Qualified: A Sports Romance Read Online Free PDF Page A

said to the teammates who had
accompanied him into the clinic for their own basic check-ins, swatting the one
on the left in the chest. “My reputation precedes me.”
    Biting her lip, Allie didn’t bother correcting him.
She neatened her hair behind her ear and collected Adam with a gesture,
directing him into the patient area first. “I have notes from your physician in
Northern California, as well as from the team’s physical trainer Lindsey. She should
be arriving shortly, but let’s get started so we can have you out before
lunch?”
    “Sounds good to me.” Adam looked her over. “Maybe
you and me, we can walk over together.”
    “Such a gentleman.” Allie smiled back. “I
appreciate the offer, but I make it a policy not to accept lunch dates with
athletes.”
    “Well if you just have a problem with lunch dates …”
    Allie laughed at the overdone waggle of his
eyebrows. “Not any dates.” Waving for him to follow, she led the way farther
into the clinic.

 
     
     
05
     
     
    Adam proved more playfully endearing
than her last patient. While it wasn’t enough to convince her to break her rule
and go to lunch, Allie was enjoying his company enough to at least walk him out
to the hallway.
    “Hey,” he turned to ask before he left. “Was that
Marc Belmont I saw in here earlier?”
    “Yes.” Allie scuffed to an abrupt stop as the
question caught her off guard. “Don’t you know him? I thought you and he played
at the same university.”
    “Well yeah.” Adam’s smile had gone lopsided. “But
he graduated almost a decade before I started. Or, well, he left .” He
scratched uncertain fingers through his hair. “He’s cleared to play and all,
right?”
    That set Allie swaying. A faint frown touched her
brow as she searched the younger player’s guileless eyes. There were all sorts
of reasons she felt uncomfortable answering further, not the least of which was
because it seemed strange that she would know more about Marc than one of his
own teammates. “Why shouldn’t he be?”
    “Oh I don’t know.” Adam shrugged it off, but he was
only making her worry more as he went on. “You just hear things. I don’t think
the older guys are that excited to have him back on the team. Our captain
isn’t, anyway. I don’t think they got along very well in the past. Plus Belmont
was kicked off the team last time around, before that first qualifying
tournament in two thousand eleven.”
    And this was the guy that Allie was supposed be
running a trial on all week, counting on him for the data which would help her
get into Doctor Kaitech’s good graces? “What does someone get kicked off for?”
It was kind of a stupid question when she worked in a sports facility’s testing
lab. Her mouth twisted unhappily.
    “I don’t know,” Adam repeated with an apologetic
spread of his hands.
    “It’s okay,” Allie waved off their worries. “I’m
sure, whatever it was … I’m sure that the coaches wouldn’t have put him
onto the team if they didn’t believe he belonged.” Except a small voice in her
head repeated something she remembered Marc saying when she complimented him on
doing the trial. Tell that to my coach . Like he needed to be vouched
for.
    “I guess.” Adam frowned. “I just hope nothing weird
happens to ruin our chances. We need magic after we failed to pull it out in
the continental tourney. Our last chance for the summer games is the world
qualifying tournament at the beginning of April. Belmont is supposed to be one
of the best. And he’s a hole.”
    Allie blinked. “Wait, what does being an asshole
have to do with it?”
    “No,” Adam laughed. “The hole is one of the
positions. The center. We need our biggest and toughest guy there, because it’s
where a lot of the fighting happens.”
    “There’s fighting?”
    Adam stepped back and gave her a funny look. “Have
you ever seen a water polo game?”
    Allie stared blankly at him.
    “I’ll take that as a no.” Leaving