Page 26 of The Keeper
Her mouth drops. We stay there in silence for a moment before I see her mouth split into a shit-eating grin. “That is without a doubt thesexiestthing I have ever heard.”
My brows furrow. “Excuse me?”
“Oh my god, RJ. A forbidden romance? All that angst? It’s like one of those bodice ripping romance novels my mom used to hide under her bed. Imagine… you’re gonna be all sexed up and sweaty after playing with balls for hours and he’s gonna be there with his clipboard and whistle and his amazing muscles. You could sneak off to the locker rooms for hot, steamy…”
“Charlie!”
“What? It sounds hot.”
“You are literally the worst right now.”
She frowns. “I was just trying to point out the positives.”
“There aren’t any positives. He is mycoach.If anyone found out we even went on a date, I could be kicked off the team, lose my scholarship, and I’d have to drop out of Glendale and get a job working at Hooters.”
“One, that is incredibly dramatic. Two, you couldn’t get a job at Hooters. The qualifications needed for that job are in the name. Sorry, honey.”
I let out a huff at her not so subtle jab at my underwhelming chest. “That issonot the point. And I’m not being dramatic.”
Charlie just shrugs, her expression now sympathetic. “I get that you’re in a rough spot. But you should at least talk to him. I mean, I doubt this is how he saw it playing out either.”
Part of me thinks Charlie’s right. But the other part of me is incredibly irritated that Mack cut me off in his office, spouting his ‘it’s Coach McIntosh’ to me, but then thinks there isn’t anything wrong with showing up at my house and sitting in the bathroom while I shower.
What a hypocrite.
“I’ll talk to him,” I start, but then quickly continue when her eyes light up, “but don’t think this is going to end all sunshine and rainbows. This is a shitty situation.” Charlie just nods her head. “I need to throw on some clothes. Can you go downstairs and let him know I’ll be down in a minute?”
“Sure thing, girl.” And she’s hopping out the door and down the stairs.
I take my time getting changed, taking the extra effort to put on my vanilla scented lotion. As I’m poised to add a swoop of lip-gloss, I look at myself in the mirror. “What the hell are you doing?” I mutter to myself, then toss my gloss haphazardly on my dresser, unused, and throw my hair into a hasty, damp knot at the top of my head.
When I finally head down to the living room, I find Charlie sitting alone watching TV. “He’s waiting out front,” she says after catching my questioning look.
When I step outside, I’m immediately assaulted by the incredibly warm October morning. Just when I think things are starting to cool down, LA gets hit with a heat wave. Eighty degrees at 8am is not my idea of a good day.
Mack is sitting on our front stoop. The Glendale Soccer shirt he’s wearing is stretched taught across his back. I want to run my hands across his back and wrap my arms around him. But I don’t. He doesn’t turn to look at me, and I don’t sit next to him. I just stand, leaning back on the front door.
“I shouldn’t have gone into the bathroom when I got here. It was inappropriate,” he says, his voice smooth but professional. “When I showed up, your roommate was on the phone and just pointed me upstairs. But that’s not really an excuse for why I made the decision to go in when you were obviously showering.”
“I get it. You wanted to talk. The line was kind of blurry already. If you weren’t my coach, who knows how that situation could have been different. It probably would have made me more fluttery than angry. But it is what it is, I guess.”
Mack stands and turns to look at me, his hands stuffed in his pockets. “Fluttery? Where do you come up with these words?”
I shrug a little, letting my mouth turn up into a small smile, but I focus my eyes on his shoes. “So why are you here, Mack?”
When I finally get the nerve to look at him, his hands are clasped behind his head, pulling his shirt up to reveal just an inch of his toned stomach. His eyes are brimming with an apology, but I’m not sure I want it. “If it’s to apologize or smooth things over, it isn’t necessary.” I look past him to the street, letting the words fall from my mouth, but they don’t feel true. “You don’t owe me anything.”
He drops his hands from his head and then crosses his arms across his chest. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. That we’re okay.”
“But we’re not okay Mack.I’mnot okay.” I kick off the door and take a few steps towards him. “You’re my coach. I’m your student. Not just your athlete. Yourstudent. I have less than a year left before I graduate, and half of my world rests on the scholarship I get for playing on this team. Playing foryou. Do you not see how that makes us not okay?”
“Of course I see it,” he barks in frustration. He lets out a deep breath and drags his hands up and down his face, which I’m beginning to recognize as a sign that he’s trying to find the right words to say. “What I meant was, are you going to be okay to play? Are you going to be able to play with me as your coach?”
I give him a short nod. And he nods back.
“Jeremy thinks you can go pro,” he says suddenly, and I’m a little thrown by the topic.
“Jeremy also thinks the Black Eyed Peas are The Beatles of our generation. He’s been known to think stupid things.”
