So denial and hiding desires was all I had.
"Got any plans today? Like a second date with Harry?" Easton had to tease as he looked over the back of the couch toward me.
I shot him an evil eye, causing him to chuckle again, before shaking my head in mock frustration. Because try as I might, I couldn't ever stay upset with Easton for long.
But as far as plans, he should know I didn't have any. I always tried to keep open any weekend days I knew Easton would be home. It was kind of our thing.
"Want to go for a climb? I've already registered us for the mountain." He said the words that were like music to my ears. We both loved to rock climb; it was part of what had brought us together during college.
Tennessee wasn't exactly Yosemite or Colorado, but Black Mountain was enough of a beast for my level of climbing experience, and since it was only about an hour away from Saratoga, it was our perfect climbing spot.
"Uh yes," I said enthusiastically as I scarfed down the rest of my breakfast and ran to my room to change into something climbing appropriate.
This was why I couldn't stop loving Easton. What kind of man not only wanted to be by my side for my favorite activity but took care of all the registration and preparation so that I didn't have to? A man who loved me. Too bad the kind of love Easton had for me wasn't the kind of love I wanted.
Chapter Three
"Miss Josie," Henry, one of my favorite athletes, greeted as he came into the training room. It was Monday afternoon and I was living the dream. Or at least my dream. I wasn't sure many other women dreamed of being an athletic trainer, but it was what I had wanted to do every day of my life since going to my brother, Sam's, first high school football game and seeing the man on the golf cart who ran onto the field when one of Sam's teammates got hurt. I loved sports and I loved taking care of people. This was a perfect blend of those two loves.
"Henry," I said with a smile to the boy who seemed to be growing by the minute. Which was good since he was the starting center on Saratoga High's basketball team. But not so good when it came to injuries. The poor boy was growing so fast, he wasn't quite sure how to use his lanky limbs—much to his coach's dismay.
"I think I twisted my ankle again," Henry said as he hopped up onto my examining table. The boy had been here often enough that he knew the drill.
He pulled off his shoe and sock and I braced myself for the smell, maybe the one downside of my job. Sweaty teenagers weren't the best smelling things around.
The odor wasn't nearly as bad as I'd been anticipating, probably because practice had only started a few minutes before, and I warmed my fingers before gently probing at Henry's ankle.
"Your diagnosis is spot on," I said as I handed Henry a pack of ice. There really wasn't much to do for a twist, especially one as minor as the one Henry had. But I had a feeling his coach had sent him in so that Henry could do no further damage at practice that day. Henry's injuries tended to come in twos or threes, and I was sure Coach Blaine wanted to avoid that. So icing his ankle and keeping him away from the court for the next while would be best for all involved.
"Thanks, Miss Josie," Henry said with a wide smile as I left him on my table and went back to my small office.
Saratoga High was one of the three high schools in our town, and since it was the biggest, it also tended to be the best at sports—part of the reason why I'd applied here instead of at either of the other schools. Well, that and Saratoga was closest to my apartment. I'd also been lucky that the current athletic trainer had been looking to retire the same year I'd applied. The school had been able to scrounge up extra funding to pay for both of our positions for a year so that Ted could train me before he left the next year. The position and timing had been ideal if you asked me, and divine if you asked my mom.
"Josie!" Emmie Paige, one of my only Tennessee friends outside The Ten of Us, exclaimed as she rushed through the training room, clicking along in her heels into my office. Emmie tended to exclaim most everything she said.
Emmie was perhaps the best dressed teacher I'd ever seen with her cute floral dress and white blazer. Between her adorable style and her long blonde hair, I knew she had quite a few teenage admirers. But she ignored them the same way she did most men. Emmie wasn't big on dating and, because of that, she said she needed my dating stories as fuel to keep her strong. I wasn't sure why she didn't date—it wasn't something she was willing to talk about—but my dating experiences only helped her resolve. "How was your date?"
"Terrible." I gave Emmie the answer I knew she wanted to hear and the woman had the audacity to grin in delight.
I frowned at her before she schooled her smile. "It isn't that I wanted it to go badly, but you know what I've been saying...." Emmie said in her southern drawl that made every word seem a little less cruel.
"That dating is for losers?" I asked.
Emmie laughed. "Well that too."
"You know you're going to have to tell me why you hate dating so much one day," I said.
Emmie gave her head a small, adorable shake and shot me a smile that said you wish before saying, "No. What I've been saying about Easton."
"Oh." I leaned back in my seat, not needing a reminder about what she'd said about Easton. What she'd been saying about Easton for nearly as long as I'd known her. I needed to date the man and get him out of my system or marry him. For a woman so against dating, she was very pro me dating Easton.
"I mean, look at your office," Emmie said as she turned one of the three pictures on my desk toward her. It was a picture of Easton and me on our graduation day. Because the other two were of my family and The Ten of Us, the picture of Easton made sense.
She then drew her eyes to the wall behind me where I had my framed degree along with a bunch of notes from my cute athletes and their accompanying school or prom pictures. But with all of that, I had a fake award Easton had made me that said World's Best Athletic Trainer. It was cheesy but cute as all getout, and I had to put it up. Didn't I?
"He's everywhere," Emmie said softly, and I got what she meant by that. He was.
"Miss Josie?" Henry called out, and I stood to take care of my patient.
"How long should I be icing this?" he asked.
I looked down to see the ice pack was now more melted than ice. "About this long," I said as I took the ice pack and placed it in my sink with the other things I'd need to disinfect at the end of my day.
"How's that shoulder feeling?" I asked Henry about the shoulder he'd dislocated a few months before. The poor boy really was accident-prone.
"Incredible," he said with a huge smile. He also bounced back like nobody's business. "Can I get back to practice?" he asked.
I was afraid that he probably could. The twist really was minor, he'd been walking on it when he'd come into the training room, and I was sure that after ice it would be pretty much back to normal. Even though I knew his coach had sent him in so that he could take a step off the court to keep from injuring himself further, I couldn't keep Henry in my office unless he really was injured. It wasn't fair to him.