I gnaw on my lip as I stare at the screen, afraid to open it in front of Malcolm.
Another ding.I stare down at my phone, torn between the man in the doorway and the app blowing up my phone.
“See you later, Kate,” Malcolm whispers, rubbing the back of his neck and backing out of the room like he’s interrupted something.
Dread coils itself around my heart and throat and squeezes as I watch him walk away, making it near impossible to call after him. My limbs feel like they’re tied to bricks, heavy and useless. Theneedto have a conversation with Malcolm is becoming clearer and clearer, but the mere thought is clearly affecting my sanity. I feel like a lunatic. Every part of me is sirening off to abandon ship before it’s too late.
Another ding in my pocket sends a surge of frustration through me. I open my phone to a slew of matches. It’s as if the universe has unleashed havoc at the most inconvenient time for these men to find my profile all at the same time.
I open the first match and am met with,Yo, drinks at Mariachi’s tonight?No flatteries or introductions, just straight to the point. The message fromJusticeBeaver3000isn’t my ideal choice for evening plans, but if I go, maybe it’ll distract me from the Malcolm situation.
It probably won’t, though, if his username and the fact that the one solitary photo on his profile is of half his face is any indication, this guy is not the best option for a distraction.
If only I were a dragonfly.
Why, Kate? Because, Kate, dragonflies play dead to prevent mating with unwanted males. Play dead, andJusticeBeaver3000will fly off to some other insect.
Seems like a logical plan. Yes, I’ll go to this date and play dead.
Chapter seven
Malcolm
When I accepted thejob at Glendale, I was told I would never be forced to assist with extracurricular activities. I could focus on math. That’s it. But of course, my coworkers weaseled their way into my personal life and convinced me to lend a helping hand. Hence, the head coaching job for the football team. A temporary fill-in of sorts. And I was told I’d have help. I wouldn’t have to lift a finger except to point and yell at the players. A selling point for me.
Benny promised it would be an easy job until they found a permanent replacement. Just a few short months of staying at school late and spending my weekends on the field. Not my first choice of extracurriculars, but it would,“be over before you know it.”
I’m not a lazy person.
Or a selfish person.
I’d rather just spend my time doing what I want. And I’d rather do it alone.
But today, my time is being spent racing around in the pouring rain to pick up the fifty orange cones scattered across my footballfield. Getting soaked while myhelpcowers away underneath the roof of the team’s golf cart again is not my first choice of activities. She’s also using my jacket as a shield.
“Can we do this later?” Sarah Kim yells at me through the rain. I can’t even see her face underneath the pile of nonsense she’s thrown on top of herself.
“I’m sorry, are you cold?” I growl through the rain that pelts my face, swiping up the final cone and racing back to the cart. “You didn’t have to come out here, ya know.”
“What else was I supposed to do? You think I want to watch the team work out?” Her half-hidden face is unreadable to me when she asks this. Honestly, I’d rather not know what a seventeen-year-old girl is thinking—about anything.
“Don’t you have books you can read or something?” I start the golf cart and pull off the track toward the team building.
“That wouldn’t make a very good team manager, now would it?” She sticks her hand outside of the cart, the rain soaking her sleeve as we pull into the gravel parking lot. The girl was practically on the floor, hiding from the rain, a moment ago, and now she’s throwing her arm out in it? I will never understand teenagers.
“You’re not the team manager.”
“Assistant. Manager. Same thing in my mind.” She hops off the cart before I come to a complete stop. My heart jolts over the thought of a student injuring themselves on my watch, let alone a clutz like Sarah Kim, who couldn’t even catch a beach ball tossed to her.
She hoists up the stack of orange cones, dropping a few in the process, before sprinting inside the football gym and leaving me alone in the rain. A moment of solitude.
Indoor workouts are never ideal. The team gets stir crazy and about fifty percent of the time, I have to break up a fight. I canhear the yelling and grunting through the closed metal door and take a slow breath before heading inside.
Half of the guys are standing on their heads while a few others hurl wadded up socks at them. We’re supposed to be getting ready for camp, but today’s weather has put a damper on the week’s plans, and now I’m stuck inside withthis.
My assistant coach for the spring, Bill the Janitor, is plopped inside the coach’s office, playing on his phone. He’s useless. The boys are acting rambunctious and childish, completely disregarding the workout I wrote for them to do on the board. I let out a sharp whistle, and they line up in formation in response.
“Alright, seeing as we can’t be trusted to follow instructions in my absence,” I project, “we’ll have to add a morning workout tomorrow to make up for lost time.”
