He shook his head. “Nothing,” he told her with a grin. “Just—”
“Are we playing or what, Coach Martin?” Sarah called from the girls’ team’s goal area.
Both coaches jogged toward center field.
“Okay, folks!” Haddie called as they approached. “Bring it in for a second!”
Both teams jogged toward the center, forming a huddle on each side of the center-field line.
She nodded toward Levi. “What’s our focus today, Coach?”
Levi’s eyes widened, but then he clapped his hands together, and she watched him morph to laser-focused. “Today is all about covering your opponent and your spot on the field. Worry about the ball when it comes your way, but worry about your counterpart every second you’re out there. Got it? Study their strengths and weaknesses andlearnfrom them. We’ll start tomorrow’s camp by demonstrating one thing we learned from our opponents.” He blew his whistle. “Positions!”
The players scattered back to their positions, and Haddie gave her opposing coach an appraising nod.
“Nice work, Coach!” she called as she backed toward the sideline.
“Thanks, Coach,” he replied with a wink that, had it come from anyone else, would have been cheesy as hell. But from Levi, she knew it was an acknowledgment of what she’d done for himand his team.
“Thanks, Coach!” a group of students—some fromeachteam—parroted in a singsong tone.
“You guys aresupercute together!” one of Haddie’s girls added.
What Haddie would have given for a whistle of her own at that moment, but it didn’t matter. Nothing was going to burst her bubble today, certainly not a few know-it-all teens who actually knewnothingabout Haddie and Levi at all.
A warmth spread through her, but this was different from getting hot and bothered by a sweaty, frustrated man. It felt almost like it did when she saw Emma the first time after she’d left Chicago to move back to Summertown. It felt like…affection. For a friend.
So she had a hot roommate. She could live with that. Because she could also tell that he was a good guy, and the kind of friend she wouldn’t mind having as she navigated the start of a new life.
“May the best coach win,” she told him as they took their positions on the sideline.
Levi nodded. “She will.”
Chapter 6
Levi and Haddie hadn’t crossed paths since they drove to campusearlier that morning, and he felt inexplicable relief when he filed into the high school gymnasium to find her sitting with a group of who he guessed were other elementary teachers. He didn’t recognize a single one of them from all the high school meetings he’d been in that day.
“Looking for someone?” a voice questioned from behind, and he spun to find Tommy Crawford grinning back at him.
“Commissioner!” Levi exclaimed. “When did you get back in town?”
The two men shook hands and gave each other their usual dude pat on the back.
“Got back late last night. Figured if I was going to do the honeymoon thing right, it meant not dragging my ass back to town until I absolutely had to.”
“That was cutting it close, don’t you think?” Levi asked his friend.
Tommy shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest. “Teacher in-service and back-to-school night.” He sighed. “I’d have cut itcloser if I could have, but this was as close as I could get.”
Levi laughed. “Come on. A day full of impractical meetings and busywork followed by your dad getting behind the podium to welcome everyone back? What’s not to love?”
Tommy groaned, his ever-present grin dimming for just a moment. “You say that as if you know what it’s like to have endured it for the past ten years. You’re just getting started, my friend.”
“Mr. Rourke…Mr. Crawford…how nice of you two to hold up traffic while the rest of the faculty are trying to enter.”
Both men spun to find Tommy’s father, the man in question, with his brows raised and a stern look on his face. He and Tommy looked so much alike yet couldn’t be more different.
They both had brown eyes, the same wavy hair, though Tommy’s was sandy-colored where his father’s had more salt than anything else these days. They even had the same square jaw, the same winning smiles. Yet Coach Crawford prided himself on the number of trophies he continued to add to the football showcase in the school’s entryway while Tommy’s speech and debate medals got tucked away in a shoebox in Tommy’s childhood bedroom.
