Page 6 of All Signs Point to Malibu

“Head down. Nose clean.” He sighs. I hate that Marcus is hanging with the older boys in his neighborhood. All dropouts with zero ambition. All trouble. He has a bright future ahead of him if he can focus on football and not get distracted.

“Look those guys don’t have going for them what you do and they don’t want to see you succeed either.”

“They’re my bros. They’re cool.”

They are the complete opposite of cool, but the last thing I need is Marcus feeling like I’m against the friends he thinks have his back. I don’t want him to stop confiding in me. As much as I hate being interrupted on a date to go prevent my player from getting charged with a misdemeanor, he needs to trust he can call me.

“All I’m saying is it’s easy to be found guilty by association.”

Marcus nods and his light blue eyes cloud over as he stares out the window at the billboard as traffic moves an inch. “I don’t even know why they waste these advertisements out here anyway. Not like anyone from this neighborhood can afford to go to some bougie conference.”

It’s called aspirational marketing. With their heads so far up their asses, the event organizers can’t fathom that some people would rather have groceries than pay a hundred dollars a ticket to attend a seminar that encourages them to work harder, dream bigger, invest in themselves—not acknowledging that not everyone has that luxury. “Not exactly great marketing,” I say.

Marcus studies me. “Who is this Hailey chick, anyway?”

“Just someone I went to high school with.”

“Ex-girlfriend?”

I shudder. “Come on, you think my standards are that low?”

“Dude, you’d be punching up.”

I reach across and punch his shoulder.

Marcus laughs, then I hear his stomach growl. Loud.

“When was the last time you ate?”

“Breakfast.” He avoids my gaze.

Most likely not today’s. Marcus’s dad is serving time for armed robbery and his mother works three jobs to try to support the two of them, but the family’s struggling. Hand-me-down football gear and the love of the game is the only reason Marcus keeps coming to practice. For now. “Top of my bag, there’s a sandwich.”

Marcus shakes his head, but his stomach rumbles louder. “Nah, Coach, I’m already getting a ride from you. I’m not taking your food too.”

“The lady at the deli made it wrong. She put olives on it. Top of the bag.”

Marcus sighs as he reaches into the back for my duffle bag. “You gotta start telling her when she messes up your order. You eat there like every day.”

“She’s eighty years old,” I say as I shoulder check and switch lanes. It isn’t the best deli around and about half the time my sandwich order is wrong, but the woman lost her husband the year before and I think she likes having someone to talk to. “And besides, I have a dinner date tonight—gotta save my carbs.”

“That chick from the game last week?” he asks.

The multilevel marketing guru who tried to recruit me to sell energy drinks? “No.”

Marcus sits back in the seat and unzips the bag. “The redhead at practice the other day?”

Miss forty-dollar steak and didn’t eat it? Definitely not. “No.”

Marcus eyes me. “Shit, Coach, you get around.”

“Shut up and eat the sandwich.” It’s not that I get around. It’s that I can’t stick. Casual dating is more than enough of a commitment. Besides, the women I tend to attract are lured by the championship rings and my faltering six-pack, not my dazzling personality.

Marcus takes the sandwich from the bag, then a course book. “What’s this?”

I glance over. “Put that back.”

He doesn’t. Instead, he flips through the pages. “You studying to be a shrink?”

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