“The girl is ambitious.” She smiles, biting into her sandwich.
“The girl is a headache,” Malcolm’s deep, warm voice fills the room, and it makes my cheeks heat. We still haven’t talked about the other night. We’ve never beenthatclose to kissing before. Actually kissing. And being that close to him has never left me so stunned that I lost sleep over it. I just think the fact that we were basically breathing the same oxygen for a solid thirty seconds might need to be addressed. You know, for peace of mind. But by the looks of it, no one is freaking out about it but me.
This is the kind of situation that could drive me mad.
It will drive me mad.
“She just wants to succeed,” Emma says with her mouth full of potato chips. Crumbs fly as she tilts the bag upside down to get every last piece into her mouth. Remember when I said she was glowing? The glow seems to dull a bit here.
“Okay.” Malcolm’s face is pinched as he watches Emma and sits in the empty seat next to me. We both watch her inhalethe rest of the bag. Her table manners disappeared around the second trimester. “You get ‘em all?” he asks with a sly grin.
Emma’s eyes whip to his face. They aren’t the sweet eyes of our friend and colleague. Nope. They’re the eyes of a ravenous mama bear about to rip Malcolm to shreds.
“Dude, don’t anger it,” I whisper behind my hand, slouching as far down into my seat as possible. Emma crumples up the bag and stands from the table, tossing it in the trash. Completely ignoring Malcolm’s comment, she collects papers from her binder for today’s meeting and starts passing them out to the faculty that is slowly migrating into the break room.
“Are we covering camp today or not?” Malcolm asks without looking at the agenda Emma just handed him. I elbow his ribs and point at the first point.
Camp Coming Up.
For the past five years, Malcolm and I have been partners in coaching tactics, tag-teaming our practices and schedules. It’s created a sense of comradery they hadn’t had at Glendale in a long time, breathing new life into the school.
Volleyball and football aren’t your typical buddy sports, but we’ve made it work, and it’s always made Athlete Camp that much more exciting. We both take a group of athletes from different sports and spend an entire week running drills, scrimmages, and attending seminars. It’s a high school coach’s dream! Or maybe just my dream—whatever, it’s fun. And for the last five years, I’ve been able to go with Malcolm and a few of the other coaches.
“Yes, Athlete Camp is our big topic today,” Benny announces as he walks into the break room, holding two cups of iced coffee. One cup has a large heart drawn on the center. Envy bubbles in my chest at the sweet gesture as he hands the cup to Ellie, who walks in behind him. They share sweet smiles and part ways as Benny begins today’s meeting.
“Do they make you want to vomit or what?” Malcolm leans over, whispering to me behind his coffee mug.
Correction:mycoffee mug.
My pink mug with a picture of Hilda, my pug that lived to be fourteen, on it. The first secret Santa gift Malcolm gave me four years ago, when Hilda was still alive. Poor thing had a heart attack and died in her sleep a month later.
“Maybe not vomit, but they definitely make me want to throw something at them,” I whisper back. He gives me a soft pinch in the arm before repositioning back into his usual pose, leaned over the table with an arm resting perpendicular to me, the other holding his mug in the air, his back taut and rigid. It doesn’t ever look natural, how he sits. But that’s what he does, every day. The one time I asked him why he didn’t just relax in his chair, he stiffened even further then cracked his neck like I scratched my nails on a chalkboard. I never mentioned it again.
“Throw something at who?” Ellie asks, taking the vacant seat Emma just left.
“Um, no one.” I gnaw on my lip and swivel around in my seat to face Benny.
“She said you guys are gross,” Malcolm mumbles.
Ellie tosses her sticky note pad at my head and whispers, “Rude!”
“I still love you,” I whisper over my shoulder and glare at Malcolm. Benny clears his throat and stares at us as if we’re the hoodlums in the classroom. I mumble under my breath, “Ellie started it.”
Another pack of sticky notes flies over my shoulder, and Benny continues staring at all of us, as well as the rest of the faculty. They’re annoyed. We’re cutting into their lunch break. “May I finish?” He clears his throat, forcing a seriousness to spread across his boyish face.
“Please hurry,” Malcolm answers over his shoulder. He’s still facing away from Benny, drinking his coffee. It might come off as rude, not facing your boss in a meeting, but everyone has realized two very important things about Malcolm in the last five years:
He’s never rude intentionally.
And we should never question him about it.
“As I was saying, Athlete Camp is next week. Unfortunately, Bill can’t attend anymore.”
Wait, what? Bill isn’t going to camp?
“So, unless we get one more volunteer,” Benny continues, “there will only be two faculty members attending, which makes it very difficult to manage the students as well as the coaching seminars.”
“We need help!” I yell, startling the entire room—and myself a little bit—the projection of my voice practically throwing me out of my chair.
