Kyler was pretty light. I definitely could have just carried her all the way into the locker room, but there’s something dignified about the crowd all clapping as a player — arm around their coach — limps off the field.

It sure did take longer, though.

By the time we finally emerged into the locker room — the clip of the cleat on her one functioning foot missing its matching clop — I was starting to really feel her arm digging into the back of my neck.

“Come on, Kyler, let’s just, ugh, get you to the... table,” I grunted out, helping her heave herself onto the trainer’s table in the back room. With the game still going, there was nobody else in the locker room. The trainer just said to “put some ice on it,” so I cracked a couple of cold packs and took a look at the wiry forward.

She was far from the team’s best player. But even though she was a senior, she’d already grown into her role better than anyone could have expected since the start of the season. Although, like most teenagers, she was doing her growing in spurts, clearly. Her long, deerlike legs seemed to take up more than half her height, and she ran like it, too. Still, if she kept at it, she’d probably be more than pretty good out there in no time.

To her credit, unlike her legs, her eyes were anything but doe-like, even after a collision that I didn’t want to admit had worried me at first, but had turned out to have looked much worse than it apparently was. Red rings around her green eyes showed she’d shed a few tears, but who could blame her? She ran full speed into Taylor Greene. She was lucky she apparently hadn’t broken anything.

Kyler rubbed her left leg with some well-earned concern, though. The swelling was starting in her ankle, and although the trainer said it wasn’t broken, her body sure seemed to think so.

“Here, let’s get this off, okay?” I said as kindly as I could, gently peeling down her sock. I usually had to be the hardass. Be the hardass and coach junior varsity, that was the gig as assistant coach. But Kyler didn’t talk much and always did her job, the kind of kid who was always harder on herself than any asshole coach like me could ever be.

She sucked in a sharp breath when I had trouble getting the sock down over the rapidly growing melon inside her lower shin. I stopped and she gritted her teeth — then nodded at me to continue.

I gave her an encouraging smile and managed to get the sock off, the cleat long forgotten on the sideline somewhere. Lifting up her long leg as delicately as I could, the shin guard was at least much easier to remove.

Half a game of evaporated sweat assaulted my nostrils. Shins never seemed to smell particularly bad when left to their own devices, but slap a shin guard on them? I’d have to ask Mrs. Hanrahan about what scientific miracle was responsible for that.

My fingers lightly grazed the swell on Kyler’s ankle. She twitched a little, but didn’t pull it back.

“That hurt?” I asked, looking back to her. She was sitting up, teeth jammed together, strands of her sandy brown hair matted to her flushed forehead. Her cheeks were even rosier.

“N-no, not really. I mean, it hurts, but n-not when you — well, it still hurts but, you don’t hurt it, umm—” She seemed to flush even redder, so I showed the poor kid a little mercy and cut her off with a warm smile.

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” I said, patting her knee. That made her wince.

“Ah, that hurt though.”

“Sorry, she got you all over, huh,” I said, tracing my fingertips up her bent leg. The outer half was starting to get a little yellower, a little browner — starting to bruise up and down.

The cold packs now cold, I nestled one against her ankle, shooting her a look intended to get her to hold it there herself. Her green eyes just stared back into mine, though, while she lay back on the trainer’s table, elbows propping up her slight body. Her expression was hard to read, and it seemed like as intently as she was staring at me, she wasn’t seeing me staring back.

“Kyler,” I said gently, and nodded toward the cold pack.

“Oh, oh yeah.” She smiled a little, blushing again, and tried to lean down, but stopped and clutched at her side, clamping her eyes shut in pain. “Ahhh, that hurts.”

Tentatively, she lifted the bottom of her grass-stained jersey and revealed more bruising up her left side. It looked like it was gonna be painful for a while.

As she held her jersey up, her gaze flicked up to me, filled with a combination of annoyance at the hassle her injury was causing her, and the softer, younger expression underneath that just said it hurt and she wanted it to stop hurting.

When I was on hardass duty, my job was to forget they were kids with a world of teenage problems swirling around in their heads in the hope they’d forget, too. But now, that was impossible to do. She was tough, but she was still just a kid who wanted somebody to make it all better.

“Here,” I said gently, helping Kyler pull the jersey up over her head.

