I’m going to fight fire with fire.
31
COACH
I endthe call with my parents and get ready to go to school. I’m glad they’ve settled back at home fine and Dad is behaving.
It’s time to get back to my life, including winning back the man I’ve fallen in love with.
When Mom told me about Curtis coming over with pie while I was shopping, I wanted to throttle Mel.
Thankfully, Mom did it for me by sending her back to her hotel before I got home. Mom had been helping Dad settle on the couch when the doorbell rang, so Mel answered the door.
I saw the pie on the kitchen counter as soon as I put the groceries down. For a moment, my heart soared, and I ran to the living room, thinking Bubble might be keeping my dad company.
Between arranging care and flights for my parents to return home after New Year’s Day and making sure they were both comfortable in my much-smaller house, it didn’t leave me with much time for anything else.
I called Curtis, but the phone seemed to be off. I left voicemails that were ignored.
In the end, Mom’s parting words gave me the best idea.
“Your boy needs a grand gesture. Since you last saw him, you missed your date, but he still turned up with pie, and then he had to deal with facing your ex-wife. Show him you’re deserving of his love.”
So I made a few other calls and put a plan in place.
I look at the watch. It’s time to leave, so I give myself another check in the mirror.
I’m wearing a white button-up shirt and the best pair of jeans I own. It’s nothing special, but I know Curtis doesn’t care about fancy stuff. He cares about being genuine and being yourself.
I grab my coat and leave.
When I get to the school, everyone is already there. The cheerleading team, the football team, and the school band. God, I love these kids.
“Hey, Justin. Everyone okay?” I ask Curtis’s assistant coach.
“Coach, this is going to be epic.” He goes to join the kids, holding a tablet in his hand.
Bubble should be arriving any moment now, so I take my place in front of the door leading to the locker rooms and our office.
My hands shake, so I put them in my pockets. This could go so fucking horribly wrong.
“He’s here,” I hear someone say.
I can’t see anything because of the crowd of kids in front of me. I’m sure someone is recording this because the kids put so much work into practicing the routine at the last minute.
When I called Justin, he couldn’t have been more excited to help.
He said there was some kind of unofficial bet going on among the cheerleading team because Curtis’s crush wasn’t that secret. They wondered when I’d finally break down and kill him or date him.
I don’t know who’s on the winning team, but I fell in love with the pint-sized, strawberry-scented, permanently cheerful man. I think I’m the one winning here. If he’ll have me.
The band starts playing the song I heard him singing in the shower the day I first saw him almost naked, the Beatles’ “When I’m Sixty-Four.”
The lyrics have been slightly tweaked, which was Justin’s idea, but the main part remains the same.
I hope he will still love me when I’m sixty-four.
Cheerleaders jump high in the air while the football team throws balls between each other. As Curtis walks through, they’re supposed to create a walkway that leads directly to me at the end of the song.
