Page 40 of The Coach

“So.” He clears his throat. “This new guy you’re seeing…”

I sigh deep and dramatically, making my dad smile, and say, “Yeah?”

He looks over at me, his eyes assessing. “Is it serious?”

I bite my lip, trying to think up a smart response. Is it serious? Yeah. Can I tell you all about him? No. “It’s new,” I finally reply, mentally smacking myself.

He hums and keeps his gaze on his hands. “And what does he do for a living?”

How I let myself think I’d be able to get out of this line of questioning is beyond me. I should have come better prepared. Or left the moment dinner was done, Road Runner style.

I rack my brain for something, finally settling on, “He’s in the sports industry.”

Dad “mhmms”, and I wait for the lecture. The one that goes like, you’ve dated people in the sports industry before, and it didn’t turn out too well… “Well, he better treat you right. But he also better let you keep up with your studies.”

I blink at him when he turns his eyes back to me. “You’re so close, Micayla. Don’t let a boy distract you.”

“He’s not,” I retort, but then, when I really think about it, he’s not, not distracting me. I am completely behind in my reading. I have tests I need to prep for, and I have a paper due at the end of the month, actually before the end, since it is due before Thanksgiving. It was hard not letting myself get caught up in him whenever he was around, whenever he had the time to see me, I wanted to see him and vice versa.

I had a feeling Tanner didn’t open up to too many people, that I was something of a new experience for him, and I don’t want that to end.

Still… my dad isn’t wrong. “I promise I’ll make more time for school. He’s a good person, you’d like him.”

He turns and watches me for a moment, long enough that I start to squirm in my seat. “I’d like to meet him. Maybe over winter break then?”

“Oh.” Fudge, why didn’t I see that coming? “Yeah, maybe so.”

Or maybe never…

I sigh, and we move on to other topics, all the while my brain is stuck on the fact that I just dug my hole a mile deeper.

May couldn’t get here soon enough.

sixteen

TANNER

Apparently, I am a distraction.

I shake my head at the thought because I knew it was true. Mick is gearing up for midterms and, according to her, is way behind because of my amazing ability to make her focus on anything but school.

I didn’t want her to fail or feel like she couldn’t come over because she couldn’t work when I was around. I want her to feel comfortable in my place.

Which was why, even though she told me she couldn’t come over, I convinced her to and cleared off my table so she could work. I gave her the remote to my speakers so she could set up her playlist and left her some sports drinks in the fridge and a bunch of snacks that had her giving me one hell of a kiss in thanks. The soft look in her eye as I showed her everything made it worth having her over, even if I couldn’t distract her.

Though I knew she had to focus, there was something about her just being in my home, doing something as mundane as studying, that had something settle comfortably in my chest. I promptly left her there so I could go burn off some energy at the gym and give her space to work.

I’m still wound up from the week. Since Johnson quit, it’s been a bit of restructuring. Not as bad as one would think after losing a coach, which tells us a lot about how our staff handles things and how we don’t need him as badly as we may have thought.

My players are pushing themselves hard, proving they are all in this, regardless of whether our coaching staff has our shit together.

Thankfully, Lee and Jeff were still there, still had their heads in the game, and we were more than ready for the home games this weekend.

I hope Mick gets enough work done tonight that she’ll be able to come. I wanted to fish out one of my old Bandit’s jerseys for her to wear. When I left the team, I got a whole shipment of them sent to me just to have. It was a fantasy of mine to see Mick wearing my jersey, cheering me on, even as the coach.

But that would have to wait.

One more year…

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