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Turning and looking around at the big gym behind her, she wondered if she could actually coach. She loved playing, but coaching would be completely different. Could she come up with plays and encourage the kids? Actually, she was worried that she would get too obsessed with it and push the kids too hard and be mad when they didn’t perform.
“I’ll think about it.” She turned to the girls. “But you have to promise me something first.” All three nodded at her. And she looked at these three girls, who had their entire future in front of them. However long or short it was. “When you get home, tell your parents you love them, then tell your friends. They’ll all be gone one day, and you don’t know when that day will be.” She walked away from them, hoping that they didn’t see her cry. But she had to say it. It was something her younger self should have heard, should have done.
They left quickly. She was sure she had scared them, but they needed to be scared. If things could change at any moment, they needed to know that this moment wouldn’t last forever. One day it will all be behind them, and this will be a memory.
Walking around the gym, she looked at the giant Tiger head on the wall. It was there when she had played as well.Looked as creepy then as it does nowtoo,she thought to herself. Faith should fix it. The entire gym looked the exact same as it had all her life. Nothing changes in Landstad. Well, it does, but not fast.
Wondering where Sam had gotten to, she wandered the halls she had not been in for years. They were the same. Peeking into her dad’s science room, she couldn’t see anything that had changed in the years she had been absent. Further down the hall was the history room. She saw Sam was at his desk reading. So cute sitting at his desk.
Opening the door, she leaned against it and said, “Well, isn’t it sexy Sam at work. Doesn’t he know it’s summer?” She started to walk toward him. “Doesn’t he know that nobody likes history? Well, except for the gorgeous teacher who teaches it.”
Smiling at her, he leaned back in his chair as he watched her walk toward him. When she got to him, she sat on the corner of his desk right next to his chair. Looking over her shoulder, she saw that he was taking notes from the textbook open nearby.
“How was your game?” he asked and ran his hand up her leg.
“It was a dirty trick, Sullivan. That’s what it was.” She folded her arms in front of her.
“Just payback for the many you played on me, Beckett.” He turned his chair so that it was more in front of her.
“I was thinking, Mr. Sullivan.”
“Dangerous activity, Miss Beckett.” He smiled up at her.
“Jerk! I was thinking that many years ago, you got to see Hanna and Hazel’s boobs but never mine.” Then she pouted at him.
“I wish I had seen yours instead.” His hands slid under her shirt to cup them.
“I’ve been learning that you cannot change the past. But maybe seeing them today will be enough.” She pulled her shirt over her head.
“Natalie,” he said in warning and dropped his hands away from her.
“Oh shoot!” She looked down, ignoring his warning, and reached behind her. “I forgot about my bra.”
“Natalie,” he warned again, but he didn’t sound as against it as she unclasped her bra and let it fall to the floor.
“Mr. Sullivan.” Her eyes were looking into his, but his were not looking into hers.
“Natalie.” His voice was a warning, but his smile said something else.
A door slammed somewhere in the building, and they both scrambled to grab her shirt. Once back on, their ears were straining to hear any other sounds. Neither heard anything as she worked to get her bra back on without taking her shirt completely off. It was a challenge.
Standing up, he kissed her as he closed the book on his desk. “Let’s go before someone walks in on us.”
Walking with him to the door, she asked, “Do you think that it would have ended with us leaving together if I had shown you my boobs at seventeen?”
Smiling, he said, “God, I hope not.”
Sam took Natalie’s hand in his as he left his classroom. They walked the hallway as he asked, “You didn’t say if you were going to coach, Beckett.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it. I need to think about it.” She watched him shut the lights off in the gym.
“You only have a few weeks to figure it out. But the sooner you do, the more time you have to think about what you’re going to teach them.” He took her hand again, and they walked back past the lockers.
Reaching out with her other hand, she skated her fingers over the cold metal of the three May kids’ lockers, needing to feel something they had touched once again. Feel a physical connection where only an emotional one was. Dropping her hand back down to her side, she felt a little more at peace with them. At least two of them.
Out in the sunshine, she watched Sam lock the door of the school. It was warmer out now than when they had gone in, but the warmth felt good. Her body was getting sore from all the activity she had just done, so she would have to take a pain pill when she got home. But it was all worth it.
Sam took her hand as they started for his house. Their house? She felt it was her home with him. Stealing a look at him, she smiled. Her Mr. Sullivan. So far, she had hadn’t found a good reason to move out, not that she was looking.
