Coach's Daughter

7

It was Wednesday before their evening practice and I was lounging in the PT office with Laura and Steve who have grown to be my friends. My much older, yet still fun friends.

We were taking a snack break and talking about various things when Steve asks me, "How do you like it so far? Like, the patients, the random athletes that come in, and, oh, don't forget, the paperwork."

Me and Laura both laugh about the paperwork part and I think of a response.

"I don't know. I like the hands on working with the patients I guess."

"Well, our one singular patient." Steve jokes and I feel my cheeks turn red.

"Not that I want any of the other players to get hurt." He defends himself and I feel relieved that he didn't mean Paige was my favorite part of the job, but instead that she is our only legitimate patient.

"Speaking of, she should be here soon." Laura says, checking her phone for the time. It was three o'clock and their practice starts at four. It's always best for them to be early though.

"Actually, we were thinking it's about time you handle Paige yourself." Laura says and my stomach drops and I try to prevent my jaw from doing the same.

"Yeah, you've been doing well the past couple days. You can totally handle it." Steve adds.

"You do remember all the exercises we did with her Monday, right?" Laura asks as she gets off the little couch in the corner.

"Yeah, I remember." I say trying to sound as confident as possible.

"Okay, cause I actually have a dentist appointment." She says as she gathers her purse and keys. "But Steve will be here!"

And just as Laura opens the door to leave, she runs into someone who was coming in.

"Oh, hey Paige." Laura says breathlessly, "Sorry, I didn't see you there."

I crane my neck to see Paige on the other side of the door.

"No, you're fine," I hear her glorious voice say before Laura finally moves out of the way so she came come in.

"I can't be here today, but Y/n's gonna take care of ya." Laura says before waving us good bye.

Steve is on his phone watching a game of some sort while eating a doughnut in the roley chair at the desk. I suddenly feel completely stranded and abandoned. Paige is smiling at me with that adorable smile of hers and I smile back before going to get her files from one of the cabinets. She follows me over to the cabinet behind a lounging Steve. I crouch down to the bottom drawer and start searching for her folder.

"Don't worry, I have all the exercises memorized," she whispers to me.

I find her folder and turn around and look at her grinning face over my shoulder.

"Thanks," I whisper back blushing like an idiot.

Our faces were so close. Butterflies fluttered around in my stomach as I looked back at her. I accidentally let my eyes fall to her perfect pink lips that were still spread in a grin. She always seemed so happy. She's like a ray of sunshine. Even after suffering this terrible injury. It makes me angry to think of something so awful happening to such a happy and good person. When her happy grin turns into a mischievous smirk, I turn away and stand up.

She follows me as we go over to the parallel bars where she did her exercises last time.

Turns out, I didn't need her to remind me of the exercises because they were all written down on the sheet of paper that I have to fill out on how she performs each one. Of course it did, I don't know why I was so stressed about that.

"Okay," I have a list of questions I have to ask her before the exercises. "Any time since the last time you were here have you experienced any pain in you knee?"

"No."

"Have you been doing exercises at home?"

"No." I look up at her because that seems like the wrong answer.

"At the gym." she smiles cheekily.

I roll my eyes and hold back a smile.

Once we're done with all the questions, she starts doing her exercises and I mark them as sufficient as we go down the list. Then we get to the squat, which I remember she had trouble with last time.

"Squat, " I tell her gently and look up at her. She does the squat without showing any sign of pain. I look back down at the sheet where it says Squat (legs shoulder width apart). I almost don't want to tell her but when I look up at her she just shrugs and goes to do the squat with her legs closer together.

I watch as she winces in discomfort as she goes down, then sharply inhales in pain and I immediately jump over to her, gently grabbing her arms to help her up.

"Are you okay?" I ask her, trying to meet her eyes.

"Yeah, I'm good. Thanks." She says dusting it off, looking up at me. I then realize I'm still holding on to her arms and quickly let go.

I suddenly remember to go write down how she did on the squat.

"Can you write down that I did it good?" She asks me hesitantly.

I don't know if I could get in trouble if I did. If Steve is paying any attention he would know, but I don't think he is.

"But you don't have to if it could get you in trouble." She says in a lower voice, back tracking.

"No, it's fine." I say and check that she did it sufficiently.

"Thanks." She says before doing a jump squat and I mark it too.

Paige then goes over to sit on the high-lo table and I follow her.

I carefully place my hand on her left knee and she watches down on me as I do so.

"So, you been working on your ball skills since last night?" She asks, lightening the mood.

I let out a little laugh before answering sarcastically, "Oh, yeah, totally. I think you should watch out for your star-player status on the team."

"Now I don't know about all of that," she chuckles softly.

I run my thumb gently over one of the small scars on the inner side of her knee. She wasn't swinging her leg like she did last time.

"Did it hurt? I mean, the surgery. Obviously the getting hurt hurt."

"I mean, I was under anesthesia the whole time so not really."

I look up to see her looking down at her knee now.

"I'm sorry this happened to you." I say in a lower voice, looking back down to her knee where I still keep my hand.

She doesn't respond so I look up to see her staring at me intensely. She throws a glance over at Steve who is still paying no attention to us. When she looks back at me, I stand up. Now looking up at me, she spreads her legs enough so I fit between them and she pulls me in by my waist. My heart is pounding through my chest as we look into each others eyes, then at each others lips. This is happening. I'm going to kiss Paige Bueckers, right here, right now in this PT office. I lean down and our faces grow closer and closer together. Then the door flies open and I jump back from her. Who could it possibly be that ruined my chance to kiss Paige freaking Bueckers?

"P, you coming to practice or what?" It was Aaliyah. It surely wasn't time for practice yet.

"Yeah, I'm coming." Paige tells her as she jumps off the table.

My heart drops as she goes to leave like we weren't just about to kiss. When she gets to the door she turns to look back at me, "Bye, Y/n."