Page 15 of Sexting the Coach
“Elsie,” Mabel hisses my name, tugging on my elbow, and I realize too late that I was staring at him again., because now he’s looking at me, too, something complicated in his expression.
“Jesus,” I mutter, standing a little too abruptly, the other people at our table looking up at me when I do. “Sorry—I’m just going to get some air.”
I push through the dining hall, keeping my head down and hoping Karlee doesn’t notice me leaving, or she might follow me out. I know how protective she can be of me, and right now, I just need a second to breathe and push the image of Weston Wolfe out of my head.
When I find a door in the back of the room and push through it, I’m relieved to find it leads me out back, under a little copse of trees just behind the building. There’s a white folding chair against the wall and an overturned bucket someone could sit on. It looks like a little area the kitchen staff might use for their breaks.
“I won’t take long,” I mutter, to nobody, because I’m apparently losing my mind.
“Good to hear.”
“Oh—fuck!”
When I spin around, I see Wolfe pushing through the door, his eyes locked on me. “Are you okay?”
“No—why did you follow me out here?”
“Really?” he stops, letting the door shut behind him. I wait for him to say more. We stand quietly under the yellow light from the lamp, the bugs and moths fluttering around it above our heads and casting massive shadows on the ground below us.
Infuriatingly, he out-waits me, and I’m talk again, “I mean—I just needed a second.”
“To stop staring at me?”
“I wasn’t staring at you.”
“Elsie, I think we need to talk about that text.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lie, and I feel the heat on my cheeks, knowing that even in this light, it’s obvious that I’m blushinghard.
Weston raises a single eyebrow at me, tilting his head appraisingly, “What is this, gaslighting one-o-one?”
I press my lips together, looking away from him, trying to keep myself from laughing. This is not a laughing matter. In fact, other than that brief moment of levity, it kind of feels like my heart is trying to claw its way out of my chest. Maybe having a heart attack is the avenue we didn’t consider earlier when Mabel assembled the council.
“Okay,” I admit, holding my hands up, because the heart attack escape is clearly not coming, as much as it feels like it. “I sent it. But it was a mistake.”
“Oh, really?” his brow furrows, and he looks at the brick wall to our left like he could see right through it and to the dining room beyond. “Did you mean to send it to someone else?”
Was thatjealousythat flickered over his face? No way. It’s not possible.
My ears and neck are on fire, and I would give anything to not be the blushing type of person.. “No—well, I didn’t mean to send it at all.”
“What does thatmean?”
“I was just doing it to—like—relieve some?—”
What am Idoing? This is the opposite of playing it cool, denying, avoiding. Here I am, alone with him, and somehow, we’ve gone from ten feet apart to about two, him staring down at me intently like he’s trying to help me figure out what I’m trying to say.
His hat is backward again, and his eyes are dark blue, a kind of intense I don’t know how to explain. It makes something in my stomach feel soft and sticky.
“Relieve some what?” he whispers, his eyes flitting down to my lips, and when I suck in a breath, he seems to catch it, breathing in at the same time, our chests brushing and sending a shiver through my body.
Bad idea.
I try to step backward, but three things happen in quick succession. First, the back of my heel catches on the handle of that stupid, overturned bucket, and I start to trip, arms flailing up and out.
Second, I grab hold of Weston’s shirt, like I might keep from falling on my ass by clutching tight to him.
And third, the both of us stumble, him only barely managing to steady me and keep me from smashing my head into the brick wall behind me.
