Rock Bottom Girl(12)

It wasn’t a question.

“I will be available,” I promised, grabbing the back of an envelope and scratching out a note to get Mom a birthday present.

“Excellent. Max and I will cook. You will dress like not a mess. Bring the wine. A few bottles of red and white,” he rattled off instructions.

“Got it. Wine. Yep.” I added it to the list. “Anything else, oh captain, my captain?”

Lewis cupped my cheek and patted it gently. “Next time I come by, I want to see counter top and curtains.”





7





Marley





“We did that yesterday,” the cocky girl attached to the raised hand announced as if I had some kind of mental deficiency.

“I am aware of that. And now we’re going to improve upon that,” I told her. Alice? Alex? Alecia? How the hell did teachers learn names? Would it be okay if I just referred to everyone as “sport” or “hey you”?

“Is this, like, going to be the same thing every single day?” Korean Pinterest Natalee With Great Hair asked.

“Why do we always end up with the worst coaches?” one of the girls whined under her breath.

“At least this one is still alive,” someone else added.

I wondered briefly what that meant, then decided it didn’t matter.

“We’re going to run the mile and try to beat our times,” I announced, feigning my mother’s enthusiasm. I’d painstakingly written everyone’s times down from yesterday’s run to make it easy for them to compare. But there were no “thank you; that was so nice of yous.” Just complaints. Loud ones.

“Wow, I thought whining stopped in elementary school,” I quipped. “Line up, ladies! Nobody cares how fast your mouths are.”

Day Two was off to a stellar start as the girls plodded off the line, shooting me evil glares.

We’d fumbled our way through a few drills, and I’d asked every girl what position she played.

I had three Morgans, two Sophies, and eighteen girls who wanted to play front line. My high school coach would never have put up with that. He was a pack-a-day smoker who snuck whiskey into his travel mug. He’d never coached girls before, so his tactic was to yell until someone cried. It sort of worked. We had a winning season but missed out on districts. If I could replicate his success, I could leave Culpepper with my head held high.

Thirteen days until school started. Coaching was going to be the hard part, I decided. Teaching would be a breeze. I’d have Floyd—er, Mr. Wilson—to divide and conquer. Really the only scary part would be the locker room. And that was scary for everyone.

I’d yet to venture into the school, deciding instead to fill the water cooler at home and drag it onto the field from the back of my hatchback with the unbreakable lease—believe me, I tried. The locker rooms were open for athletes as field hockey, soccer, and cross-country started their seasons. But I just wasn’t mentally prepared for that particular trip down memory lane.

Dammit. Ruby’s long legs carried her across the finish line. “Time!” she called.

I read it off the watch. She’d shaved another few seconds off yesterday’s time, I noted with annoyance. It was probably the wrong reaction. Here was an athlete who was performing well, yet she was so cocky about it, I kind of wanted her to fail. I wondered how often my teachers or coaches felt that way.

Ancient Mrs. Gurgevich probably had. She’d hated me. She had the uncanny ability to always be standing right next to me every time I did or said something incredibly stupid.

A wisp of a girl whose name I didn’t know flew across the finish line. She looked at me with doe eyes instead of demanding to know her time. I read it off to her and handed her the clipboard so she could write in her time.

Rachel. I observed as she wrote in tiny, precise numbers.

More players returned. I noticed one. A big blonde senior who looked vaguely like Miss Piggy. She crossed the finish line and body checked Rachel out of the way.

“Oops, didn’t see you there, Raquel.”

Ugh. I hated girls like this. They gave me flashbacks to Steffi Lynn and the entire varsity starting lineup.

“Hello! Time?” she snapped her fingers in my face.

I told her, purposely adding ten seconds to her time and shoved the clipboard at her.

“What? You don’t know my name yet?” she smirked.

“Should I?” I shot back.

She tossed the clipboard back to me, and I noticed she’d shaved thirty seconds off the time I’d given her. Asshole.

Her name was Lisabeth Hooper. But there was something eerily familiar about her horribleness.

Before I could pick it apart, a hush fell over the finish line as the cross-country team, still sweaty, male members still shirtless, jogged effortlessly up the hill next to the practice field.

“Are they a good team?” I asked, already knowing the answer. I was feeling weirdly and unrealistically competitive with Mr. Sexy Bod Weston.

“Won districts last year,” Ruby said. She clapped as another player crossed the finish line panting.

Jake was at the front of the pack today, pacing them. He had sunglasses on, but his head swiveled toward me. He had that sexy dark hair buzzed short around the sides, longer on top. His chest was glistening like fucking diamond facets. The corner of his mouth lifted.