Page 7 of Coach Me
I can hear the happiness around me, but my thoughts are stilled. Restaurant? Moving to Boston…an hour away…not living with me in our apartment? Reagan never even hinted at the idea of moving to me. I can feel Will’s eyes on me—studying. The concern he had for Reagan’s mood shift is now directed at me.
You know that ‘we can read each other like a book’ thing? Yeah, Will’s the best at it, and if I don’t snap out of it, I know he’ll try to fix it.
Not that there’s anything to fix. I’m just…surprised? Shocked? I don’t know what I’m feeling.
I take a deep breath and plaster a huge smile on my face. “This is so exciting, I’m so happy for you two!” My voice turns squeaky at the last part—okay, dial it back. “When…where?” I choke out. I’m failing so bad at acting normal right now.
“What’s the plan for Boston?” Will asks. “Trying to decide how excited I am…Julie’s cooking is a plus, but Reagan’s a different story.” Reagan gives Will a pointed look, but he doesn’t falter. “Mine and Callie’s place is scheduled visits only by the way.”
Callie smacks his arm. “It is not. You are always welcome.”
Reagan crinkles her nose. “I think we’ll send a text first. But we won’t be there for a couple of months. Julie starts as a chef at Zenith at the beginning of August.”
Reagan looks at me with this gleam in her eyes as she clears her throat.
The room goes dead silent…or, well, to me it feels like it’s silent. Deep down, I’m so happy for my sister, but I'm feeling a little blindsided. My siblings are my best friends, and while I know Reagan and I weren’t going to be roommates forever, I did not see this coming.
I know the love her and Julie have for each other, and I don’t have a right to be upset about that. It’s more the idea of ending this era with my sister. I’m like 10 percent sad right now…okay, 20 percent…I’m mostly shocked. Okay—25 percent upset,max.
“Rea, this is so great. Really, I’m so happy for the both of you.”
Reagan exhales and her shoulders fall to their normal level. “I’ll have to keep Stigma’s storefront until the end of this year with my lease agreement, but this way I have plenty of time to transition the business over while still holding my clientele here.”
Reagan’s shoulders tense again. “And our apartment won’t be ready until mid-July. There's still time for me to slowly move out, and we still have a few weeks of being roommates, Luce.”
“That’s perfect,” I breathe out as I force a smile to my lips.
At least when she moves out in the next couple of months, I can throw myself back into the school year. It might seem silly now, but I already miss my sister.
I look to Will next because I know I have to say something so I won’t get a pep talk from him before the night ends. “I think I might take that break then.”
Chapter 3
Dex
“Dad, what city are we going to again?” Miles asks from his car seat in the back.
“Atlanta,” I huff out. I swear I’ve been nothing but a broken record this morning. Repeating where we’re going and the time it’ll take for us to get there. I had to tell Miles at least five times to brush his teeth. Three times to find his blanket that he wants to take on the plane. And then answered where we are going at least ten more times.
“Riiight, but not Atlantis because that city is underwater, right?”
“Right.”
“Dad, how did Atlantis go underwater?” Miles asks, completely oblivious to the stress radiating off of me.
“I don’t know, bud.” Normally, I would do my best to come up with some sort of educated or fun answer, but today it’s just not in me to do something for a made-up city.
I got shit sleep last night. After dinner Miles wanted to call his mom, and like usual it took three tries before we got her to answer, and then she only talked to Miles for fiveminutes before she was ready to hang up. That alone had my frustration high, but then the texts I got following the call made me bubble over into rage.
Kate
If you want to call me every night then we need to work out a scheduled time and put it in our agreement. I can’t just talk whenever you want.
It’s one thing that she threw in the “you”—like I’m using our son to talk to her when that couldn’t be further from the truth—but then to expect her son to only call her during scheduled hours pisses me the fuck off. Maybe one day Miles won’t want to talk to her every day, but he’s only five. He didn’t ask for any of this bullshit—he just wants to talk to his mother.
What Miles also didn’t ask for was this sour mood of mine that’s carried throughout the morning. Like I tell Miles when he wakes up grumpy, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed—and then it’s gone downhill.
With each passing minute, I feel like I am the most unprepared father ever. Clothes I needed clean for this week were still wet in the wash because I forgot to move them over to the dryer. Miles’s shoes all disappeared. Well, that’s not technically true. I found several shoes but it took me a solid fifteen minutes to find a single pair that matched. After that, I realized every fucking to-go cup we have was loaded into the dishwasher…but guess who forgot to start it last night?
