Page 962 of One More Kiss

Chapter2

Kiley stoodwith an orange shammy thrown over her shoulders like a superhero’s cape. Her eyes were narrowed to slits as she glared at a tall woman in a green swimsuit splashing around in the warmup pool.

“Jennifer Renee Shultz,” Kiley growled under her breath. “Just look at her, so full of herself. She should be freaking out right now. Everyone else is freaking out. I’m freaking out. You’re freaking out.”

Larry pulled his gaze from the clipboard in his hand and stared at Kiley, mouthing the ink pen thrust out the side of his lips like a cigar. His snow-white hair, large nose, and portly build brought to mind the puffin he shifted into when in animal form. “I’m not freaking out, Kiley.”

She rolled her eyes. “Look at what your furious biting has done to that pen, Larry, and then tell me you’re not freaking out.”

Larry pulled the pen out of his mouth and gaped at its misshapen, scratchy surface as Kiley waved him off. “Relax, at least you’re not backstage smoking crack or spanking it to midget porn. Chewing pens isn’t all that bad, comparatively speaking.”

Larry growled. “If you spent as much time working on your gainers as you did coming up with witty things to say, maybe you wouldn’t be behind Jennifer on the scoreboard.”

Kiley fumed. “That’s got… almost nothing to do with why I hate her right now. I mean, come on! She’s smiling! You don’t smile at the world championships. You just don’t. It’s bad form not to mention bad manners.”

“Well, if I’d scored a perfect ten in my last dive I’d be smiling, too.”

She glared at Larry. “You’re not helping in the slightest, Larry. You’re supposed to be my coach.”

“I am your coach.”

“Great, so say something inspiring. Make me feel like I can take on the world. Do something other than just sit around and praise the competition.”

He took a deep breath and then looked Kiley dead in the eye. “You can do it.”

Kiley stared at him for a long moment, but nothing else came out of his mouth. “Um, okay. I can do it. That’s very vague.”

“The meaning is implied.”

“Pretend I’m slow, Larry. Tell me what the meaning is like you would explain to a three-year-old.”

“I mean, you can beat her. Beat Jennifer. Her dive difficulty is going to be set at a lower level because she’s going to play it safe. That means you have a chance to outpoint her overall.”

“That’s better, I guess.” Kiley peered over at Jennifer as she climbed out of the pool and dropped her voice to a level only Larry could hear thanks to shifter hearing. Had to keep the shifter secret, after all. “Did you know she shifts into a sugar glider? I mean, a sugar glider. They’re like tiny. She could get taken out by an owl, just boom, out of nowhere.”

“I know what you’re implying.” He frowned at her. “I don’t know any owl shifters in the nest, and that would be murder.”

Kiley glared at him. “You’re no fun anymore, Larry.”

“Look, just nail the gainer, and remember to keep your body straight for the first part of the somersault rotation and you’ll be fine.”

“Which somersault?” She opened her eyes wide, lips forming an O as she feigned ignorance.

Larry frowned, his face drawing up into a mask of anxiety. “What do you mean ‘which somersault’? We talked about this, Kiley.”

She clicked her tongue at her coach. “Come on. I can pull this off. I know I can.”

“If you were in swan form and could fly, maybe. The amount of lift you’ll have to get on your takeoff means you need to nail the approach perfectly.”

“So, I’ll nail the approach.” Kiley shrugged.

“Kiley.” He put his hands on his hips and glared at her. “Come on. You never hit the approach perfectly. You’ve got the best takeoff I’ve ever seen, and you’re like sonic the hedgehog on your somersaults, but let’s face it—the approach is your weakness.”

Kiley sighed and watched as Jennifer climbed the high ladder for her dive. “Whatever. What’s the big deal if I don’t hit the approach dead on anyway?”

“For one thing, you might not get enough clearance to be safely away from the board. You don’t want to smack your head and have to get stitches.”

Kiley deflated with a long sigh. “Oh, all right. I guess I don’t really need something to dazzle the judges this late. I can just play it safe.”

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