Authors: Lauren Gilley
The sound of two dozen desks squeaking was a blessing and he walked around his own desk, sank into the chair, and watched them file out gladly.
Tam lingered, skateboard propped on a sneakered toe. “Not bad.” He rested his hip against the side of Jordan’s desk. “You play a convincing teacher.”
“Oh, bite me,” he said as he watched the last stragglers slip through the door. His hand was creeping toward his hair before he checked himself, not wanting to destroy what little the gel had been able to do for him.
“Harder than you thought?”
Yes
. “What about you? How bad does your day suck?”
He shrugged. “Not too bad.”
A beat of silence passed in which Jordan figured they were both listing all the ways it sucked but were too proud to bitch about. “You’ve got one more class?”
“Yep.” Tam righted himself and hefted his skateboard. “See you at the Jeep at four-forty-five?”
“Yep.”
With almost two hours to kill, he guessed he would go up to the broom closet of an office that he was sharing with two other assistant coaches and…pretend to be useful. He wasn’t needed on the field until later in the week and –
“Coach Walker?”
He’d thought he was alone and glanced up from the computer monitor, startled but not showing it. Above the screen that was in the process of shutting down, a girl lingered, both black-nailed hands fiddling with the straps of her bags.
Pretty
was the first, unwanted thought that popped into his head. Maybe a half a hand taller than Jo and a rich, dark, chocolate shade of brunette. Feathered bangs slanted across her forehead and framed gray, dark-lashed eyes. Her skin was the color of rich white Irish cream. She stepped around from behind the computer, giving him a look at a skirt and top that highlighted a figure you just didn’t see on girls in this generation. His hands could have circled around her waist, but she had tits like grapefruits, the rounded hips of a movie starlet from a bygone era.
Hot
was his second thought, and hot in a subtle and unconsciously elegant sort of way that had nothing to do with all the wannabe reality stars he’d watched strut around campus all day.
You need to get laid
was his third and final thought on the matter before he slammed the door on his internal pervert and lifted his brows in silent question.
“I wanted to ask you a question about the class,” she said in a voice so polite and grave he wanted to laugh.
“Okay.”
The syllabus came out of her bag, turned to the second page, a particular section highlighted in yellow. She passed one tidy black fingernail across the words she’d felt the need to call attention to and flicked gray, troubled eyes up to meet his. “Here, where it says that it’s mandatory we clock time at the fitness center and have it signed. How mandatory, exactly, is that?”
For one fleeting moment, he was disappointed. He hadn’t been expecting to lay eyes on anyone like her today, and yet, here she was asking the question that ten other girls had asked already. He shrugged. “It’s required for every HPS class, so I have to make it mandatory – as in,
exactly
mandatory – “ a frown turned down the corners of her dainty bow of a mouth “ – but it’s no big deal. You spend thirty minutes on the treadmill twice a week and get one of the goons at the desk to sign your chart for you.” He threw in another shrug to demonstrate how unimpressive he found the whole idea of it.
“But, what if…well.” She scanned the syllabus again. “What if I don’t want to use the fitness center?”
“Are you on a sports team here?”
“No.” Which he’d already figured.
“Rec league? Hiking club? Anything?”
“No, no, and no.” She darted out a hand as he started to get to his feet, to do what with he didn’t know, but she thought better of it, sidestepping across the front of his desk instead, like she intended to cut him off if he headed for the door. “I just…is there any other way to get the credits? Without going to the gym?”
Jordan stood, pushed in his chair, and he
did not
scope out her legs and trim little ankles above her ballet flats, just like he
did not
care how fretful her expression had become. “Sorry, but you’re gonna have to use the gym,” he told her, and her face fell.
“Oh.” She dropped her head so she could stow the syllabus, a dark waterfall of hair tumbling over her shoulder and falling against her breasts. “Okay.” When she straightened, she looked resigned. Her lips twitched in a quick, polite smile. “Well, thank you anyway.” And she left silently on her little ballet shoes, her skirt swirling around thighs that he
did not
stare at.
When she was gone, Jordan gave himself a full-body shake. “Yeah. Really need to get laid.”
3
Now
J
o had a problem. On Monday, in her sympathetic excitement over Tam’s first day, she’d put her inkling of wonder down as paranoia and ignored it. She’d been bubbling with pride and the sense that her man was doing something he would feel good about, that he was making progress toward that house and picket fence he whispered to her about in the wee hours when neither of them could sleep. But by Wednesday, the worry had begun. Today, Friday, she was due to pop open the first blister on a new packet of birth control pills and she’d never started the period that was supposed to be ending soon.
