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Since Miles and I spent a fair amount of our free time today texting each other about the gossip with the football team, I'm able to launch directly into questioning if he's heard anything about who will be replacing Coach Adams.
“Just wait until I tell you what’s up! I just found out before I sat down—I can’t believe you don’t know yet. First of all, this has been going on for quite a while. I gotta think the school got lucky that it all blew just after the semester officially ended because it meant the football season was over and they could keep it quiet. They've spent the weeks since it all hit the fan scrambling to find a new coach. The football team was told about this last week, at which time they were warned that if they valued their scholarships, they would need to keep their mouths shut until the announcement could be made. They'd originally offered the coaching job to Mr. Peters, but since he didn't want to move from the assistant coach position, they went outside and found someone else."
I nod as he finishes talking. “Interestingggg,” I drawl. “Any word on the new guy?”
Miles leans in closer with a look of clear excitement on his face. "It's your… um…" his brow furrows as he pauses. After a second of thinking he makes a dismissive motion with his hand. "Doesn't matter I guess. I just never know what to call him, so I guess we need to work on that. Anyway, it's none other than Colin Findlay! Makes sense they went with an alum. Gotta say though if the dean was looking for a way to ward off sexual crushing on coaches, he just failed miserably. I think you might be the only person here who’ll be immune to him.”
My smile feels frozen in place, my stomach is buzzing like I just arrived at the top of a roller coaster and my mouth seems to have become a damn desert. I let out a fake sounding laugh because I know I have to react to Miles’s words, but it’s the best I’ve got.
As far as Miles knows, Colin Findlay is merely a part of my extended family. That's a very simplistic description of how we're connected, but it's the one I normally go with. I know Colin because his grandparents were such a huge part of my life. Miles has no clue that I've had feelings for Colin since forever, and I would like to keep it that way especially since he's asked me a million times who my first crush was, and I've always said I can't remember.
That is one big ass lie because a girl never ever forgets her first crush. That's doubly true when the crush in question is Colin Findlay. I just never wanted to talk about it because I knew it would get me a ton of side eye and jokes about me wanting someone so far out of my league. Colin is ten years older than I am, after all.
I swallow nervously as my heart skips a beat. Jesus. Of all the colleges in the world, he’s taking a job at mine? And why freaking now of all the times?
The Findlays came into my life when my mother—I use the term loosely— rented the guesthouse on the back of his grandparents’ property. She was there from the time she divorced my dad when I was six until she went off to find herself shortly before I started seventh grade.
During those years unless there was a game, Colin would show up at his grandparents’ house every Sunday to hang out during the afternoon and then have dinner with them. Since the majority of my time was spent in Nanny and Pop's house, I got to spend a lot of time swooning over Colin up close and personal. Of course, there was nothing real to it back then—he's ten years older than me and even as a kid I was smart enough to know that little girls in pigtails doing cartwheels on the lawn were hardly going to light up his heart. It didn't matter though because he was always, always nice to me. As a child I idolized him, but around the time I was fifteen, my feelings started to morph into something a lot deeper than that.
Colin has always been gorgeous and he could’ve been a giant, entitled prick who blew off the annoying little girl who trailed after him and hung on his every word but he never did. Instead, he was kind and engaging, and he never made me feel worthless, something I'd needed back then since my mother spent the years between divorcing my dad and marrying husband number two “finding herself.” I suspect the reality is that what she was actually doing was trying to figure out a way to make me disappear. Her lack of interest in me and the endless caravan of boyfriends strolling in and out of her life had been difficult.
