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I sure didn’t miss my high school days. “Don’t make me call Coach Conners. I’m pretty sure neither one of you wants to be benched for the upcoming game.”
“C’mon, K. It’s not worth it.” Another kid came up to us. He’d been standing off to the side with a tiny redhead who reminded me of Pocket Plus minus the extra fire.
Kimmel’s brows snapped down. “I’m good.”
Austin picked up the football that had been discarded and tossed it to Kimmel. “Good luck at the game Saturday.”
Cody swore, then backed up and ran toward Main Street.
Austin sighed. “Do you want to go after him?”
“Nah. I’m assuming there wasn’t any real beef here?”
Kimmel shook his head. “No, sir.”
The other kid spoke up. “Cody’s mostly all right. He’s just butthurt because Coach didn’t immediately kiss his ass like they did at his old school.”
“You a senior?”
Kimmel nodded curtly.
“Cody too?”
Kimmel sighed. “Yeah.”
“New school in senior year sucks. Being the bigger guy sucks too. Part of being captain.” I tipped up my chin a little because the guy had at least an inch or two on me. If I was Cody, I wouldn’t want to be on his bad side. “Go on, get out of here.”
Relief dented his prideful stance, and he backed up with the ball clutched in his huge hand. “Thanks.”
His friend slapped his shoulder as they both loped across the grass to the group of girls clustered together.
Austin pulled his sunglasses out of his pocket. “Remember being young and dumb?”
“Christ, I would never go back.”
“C’mon. All those girls dying to talk to the QB?”
“I was in shop.” I laughed. “Brady was the football guy. I was better at fine motor skills.” I waggled my eyebrows.
Austin tipped his head back and laughed. “I just bet.” He shook his hair back with some fanfare. Asshole knew there were girls looking at him. “I guess my work here is done.” He nodded to the girl texting furiously on the plaid blanket a few feet away. “And now Joey will be on that thing for the rest of the afternoon talking about what happened.”
“She’s, what, a freshman?”
“Don’t remind me.”
I laughed. “That kind of gossip is too much to keep to herself, man.”
Austin rolled his eyes. “Save me from the teen years, man.”
My friend had stepped up after his parents’ died a while ago. Now he was raising his sister as a pseudo single dad.
At least I had time to get used to the idea of being a dad, and I wasn’t going to be on my own. I also didn’t have to deal with a teenager right off the bat.
“Beer next week?” I asked.
I had achieved bad friend status lately while I’d been pouting about Van. I could be man enough to say that was what I’d been doing.
Which meant it was time to be proactive about Vanessa Vail Monaghan.
