Page 30 of Call the Shots
A man with curly hair and wire-framed glasses interrupted. “Do you know who picked the music today?”
I jumped. I didn’t even notice him coming up, this man who looked…oddly familiar. “Uh…I think Elijah made the playlist.”
Bear’s mouth fell open at the newcomer as he walked away. “That’s—that’s Coach.”
“What?”
“Coach Vernon!” Bear jogged after him, glancing around the hallway. “He disappeared. Is he a ghost? You saw him too, right?”
“That’s CoachVernon?” I blinked. “Did he get a perm?”
“You saw him too!” Bear gave me a dumbfounded look and broke into the locker room. “Denali! I saw Coach!”
Denali snorted. “And I found Sasquatch.”
“I saw him too,” I said.
“What? CoachVernon?”
Another man with a clipboard walked in who I had definitely never met before. “Listen up, we have Coach Vernon with some words.”
The team shared surprised looks with each other. There’d literally been no sign of their coach, and Cleo and I had kept surveillance on his supposed whereabouts. Yet there he was. Sauntering in like he did that every day, while players audibly stumbled back.
Coach Vernon clapped his hands. “Guys, you did your best out there?—”
“We haven’t gone out yet, Coach,” Denali stopped him.
“You haven’t?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
I gazed around the room for Cleo and spotted her, hurrying up with a stack of papers in hand. “Coach Vernon! All of the Colo’s coaches have to agree to renovations before we can hire outside help,” she panted, holding up a thick packet. “I need your initials, and we can hire a crew to fix?—”
“Fix what?” Coach Vernon blinked.
Lights dimmed overhead and the hockey players shuffled, craning their necks to watch as the room darkened. Montoya dropped his skates as dust sprinkled from the ceiling.
Coach cleared his throat. “That’s part of the charm!”
“We need to fix the Colo,” I insisted, maneuvering around the team. “If you sign the papers, we can use the budget to?—”
“Let’s not talk about wasting money,” he chided me and gestured beyond the archway at what appeared to be a very disinterested teenage boy. His blonde hair was shaved so short, he looked almost bald in the darkness. “This is Riley Townsend, he’s the last player on your roster.”
“Is he a freshman?” Elijah asked. “Or does he just look like that?”
“He’s a freshman.”
“I’m also a freshman!” Montoya waved. “I’m Montoya!”
“I’m a freshman but I could roundhouse kick all of your asses,” Riley spat. “I don’t give a fuck.”
Elijah’s grin stretched. “Ooo, yeah. This is going to be fun.”
CHAPTER 12
BEAR