She’d stared at the ceiling the night before, listening to Tam’s breath whistle in and out of his lungs, their bodies overlapping in her little double bed, and she’d told herself that there were plenty of reasons why she was a few days late.
Even though she’d never been.
Even though her cycles were regulated down to the minute on the pill.
And she’d reflected back on a moment several weeks before, when she’d been keeping Tyler for Jessica and she’d glanced up to see Tam looking at her strangely. Later that night, sitting on the edge of the bed and massaging lotion into her feet, she’d asked him about it. He’d waxed pensive, eyes getting faraway.
“It’s kinda weird seeing you with a kid is all
.” Which wasn’t encouraging. She knew they didn’t want or need kids now – God, they really didn’t – but…
She’d sighed and rolled over, telling herself she was stressed over nothing. But this morning, she felt the first sharp edges of panic cutting through her denial.
“Joey.”
She clambered out of her thoughts and back into the present that was all about the sandwich she was making for her lunch and Tam’s hands slipping around her waist. She couldn’t pretend, though, that the feel of his fingers against her belly didn’t give her a little jolt when she considered what he might be touching.
“What?” she asked, probably more enthusiastically than she should have in an effort to cover her stress. She wiped excess peanut butter off the knife she was using with a scrap of paper towel and stacked the cut halves of her sandwich one on top of the other.
He dropped his head over her shoulder, his cheek against hers. “I said.” He turned his face into her neck and she felt his lips against her skin. She leaned into him. “What do you wanna do for dinner?”
Occasionally, they went out on Fridays for date night. Which had seemed funny until they’d both realized, in one of those eye-locking, dual moments of shock, that they’d never actually been on a proper date. Hookups in the back of his car and drive through dinners notwithstanding, they’d skipped the entire courtship ritual.
Jo didn’t mind, though, and she knew Tam didn’t either. They’d been able to skip all that nervous small talk and avoidance of eye contact, all the drudgery of actual dating. But it was nice to go be a couple by themselves and feel like adults instead of grown kids living at home.
“I dunno. Pizza? I don’t care.”
She could feel his evil smile against her neck. “I thought you set up Jordan to meet Sasha for pizza. You gonna play spy?”
She’d completely forgotten about her matchmaking. Jordan had come home Monday evening and asked in a pained, I-hate-to-be-doing-this sort of way if she could set him up with anyone. After she’d told him that her friends and acquaintances were not disposable commodities he could fuck and chuck – and after Beth had glared at her about the comment – she’d agreed to set him up with Sasha from work.
“Oh, right.” She frowned as she bagged her sandwich. “No, let’s go somewhere else. I really don’t want to know anything about my brother’s mating rituals.”
He chuckled. “Fair enough.” Then his arms encircled her more tightly and he pulled her back away from the counter. “You alright?”
There was so much concern in his voice that Jo almost told him. She leaned back against his shoulder and it was more than a little tempting to share her worry. But that wouldn’t have been fair to him, not before she knew for certain anyway. “Fine,” she lied, smiling because she knew he was watching her. “Just tired.” Which was true: she was exhausted.
“Are you - ”
“Morning,” Randy boomed as he came into the kitchen and Tam let go of her like a busted teenager, whirling around to put his back to the counter beside her, hands going through his hair out of nervous reflex.
Jo rolled her eyes. “Morning, Dad.”
“Morning,” Tam said, staring at his shoes.
“He’s so jumpy,” Randy said as he came up behind Jo and patted the top of her head. “You’ve turned him nervous, Jo.”
“That’d be you, Dad, not me.” She folded down the top of her paper bag lunch and lined it up with the others she’d already made – well, prepared, since she still couldn’t cook to save her life.
“Me?” He leaned between them to pick up the lunch with his name on it. “Tammy, that hurts.”
Tam fiddled with his tie.
“Dad.” Jo shooed her father away. “Leave him alone.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Another pat to the top of her head. “Getting to be just like your mother these days.”
She frowned for two reasons. One of which involved the use of the word “mother” in correlation to her, what with…
“Here, baby.” She shoved Tam’s lunch across the counter toward him rather than think about possibilities.
“You made it?” he asked innocently, but she caught the amused gleam in his eye.
“Mom’s leftover spaghetti,” she assured, “I’m not
that
much like my mother yet.” And she hoped that wasn’t the only dissimilarity.
Dad lingered after Tam pressed a very respectable kiss to her forehead and left for work. Randy pretended to inspect the contents of his lunch beside her a long moment until she finally glanced up and asked, “What?”
He was frowning at her, the picture of paternal concern. “Are you feeling alright, sweetheart? You look a little pale.”
“Fine,” she lied.
**
Jo’s friend Sasha was a total snoozefest. She was perky and she was cute, her little pixie cut sticking up at odd angles. She smiled and gasped and laughed and was demonstrative…but that’s all she was.
