I tilted my head likec’mon now. She knew better than to address her principal casually at school.
“Sorry,” she corrected. “It’s going to takeCoach Thornburyat least a half hour, and that’s if they even sell volleyballs at the hardware store.”
She wasn’t wrong. And we had a game the next day. I could make them do wall sits or plank holds, but it wasn’t the best use of our time.
I cuffed her on the shoulder. “Go grab a TV from the library. We’ll watch game footage from last night.”
She nodded, grabbed her friend Brooklyn, and they took off.
“Ming! Jasmine!” - My hands cupped around my mouth. “Lead everyone in warmup.”
“We already did,” Ming yelled back.
“Shuttle runs then. Go!”
“Those were special or-duh balls,” Alvarez groaned, running both hands through his hair. “You cain’t just pick up navy balls with silver stripes at the sportin’ equipmunt store.” He shook his head. “We’ll be the only team in the district without matchin’ balls now.”
I snorted in my head. The things Alvarez thought were important. But I guess it was his job to worry about stuff like that.
Like Silas, he stalked off to his office, grumbling about having to order new ones. I texted Christy.
Me: Hey beautiful, find any balls at the store?
She immediately texted back.
My Last First Kiss: One. Thank goodness. Be back soon.
Then she sent me a kissy face emoji.
I smiled at the name I’d given her in my contacts. Man, that kiss. All her kisses. Yeah, I was addled. And I wasn’t ashamed to admit it. Not even a little.
I stood there yelling out drills until Anna and Brooklyn showed back up with the TV. After a few minutes of wrestling with the Bluetooth, we had game footage up and rolling. The girls settled onto the bleachers to watch. I pointed out where we could improve.
Five minutes later, Silas came back in, a sour expression on his face. He jerked his head to the right, ordering me over. We walked to the other end of the court.
When we were out of hearing distance, he hissed, “I guess things went well with Christy last night.”
I stopped walking. “What are you talking about?” I’d already texted him that, yeah, we’d figured things out and were together now. Had he decided he wasn’t okay with that?
He leaned closer, voice low. “I didn’t find the ball thief because they erased fifteen minutes of footage. But I saw plenty of you and Christygoing at it—you shirtless—in her office.”
The air seeped out of my lungs in a slow but steady leak. “Uh, there are cameras in her office?”
“Yes,Randy. The last principal and assistant principal had an affair, remember? There are cameras everywhere now.”
I said a word Mom would’ve popped me in the back of the head for.
“You better hope whoever stole those volleyballs didn’t see you when they were erasing the footage.”
My heart was pounding out of my chest. I scrubbed a hand over my face. I might be a hormonal man, but I wasn’t normally stupid. There was a reason I never kissed women first. A good one. It was a protection. I would never have to worry that I’d crossed a line that might land me in court. As a lawyer, I couldn’t afford that kind of press.
But, if this got out, it wouldn’t just make me look bad, it would put Christy in a terrible light. It was hard enough trying to acclimate to small-town life when you didn’t grow up there, but if the wrong people got a hold of this information, it could be devastating to her career.
“Do you think they saw it?” I asked, almost breathless.
“Nah. It was two hoursbefore. I think you’re fine.” He shook his head, disbelief in his expression. “But you gotta think smarter than that, man.”
I ran a hand over the back of my neck. “I know. She just…messes with my head and I can’t think straight whenever…”
