Page 19 of Holmes, Margaret and Poe

Davis said, “Honestly, Fiona, I got food poisoning at a crab boil I stupidly attended when I should have been watching a football game at Bowman’s.”

Plum nodded uncertainly. “I was there too. Bowman’s, I mean. But after you left.”

“Oh? That’s too bad.”

“It was, yes. But I managed. How areyoumanaging, Captain?”

People had been calling Marion Davis “Captain” since he’d captained his Pop Warner football team. By the time he enrolled at the Charles School, it was his nickname and aptly so. He’d gone on to captain the Charles School football team and the Air Force Academy team, and he’d been a captain in the air force before joining the NFL.

Funny how things worked sometimes.

“Captain?” Ms. Plum said.

“I’m fine and getting better every day, Fiona,” Davis said. “Thank you for asking.”

She hesitated. “Then we should go out sometime. Not to Bowman’s.”

Davis sighed. “Fiona, if I were ready to date, you’d be the first person I’d call.”

“Really?” Plum said.

He traced anXover his heart. “I’m just not there yet, and it’s coming up on the two-year anniversary, you know? Maybe a few months from now?”

The English teacher smiled. “I’d like that. I think you would too, Captain.”

“I think I would. At some point soon, Fiona.”

She stood there, not quite worshipping him but close.

He said, “Uh, I have to get ready for practice.”

Plum startled. “I’m sorry. And I have a class in ten minutes. Bye, Captain.”

“Bye, Ms. Plum,” he said. He turned and went into the boys’ locker room.

Davis went straight to the coaching offices and found Troy Penny, his offensive-line coach, drinking a Gatorade and studying a film of their upcoming opponent on his laptop. “Penny,” he said.

The younger coach looked up and chuckled knowingly. “Well, look who the cat drug in. The tomcat, that is. Captain Tomcat.”

Davis stepped into Penny’s office and shut the door. “Explain that.”

“She had you, right? Just wouldn’t let you go, and you couldn’t let her go either. Didn’t care if it was a Monday or not. I know how it is. Same thing with me, first time after me and Nelly split.”

“I’m still not following you. Last thing I remember was going in the front door at Bowman’s and waving at you.”

Penny’s face twisted. “You’re kidding me.”

“Nope.”

Penny groaned. “Oh, Captain, my captain, that was a fine brunette you struck up a conversation with. She was laughing. You were laughing and having a grand old time because she was wearing a Ravens tank top that flattered her curves.”

“Okay?”

“Then Dallas scored on a fifty-six-yard bomb pass. We all went nuts. When we calmed down, I looked over to see how things were progressing, and you and the Ravens brunette were gone and there was a pile of cash on the table.”

Davis shook his head, only vaguely remembering that there’d been a woman, extremely good-looking, and yes, they had been laughing. “But I can’t remember leaving with her.”

“You did. And I hated having to make something up for Ms. Fiona Plum when she showed up later looking for you. I didn’t have the heart to say you’d picked up a serious hottie and hightailed it out of Bowman’s. That would have crushed the poor thing.”

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