beautiful mistake - joe burrow

23

it was now Monday, the first days of training camp had gone well, yesterday's public practice with fans at the stadium had been very good and Joe liked seeing how many people were supporting the Bengals.

He still hadn't run into Elle. He had seen her once or twice from a distance, chatting with Paul and the others on the sidelines, but by the time he was done with training, she was untraceable.

He heard from Sam and Logan that she was keeping them pretty busy in strength and conditioning training and was playing bad cop and even badder cop with Todd. Every time they thought the challenge from one of them to do even better was enough, the other would join in and yell some more. Sam even said he now understood what the nickname hell was all about.

On Monday morning, Nick came into the treatment room all upset, where Joe was already waiting for him, as he was going to look at his knee to see if Joe could continue to train like this with a brace or if he would have to skip it again.

"Joe, I don't know why you need to talk to Elle and it's not really any of my business, but you need to clear it with her, she wants to leave" it blurted out of Nick as he pressed down on Joe's knee.

"She wants to leave?" Joe asked confused. "Yeah, I overheard her talking on the phone yesterday.I don't know with who, but if I had to guess, I'd say with the coach of the college team she interned with" Nick sighed.

"how do you know she wants to go? Maybe he just wanted to check on her, you know ask how she's doing" Joe tried to come up with a plausible explanation.

"I don't think so. She was talking about thinking about an offer and getting back to him. Joe, I really don't want to get into your business, but if you know that this might have something to do with you, please clear it up, okay?" Nick was literally pleading with him.

Everything was spinning in Joe's head. Was he maybe really right and Elle was avoiding him? But was he really to blame for her wanting to change jobs? After all, it was only a kiss and that didn't mean she had to leave, did it? In any case, he knew he had to talk to her.

By chance, Joe got word that Elle was taking over Mike's treatment, a routine checkup, since he was feeling a twinge in his thigh.

Well, Paul had announced that through the walkie-talkies that the atheltic trainers used to communicate with each other and other staff members. Nick had just been standing near Joe at the time. Joe wasn't quite sure if he might not have even done that on purpose, but he had been given the time and place that way.

He felt like a stalker as he paced back and forth outside the room waiting for Mike to finally come out, but he knew it might be the only way to talk to Elle without her avoiding him directly. Nervously, he kneaded his hands and ran his fingers through his hair dozens of times.

Finally the door opened and Mike came out, greeted him briefly with a handshake, and continued down the hall.

When Elle made no effort to get out of the room, or perhaps had magically disappeared already, Joe mustered all his courage and stepped up to the doorframe. Elle was standing against the wall reading a file, hadn't noticed him yet.

"Hey" he tried to lean against the door frame as casually as he could, while Elle winced in fright and lifted her gaze. "Oh, it's you" she mumbled, folding the file closed and shouldering her backpack.

"Yes, it's me. You tell me, I can't shake the feeling that you're kind of avoiding me. How long were you going to keep this up?Until you start your new job?"

Elle looked at him, confused. "How...how do you know about that?" she stammered. "Nick, he told me" Joe sighed "Come on Elle, if it had anything to do with the kiss,...."