“So…coaching, huh? What’s that like?”
They were at Angelo’s, a pizza place slightly more expensive than your average chain, the walls all dark wood paneling and the tablecloths real linen in place of waterproof plastic. The lights were low, hurricane lamps with flickering candles set at each table. An endless loop of soft violin music made him feel like he’d stepped onto the set of
The Godfather
.
Jordan had regretted calling in a favor with Jo the moment Sasha had spotted him across the parking lot. She’d looked hopeful. Excited. Like maybe he wasn’t what she’d been expecting, but she was willing to give it a go. And none of that hope or excitement was doing a thing for him.
His track record – well, his actual
track
record and that of his love life – had gone to shit post-high school. Post-Kelsey. Dating had devolved into this pattern of hit-and-run two dates and a couple hookups before he never spoke to the poor girls again. It wasn’t their fault, some of them tried, some of them were crazy clingy and there had even been a couple who he’d actually almost liked. But he had no expectations anymore. No hopes. No excitement. And it always left him feeling hollow and dirty.
“I’m an assistant coach,” he corrected and noticed their waitress approaching from the corner of his eye. “So it’s pretty glamorous.”
Her slow, uncertain smile confirmed that she didn’t know he was joking, and he was glad for the interruption.
“Hi, welcome to Angelo’s.” Their waitress sidled up to the table and leaned over to place cardboard coasters down for the drink order she was about to take. “My name’s Ellie and I’ll be taking - ” Her eyes cut over toward Jordan and her words faltered the same instant he recognized her. “Oh.” She straightened. “Coach Walker.”
He hadn’t remembered her name was Ellie; hell, he hadn’t known her name at all, but he remembered the girl with the tiny waist and the T&A who’d tried to beg off going to the gym. Wednesday she’d been in shorts and a tank top that showed too much cleavage, big bug sunglasses, nose stuck in a book, and she hadn’t even seemed to notice she was worlds better looking than her twittering little pink-haired friend.
“Please don’t call me that,” he said with a grimace. “It makes me feel old.”
And slightly pedophilic coming from you
.
She twitched her brows beneath her dark bangs as if to say
whatever
, then whipped out her order pad. The required black oxford shirt and black pants gave her a slender, shapeless look, which was a shame, he thought. Right before he thought that he should have been scoping out his date and not his goddamn
student
.
“What can I get you to drink?”
Sasha was giving him a strange look. “Chardonnay, please.” She lifted a finger to hold the girl’s – her name was Ellie, he knew now – attention. “Coach? Oh.” She smiled again. “You’re on the track team?”
“No, no, no,” Ellie said, a laugh touching her voice. “I’m in Coa – his HPS class.”
“You’re a student?”
“Yes.”
Not comfortable with the way Sasha’s gaze landed on him in an almost possessive way, he glanced up at Ellie, whose gray eyes were fixed on him, waiting. “Bud on tap. A pint if you’ve got it.”
The smallest of smiles twitched her mouth, like she understood some secret he hadn’t been trying to convey. “Okay, I’ll be right back.”
When she left, Sasha wasn’t looking so hopeful and excited anymore.
**
Like every other aspiring novelist and college student, Ellie was stuck in the harsh reality of waiting tables and pulling all-nighters. Most nights, after she’d clocked out, she traded her work apron for a black and white checked one at home while she helped Paige complete a cake order she was too disorganized to finish all on her own. And now that school had started, she added studying on top of that workload. It was a comforting sort of dullness, but that didn’t mean she was opposed to the occasional dash of something out of the ordinary. Waiting on her teacher definitely counted as such.
Coach Walker was nothing like the rest of her professors, and she still couldn’t decide if that was a good thing. Her English profs were just as enraptured with the course material as she was, which was no less than what she’d expected. They were passionate and studious and full to the brim with knowledge. Her math prof – her one mandatory college algebra class – was stiff and stern, a walking encyclopedia of numbers but totally humorless.
And then there was Coach Walker, whose subject interested her the very least…but who, as a person, fascinated her the most. And she couldn’t quite figure out why.
She was debating the idea with herself as she untied her apron and went to check on him and his date one last time before she clocked out. When she drew up to his table, she realized that he was very much alone. The pizza was still steaming and he was working on his first piece, but the date had vanished.
In the bathroom
, Ellie reasoned, as she pulled out her requisite friendly smile. “My shift just ended and Jenna’s going to be your server for the rest of the evening. Can I get you anything before I leave?”
“Sure,” he said, straight-faced, around a bite of pizza. “How ‘bout a new date? ‘Cause that one sucked.”
She blinked. “Where’d she go?”