Page 3 of Sexting the Coach

And I push on.

When I get close enough to Weston the game turns from a foot race into chess.

I plant my left foot and turn hard, muscles engaging in the same sequence that would have sent me into a salchow on the ice, hoping to spin away from him here on the grass.

Except, for some reason, Idon’tspin away from him.

My face plants into his chest.

My body against his.

I let out a breathlessoomphas his momentum—and the fact that my legs are positioned weirdly under my body—starts to send us plowing toward the earth.

We seem to realize at the exact same moment that he’s going to landon topof me.

All two hundred and fifty pounds of him.

I brace for impact.

But he grabs me, twisting.

Time splits, and for the second we’re suspended in the air.

I exist in two places at once.

Here, tumbling to the earth with Weston.

And somewhere else, falling down on another man.

“Ah,fuck,” Weston hisses.

We hit the ground together, and it jolts me back into the present.

Instead of landing under him, I’m on his right bicep, cradled in his arms.

Blades of grass rising up between our locked gazes.

For the briefest moment, it’s like we’re in bed together, and he’s holding my body to him.

I can hear the steadythump, thump, thumpof his heart, can feel the way his muscles—both soft and strong at once—react, absorbing most of the blow.

His nose presses into the top of my head, and I swear I can imagine what it would be like for him to kiss me there.

But he closes his eyes and rolls onto his back, letting go of me.

The moment ends too soon, like an open question my body wants the answer to.

I don’t want to let go.

Heat blooms through me, even as pain starts to move over Weston’s face. My hands twitch to reach back out to him, as stupid as that is.

But the slight wince over his brow snaps me out of it. As a physical therapist, I’ve gotten very used to seeing that look. Especially from men who don’t want anyone to know something is hurting them.

“Shit, sorry,” I whisper, my voice coming out hoarse, my mind still stuck several seconds in the past, when our bodies were flush from chest to hip.

I drop the football, forcing myself to focus on the present moment, rising to my knees, nausea pounding up hard and fast into my throat when I see his jaw tighten, the severity of the moment blinking into my brain.

I have to fix this, have to make sure he’s okay. I need to numb the panic starting to course through my veins. “Sorry—sorry. Are you okay? Where does it hurt?”