Page 201 of Coach
“Until I blow my whistle, which might be sometime next season if you don’t move better than during those suicides. I know an old Scottish woman who runs faster than you lot.”
The boys groaned and turned.
My mind flicked back to Shane in that tank top.
NO. Drills. Conditioning. Bleeding youth.
“That’s not a jog, Beasley; that’s a slow-motion existential crisis. Pick it up!”
I scribbled a note—probably illegible—and caught myself smiling. Why had I just written, “sideboard”?
Dio, aiutami!God, help me!
I was torturing teenagers. This was serious. I had to focus, to drive myself as hard as I drove my team. If we wanted to make it back to State, there was no room for laziness or . . . damn it . . . beefy, ab-covered distractions.
But the way Shane looked at me? Like I was a riddle he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to solve but couldn’t stop trying? That did things to my stomach. Inconvenient things. Floaty things. Things that made me drop my guard and almost trip over a bench last night just thinking about texting him again.
“Coach!”
I blinked. One of the boys had stopped running and was now doubled over, panting like a ninety-year-old with asthma.
“Cramps,” the kid wheezed.
“Walk it off. Stretch. Hydrate. Consider your life choices.”
“I am, Coach. I’m regretting all of them.”
“Perfect. That’s growth.”
I paced the sideline, a panther prowling the edge of a clearing, waiting for prey to rustle so I could pounce. I whistled, then barked another drill, then jotted another note I’d forget to read later.
Behind me, someone hit the floor with a muffled thud.
Another one down.
I didn’t look back.
“Team bonding,” I muttered to myself. “Mutual suffering. It builds character . . . and stamina.”
We’d need plenty of both when there were refs and fans and a live scoreboard.
And as much as I didn’t want to admit having a fixation, torturing cocky, if talented, teens was a pretty effective distraction from tall, scruffy, emotionally repressed lumberjacks who somehow made eye contact feel like a religious experience.
Fucking focus, Ricci! You have kids dry heaving and swearing at your ancestors. Do NOT daydream about tank tops and wood shavings.
I rubbed the back of my neck and scowled at my clipboard like it owed me money.
I was fine.
I wastotallyfine.
There’s no way I was fawning over a man who used five-word sentences like they were high-risk investments.
I glanced up at the team. Most of them were upright. A few were still alive.
I blew the whistle again just to assert dominance.
“Five-minute break. Get water and sit.”
