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“Just dealing with a coaching situation. I can’t say much. But I would say you should definitely read the paper tonight.” She gave me a significant look and that was bad. Really bad. I could read between the lines that it meant a coach had done something illegal, and she was trying to do damage control.
“Let me know if you need anything. I’m not a crisis management expert, but I’ll do what I can.”
Cam sighed. “It’s fine. We’ll deal with it. And it’s better to get it out in the open. I’d had my suspicions, but I didn’t know anything for sure.” She rubbed her forehead and looked down at her phone, which lit up with messages.
“I’ll talk to you later.” She headed out of the gym and I turned back to share a look with Dom. He raised his eyebrows and I shook my head, in a gesture that meant I would talk to him later. This was nothing for teenage ears.
I was about to check in with the squad when my phone rang with a call from Mack.
“Hi Mack, how are you doing?” She sounded groggy, but otherwise chipper.
“Hey, I’m going to put you on speaker so everyone can say hi,” I told her.
“Hi, everybody,” she said. There were shouts and asking her how she was doing and joking that she’d just done this so she could get out of practice. It was sweet and lighthearted and I was glad she didn’t seem too devastated, or at least she was hiding it well. I planned on having a talk with her mother later to get the full story.
I decided to give the squad a break to get some water and have a few snacks. I’d front-loaded the day so we could get all the really hard crap over with at the beginning and let them rest a little bit at the end.
Tonight we were working on performance, dance, jumps, and the cheer. Just polishing every little corner of the routine until it shined as bright as it could.
While they had their break, it seemed like the team on the other side of the curtain was doing the same thing. I heard a strange sound and sort of leaned my head through a break in the curtain and couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
Echo had brought in a table from who knows where, and had a blender set up and was making her team smoothies. She looked up, as if I’d called her name and I had to duck away, but she had definitely caught me peeking.
A few moments later, she ducked around the curtain.
“Can I offer you a smoothie?”
She had it in a cup and everything.
“You are on a whole other level,” I said, looking at the cup with suspicion.
“Thank you,” she said, but I didn’t mean it as a compliment. “I didn’t spit in it or poison it. It’s strawberry, pineapple, and spinach, with some protein powder.”
It sounded amazing, but I would drink my own blood before even a drop of that smoothie passed my lips.
“I’ll pass,” I said. I had my own drinks that I could be sure hadn’t been tampered with.
“Suit yourself,” she said, taking a big gulp. “See? Not poisoned.”
“Maybe you’ve built up a tolerance,” I fired back.
“I’m not the Dread Pirate Roberts, and this doesn’t have iocane powder,” she said before she turned around, and it was annoying that she got the reference.
I inhaled through my nose and turned to face my squad. Every single set of eyes was watching me and had seen my interaction with Echo.
“They get smoothies?” Kevin said with a little pout.
“We have enough for more!” Echo called out, as if she’d been listening. As soon as I left tonight, I was going to find a way to make that curtain soundproof. Or I was going to murder her and put her in the blender. Either way.
I looked back at a sea of pleading faces. Some of them were legal adults, but they were pouting like toddlers who wanted candy. I guess it could be worse. They could be asking for dirty martinis.
“Go ahead,” I said, gesturing. and they all dashed to the other side of the curtain.
“I was not expecting that,” Dom said, blinking.
“Me neither. She lured them away with fruit smoothies like some kind of healthy witch.”
Dom patted me on the shoulder. “Well, you know what they say?”
