Page 8 of Anatomy of Us

“Yeah, I see that. I mean why here. There are thousands of soccer clubs on this planet. Why do you have to come to this one? Did you come back just to ruin my life? Wasn’t last time enough?”

My voice climbs higher than it should. I can tell by the way she goes pale and flicks her eyes to the door, still open. She doesn’t want a screaming match with a player in her first week. She’ll have to explain it to Hades.

Good. Let her.

“Can you calm down and close the door, please?” she asks, and her voice comes out thin.

“Calm down? Are you kidding me? How do you want me to calm down?” I don’t move from the doorway. My hand grips the knob hard enough to hurt. “This isn’t a game, Tessa. I’ve been off the field for a year. I need the damn clearance to do preseason with the team or my chances at starting go to hell, and then my contract renewal goes with it. Do you have any idea how stressed I am right now? The last thing I need is you.”

“This isn’t a game for me either, Zoe.” Her chin lifts. I remember that chin. I remember biting it once and makingher laugh. “I’m a professional. One of the best in the world at what I do. Whatever happened between us seven years ago doesn’t—”

“Whatever happened between us?” The sound that comes out of me is ugly. Raw. “You wrecked my life, Tessa. You left half your stuff in the apartment we shared and you took off without telling me why.”

“I left you a letter.”

“A letter?” I bark out a laugh that tastes like blood. “So brave. You couldn’t say it to my face? Do you have any idea how many times I read that damn letter?” I slam my palm against the door. Hard. Pain blooms up my arm, sharp and hot, and I welcome it because it’s simple.

Silence.

Three seconds that feel like years.

I can hear my own heartbeat in my ears. Thick. Heavy. Like a drum.

“It wasn’t about you,” she says, and the words land like ice.

“Of course it wasn’t about me,” I shoot back, and I finally walk toward her desk, fast, like if I stop moving I’ll fall apart. I plant both hands on the surface. The wood is cool under my palms. “It was about you being selfish and picking your career over us. It was about you deciding what we had wasn’t worth it.”

Tessa barely flinches.

“You’re right,” she says. Just like that. “I chose my career. I chose to leave. I got scared. And you have every right to hate me for it.”

“Great.” I huff. “Because I hate you.”

It’s not fully true. I wish it were. It would be cleaner if hate were all I felt when I look at her. But there’s more mixed in. Pain I think I buried. Anger that never really leaves. And I refuse to think about her gray eyes. Or her bare body. Or the way my name sounds when she says it like she means it.

“I get that this is… complicated,” she says, and she pauses like she’s picking her words off a shelf. “If you want someone else on the medical team to do your evaluation, I can ask Sara—”

“The Head Athletic Trainer?”

“Yes. She’s excellent, I’m told. She’s been with the club five years and she knows—”

“No.”

Tessa blinks. Her brows lift.

“No?”

“No.” I swallow, and my throat aches. “Hades told me you’re one of the best in sports medicine. That you worked with elite teams in Europe. Is that true?”

“Hades?”

“Diana. The coach. Long story. Is it true or not?”

“Yes,” she says. “It’s true.”

“Then I need you.” The words scrape out of me. I hate that they’re honest. “I don’t want trouble with Hades, and you don’t either. Believe me. I need you to get me back to my best shape as fast as possible because my career is on the line. My contract ends this year. If I don’t prove I can get back to my level from before the pregnancy, they won’t renew me. And if they don’t renew me…” I stop. I pull in a breath that shakes. “I’m in a custody fight for my son, Wesley. My ex-husband is saying a bunch of crap that makes me look like an unfit mother. So I need to prove I can do both. I can be who I’ve always been on the field and still be the mother my kid needs.”

“Ex-husband?” Her voice drops. “I didn’t… I didn’t know about the custody fight. I’m sorry. I mean, until yesterday, I thought you retired.”