The Goalie Bet novel · Chapter 19 of 32

Chapter 19: The Whistle

The training room door opened on my own key at 3:40.

Tape and menthol and lemon cleaner, same as always.

Somebody had cleaned the room while I was gone. The trash was empty and the towels were folded.

My clipboard sat on the desk where it belonged.

The whiteboard still had my name across it and one long line through the tally.

Logan got there at 3:52.

He stood in the doorway and took the room in like he was checking it for damage.

"Nothing's different," he said.

"Nothing's different."

He crossed to the board and read his own handwriting for a long second.

"Want me to wipe it."

"Leave it."

He sat on table two.

I ran him through the whole thing. Isometrics, bridges, band work, the wall sit.

Fifty minutes and he was soaked and breathing through his teeth.

"Last one," I said. "Single-leg press. Twenty."

He quit on twelve.

Knee in the air, chest going, hand flat on the vinyl.

"Ten seconds," he said.

"Take them."

He took them and finished the set and then lay flat with his forearm over his face.

I wrote the time in the log and set the pen down.

"You didn't quit," I said.

"I know."

"Not once. In fifty minutes."

"I know."

He sat up and his feet hit the floor.

"I want to say something," he said.

"Say it."

"The week's over."

"It's Thursday."

"It's been over since Monday."

"Sunday," I said. "You said a week."

"I said a week and I lost on the first day and we both know it."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Goalie Bet from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.