king of jerk-offs. Of course it was.

The instant I made eye-to-eye contact with him, I knew.

I knew Gardner was a caring, overly blunt bastard who had mentioned my name to the German.

My heart felt like it started to pound in my throat.

He didn’t have to say ‘I know what you said’ because the passive look on his face said it all. If he’d stood through me ranting about my dad without making a face, then I knew whatever it was he’d heard had hit a nerve. A person like him didn’t appreciate being criticized because he already thought he was perfect, hello.

It wasn’t like I’d called him a worthless piece of retired Euro-trash—which was horribly rude. Or said he was an awful player and that he didn’t deserve the job. Nothing remotely similar to that had come out of my mouth, but I put myself into his situation, thought of myself having an ego ten times the size of the one I currently had and asked myself how I’d feel.

I’d feel pretty damn pissed if some kid started saying what I needed to do differently.

But it was the truth, and I’d stand by it. I hadn’t called him Führer or a dick or anything. What was I going to do? Apologize to someone who didn’t deserve it? Nope.

I did what I needed to do. I stayed right where I’d stopped when he first got in my way, and I wrangled my heart into not beating so fast. Calm down, calm down, calm down. Poop. Pee. Poop, poop.

Big Girl Socks? On.

Voice? In check.

Steeling myself, I pushed my shoulders down and looked at him dead-on. “Yes?”

“Sprint time!” someone yelled.

My bravery only went so far because the next thing I did was turn around and run toward the line where sprints began. A whole nice round of conditioning, meaning running sprints at increasing amounts of distances, was my love-hate relationship. I was fast, but that didn’t mean I really loved running them.

I lined up between two of the younger girls who were always trying to run faster than me. The player on my right bumped her fist against mine right before we took off. “I feel like today is the day, Sal,” she smiled.

I wiggled my ankle around and slowly rested the weight on the ball of my foot. “I don’t know, I’m feeling pretty good today, but bring it on.”

One more fist bump and the whistle sounded.

Ten yards, back and forth. Twenty, back and forth, Forty, back and forth. Midfield, back and forth. Then the whole field and back.

My lungs seized up a little by the end of it, but I sucked it up and pushed forward on the last leg. I finished up with enough distance between myself and the next person to sleep okay that night. I thought about how good it was that I always tried to push myself on my own runs a little harder each day.

Rubbing my hands up and down on my upper thighs while I caught my breath, I smiled at the girl who had challenged me at the beginning when she made it. She looked a little annoyed but managed to keep a smile on.

“I don’t know how the hell you do it,” Sandy panted.

I panted right back. “I run. A lot.” When she gave me this expression that said ‘no-shit-Sherlock,’ I snorted. “I do the bike trails at Memorial at six-thirty every day before coming here. You’re welcome to come with me if you get up early enough. I’m not the greatest company to talk to that early in the morning, but it’s better than running alone, right?”