“Coach, you good with this?” Shepherd asked, his hands settling on his hips.
“Oh, get off your high horse, Shepherd. If Archer wants Eden to go with him, fine. I’d feel the same way if I were in his shoes.”
“Because she’s the only woman around?” Shepherd fired back.
I kept biting my tongue. I was the only woman around, and it didn’t help that there was no mistaking my gender when a guy looked at me. I was on the petite size, which automatically made them all want to step in to help me get something down from a shelf or lift something that looked heavy. I was also on the curvy side, which meant their eyes were easily, and frequently, distracted. In an effort to combat my petite, curvy stature, I wore my light hair back in a ponytail and never wore makeup. It wasn’t like I was trying to be one of the guys—I was just trying to fit in a little easier.
Coach fired another warning look in Shepherd’s direction. “Because she’s damn good at her job. That’s why.”
Archer waved at me. “Doc? If you don’t mind? I’m in a hurry to get this over with.”
Patting Hernandez’s knee, I rose. He gave me a smile of thanks before I threw my duffel over my shoulder and jogged for the doors. Shepherd was glaring at me, but I ignored him. Archer was staring at me again, but I couldn’t ignore him so easily.
He was wearing a worn-in pair of jeans that stretched across his thighs and backside nicely, a basic T-shirt, and a team baseball cap. He held the door open for me and started to move down the long hall like he knew where we were going. Which I didn’t.
I spent my time in the locker room or the field. I wasn’t sure what this photo shoot was for, where it was being shot, or what was involved. Since the game was scheduled to start in a few hours, I guessed we weren’t going far, but who knew. The sponsorship deals these players got were insane, and for the top players, sponsorships could bring in more money than the paycheck they earned playing ball.
“So what are you sponsoring today? A sports drink, a cereal, or an insurance company?” I asked, having to take two steps to every one of his long strides. Archer was a good foot taller than me and fast.
“None of the above.” When he glanced back and noticed me rushing to keep up, he slowed his pace. “Today I’m shooting a spread for Sports Anonymous. Only a limited number of issues will be printed, and they’ll be auctioned off to benefit the children’s hospital back in San Diego.”
I knew the hospital he was talking about. During the off-season, when I had more than three minutes in a row of free time, I volunteered there. It was a facility that didn’t charge anything for families who couldn’t afford it and provided top-of-the-line care.
“And before you get too far in your estimation of how much they’re paying me to do this, I can give you the exact number.” Archer lifted his hand, his thumb and index finger joining to make a circle. “Zero dollars and zero cents.” He smiled, lifting the circle his fingers were making to his eye. He peered at me through it.
A laugh swept past my lips. “That’s refreshing. Not a lot of people do something without first thinking about what’s in it for them, you know?”
Archer stuffed his hands in his pockets, tipping his head at a crew of people up ahead who looked like they were expecting him. “The way I see it, I’m already living the dream. I get paid to do what I love.”
“You get paid a lot to do what you love,” I added. Last I’d heard, Archer was one of the top five paid players in the sport.
“I might be the only guy in this sport with hamburger tastes on a steak budget, but maybe one day I’ll go crazy and buy a house or something.”
My eyebrows came together. “You don’t have a house now?”
“I have an apartment back in San Diego. Nothing elaborate, but it works. We spend so much time on the road that having the kind of sprawling estates some of the guys have and only getting to enjoy it a few weeks out of the year seems like a big waste. Plus . . .” Archer’s speech came to a succinct end.
“Plus what?”
The crew of people at the end of the hall were opening up doors leading into a room, practically paving a runway for us. Sports Anonymous logos were plastered everywhere, from the carpet leading into the room, to the lanyards around people’s necks, to the stickers on the side of cameras that looked to be filming us as we moved closer.
Luke Archer was a god in this world—it was easy to forget when he was walking beside me with his hands in his pockets and talking about apartments.
“Plus”—Archer shrugged, slowing down as we got closer—“you know.”
“I don’t know.”
He exhaled through his nose. “Plus I don’t want to live in some big house by myself. My sisters still live in our family home north of San Diego, and I don’t want to come ‘home’ to no one. Until I have someone waiting for me, my apartment works just great.”
His pace picked back up again, and this time it seemed like he wanted to put some distance between us. I could have told him I felt the same. I could have told him that that was the reason I was living in my own apartment back in San Diego. I could have told him, but something about the way Luke Archer looked at me made me wonder if keeping the private parts of our lives to ourselves was better.
I couldn’t get involved with another player. Definitely not one on the very same team I worked for. People already talked shit about how I’d gotten here. If it got out that I was sleeping with the star of the team, no one would ever take me seriously again. My credibility as a damn good athletic trainer would be stamped out by the assumption that I did my best work on my back.