Page 170 of Whistle

I was on my own.

38

Coach (Emmett)

The constant ringing broke into my spiraling, and I snatched the whistle off the mirror, crushing it in one hand while digging my cell out of my pocket with the other.

I snarled at the unrecognizable number, finger hovering over the reject button, but at the last minute, I chose accept.

“Bodhi?” I said, sounding near feral in the line.

“Uhh, this Coach Resch?” The voice was nearly overcome with loud music.

“Who’s asking?” I barked.

“This is Tom Cravitz.”

“I don—” I paused. “The bartender over at Yellow Pages?”

“You remember.”

“What do you want?” I asked, not wanting to take a trip down memory lane about how or why I remembered.

Bottom line was I hadn’t been to that bar in years, since college actually. A man couldn’t keep his preferences on the down-low by frequenting a gay bar in the next town over. Especially not when he was a high-profile coach.

“I actually own this place now,” Tom said as though he hadn’t noticed my foul mood. Maybe he was drunk.

“I’m hanging up.”

“One of your swimmers was in here earlier,” he rushed out.

My hand tightened around the phone. “Who?” I demanded.

“Didn’t catch his name.”

I prayed for patience. My prayer was denied. “Then how the hell did you know it was one of my swimmers?”

“Said he was Elite,” he replied. “Something about a swimmer who can’t swim.”

Bodhi.

“Put him on the phone.”

“Can’t.”

“Listen here. You put him on the phone right now, or I’m going to drive over there and personally shove it up your ass!”

“I’m realizing I probably shouldn’t have called,” he said calmly.

“Jesus Christ, Tom! Where is he?”

“Dunno. He left.”

Blowing out a breath, I turned my eyes to the time’s up scrawled on the mirror. “Where’d he go?”

“Dunno that either. One minute, he was heading into the bathroom with some guy. The next, he was running out, throwing me a few Benjamins and swiping an entire bottle of vodka. The guy from the bathroom came out looking like he got his balls turned inside out, and the kid disappeared all lickety-split.”

He went in the bathroom with some guy? If my blood pressure got any higher, my head was going to explode. “You’re sure he’s not there?” I pressed.

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