Excuses erupt simultaneously, all different from the other.
“We wanted Italian.”
“Sarah’s mom is paying.”
“We went to the wrong place!”
Devon tosses the glasses off his head in defeat. “We were spying, alright?” He’s the first to cave under pressure. He was never the best at keeping secrets, especially under my penetrating stare. Naomi, his mom, helped me master it my first year of teaching. “We heard you were going on a date and wanted to scope it out.” He throws his hands up in surrender. The glasses, a brown wired pair with orange-tinted bifocal lenses, clink as they topple to the center of the table. They look exactly like Creepy Fedora's glasses.
I gasp, whipping around to see Malcolm watching me, wide-eyed, in the corner, an equal mix of terror and embarrassment in his eyes as he bolts for the front door.
“Hey!” I yell, startling a few people in the middle of their meal, and race after him.
Chapter twenty-two
Malcolm
“Hey!”
She yells it about a million times before she catches up to me in the parking lot. The keys to our rented van fumble to the ground as I try to climb in.
Plowing her body into the front of the van, she yells, “What are you doing here?” Her chest heaves rapidly from her sprint.
No sudden movements, minimal eye contact. That’s what I do as I retrieve the keys and climb in. Maybe she’ll go away if I pretend she isn’t there. Like a bear in the wild. Which is what Kate resembles when I make the mistake of glancing at her. She plants her hands on her hips, irritation marking her face as her eyebrows furrow deeper and deeper.
“Excuse me!” Throwing her arms out, she accentuates each word with force, “What. Are. You. Doing. Here?”
“Coach! Coach!”
The guys come racing toward us, looking like they just robbed a bank. I haven’t seen them run that fast since their timed evaluations last spring. Ripping the sliding door of the van open, they pile in, one on top of another.
“She’s pissed,” Devon whispers the obvious as he climbs in the passenger seat.
Kate slams her hand on the hood of the van, standing as if she, herself, can stop the vehicle from moving forward if I were to step on the gas. “Malcolm Eugene Geer!” she bellows out in her disciplinary tone.
“Eugene?” Garrett cackles in the back.
I roll the window down and yell back, “That’s not my name! Now move!”
“I will move when you tell me what the heck you guys are doing here, crashing my date!” Slamming the other hand down, her nostrils flare, and a vein in her forehead starts to bulge. I haven’t seen her this mad in a long time. The last time was when the seniors Saran-wrapped her car the night of an ice storm. It was stuck in the parking lot for days, paint chipping away with each frozen, plastic layer we had to break off.
“Wait, so Eugene isn’t your middle name?” Sarah asks, squished between Travis and Charlie.
“No,” I growl, “now be quiet.”
“Can we just tell her the truth?” Charlie asks, fear lining his tone. He’s always tested his limits with Kate. You’d think being on the end of this stare-down on a regular basis would build some fortitude in the kid, but nope. He cowers down and whispers a prayer.
The truth. These kids don’t even know the full truth. They just think I was concerned for my friend going on a date with her ex, not that some part of me wanted to sabotage the date because I’m head over heels in love with her. I’m a crazy man. This whole idea was ridiculous, and I let my jealousy get the best of me.
“Devon!” Kate yells, her stare now pinned on the passenger seat. Devon winces and reaches for the door handle.
“I got it,” I grumble, climbing out of the van and pulling out the weird butterfly clips and tinsel Sarah put in my beard to destroy any last ounce of dignity I have.
Kate crosses her arms and taps her foot on the pavement. “What are you doing here, Malcolm?”
“I’m sorry,” I say, holding my hands up in surrender, the streetlamp shining on me like I’m under interrogation. “They roped me into spying on your date.”
“They roped you in?” she asks in disbelief. “You? The man who couldn’t even be swayed to give up his parking spot for a disabled employee?”
