Straddling the Line

ELEVEN

AFTER TAKING A SHOWER, HAVEN CONTACTED HER producer, filling him in on what she’d been doing. Camera crews would be at the next Rivers game, where she’d do some feed on Trevor and give a rundown on his background while at the game. They’d try to do an interview before the game. Haven had talked to a few of his teammates, who had agreed to give some sound bites as well.

Her producer seemed satisfied with the status, which relieved her. She was nervous about the direction she was taking with this feature, since she’d never done one as detailed as Trevor’s was going to be. She’d interviewed athletes postgame before, but those were one-or two-minute pieces, not an entire bio. She was out of her element here, but grateful to have Trevor as her subject. He relaxed her.

Well, sort of. At least professionally, he was making this easy on her. Personally? He made her tense. Nervous. A little breathless whenever she got close to him.

She was going to have to either learn to get a handle on her feelings for him, or figure out a way to have that conversation.

She found him downstairs in the office, so she set up her laptop and organized her notes.

“Ready to get started again?”

He nodded. “Sure.”

“I’d like to know about anyone you feel was a mentor to you on your way up the ladder to success. High school coaches, anyone in college.”

“Your dad.”

She stopped and stared at him. “You don’t have to say that just because it’s me.”

“I’m not saying it just because it’s you, Haven. Bill Briscoe saved my ass—more than once—and made it possible for me to have a pro sports career.”

She felt the twinge in the vicinity of her heart, but pushed it aside and typed the quote into her laptop. “Okay. Tell me about . . . Bill.”

“He took everyone under his wing. He was more than just our dorm parent. He genuinely cared about all of us guys. It made a difference to him that we were educated and also excelled at the sports we played. You know how hard college was for me. I wasn’t much into the academic part of it. But Bill pushed me to always do better. He said I wasn’t going to play sports the rest of my life, so it mattered that I graduated.”

She looked up from her laptop. “And you did.”

He laughed. “Yeah. Barely. Thanks to you. And to your—to Bill. Education was always important to him. He always wanted the guys to see a future beyond just a sports career. We talked a lot about what I saw myself doing after I was done with football and baseball.”

“Really. And what did you see in your future?”

“Nothing. Sports was always it for me. I don’t want to own some car dealership or do sportscasting. It’s always been and always will be sports for me. Bill suggested coaching.”

“At the pro level?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe working with kids somewhere down the road. I want to mold them when they’re younger.”

She leaned back in the chair and studied him. “I could see that. Kids would look up to you. You could become a teacher, then do coaching.”

He laughed. “Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.”

“Why not?”

“It’s just not gonna happen. I’m not teacher material.”

“Why would you even think that? You totally could be. All you have to do is go back to school and get the right degree, then you could teach and coach.”

“No.” He stood and left the room.

Haven looked at the empty doorway, sensing she’d just said something terribly wrong. Trevor had been upset. Or angry. Or something.

But she had no idea what she’d said.

She set her laptop aside and went to find him.