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But we don’t need a man coaching us women, especially not a man who presumably wants to relive his high school glory days. Soon I notice the rest of the team’s muttering and whispering. Their reactions are similar to mine. Rushmore awkwardly asks if anyone has any questions, and a part of me actually feels a little sorry for him. Not totally sorry, as he’s responsible for this debacle.
It sounds like the man who likes to run things is being undercut by his own daughter. His handsome face takes on an expression that tells me he does not like to be challenged. Well, he’d better buckle up, because woe to the man who tells a group of Greenbridge-educated women what’s best for them.
On top of that, he picked me to flirt with. If he wants to start a little somethin’-somethin’ with a theater geek, he’d better be prepared for some drama.
9
Rushmore
That was not the reaction I expected.
“Hunter, wait.”
She keeps walking. She doesn’t listen to me. Being ignored is new for me, and I’m not sure how to handle it.
I leave Ridley and her friends who are still lounging by the pool, speaking conspiratorially about something.
Hunter leaves a scent of lemon and honey in her wake as she brushes past me, which triggers a certain craving that has my mouth watering. But it’s not candy that I want. She rushes the main floor powder room, presumably to change back into her street clothes. I wait right outside the door.
Clearly I fucked something up and I need to talk to her. I thought this would make her happy. Not just her but the entire swim team.
After a few minutes she comes out carrying her small straw beach bag and a determined look on her face. I’m not happy she looks like she’s leaving but very relieved about her change of clothes. Her short coral cover-up was too sheer to hide the curves underneath. When she stood in the sunshine a minute ago, the tempting sweep of her nearly-bare hips was scandalous. That string bikini she had on left nothing to the imagination including enough side cleavage to make my cock twitch?not a good thing to have happen in tailored white pants in front of party guests. God help me, when I caught her staring at my chest, I could see her nipples react under those flimsy neon triangles barely hiding her breasts. I was this close to wrapping her up in a beach towel and carrying her inside to teach her a lesson.
Hunter’s hair is down and falls in long, white blonde waves that bounce as she flounces to the front door across from the grand staircase. Again, I implore her to wait.
“I need to talk to you.”
I dare to touch her arm but she snatches it away before I can get a grip on her.
“I need to leave. I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
I’m so shocked at her words I let her get all the way down the front steps before I ask her to at least wait for me to call a car.
She tosses her hair dramatically as she rushes down the front steps. “I don’t want a ride from your driver. I don’t want your staff to wait on me. I don’t want this weird, rarified world you live in. I can’t be friends—or whatever this is—with a man who doesn’t even realize what kind of a person he’s raised his daughter to be. So just let me go!”
I know that Ridley is spoiled and can be a handful. As I watch Hunter hustle down the driveway and out to Lakeside Drive on foot, I realize she might be even more so.
I can’t let her walk home. Three miles in flip-flops down a winding country road that teenagers in BMWs treat like the Autobahn? I think not.
I sprint over to the garage and slide behind the wheel of my Range Rover because it’s the least pretentious vehicle at my immediate disposal. When I catch up to Hunter about half a mile down the road, I roll down my passenger side window and try to talk to her.
“You’re a
fast walker.”
“That’s because Judy taught me everything I know about fitness. Maybe you shouldn’t have let the school board fire her!”
“I didn’t say she was fired,” I try.
She throws up her arms to the heavens. “Give us a little credit. Why do parents pay a massive tuition to this school and expect us to be too stupid to see right through their bullshit?” I feel as though she’s said this before. She’s not wrong.
“Fair enough,” I say, rolling slowly beside her while she continues to speed-walk down the road. She refuses to make eye contact.
“Oh!” she says. “Does that mean you’re going to hire Coach Judy back and get rid of the meathead?”
I chuckle. “You’re a piece of work, you know that? You’re making me question everything I do and how I do it. And I don’t like it.”
She laughs. Cackles, actually. “He’s human, everybody!” she shouts to nobody in particular.
