Page 97 of Kiss Me Tonight

Warning bells sound off in my head like BB guns gone wild.

“It’s aschool, Mr. Whoever-You-Are, so no you can’t go down there. Do you have written permission from our athletic director for an interview? I bet you don’t, which means if you eventhinkabout cutting around me, I’ll have cops out here so fast you won’t even know what hit you.”

Simply to prove that I’m willing to back my talk with a whole lot of action, I riffle through my bag for my phone.9-1-1. I hover a finger over the green telephone, fully prepared to send this crazy dude straight to the Mount Desert Island county jail. “Don’t test me. I’ll do it.”

He mutters something unflattering under his breath. Takes a single step back. “You know, when I read that article about you inNESA, I figured you were a lesbian. A girl coach? Yeah, you gotta be into pussy.”

What?Does he think I haven’t heard that before? I spent almost all of high school with every guy thinking I was into chicks. I dealt with Rick, who, when drunk, liked to tell me that he knew the reason why I was such a “dead fish” in bed: because I was secretly lesbian. Apparently, that was as far as his creativity went for explaining my increasing lack of attraction to him. Rick’s self-worth is as inflated as his bank account.

Men can be such narcissists.

Tempted as I am to raise my hands like claws, just to see if the man will go screaming in the other direction, I lower my finger, hovering just above the call button. “Not to cut this heart-to-heart short, but I’ve got about a gazillion other things I’d rather be doing. Talking to you is not one of them.”

Another flash goes off in my face. It’s so disorienting I jerk my chin back, blinking repeatedly. Who the hell does this guy think he is? The friggin’ camera police?

“Seriously?” I snap angrily. “I tried to play nice, but game time is officially over. You need to leave. Right now.”

He whirls around, drawstring bag smacking against his thigh as he breaks into a quick-paced jog. One minute I’m debating the merits of chasing after him to tackle him to the ground, and the next I’m watching nothing but taillights as he revs his engine like a total tool and speeds onto the main road like the devil itself is chasing down his car.

I push away the mental image of a bunch of children dancing around a bonfire dressed in Halloween devil costumes, then immediately turn for the fields.

During my marriage to Rick, I watched players for the Steelers be hounded by the media. On the rare occasion that I attended an event with my ex-husband, it was hard to miss the so-called journalists who stood outside on the road, snapping pictures of whatever they could.

But I’ve never experienced the paparazzi phenomena for myself. I purposely stayed away from the craziness of celebrity athlete culture and stuck to what I did best: coaching middle school football and then later the high schoolers of a small town just outside of Pittsburgh. The only people who cared about those kids were their parents, the nearby rival teams, and the local newspaper that usually dedicated a single column to Hancock High’s wins and losses.

London High is similar to Hancock in that way.

There’s only one variable between the Tigers and the Wildcats. A man who dresses in all black, wears a tattered baseball cap that has seen better days, and has a body that could make an angel weep.

“Hey,” he calls out now, jogging over to me from where he was leading the team warm-up. “Everything all right? Topher got here almost twenty minutes ago.”

I meet Dominic’s concerned gaze. “Houston, we have a problem and that problem is . . . you.”

27

Dominic

“I’ll resign.”

Brien shoots me an exasperated look. “You’re not resigning.” He glances over to Levi, who is camped out in the chair next to mine. “How was practice today?”

“Practice was great. The kids are doing great. I’m doing great.” She turns in her chair to face me, adon’t-mess-with-melook hardening her expression. “You’renot quitting.”

Jesus fuck, not her too.

Reaching up for my hat, I toss it on Brien’s desk, then scrub my hands over my face. “You guys really think that douchebag from earlier is going to be the last pap to show up here? If you do, then you’re delusional.”

Levi snatches one of my hands and tugs it away from my jaw. She watches me earnestly, a hopeful gleam in her blue eyes. “All we need to do is reconfigure the way we do things. Just because one jerk showed up in town doesn’t mean we’re about to face down the White Walkers.”

Though it feels absurd given the severity of the situation, I can’t help but laugh at her pop-culture reference. “Are you really comparing the paparazzi to an undead army fromGame of Thrones?”

Her playful smile nearly knocks the wind out of me. “You have a problem with that?”

“Not even a little.”

Brien bangs a fist down on his desk, then looks from me to Levi and then back to me again. He wags a finger, pointing to each of us. “What’s going on here?”

Levi’s hand untangles from mine. “Nothing! Definitely nothing.”

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