The Playbook for Heartbreaks

Alana Scott had one rule about mornings: nothing before coffee.

Ethan Parker knew the rule. She had announced it at the dinner table when she turned sixteen, and he had been there, eating her mother's lasagna. He just treated it as a suggestion.

At 6:15, the gray curtains across the driveway flew open, revealing Ethan in a towel, sporting a haircut he still seemed to be getting used to. He waved like he'd spotted a ship.

She didn't look up. She had a highlighter in one hand and a mug in the other, and she was on her third pass at the same sentence about rotator cuff biomechanics. If she was boring enough, he'd lose interest.

"Morning, Geek."

That had not worked once since the fourth grade, when he came up with it.

"Don't call me that."

"You're reading. It's six in the morning. On a Friday."

"Some of us are responsible adults."

"Some of us are in a committed relationship with the library." He leaned on the window frame. "Does the librarian know? Should someone tell him?"

Alana shoved a curl out of her face. Her bun had given up around five-thirty, and her oversized cream hoodie had swallowed both hands to the knuckle. She had not been planning to be seen. Certainly not by the starting quarterback of Oakridge University, who was grinning at her like he'd personally ordered the sunrise.

Behind him, his number 7 jersey hung on the bedroom door. Of course it did. The Parkers and the Scotts had shared a driveway for twenty-two years, and in all that time Ethan had never once looked tired before nine.

"If you put half as much effort into studying as you do into staring at my window," she said, "your professors might stop worrying about you."

"My midterms were respectable."

"Respectable. Wow. Frame them."

"I'm good at lots of things."

"Name two."

"Football," Ethan said, without even pausing, "and ruining your morning."

"You think that's the same as memorable."

"Isn't it?"

"Unbearable, Parker. The word is unbearable."

He laughed with his head thrown back, and Alana was annoyed to feel her mouth start to twitch. That was the problem with Ethan. You could throw anything at him and he'd catch it, turn it over, and decide it was an invitation.

"I'm only looking out for my favorite neighbor. I'd hate for you to fossilize in the stacks before graduation."

"I'd rather be a fossil than the captain who dumps his group project on everyone else."

"Strong words against the good name of number seven."

"Then give it a reason to be respected."

His grin dipped, so briefly she almost missed it, then snapped back. Alana frowned at the spot where it had been. Then she saw the clock and pointed at his room.

"Go get dressed. You have practice. Unless you want to tell Coach Dillon you were late because you were busy bothering me."

"You know my schedule." One eyebrow went up. "Should I be worried about the shrine in your closet?"

"In your dreams."

She yanked the curtain shut.

She stood there a second with her fingers still in the fabric, listening for what she would have denied under oath was a knock on the glass.

Nothing at all. Which was a relief.

She sat down again and opened the bottom desk drawer to drop in a pen. The brochure was on top, where she'd left it, its corners soft from being opened and shut too many times.

Sports Physical Therapy Residency Program, Chicago.

Applications would close in five weeks. She knew the date the way you know a phone number you never tried to memorize.

She looked at it longer than a pen required.

Then she shut the drawer and picked up the highlighter.

Not yet, she told herself. Coffee first. Then you can decide what to do about the rest of your life.

Across the driveway, Ethan was still smiling like an idiot.

He hadn't meant to. It happened whenever he got a rise out of her before breakfast, which he did on purpose and which he was prepared to deny. He had a group presentation due Monday, a quiz he'd studied for in the sense that he had once seen the textbook, and a game on Saturday that every coach on staff had told him, individually, not to take his eye off.

But Alana Scott yanking the curtain closed on him? That meant she'd listened to every word. Nobody slammed a curtain over something they didn't care about.

He grabbed his jeans and left the window, with no plans of ever telling her that.

By the time he cut across the quad, the maples were going amber at the tips, and half of Oakridge was shuffling to class with a coffee in each hand. People nodded. Ethan nodded back. A freshman actually stopped dead on the path to stare, so Ethan saluted him, because what else do you do?

That was the thing about being the quarterback. Strangers knew your name. It just never made accounting any easier.

"Captain."

Marcus Reed, junior linebacker and the only guy on the team who truly enjoyed being annoying, fell into step beside him outside the business building.

"Please tell me you studied for Davis's quiz."

"I studied the general concept of accounting."

"Meaning?"

"I know it exists."

"You're going to regret that."

"Then I'll regret it later. After graduation, ideally."

Marcus snorted. They climbed the steps while he talked debits and credits, until something occurred to him and his whole face lit up in a way that put Ethan on high alert.

"You hitting the Station Café later?"

"Maybe. I've got an appointment at the sports clinic after two."

"Another appointment." Marcus stretched the word like gum. "How many is that this week?"

"Enough to know where the good chairs are."

"Sure. And Alana working there is a coincidence."

"Say one more word and your next pass lands somewhere you won't enjoy."

"Threatening a teammate. Very leadership of you."

"I contain multitudes."

"You're a terrible liar."

Ethan let him have it, mostly because Marcus wasn't wrong. But the appointment was real. His left shoulder had been tight since yesterday's throwing drills, a dull, stubborn ache that didn't shake out no matter how many times he rolled it. The trainer had told him to get it checked before his next throwing session, and he'd agreed way too fast.

