Page 6 of Secret Santa

“And get the coach here the pot roast. I know you have some of that left, I can smell it. Give him a double helping of those mashed potatoes since he didn’t get to try your meatloaf,” she called to me from the booth.

Pot roast and mashed potatoes I could do. I made the monkey bread look fancy in a pastry box and cellophane while waiting for the roast to warm. Fitzy shot rapid fire questions at Presley from how many brothers and sisters did he have—three brothers, both younger and older—to how long he’d been single for. He’d dated casually in Palo Alto but hadn’t had a long-term girlfriend in a while.

“You look wiped out sugar.” I overheard Fitzy as I approached their table. “In all seriousness, do you need me to say something?”

“Coach is the one who told me I needed to stop spreading myself so thin.”

He had a set of heart shaped lips that opened to reveal such a sweet smile. Originally directed at Fitzy, but when he saw me approach with food, he dialed that smile up to a million and I felt like I was dancing in a sunbeam that broke out in the middle of a thunderstorm.

“Now that smells like something I’ll be licking the plate and asking for seconds.”

I had plenty of ideas of places he could lick and ask for seconds.

ChapterFive

I thought I’d packed away all of my ghosts from my time in college. The prospect of a weekend spent at the FINA swim trials and I’d felt as if a band of hungry crows pecked at my insides. I must have checked my cell phone at least twenty times while the team sat waiting for the plane. Logically I knew Beckett was enroute as well or getting ready to leave for the airport and therefore wouldn’t be thinking about getting in touch with me. There wasn’t any reason for him to feel the same level of anxiety as I did. Especially since these time trials were always a piece of cake for the Olympic superstar.

I wasn’t even swimming, yet I felt as much pressure as the years I went to FINA as an athlete. It was as if I carried the anxiety of every one of my swimmers on my shoulders and felt it in triplicate. I was just about to text my brother, Cash, when Coach Kimball took a seat next to me.

“That Priscilla never lets me down.”

Coach Kimball reached into his bag and grabbed the banana bread I’d given him the day before. We sat in silence for a spell, me reeling in panic over my first weighted swim competition. Him, relishing in every morsel he devoured. At the rate he was going the whole loaf would be gone before he got on the plane.

“How was your night at the diner? Learn anything interesting about your Secret Santa?” Kimball asked, looking pretty torn over rolling his snack back into its cellophane wrapper and stowing it away in his bag.

The truth was I hadn’t learned much. Other than I couldn’t stop gaping at her like a pubescent teen. She was the best kind of curvy. A tried-and-true hourglass with a set of hips meant for grabbing hold of and a perky ass that I’d appreciated plenty while she shuffled back and forth in that short-as-sin fifties style dress.

I’d spent the last twenty-four hours trying to figure out what exactly it was about her I’d found so interesting. I’d caught her at the end of what appeared to have been a really long shift. I could tell in the way she stood and walked that she’d been on her feet for a while. Our interaction had been typical. A simple customer/server interaction. I’d ordered food, she cooked it for me. I paid. She told me to have a pleasant night. The end. But her chipper attitude and general warmth would have never even hinted at the fact that she probably hated the fact I’d come in so close to her closing time.

“I feel like I’m still as clueless as I was before you suggested I have dinner there.”

“So you still haven’t given her anything? You’re slacking my friend. Fitzy’s gonna tan your hide if she finds out.”

“I didn’t say I hadn’t given her anything.”

With my free day yesterday, I’d managed a stop at the bookstore in the square and by some Christmas miracle the shop owner had a collection of Christmas nutcrackers on display. One of them was an Elvis Presley nutcracker. Sure, it was more than the ten dollars that Fitzy suggested we spend but it seemed too perfect to pass up.

“I got her a little something from the bookstore yesterday. Asked Fitzy to deliver it for me today.”

“Well then,” Kimball pulled a tiny gift bag from his carry on, “I feel better giving this to you.”

Inside the bag was a tiny horse stuffed animal boasting “real horsehair.” The note attached to the stuffed animal said

Texans believe that horsehair brings good luck and wards off things that could do you harm. Thought this might bring you some luck on your first year as coach.

It was a soft as silk, and I couldn’t stop petting its tail as we sat watching the planes take off and land.

Cash: Call it a weird Murray brother sixth sense, but wanted to know how you’re doing? I know FINAs are a big deal. Just like that ESPN interview—don’t let anyone else make you feel like you don’t deserve a seat at that table. Like I told you before. You were in the best position to learn how to coach and train an Olympic athlete because you watched Beckett every day of his career. You’re going to crush it as a coach this weekend.

It was exactly what I needed to hear. The Murray brothers had spent Fourth of July weekend in Las Vegas before I moved to Texas. Aside from meeting his girlfriend Harlow, he also seemed to rediscover the brotherly thread that bound us. I’d been on the receiving end of his focus and support more times than I could count since deciding to take the job in Texas. Sometimes I forgot that Cash, too, had turned a new leaf. He’d become more accessible. Invested in everyone’s lives.

Me: Your sixth sense is right on brother.

Me: This is exactly what I needed to hear, exactly when I needed it.

Cash: Now if we could only get you and Harris to text in a single thought stream ??

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