“Well, if you need us to do anything for you?—”
That simple gesture shouldn’t have meant everything to me, but in that moment, it did. I had a wild flashback to my family and their total and utter emotional abandonment the moment it became clear I wouldn’t be their golden child. How did a high school student have more compassion than my own parents?
And Christ, why was I thinking about them right now?
I affected a smile and hoped it looked genuine. “You’re nice, but seriously, I’m fine. Get to class and make smart choices.”
They both gave me a little salute and started back down the hall as I made my way toward the front office. I hadn’t checked my message box in two weeks, so it was probably overflowing, and it would keep me distracted from Mark’s casual unkindness while also avoiding a sternly worded email from the front desk staff.
There was a small gathering of students who gave me a wide berth, and I tried to smile at them as I felt their eyes on me. I was sort of the school…well, maybe not freak because these kids seemed to be a lot kinder than the ones I’d gone to high school with. But I was definitely something to them. A sort of cautionary tale, on display for the world to see why motorcycles were dangerous or whatever. It wasn’t their fault, but some days were harder to bear than others.
“Morning, Coach,” a couple of them called.
I offered a quick wave, then swiped my badge against the door since the office wasn’t open to students yet. It clicked, and one young freshman darted forward and grabbed the handle.
“Thanks,” I told her, not quite meaning it. But I’d let her have her moment—her inspirational Instagram post about how she helped her disabled teacher or whatever.
Lord, I was bitter this morning. This was entirely unlike me, and I needed to shake it off. Taking a breath, I made my way around the desk and into the mailroom. It was sectioned into four sub-rooms, and I moved toward the back one, which shared a door with the administrative staff. All the coaches had their boxes there—most of them bigger than the rest of the teachers because sports were special. At least, according to funding.
I moved to the very end of the room, laid my crutches against the half-open side door, and grimaced at my box. It wasdefinitely overflowing. Most of it was probably junk mail. I got more here than I did at home, which was saying something.
A few might have been hard-copy requests for college recommendation letters, which I felt terrible about, but it wasn’t even close to application time, so I wasn’t going to let myself feel too bad about it. I pulled out the stack and dropped it on the counter, then began to go through it.
“Junk, junk, keep, junk,” I muttered to myself, making two piles. “Is this a fucking extended home warranty offer?”
My hand moved to drop it into the recycling bin when I heard a sudden raised voice. “…and we’re completely…” There was what we always called the “teacher pause,” the split second in a sentence to check if there were kids around before any of us got vulgar. “…fucked. The assembly is tomorrow, and I don’t want to sound like a dick or anything, but the kids are going to tear this place down if we make them go to sixth period.” That was Marsh, the assistant principal.
“They’ll live,” came the dry voice of Carol, the principal. I wasn’t particularly good friends with either of them, but they’d been deep in my business after my accident, so their voices were seared into my brain. “Unless you have any idea where we can get someone to fill in?”
“I mean, we could probably get an ROTC recruiter to come in,” Marsh said. “Or someone from the Army recruitment office, but the other guy on the list never actually served. He was injured in basic, and he’s been working in recruitment since.”
“That’s not going to work,” Carol said from behind a sigh. “It’ll end up sounding like one of these PSA ads from the eighties.”
Something hit me. Something intense and profound. I moved without really thinking about it, hobbling on my leg without my crutches, and I appeared in the doorway of Carol’s office before I knew what I was going to say.
“Heath?” she asked, looking surprised.
I cleared my throat. “I overheard. Not on purpose—I was cleaning out my mailbox.”
Carol smiled. “Good, because Shelly was about to have a talk with you about the crap piling up.”
I shuddered, then remembered why I was standing there. “I, uh…I might know someone.”
Marsh’s brows lifted. “You might know someone?”
“A veteran,” I clarified. “Sorry, I overheard. I said that already, didn’t I?” God, why was I acting like a nervous student who got dragged to the principal’s office? I squared my shoulders. “I have PT with a guy who’s on medical leave. Or medically discharged. I’m not sure. He and I have the same injury. He was a Staff Sergeant in the Army. I can ask him if he could come talk to the kids.”
Marsh looked dubious, but Carol actually looked interested. She stood up and pressed her hands to her desk. “Tell me about him.”
Hot—absurdly hot. Good kisser for someone who’d never kissed another man before. Mean and sarcastic and surprisingly sweet when someone’s having a claustrophobic panic attack in an elevator. Or when he’s chasing them down an impossible hike that probably destroyed him the next day.
Of course, I didn’t say any of that.
“Uh, he’s a good dude. Dedicated to his military career. Still kind of pissed about his injury, but I don’t think he’d scare the kids about it,” I added quickly. I was pretty sure Creek only got that angry and vulnerable when he was forced to face his limitations the way we had to in PT. “I think he’d probably be good with them.”
“Do you know his rank? And how long he served?”
“Sergeant,” I said. Sergeant Grumpy…I really hoped I wasn’t making that up. “And if I remember right, it was at fifteen years. Maybe longer.”
