Page 4 of Ancient History

Aguilar used to be a bit of a hard ass, as prickly as his cactus collection, until he fell into schmoopy love with a parent last year. After a year, he remained in a love haze that made him clueless at times. Like now. When he was oblivious to the obvious tension in front of him.

“Ancient History, huh?” Hutch’s eyebrows jumped on his creased forehead. I hated how much time I could spend staring at him. “Like cavemen?”

“We start with cavemen and go all the way to the Renaissance.”

“Sounds like quite a journey.”

Oh, we were all on our journeys. Mine seemed to keep going.

“Amos also runs the History Club after school.”

My face turned red. Aguilar was making me sound like a huge nerd.

“We just talk about…historical stuff.” Historical stuff? My brain had obviously ducked out for an early lunch.

“Cool.” Hutch had trouble meeting my eyes. He smoothed out wrinkles in his shirt, bringing attention to his trim physique.

“Did you two overlap at South Rock as students?” Aguilar asked.

We overlapped a metric fuckton.

Hutch and I were co-valedictorians of the graduating class of Awkward High.

“What are you doing here?” I winced at the sharpness of my question, but inquiring minds wanted to know. “Are you giving a talk?”

He shook his head and laughed. Red burned on his cheeks, and he cut his eyes to Aguilar to answer for him.

“Even better,” said the principal. My, how I envied his obliviousness. “Hutch is returning to South Rock to coach our soccer team this season.”

Shock, anger, disgust, (and joy?) twisted in me. The entire cast ofInside Outwas having a field day in my head. Coaching meant he would be here regularly. And through the immutable laws of space and time, I would see him regularly.

But instead of unleashing my true thoughts on the matter, I answered with a soft “Oh.”

“Yep,” Hutch said.

“What a treat! Having South Rock’s former soccer superstar come back to coach. Soccer superstar. Try saying that five times fast. Soccersuperstar. Soccersuperstar.”

“We get it,” I said. Aguilar was way too jolly to work in public education. But I had bigger things to deal with. I turned to Hutch. “The soccer team has a lot of games in a season.”

“That they do.”

“So you’ll just come here after school then?”

“Incorrectamundo!” Aguilar was so excited he looked about to piss himself. “He’s joining the faculty. He’ll be teaching Phys Ed during school and then coaching.”

“Oh.”

“Let’s bring you back to the office so you can fill out more paperwork. I’ll also fill you in on my cactus collection. You wouldn’t think they could grow cacti in New York State, but they can, Hutch. They really can.”

Aguilar motioned for Hutch to follow him. I would’ve had pity on Hutch for having to listen to Aguilar drone on about his cacti, but pity was never something I could feel for Hutch Hawkins.

“Maybe we could grab a drink sometime and catch up,” Hutch offered.

“Can’t. Busy,” I immediately shot back. He might’ve stumbled from the impact.

“Okay.” Hutch smiled awkwardly. I used to press my finger in his dimple like it was a button. “Uh, it was good…”

“You should go. Paperwork. Cacti. All that jazz.” My throat went thick with emotions struggling to come up. Aguilar could add one more prick to his cacti collection.

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