Page 34 of Please, Sir

She blushes again, and the sweat rolling down her chest scrambles my brain a little. I’d love to catch that drop of sweat with my–

“You read that?”

I nod, tipping my hat. “I surely did. Read the Leader with my coffee in the morning.”

She nibbles her bottom lip, enticing my eyes to her mouth for a moment. “You’re not saying what you thought and that’s making me think you didn’t like it.”

“I liked it. And so did Coach McAllister.”

“Really?” her eyes light up, and she steps a little closer to me. “I think Coach McAllister hates me,” she says, her eyes wandering off into the distance for a moment.

“I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to hate you.” I don’t mean for my response to come off as romantic or flirtatious, but I know it must land that way when her eyes whip back up to mine.

Her smile is slow, and timid. “That’s not true. Lots of people hate me.”

I shrug. “Jo Jo seems to really respect you. So thank you for being there for my daughter.”

Her wide eyes search mine, and this time, it doesn’t feel heated or erotic but moreso, thoughtful. Finally, when I thinkmy heart is going to leap out of my damn chest, she says, “You should ask Jo Jo what made her want to try cheerleading.” She smiles, dips her head, and walks off to meet up with a hoard of high school girls lined up at the manicure booth.

I go back to my booth and finish Dorthea’s belt, and when I’m done, rather than move through the next stack of orders, I start working on a new crop–not for a horse.

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

“I will never understand them,”Leah sighs, sinking into her high-back executive style chair. I put my feet on the edge of her desk, and pass the bowl of M&Ms to Denae. She sifts through, picking out the brown ones.

“They’re literally all the same, D,” I tell her.

“Logically I know that, but psychologically, the brown ones taste better,” she says, shrugging, sliding the bowlback to Leah.

“I know,” I reply to Leah, letting my head fall back against the wall. “They can be so mean.” I toss a few more M&Ms in my mouth. “I think they could go up against inmates in a scared straight program. Hell, they may even scare the inmates.”

“They scare me,” Denae says.

Leah leans forward, snagging a few tissues from the orange box on her desk, passing them my way. She points toward her ear. “You still have a little…” she motions again.

I bring the tissues to my ear, wiping away the shaving cream that lingers. “I love the smell of Barbasol,” I say, tossing the used tissues into her can.

“Oh, your top,” Leah adds, rooting around in her bottom drawer for a moment before her lips press together in a flat line. She winces. “All I have left is another PE shirt.”

I sigh. “I’ll take it.” As carefully as possible, I tug off my polo and slip into the stale, loaner t-shirt.

“So back in the polos and jeans, huh?” Denae asks, as Leah props her feet up on her desk. She’s already heard about the fancy clothes, why I wore them one day and how they didn’t work. But Denae hasn’t.

“I thought maybe the reason why the teachers didn’t like me was because I dressed too casually, but after a day of wearing uncomfortable high heels and pencil skirts that made me feel like I had a perpetual wedgie, I’m back to my normal clothes. Because as it turns out, what I wear doesn't matter. Cadence is still giving me eye daggers. If it wasn’t for you, D, I’d sit in the break room in silence, alone in a room full of people.” I try not to let that truth depress me, but feeling alone all day, coming home to an empty house, having no missed calls on my phone… it adds up. “But you guys are my friends, so fuck ‘em.”

“Fuck them indeed,” Leah says, “unofficially and off the record, of course.” She tips her head to the side, blinking. “I gotta suspend a few of them, Ry. I know you don’t want that but… I can’t let them off.”

I wave my hand through the air. “Suspend them. It took me an hour to clean up all that shaving cream. And Bluebell is against hazing. They’re lucky we’re even calling it hazing and not straight up bullying.”

In my purse, at my feet, my phone rings. My pulse leaps, and deep down, I wonder if this is the call. The call where my parents say how sorry they were, recognize my hurt, and apologize for everything. But when I look down, I see Michael’s number floating across the screen, so I reach into my bag and silence it, flipping it over so I can’t even see the screen.

My face must give me away a little, because Leah leans forward, dropping her feet to the floor. “You okay?”

I nod. “Fine. But I should go talk to Jo Jo.”

“Lene,” Denae adds. “When I brought her up to the office, she seemed pretty irritated that I called her Jo Jo. She goes by Lene.”

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