The bruising went up most of her side, where she’d collided at full speed with her much larger opposite number. The skin under her jersey was noticeably paler, not used to being exposed to the elements even as the rest of her body proved she spent most afternoons in the sun.

Sitting on the padded trainer’s table, now just in her white uniform shorts and a gray sports bra she barely needed, Kyler started to hunch in on herself, those green eyes flitting toward the open door to the trainer’s room.

Was she self-conscious? I couldn’t remember her having any issues changing around her teammates, but I hadn’t really been paying attention, either.

Without a word, I quietly closed the door, even though there wasn’t anyone in the locker room yet. There was no window, no way to see in, and the door locked automatically from the inside. It was just us now.

She smiled at me weakly, her injured leg straight on the table and the other bent at the knee.

Again without needing to say anything, I put my hand on her healthy shoulder, giving her a light tap to intimate she should lie back on the pillow.

Instead, I felt some of the tension in her coiled body dissolve, but the only movement she made was to look up at me, the simmering emeralds in her eyes giving away how much just my hand on her shoulder seemed to make her feel better.

“Thanks, Coach,” she mumbled.

My fingers gently slid along her shoulder, as knobby as the rest of her, giving her as comforting a caress as I could in an attempt not to embarrass her.

“Kyler,” I said quietly, smiling a little but trying not to laugh, “lie back.”

Her eyebrows jumped and the tension returned as she seemed to understand she’d misinterpreted why my hand was there.

“Oh, y-yeah, right,” she stammered, her eyes darting anywhere but at me.

I tried not to embarrass her any further and walked to her other side, busying myself with one of the cold packs while I tried to work out what it was I was seeing in her nervous, dancing eyes.

“Hold still,” I told her, in that same quiet, gentle tone of voice that suddenly seemed to come so naturally even though it seemed so foreign coming out of my mouth.

Steadying her leg with one hand, I positioned the pack on her swollen ankle with the other. Even though I was long since done, I softly ran my hand along her leg to just above her knee — back and forth. Through her soft, smooth skin, I could feel some of the tension dissipate again, even as she held her crossed arms over her stomach.

When my eyes reached hers, it was clear she’d been looking at me the whole time, that inscrutable expression on her face again, and it took her a beat too long to register I was looking at her, too. She didn’t say anything, and took yet another beat to flick her gaze somewhere else.

I traced my palm up her thigh, over her shorts, and to the tiny bit of pale, exposed stomach poking out underneath her folded arm, and felt her shiver just slightly at my touch.

“Kyler,” I said in that same tone, “gotta get to your bruises up here, okay?”

I rested my hand on her arm, and she looked to me again. I could recognize the anxiousness there now, the push and pull between two opposing forces behind her strained expression — inside this nervous, quiet girl whose eyes always seemed drawn to me.

Seeming to steel herself, she slowly dropped her arms to her sides, revealing the most serious bruising starting to show over her ribs. Involuntarily, my fingertips traced over the purple just under her smooth skin, as lightly as I could. She flinched and sucked in.

“Sorry,” I said just as gingerly.

My hand stayed on her trim body, my palm sliding across her stomach as comfortingly as I could where there wasn’t bruising. I watched her as she fought whatever battle was raging inside her, and couldn’t tell if she found it comforting at all: She was as tense as ever, her body as rigid as if my hand were a wild animal set to bite her if she didn’t stay absolutely still.

But her eyes didn’t match the trepidation in her tightened muscles — they followed my hand with something else in mind.

I kept trying to gently soothe her as my other hand applied the cold pack, knowing it wouldn’t feel good. Sure enough, her body gave a little jolt as it made contact with her ribs, her skin coming flush with my palm on the other side. She didn’t protest, though.

Kyler’s eyes stayed calmer than her body, looking up at me while I adjusted the cold pack on her discolored skin. My other hand continued to slowly rub her torso — across her stomach, up her far ribs, back to just under her bra.

The droning of the air conditioning made every other sense seem to melt away — amplifying the soft smoothness of her skin on my hand and the mix of emotions behind those green eyes I still couldn’t quite put my finger on.

I gave a tiny jolt myself when I felt something against my hand, over the cold pack. It was hers — her clammy palm on my fingers.

