Page 46 of Coach
“I’m Italian. My whole personality is therapy,” I shot back, flipping to the next page on my clipboard.
I paced the sidelines while the boys dragged themselves up and back across the court like dying ants, sneakers squeaking rhythmically. I didn’t yell again, not yet, just let the silence do my work. It was amazing what a few seconds without encouragement could do to the adolescent male’s brain.
“Marcus, I saidtouchthe line! Your legs are lying to you. Give me three more!”
They started to move faster after that, with a little more urgency, and maybe a little more hatred. That was fine. Hate was just motivation in disguise.
While they ran, my mind wandered.
Well, not wandered. It bolted. The sulky boys with their sullen faces and perpetual scowls sent my thoughts to places it didn’t belong, to a man I probably shouldn’t bother with.
Right to Shane Douglas.
Like my kids, he was broody.
And broad-shouldered.
He was “Silent-type Shane,” who texted like a man preparing for the end times.
From the couple of times we were close enough for our elbows to brush, I knew he smelled like cedar and sawdust. I wondered if he might taste like all of my teenage dreams rolled into one grumpy package.
Ricci, focus. They’re doing suicides, not interpretive dance. Call the next drill.
I blew the whistle. “Get water. You have two minutes, then I want jog laps around the entire court. Don’t let me catch your shoes touching the line, either. Make a full circuit.”
“How many laps, Coach?” one of the barely winded seniors asked.
“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.
