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I grab my empty beer cup and zip up my vest. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
CHAPTER4
DEREK
“Where arewe going and why am I not already drunk?” Pasha moans.
“Here, I’ll give you some sugar, Iceman,” Lule purrs. We lose the two of them to the side of a brick building somewhere along the Seattle waterfront. The last thing I wanted to do after our game was spend the evening dodging other coaches in the hotel bar. So Freddy and Zeke took the reins and steered us out of the hotel.
“Hope you brought your own rubbers!” Freddy shouts back at them.
I snort laugh at the same time as someone else laughs. It’s a sweet, musical laugh and when I look, I meet her blue eyes. The woman from the stands. They look almost silver in the scant moonlight.
“But then who will use yours?” Pasha yells back and everyone laughs.
“Did you see the hotel shop though?” Zeke says. “They’ve got everything under the sun—except condoms.”
Freddy laughs. “Better they wrap it up than let one through.”
“Bar down,” Pasha chuckles, and we all laugh at the euphemism for an impressive goal.
“Seems irresponsible,” says the tall blonde with the self-described resting bitch face. I think her name is Amy? Ashley? Ainsley? Something with an A and Y.
“Irresponsible?” Freddy coughs a laugh and slaps me on the back. “You wanna talk irresponsible, talk to this schmuck.”
“I plead the fifth,” I say, shoving my hands in the pockets of my jacket.
“You’re blaming your boss for the condom shortage?” Zeke lets out a roar as the girls talk among themselves. “I can’t decide if that’s career suicide or ballsy as fuck.”
“He’s the one who gave them an extra thirty minutes before curfew,” Freddy says.
Everyone is quiet for a beat, putting it together.
“What difference is thirty minutes going to make?” Megan asks.
Megan is her name. When we were introduced, I repeated it, whispered it so I wouldn’t forget.
“Damn, girl!” Freddy laughs, wrapping his arms around Megan and lifting her from behind. She squeals and kicks out her lean legs as he swings her around in a circle. “That’s savage!”
Something tightens in my chest at the way she’s pressed against him.
“She’s got a point,” Faye, Zeke’s girlfriend, says. She flips her blonde hair over her shoulder as Zeke wraps his arms around her waist and whispers something into her ear that makes her cheeks flush pink.
“I disagree with Freddy,” Megan says through laughter. Freddy finally sets her down and my chest relaxes. “I think it’s a symptom of good coaching.”
“Bold perspective. Tell me more,” Freddy says.
I can’t fight the smile as I watch her press her lush red lips together.
“It shows they’re optimists. If you don’t believe in your own skill, nobody else will.”
Everyone roars in laughter as we finally approach a bar, and Zeke opens the door for Faye and Ainsley. I take the door and hold it until Megan goes through, petite enough to walk under my arm. She looks up at me with a shythanks, then turns back around, her dark ponytail whipping around in a way that makes me want to coil it around my fist and tug. I follow her, cutting off the rest of the group. Freddy pats me on the back, and I ignore his shit-eating grin. We funnel through the bar until we reach an outdoor patio where the waitstaff corrals three four-tops and as many heaters.
It’s downright pleasant outside along Puget Sound like this. It’s so rare to be able to sit outside in April without rain. As I take the seat next to Megan’s, the group keeps talking. Ainsley regales us with funny stories about customers at the coffee shop she works at. Freddy periodically interrupts with tweets he’s intercepted from some of our players who are living their best lives with the extra thirty minutes they’ve been given. Zeke fills us in on his plans for a visit to the Faroe Islands this summer with Faye, who stuns me when she talks about going to school to become an ornithologist.
“You’re in a PhD program to become… a bird doctor?” I ask.
She nods, biting her bottom lip. Zeke resituates in his chair.
