Page 1 of First Time Coach

1

Coach

“Okay, this is the last one, Pete! I don’t work for you anymore!”

As I set down a load of lumber for his new back porch, Pete grins at me from the table where he’s serving up burgers and hotdogs. He and his wife Charlotte invited me over this evening to celebrate two things: one, me leaving his company for my new job coaching soccer at his daughter’s high school, and two, his daughter, Daisy, coming home from softball camp.

Softball camp. It sounds like Pete’s daughter takes after him. He’s a big bruiser of a guy, jacked as Hell, but with a layer of fat over his muscles that gives him the look of a powerlifter, not a bodybuilder.

I chuckle softly to myself as I picture a female version of Pete stepping up to bat, a pissed off look on her face, chewing a wad of gum and staring at the pitcher like she’s going to tear her head off. Pete’s the kind of guy who’d be proud of a daughter like that, and with a soft name like Daisy, it would be even better.

“What’s funny?” Pete asks.

“Oh, nothing,” I reply, grabbing a burger and putting it on my bun. “Just thinking of how nice it’ll be to not lift lumber for a living anymore.”

“Not used to lugging around some heavy wood?” Pete says with a smile. I slug him in the arm, making him spill a bit of his beer.

“Hey, just wait until you start having to get those little teenage shitheads in line,” Charlotte smirks. “You’ll be wishing you never left the mill.”

Charlotte has a filthier mouth than Pete, which is one of the reasons I think he married her. We were buddies back in middle school before I moved to New Zealand to play Rugby. Everyone thought I was crazy, but I did well there, until something happened that forced me to leave – not just the sport, but the entire country.

I came back with an accent and a fresh-start attitude. Pete gave me a job working at his lumber mill while he talked to the school about bringing me in as a coach. They hired me, and I start tomorrow. I owe him a lot, and honestly feel bad about taking his food without paying him back.

“So what are you two going to do now that you won’t have the house to yourselves?” I smirk. They’re both pretty open about the fact that they still “make whoopee” (as Charlotte calls it) like a couple of teenagers.

“We’re just going to use your place,” Pete chuckles. “We’ll need you to be gone for about an hour every evening.”

“Oh, no sweat. It’s the least I could do,” I reply. I glance at Charlotte. “Don’t mind if I watch do you?”

“This little vixen?” Pete laughs. “She’d probably love it. If I’d allow it. Which I won’t.”

Pete grabs Charlotte’s knee under the table and squeezes, causing her to jump a little and give him a playful slap on the shoulder. I have to admit that I’m pretty jealous of what they have.

I did the whole single-athlete thing when I was in New Zealand, and at the time I thought it was great. But once I left the league and came here and reunited with Pete, I realized what I was missing.

Pete likes to joke about never having had a chance to “sow his wild oats,” and Charlotte teases him that she never got to be tag-teamed before she settled down with his “boring ass,” but they’re both living together in marital bliss – and they know it. When I watch them together, I realize I want what they have.

Maybe there’s something wrong with me, because since I moved to New Hampshire, I haven’t felt anything for anyone. I went out on one date from one of those dating apps because Pete told me it was time to get back out there, but I was bored the whole time. It wasn’t the girl’s fault either; she was nice, but there just wasn’t any spark and I didn’t want to waste either of our time. I was a gentleman and paid for the meal, but that was it.

“Grab me a cold one, Dirk?” Pete asks, showing me his empty beer.

“Least I can do,” I nod.

“Oh, and see if the flower girl stopped by yet!” Charlotte calls after me. “I want them all ready for when Daisy gets home!”

“Will do!” I say as I head inside to the kitchen. Family pictures line the hall, mostly of Pete and Charlotte when they first started dating, and then one of those picture collages of Daisy when she was just a baby. She was cute, so tiny, and it’s hard to believe she grew up to be a bruiser softball gal.

I grab a beer from the fridge and pop the top on the counter, but Charlotte must have been rough with them when she brought them home, because the whole thing sprays everywhere, completely drenching my shirt and the front of my pants.

“Fuck,” I mutter, setting it aside. I look for some paper towels, but they must all be outside, so I head into the bathroom and grab a towel off the rack. I peel off my soaked t-shirt and wring it out in the sink, run it under the water and hang it on the shower curtain. I’ll have to ask Pete to lend me a new one.

---