Rock Bottom Girl(8)

I remembered my soccer coach in high school yelling until the veins on his neck and forehead looked like they were going to pop.

“Enough chatting. We’re going to kick things off with a mile run. Four laps around the field. Anyone finishes over eleven minutes, and we all do it again.”

That shut them up. For four seconds.

“Are you serious?”

“Deadly. Everyone line up.”

“Aren’t you running with us?” Smartass Angela demanded.

“Shut up, Angela,” Ruby snapped back at her.

“Bite me, Ruby.” Angela’s expression was one of loathing. Great. Two varsity players who hated each other. Awesome.

“I’m the coach,” I said as if that explained anything at all. Hell no, I wasn’t running a mile. I was still sore from vaulting my parents’ azaleas. “Three, two, one…go!” Damn. I wished I had a whistle.

I considered it a small victory when they all left the starting line with only a few side-eyes and grumbled “asshole” comments.

Unfortunately, they were faster than I thought they were, or they were cheaters. But what did I care? I was just a temporary babysitter. Ruby crossed the finish line with a gazelle-like stride in six minutes and forty seconds. The next thirty seconds brought four more girls across the finish line.

Dammit. I could have used more time to myself to figure out what we were going to do next.

Ruby gave me an “is that all you’ve got” look, and I mentally added in another set of sprints. Take that, mean teenagers!

My attention was stolen from my sullen team by a line of short-shorted runners moving at a fast clip up the street that flanked the field. The boys were shirtless and sported zero percent body fat. My team stopped to admire them in hushed silence. They breathed as one. They weren’t separate bodies with different goals. They were united by breath and pace.

“That’s the cross-country team,” the girl on my left told me. She had glasses and a Nike headband. Her wild, curly hair was tamed in a tail.

There was a lone figure at the rear. He was older, more muscular. Tattooed. Sexy AF, in my humble, depressed opinion.

Wait a minute. I recognized that face even under the stubble.

“Holy. Shit,” I breathed.

“And that is Mr. Weston,” Ruby announced.

“Mr. Weston? As in Jake Weston?” My voice creaked into screeching territory.

“Yep,” Nice Lesbian Morgan chimed in. “Why? Do you know him? He’s like seriously the best teacher in the school.”

“I…” What was I supposed to say? I’d kissed him under the bleachers at a boys soccer game, and then he’d ruined my senior year.

“I think I graduated with him,” I said lamely.





5





Marley





Exhausted already, sweatier than I should be willing to be in public, I dragged my ass into Smitty’s, Culpepper’s version of a pub. My t-shirt clung to me in wet, uncomfortable ways. I hadn’t even done anything. I’d watched thirty-two girls run a mile and some sprints.

I was beyond relieved when I noted the very small lunchtime crowd in the bar. I wasn’t prepared to pretend to ignore the whispers. “Showing her face around here…” “Ruined Homecoming…” “A disgrace to the entire town…”

No, that could wait. Besides, it was only a matter of time before I did something even more outrageous than ruining Homecoming my senior year.

“You must be Marley.” A grizzly bear of a man rose from a high top in the center of the bar. He had a lumberjack beard and a man bun. “I’m Floyd.”

He offered me one of his meaty paws, and I accepted. “Thanks for meeting me, Floyd,” I said, collapsing onto the stool across from him.

Floyd signaled to the bartender.

“My pleasure. I was hoping to scope you out before you started so I could figure out if I was going to spend the semester working with a weirdo.”

The bartender dropped a menu in front of me. “Drink?” he asked.

I steeled myself and looked up. Balding, some extra-long nose hair, knuckle tattoos. Whew. Complete stranger. Awesome. “Uh, yeah. A water and…what’s that?” I asked, pointing at the beer in front of Floyd.

“Lager,” Floyd answered.

“One of those, too.”

“You got it. Good to see you back, Marley,” the bartender said.

“Uh. Thanks. It’s good to be back,” I trailed off, not having a name to put with the stranger.

“His name’s Roger,” Floyd whispered conspiratorially.

“Roger? Do I know Roger?” I asked. High school was so far back in my rear-view mirror, most of those years were a blur of early mornings and unfortunate acne.

“Rumor has it you graduated a year behind him and hung out with his sister, Faith. He claims he could have dated you if he wanted to.”

“Roger and Faith Malpezzi? Holy shit!” Faith and I had been friends from elementary school on up through our senior year. Her brother had been a blurry, vague presence farting and scratching himself on the outskirts of our sleepovers.

“Time is not kind to all of us,” he remarked.

“Wait, I’m not supposed to know you, am I?” I asked. Holy hell.