"Hi, Carrie Mittel," I say, offering my hand, but Duncan just sits there with his little cocky smile, his hands not moving as he just undresses me with his eyes. I suspect he does that with every woman he sees between the ages of eighteen and forty, but I could be wrong. It could be fifty from how Alicia described him. I drop my hand and turn to Coach. "What do you need, Coach Taylor?"
"Duncan here is coming off elbow surgery. Nothing too major, just a debridement and some partial fractures of his ulna. I remember that in the course you took with me, you did a paper on elbow rehabilitation, didn’t you?”
I nod, seeing where this is going. "Yes, Coach, on rehabilitation protocols after Tommy John surgery."
"Good paper. While Duncan's rehab won't be anywhere near as extensive, I'm assigning him to you. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, four thirty start. Duncan, Carrie may be only a rising junior, but she's one of the best I've got. You give her any of your shit, and I'll be the one breaking a barbell off in your ass. Got it?"
Duncan's cocky little smile slips slightly, and he scowls before nodding his head. "Whatever. So, Carly—"
"Carrie. My name's Carrie," I correct him. I hate getting my name screwed up. It pisses me off. "Unless you want me to start calling you Dunc."
"No, thanks," Duncan says, getting to his feet. I'm not short for a woman, but he towers over me. I'm tempted to back down, but instead, I stand my ground, looking up at his sexy gray eyes and trying not to let the flush that I feel in my chest creep up my neck. "So I guess I'll see you tomorrow."
"Four thirty. Be ready to work," I reply, not moving when Duncan steps to move past me. He stops, and I raise an eyebrow. "What?"
"Can you let me out?" he huffs, and I step to the side. Duncan doesn’t make contact when he leaves, but only by the slimmest of margins.
I wait for him to go out, then turn back to Coach Taylor, who's giving me an amused look. "How was that?"
"Good start," Coach says. "Stick around a bit. How are you on your elbow rehab knowledge?"
"Bit rusty since this last semester didn't touch on them, but I'll brush up this evening. Do you want me to script the exercises too?"
Coach shakes his head and nods at the chair Duncan just left. "Have a seat. Carrie, I assigned Duncan to you for two reasons. First, the rehab protocol is actually pretty simple. The reason Duncan was sent down here by Coach B from the football team is because he wants Duncan to learn a little bit about hard work and sacrifice before he declares for the draft next winter. So I get to write something that'll put him through his paces. The main thing he needs is a babysitter, and since you're still pretty green, I thought he'd be a good case for you to start with, since there isn't anything training-wise that'll be too difficult."
"But . . ." I say, noticing his expression, "you have something else you want to tell me."
"Yeah," Coach Taylor says. "I chose you because you can be tough when you want to be. That's what Duncan needs. He'd try to intimidate any of the male students I could assign to him, and to put it frankly, the female students . . ."
"He'd seduce,” I finish, and Coach Taylor raises an eyebrow. "Alicia Torres was getting her ankle wrapped when Duncan came in. She filled me in on Touchdown."
Coach Taylor nods, then laughs. "We get one like him around here every few years. He's not the first football player to be called Touchdown. In any case, he's probably going to make a pass at you. Watch yourself, okay? You're a good kid. I don't want to see you getting yourself all emotionally busted up for a guy like Duncan Hart."
"Don't worry, Coach. I won't," I say. "Did you know he nearly ran me over in the hallway yesterday afternoon and didn't even stop to help me up? You can tell by his face that he didn't recognize me either. You think I'm going to let someone like that get to my emotions?"
"Still, be careful. All right, I'll get you the protocol for him by the time you leave this evening. Thanks."
I go back to work, finishing up my taping duties with Chelsea before she goes on to monitor tennis practice, since the tennis team doesn't practice near the Pavilion. When I'm done, I go get my backpack and change clothes, grabbing my own workout clipboard from the rack and starting my routine. If I'm going to get Duncan's respect, I need to show him that I can hang in here and that I know what I'm doing.
And of course, I'll have to not back down from him. Which is hard, because even as I do my kettlebell swings, I'm still seeing those gray eyes flecked with reddish gold and diamonds and that face framed by coal black hair.