“I-I got it, Coach,” she said, barely loud enough to be heard over the air conditioning.

I nodded. As I extricated my hand, I noticed her eyes hadn’t left mine.

Without a thought, I let my freed hand reach out to the few stray strands of sunkissed brown hair sticking to her sweaty forehead, bending in closer to delicately brush them aside. I smiled as reassuringly as I knew how, and her eyes seemed to gleam even greener in return.

I felt myself leaning closer, trying to figure out what it was I was seeing behind this 18-year-old’s anxious gaze. Her lips seem to twitch just a fraction, maybe even quiver ... and recognition finally dawned — recognition of the longing lurking just there, underneath the surface, pleading to get out. It triggered in me a rush of connection, of something shared with this awkward, shy teenager on the table.

Kyler’s body tensed against my hand, but I lowered myself even closer, able to smell the sweat drying on her lithe, nearly naked body. The closer I inched, the more she had trouble holding the expression on her face, threatening to melt into the need burning through her eyes.

A centimeter from her lips, her eyes closed, still full of the anxious, uncertain pining I identified inside them that was making me feel more protective and caring than I thought I was capable of being.

My lips pressed against hers and I felt the quiver in her mouth give way to the desire. I relished her taste as we kissed, the salt of dried sweat and maybe a few tears alongside the unmistakable excitement and nervousness that was pulsing through her.

I ran one hand along her uninjured side while I kissed her, lying back on the trainer’s table, and the other hand softly raked through her unkempt hair. She let out a moan so small I wasn’t sure I’d heard it so much as felt it escape into my mouth and reverberate through me.

When we finally parted, my thumb continued to gently stroke her cheek. But the anxiety in her eyes now seemed to have graduated to terror.

“Coach I’m-I’m — I’m so sorry oh my God — I—”

My thumb crossed her thin, soft lips, still moistened from my tongue.

“Shh,” I told her. “You’re okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

I smiled at her — that warm, encouraging smile I so rarely got to show, to let her know she was safe in here — safe with me.

The fear in Kyler’s eyes said she still was sure she was going to get into trouble — or maybe something worse — even though I’d been the one to initiate the kiss. I knew how that felt, too.

Still hovering inches from the deep blush in her cheeks, I dropped my mouth to her collarbone and kissed her reassuringly, letting my tongue trail between my lips. She tucked her chin, staring down at me with that mix of disbelief, shame — and more than a little desire. Yes, there was no doubt about it now.

I continued kissing down her smooth, taut body, feeling the tiny hairs rise at my every touch. As lightly as I could, I lifted her hand and she let me kiss the bruises on her side, cold and swelling against my lips.

“Any better?” I asked quietly, seriously, my chin still hovering above her belly button as I peered up at her. Kyler nodded slightly, her brow scrunched into a knot and her glassy green eyes looking like they might water any second.

I smiled and moved back up to her head, standing next to her and leaning in. Automatically, she turned in anticipation, her lips eagerly joining in this time as we kissed once again. I stroked her hair while I let her tongue explore, gently guiding the inexperienced high schooler until she had to come up for air.

Flushed now and panting, she was still as nervous as ever, looking at me.

“It’s okay, Kyler, really,” I told her softly, stroking her cheek with an affection I didn’t need to fake.

She didn’t seem convinced, as much as her expression screamed that she wanted to be.

I understood perfectly well. Being a teenager meant being unsure of everything, except the things you only later realized you had no business being sure about at all. That was doubly true when your brain was desperately clinging to a lie — but your body was telling you the truth, loud and clear.

I knew it would drive her close to panic, but I swung a leg onto the trainer’s table and straddled Kyler below the hips, folding my knees on either side of her. Sure enough, panic flooded her eyes and she sat up — until I put a calming hand on her chest.

Wordlessly, I left my palm flat against her warm, soft skin, feeling the careening beat of her heart pounding out of control as her mind raced, sorting out what she wanted. The beating began to slow just a bit, the panic receding, though the fear remained — I could see it in her eyes as clearly as I could feel it in her tense body beneath me.

Silently, I closed in to kiss her again, and this time she let the cold pack drop to the floor, her cool fingers caressing my cheek like they were carrying out an experiment.