Page 29 of Sexting the Coach
My brain scatters again when he sits next to me, a fresh shower smell—soap, cologne, and deodorant—washing over me, making my throat dry. Part of me thinks he shouldn’t sit next to me—we’re clearly in trouble. Then again, we’re trying to sell that we’re dating, so it wouldn’t make sense for him to sit somewhere else.
As though he can hear my thoughts, he reaches over, takes my hand for a moment, squeezes it like it’s something we do all the time. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I wheeze. Is this what he’s like with his girlfriends? Scooting his chair closer, resting a hand around the back of my chair, tracing the tips of his fingers over the edge of my shirt, so a shiver runs the length of my back—it’s practically obscene. I make a mental note to do some more digging, see if I can find pictures of him with his ex-wife in public. For some reason, I’m dying to know if he’s this touchy with every woman he dates.
Or if it’s just me.
It’s not like I’m a virgin. I’ve been with plenty of guys, dated Jonathan on and off for years. I must have felt like this around him at some point, right? But was he ever socasually affectionate with me? Touching me, making it obvious to everyone that we were together?
No, I decide. Jonathan never did that sort of thing.
The way Weston acts now, with a sort of gentle possessiveness, makes my stomach feel funny. Tight and loose at the same time. Like when you close your eyes in bed, after a day at the amusement park, and you still feel like you’re moving. Mabel would know the word for it.
“Thank you for coming,” the woman at the front of the room says, turning to us, and I search my brain, trying to remember who she is. Surely I met her at some point during orientation, but it’s not like physical therapy and public relations really have a whole lot of overlap in day-to-day operations. “I’m sure both of you know what we’re here to talk about.”
I open my mouth to find some answer to that—to defend myself. Explain that it’s not as bad as it looks. But Weston squeezes my leg under the table and I go quiet, another shiver running the length of my back at his touch.
“These pictures,” the woman—Tamra, I remember, her name is Tamra—says, gesturing to the PowerPoint, where three separate screen shots of our date are spotlighted, “came to my attention this morning.”
I fight against the instinct to open my mouth and try to defend ourselves. It’s not like wethoughtwe would be photographed—and we already documented our relationship with HR. Somehow, in an attempt to make things better, my suggestion that we fake date is only making things worse.
“We’re here today to come up with a strategy,” she says, turning around, and weirdly enough, there’s a smile on her face. “To keep this up.”
I realize Weston must have been bracing himself beside me, muscles tense, when he finally relaxes. His fingertips go from grazing my back to making full contact. I force my mind to focuson the mission at hand, rather than the little spot of heat from each of his fingers.
“…keep this up?” Weston says, eventually, when the silence in the room goes on for a beat too long.
“Yes!” Tamra says, apparently blowing right past our confusion. For someone who’s supposed to be well-versed in communication, she clearly doesn’t realize we were expecting a much different reception here. Pointing to one of the pictures—in which I, mortifyingly, am making major heart-eyes at Weston—she goes on, “This isgreatfor us!”
“I’m sorry,” Weston says, shaking his head and holding up a hand. He shifts away, his hand dropping from my back and rising up as he talks. “I can’t speak for Elsie, but I was under the impression that a…complicatedrelationship like this would be a problem for the team’s image.”
“I would have thought that, too,” Tamra says, her eyes cartoonishly wide. I glance at Weston, to see if he notices, but he looks too agitated to take note of her expressions. “But the comments—people arelovingthe two of you! They feel bad foryou,” Tamra points to Weston, then turns to me, “and think you’re darling.”
“Feel sorry for me?” Weston’s brow drops. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Since Leda Temple announced her engagement?”
I can’t help it—I glance over at him, trying to gauge how this information might be affecting him. It had never occurred to me that he might still be in love with Leda, but who wouldn’t? I grew up watching her movies, first when she was a teen starlet, then when she got older and turned into a drop-dead gorgeous star.
It’s not like I’m a celebrity aficionado, like Hattie, but I know about her.Everyoneknows about her. She’ll go down in the history books as one of the greatest actresses of all time, I’m sure of it. She’s won awards, graced the covers of magazines. Evennow, a few years older than Weston, she holds a spot as one of the most gorgeous women in Hollywood.
Weston frowns, and I don’t manage to learn anything from the expression. Is that the frown of a man who is still in love with his ex-wife, or the frown of a man who doesn’t want to be sitting in this room right now?
And why does it matter to me?
I force myself to pay attention, to stop thinking about Weston and Leda. It’s not going to do me any good to linger on his past relationships. Especially since he and I aren’t even really together.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Tamra waves her hand like it’s not important, and Weston sets his jaw, leaning back in his chair and staring off into the distance.
“We’re requesting, politely, that the two of you keep this kind of thing up,” Tamra says, gesturing to the PowerPoint. “This is not, obviously, like a strict requirement or anything, but this kind of decent publicity for the team could be good. After what happened with Morton.”
Weston’s jaw ticks. I, obviously, was not here last season when everything happened with Morton, but I know the basic facts. I know that he fought hard to be in charge of hiring for the interns. I know he hired only a very specific type—thin, pretty, and either college freshman or sophomores—and for the four months they interned, they all went through various forms of sexual harassment.
Then, nearly eight months ago, the interns banded together to blast him publicly. The Squids administration swore they had no idea about it—and that, if the interns had come to them first, they would have handled it—but the damage was done.
The scandal is still hanging around this place. Loraine told me that the HR department itself was doubled, and the teamsuspended the hiring of interns for a year, until a new system could be put in place.
