The entire team groans in unison, with a few choice words said under their breath.
“Do you wanna make it two?” I bellow so loudly I feel my gut shake, and the room goes silent. “Bill, could you get out here, please?”
Without looking back over to Bill, I can hear him topple out of the swivel chair and race into the gym area with the rest of the team. “Hey, Coach. I was just letting the boys have some free time.” His grin is chummy and proud, and I have to remind myself that I don’t have the privilege of firing him.
“Ms. Kim!” I holler over my shoulder. Sarah rushes to my side. “Please set up the cones for sprints.”
Groans again.
“We do this, and we go home. Got it?”
The team nods in agreement and walks slowly over to the end of the indoor turf patch to line up for their turn. They look pitiful, and their enthusiasm from a few moments ago is gone. It almost bums me out. The gym has been an immense help with strength training and conditioning, especially during the offseason, but there are days I want nothing more than to stay on the field for hours and watch the boys pummel each other.
The team begrudgingly starts sprinting back and forth in the normal sprint sequence as Bill shouts at them to run faster. I walk into the coach’s office and pull up the team roster and my work email when my phone buzzes in my pocket.
Kate:Can we talk?
I reread her text multiple times, waiting for a second text to come through. When it doesn’t, my throat starts to dry out and constrict. I can usually read Kate like a book, but after her behavior at our lunch meeting today, anxiety has been whirling in my gut like a bad burrito. I probably pushed her too far at the party.
My thumbs feel shaky as I type out a response.
Is everything alright?
Reasons to have a talk are swimming in my head. The probability that she wants to talk about the other night and the mistletoe is super high. I’m not as smooth as I want to be, so it’s quite possible she saw right through me. It’s possible Kate could tell how much it killed me to hold myself back in that doorway and not kiss her the way I’ve dreamt of kissing her for the last five years.
It’s also possible she has another date set up, and she wants to continue discussing it with me, as if I’m her gal pal and she needs to spill the tea regarding her dating life to me instead ofher actual gal pals. If that’s the case, someone needs to come bust my kneecaps right now.
If it’s the latter, we have a problem. I finally have my chance to get out of this friend-zone vortex I’ve been sucked into. The best way I can do that is if Kate is single at camp.
She responds.
Kate:Not really ??
I crack my thumbs and respond.
Wafflin’ at 5?
Kate:Yes! I’ll see you there!
A knock at my door jolts my attention.
“Coach?” Garrett Connors is leaning into the doorframe for support as he heaves for air. He grips his bad knee and winces as he attempts to shake off the pain. The kid finally got cleared to join in conditioning after being benched for eight months after his injury last year, but it’s clear he needs to take it easy.
“Take a breather, Connors. End with some band work,” I tell him before returning my attention to my computer.
“Thanks, Coach,” he says through gasps.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch him walk unsteadily to the opposite side of the gym. Free weights, bands, and benches line the wall. A state-of-the-art weight rack is bolted to the wall perpendicular to where Connors sits.
“Yo, Coach! Why does he get a break?” Ethan Blake yells at me mid-sprint.
“Get your leg snapped, then come talk to me, Blake,” I bellow at him without looking up from my screen. I have twenty-eight exams to grade and a roster to finalize for camp. I check the time, 3:15, and calculate the amount of time I have to complete everything before I need to meet Kate.
Being a math teacher is boring on paper, but it’s the only thing that makes sense to me. You can solve almost anything with math. Hungry? Add food. Tired? Add sleep. Angry? Subtract whatever the hell makes you angry.
Over the top of my computer screen, I see a few guys cutting their sprints short and hopping to the back of the line.
Lazy?Add more sprints.
