“Yes, she is,” I agreed, taking a seat next to him.“How are you really feeling?”
“Like I’m dying,” he said.He turned to me, his eyes crinkling more than usual at the edges as he studied me.“You look different.”
I snorted.“How is that?”
He shook his head.“I don’t know.Lighter.”
“Is everybody decent?”Oscar called out from the front door.
“Hell no.Never have been,” Coach shouted back.
I snorted.“We’re in the living room.”
“Josh?”Oscar came around the corner.“I didn’t know you were here.Where’s Chris?”
“She’s in the shower.I just got here.”
“She thinks I need a babysitter,” Coach grumbled.
“She wants you to be okay.”Oscar clapped Coach on the shoulder and took a seat on the other side of him from where I was.
“I’m dying.I’m not going to be okay.”Coach coughed violently, his entire body shaking.His shoulders bunched, and he leaned forward as his body fought to clear whatever was in his lungs.
“She doesn’t want to think about that,” Oscar said when Coach settled against the back of his chair again.“None of us do.”
Coach smiled.“I’ve had a good life.The best kids ever.All of you.Chris, you two, all the kids I’ve coached.I’ll live on in you guys.I still might get a few to the pros.”
“I’m sure you will,” I told him.
“But I’m tired.I’m ready to go see my Betsy.”He closed his eyes, a soft smile on his face.
“She’ll be waiting for you,” Oscar said.His voice was soft, strained.He understood the pain Coach had lived with for decades.Oscar had gone through the same.
“That’s what it is,” Coach blurted.He sat upright and looked at me.“You met a woman.That’s what that look is about.”
Oscar narrowed his eyes at me, tilting his head in question.
“Coach said I look different.”
“He’s in love,” Coach declared.
I snorted.“Hardly.”
“But there is a woman,” Coach said.
“I… How the hell do you do that?”I asked.
Coach laughed loudly, the sound bolting out of him like lightning.“I knew it!”
“You met someone?”Oscar asked.
“She’s… I… It’s Ashlyn’s friend.She’s staying there for the summer.It’s nothing serious.”
“But it is something,” Coach said, preening like a peacock with his feathers out.“I knew it.”
“What did you know, Dad?”Christy asked, joining us again.Her wet hair was tied up in a twist on top of her head.She wore a pair of navy pajama shorts with tiny stars on them and a fitted tank top that matched.Her eyes were red, but I knew better than to comment on that.“Hey, O.”
“Sup, C.Our boy is hooking up with Ashlyn’s friend.”
