He's not asking to be cruel. He's asking because the world has been asking it his daughter's whole life, and he wants to know if I have an answer that isn't bullshit.
"To be her equal." I hold his gaze because looking away would be the wrong answer regardless of what I say. "Not her subordinate. Not her follower. Her equal."
His eyebrows lift a fraction, the smallest visible reaction I've seen from him since we sat down. Whatever he expected me to say, that wasn't it. His attention shifts to Milo, and my brother straightens so fast his chair creaks.
"And you?"
Milo opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again. Anyone would think he was floundering for an answer. The truth is that he’s trying to contain himself and is about to fail spectacularly. "Sir, your daughter is the most incredible person I've ever met. She does math in her head while walking across a frozen football field in sandals in the winter and she doesn't even shiver, which I think about constantly, and we would never disrespect her or the team or you, and I know this looks bad from the outside but I promise you it's real. We didn't plan this but it happened and she makes us better, both of us, and I know that sounds like a line but if you could feel what I—"
Coach holds up a hand. Milo stops mid-sentence, his mouth still open, his ears already turning pink.
"I'm only disappointed," Coach chuckles before clearing his throat, "that neither of you, or my own daughter, said something before I had to find out on a football field." He lets that sit with us for a moment. "But I already suspected. She's been happier than she's been in a long time." The coach's composure holds but something underneath it shifts, a softening around his eyes that lasts maybe two seconds. "So thank you for that." Then Coach's expression resets and the father gives way to the coach again. "However, if I find out that either of you do anything untoward to my daughter, I will beat your ass." He looks at Iris. "Right after she does."
Iris presses her lips together, trying to hide her smile.
"Here's how this works." Coach leans forward, his forearms on the desk. "Keep the PDA to a minimum. Don't flaunt this on my field or in my facility. Treat my daughter with respect at all times, publicly and privately. I don't care what you do on your own time, but on my turf, you're players first." His gaze shifts to Milo, something between exasperation and genuine pain crossing his face. "And Milo, for the love of God.Wear scent blockers."
Milo sinks an inch deeper into his chair. "I took some yesterday."
Coach stares at him with the patience of a man who has heard every excuse a twenty-one-year-old is capable of producing. "Every day, Milo. Every single day. I have no issue with you loving my daughter, but I don't want to be reminded of it every time you look at her."
Milo's ears go from pink to a deep crimson that spreads down his neck. I have to press my lips together hard enough to feel my teeth to keep from busting out laughing. Iris puts her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with a laugh she's trying to smother.
Coach lets the moment pass, then pulls a folder from his desk drawer and sets it on the surface between us. I recognize the handwriting on the tabs before he opens it. "My daughter kept better documentation than half my coaching staff." His tone shifts, the brief warmth draining into something grimmer as he spreads the pages across his desk. "I need statements from both of you. Everything Chad has said or done. Locker room comments, targeted behavior during practice, anything from the group chats. Specific incidents, specific dates. I'm building a case with the athletic director and I want it airtight."
I blink a few times, sure that I’m dreaming. We walked in expecting to defend ourselves, to justify our relationship, to earn something from the man sitting across the desk. Instead, he's… recruiting us?
I straighten in my chair, my shoulder protesting and my brain already running through the timeline. "I can give you dates going back to September."
"I've got texts," Milo adds, leaning forward. "Screenshots. He said some things in the team group chat that he probably forgot about but I didn't."
Coach holds up his hand again, the same gesture that stopped Milo's rambling a minute ago, except now it carries something closer to approval. "Write it up. Both of you. Have it on my desk by Friday." He looks between the three of us, his expression settling into something final. "Chad is done at Knotlocke. Kevin is on his last warning. But I want the paperwork so clean that neither of them has grounds to appeal."
He leans back in his chair, his hands folding across his stomach again, and fixes the three of us with a look that I can't quite read. "Consider this your first assignment as my future sons-in-law."
Crickets.
Milo makes a sound beside me that I can only describe as the noise a balloon makes when you pinch the neck and let the air out slowly. Iris' head snaps toward her father. "Dad."
Coach's expression doesn't move. "Too soon? Because what else would you be doing with my daughter? This isn’t supposed to betemporary, right?"
“No sir,” Milo and I say in unison.
He's not smiling. But his eyes are, the corners crinkling with something he's keeping off the rest of his face, and I realize that this man has been sitting on that line since we walked in, waiting for the right moment to deploy it.
Coach stands and extends his hand across the desk to me first. I take it as his eyes hold mine for a few extra seconds before nodding. Then he extends his hand to Milo, my ass of a brother shaking it with both hands and enough enthusiasm that Coach's shoulder rocks forward. "Easy," Coach says. "I'm not as young as I used to be."
"Sorry, sir. Sorry. Just really happy. Really, really happy."
"I can tell. The whole building can tell. Scent blockers, Milo."
"Yes, sir. Every day. Got it."
Iris stands last, her father rounding the desk to pull her into a hug, his hand cradling the back of her head, his eyes closed. She grips the back of his shirt with both fists and presses her face into his shoulder, and I look away because some moments aren't mine to watch.
“I really thought there would be more pushback,” Milo mutters. “I had a whole speech ready and cards! I practiced. And…”
I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose as Coach pulls back and glares at my brother. “Milo, be thankful that I’m not whatever you were envisioning. I have never kept my daughter from anything she’s wanted so long as it doesn’t harm her. However, if Chad was currently in my office asking for the same proposition, it would be a very different conversation.”
