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“You need to calm down, right now,” Dom said, putting both hands on my shoulders and looking down at me.

“I know, I know,” I snapped. I needed to get out of here and see my cats. “I need to go home.”

“The same way we tell our squad to leave everything at the door, I want you to leave all of this shit here and not bring it home with you.” I had no idea how I was supposed to do that, but I wasn’t going to spend the rest of the night steaming about Echo.

“At least they cleaned up after themselves,” I said. Echo hadn’t done anything overtly nasty, which made it so much worse. If she just called me out or called me a bitch or pulled my hair then maybe I wouldn’t be simmering in impotent rage right now.

“Listen, this was the first day. Tomorrow will be better. They’ll keep to their side and we’ll focus on what we need to do, and then we’ll settle it at Nationals,” Dom said.

“I’m going to need you to stop always being the voice of reason, or else I’m going to go to Cam and have her promote you to head coach.”

He made a face.

“No thank you. I have enough responsibility.” Every now and then when Cam was busy managing a tournament or something, Dom would step in and help. He gave and gave and gave to this school, and he gave and gave and gave to me. I needed to be better about reciprocation.

“I am buying you the classiest stroller I can find,” I said, giving him a hug.

“Can you make sure it’s a jogging stroller? I want to be able to run with the baby.” I could totally picture him doing that and it made me smile.

“I can’t wait to see it.”

We left the gym and Dom locked up and hit the lights.

“Say hi to Heath,” I told him.

“Say hi to the kitties,” he said to me.

We parted in the parking lot and I headed home to my house full of cats, still hot and bothered about Echo.

Five

Iwas running latethe next day because I’d taken my car to get serviced and had to waitforeverfor the mechanic to be done. By the time I got to the gym, Echo and her team were already there, busy setting up the curtain. Several of my kids were mingling with a few of theirs and I saw interest and wariness on both sides.

I hoped that there wouldn’t be any hookups. I didnotneed to deal with that drama on top of everything else.

Echo headed right for me as I set down my bag, and I braced myself for whatever she was going to say.