He needed an initial check before putting more strain on it. If the pain persisted, the clinic would arrange a fuller assessment.

That Alana would be there was a bonus. A bonus he had no intention of discussing.

The College of Health and Human Sciences didn't leave much room for distractions, which was exactly why Alana liked it.

Her senior year in the physical therapy program meant brutal lectures, practical exams, and clinical hours with Oakridge's athletes. She loved it for the same reason other people found it exhausting: it made her slow down and pay attention. Athletes wanted to be back on the field yesterday. Her job was to notice when their bodies disagreed.

At one-thirty, a sprinter named Cole limped in with a swollen ankle and a hopeful face.

"It's not that bad," he said, because it was never that bad.

She watched him walk, checked the swelling, and tested the joint only until he winced. Then she wrote everything down and ran her findings past the supervising clinician.

"Don't try to run it off tonight," she told him at the door. "Follow the plan. Tell us if it gets worse."

"Got it."

"Actually follow it."

"You say that like it's the hard part."

"It is."

The clinic went quiet after he left. She was halfway through her last note when the door opened at 2:10, and she didn't need to look up.

Mint body wash arrived first, then footsteps she'd have known in her sleep.

"What now, Parker?"

"Afternoon, Therapist Scott."

"Student clinician."

"Therapist sounds better."

She looked up. He stood by her desk in a black T-shirt with a gym bag on one shoulder, wearing the relaxed expression of a man who had no plans to behave. In her experience, that was never good news.

"Left shoulder," he said. "Tight since yesterday's throwing drills. The trainer said to get it looked at."

That last part made her put the pen down.

"Okay. Sit. Tell me."

He sat. She asked when it started, whether anything felt sharp, and which movements made it worse. Then she took him through a basic screening, staying within her training and the clinic's procedures.

"Raise your arm. Slowly."

He did. She kept her eyes on the shoulder and off the smug look he'd decided to wear.

"Weakness? Numbness?"

"Nope."

"Then stop grinning like you won something."

"I have your undivided attention."

"I'm evaluating your shoulder."

"Still counts."

She ignored him and wrote something down.

To her surprise, he let it go. He sat still while she checked the joint, answered every question straight, and when she pressed a tender spot and he sucked a breath through his teeth, he didn't make a joke about it.

"Sorry," she said.

"Don't be. That's the point."

Then he was looking at something on her desk.

She almost missed it. His eyes had caught on the corner of her clipboard, where a ticket stub was wedged under the clip, soft as cloth, the ink faded to a ghost. She'd used it as a bookmark for years. She couldn't have told you which game it came from.

Ethan looked at it for a second. Then another one.

"What?" she said.

"Nothing." He cleared his throat. "Just wondering if I get a certificate for good behavior."

"You get a list of instructions."

"Worth a shot."

She went over her observations with the supervising clinician, who agreed that Ethan shouldn't push through the discomfort. He needed to check in with the trainer before any heavy throwing and arrange a full evaluation if the pain persisted.

Alana couldn't clear him to play. She couldn't diagnose the problem on her own. She could only explain what came next.

"Talk to the trainer before your next throwing session," she said. "If it doesn't ease up, you need a full evaluation. And don't blow it off because you've got a game Saturday."

"I know." He said it quietly. "I'll follow the plan."

"Good. Being captain doesn't make you indestructible."

He didn't have a comeback for that, only a plain "Yeah," and it caught her off guard enough that she stepped back and picked up the clipboard just to have something to do with her hands.

"We're done. Try to get through the rest of the week without inventing another reason to visit."

"And here I thought you liked seeing me."

"I like seeing athletes follow their recovery plans."

"So no special treatment for number seven."

"Not even a little."

He slung his bag over his shoulder.

"I'll have to figure out how to win you over."

"Start by listening."

"That's a much harder challenge."

"At least you know your weaknesses."

He was almost smug enough to float out of the room. At the door he glanced back.

"See you tomorrow, Geek."

"Don't count on it."

The door clicked shut.

Alana stared at it, then made herself look back at her notes, irritated that a five-minute conversation could take up that much room in her head. She had coursework. She had clinical hours. She had a deadline in five weeks and a future she intended to build on her own terms.

Whatever Ethan Parker was up to, he wasn't going to get in the way of that.

At least, that was the plan.

She was reaching for her pen when she noticed the stub again, still tucked under the clip. She turned it over. The date had faded away completely. Only the corner of a printed football was left.

She had no idea why he'd looked at it like that.

In the hallway, Ethan's phone buzzed.

Marcus: How was the appointment? Did she throw you out?

He typed as he walked.

Ethan: Professional. Efficient. Life-changing.

Marcus: So she threw you out.

Ethan laughed and pocketed the phone. Practice, then the presentation. His shoulder was something to keep an eye on, not something he could pretend wasn't there.

But halfway across the quad, his mind slid sideways.

She'd kept it.

Of everything on that desk, it was the one thing he'd never expected to see again, and she had it clipped to her notes like it was nothing. He hadn't known what to do with his face.

He shook the thought off. Not now. It was never the right time.

Tomorrow morning, at 6:15, Alana would be at her desk with her curtains shut, daring him. And Ethan would probably be standing at his window anyway.

Not because he was waiting for her, obviously.

If their windows happened to be open at the same time, that would just be a coincidence.

Probably.