Below the Belt(5)

Levi, one of her college interns—she had interns!—walked in bear-hugging a big five-gallon cooler. His steps were more like a waddle thanks to the girth of the round plastic. “God, these guys killed this one fast. They’re camels, I swear.”

“As long as they’re hydrated camels, I don’t mind.” Marianne helped him maneuver the cooler over to the massive industrial sink that stood in the corner of her training room. Before, at the high school, she’d have had to wash the cooler herself. But thanks to having not one, but two, interns earning credit for the semester shadowing her, the grunt work was out of her hands for the low, low price of writing weekly updates and a more lengthy end-of-semester evaluation.

It was a beautiful thing to move up in the world.

Levi popped the top of the cooler and dumped out the last dribbles of ice before running the hot water. He shook his head a little to get his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes, then rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. “I’ll wash this one up and get the second cooler out there in a few minutes. Honestly, I don’t know how . . .” His voice trailed off, and Marianne glanced over to see what had happened.

Nikki had happened. Otherwise known as assistant number two. It had taken Marianne about point-five seconds to realize Levi was in some serious puppy love with the cute golden-haired coed. His voice rose an octave every time she was in the room, and his eyes tracked hers like the family pet hoping for a stray word of praise.

Nikki set a towel in the laundry hamper—which the janitors would handle later, another perk of the new job—and grinned. “One of them already threw up. Less than three hours. That’s gotta be a record somewhere.”

Marianne started for the door. “Is he okay?”

“Oh, yeah, sure. He just puked in a trash can while running laps. Barely slowed down at all to do it. He’s already back in formation and running with the rest of the crew.”

“Probably just drank too much water too fast before running.” She debated a moment, then decided to hold off on going out. No guy wanted the trainer running out there to baby him for something as simple as throwing up water. She wasn’t their mommy and they weren’t toddlers with scraped knees. Finding the balance of knowing when to step in and when to let them push on was part of her job. Baby the athletes and they didn’t want to come to her at all. Ignore the potential problems and they could injure themselves permanently.

Nikki walked around to the sink where Levi was washing out the jug and reached around him for a sleeve of plastic cups. “I’m going to run these upstairs. Looks like they’ll be using both the catwalk for cardio and the downstairs area for training, so I think we should have a second water station up there.”

Marianne bit back a smile as Levi’s eyes nearly rolled back in pleasure from Nikki’s nearness. “Good idea.”

Levi propped the clean jug on the drying rack and grabbed the cups before she could. Given Nikki’s short stature, she would have had to ask for help anyway. “I’ll go take them out. You can get the next water cooler ready.” He darted out of the room before she could protest.

Watching these two dance around each other could be amusing for the next few weeks. As long as it didn’t interfere with their work, she could appreciate others finding a little fun where they could get it.

Nikki fisted her hands at her hips. “I wanted to take it out.” Her pout turned to a Cheshire cat–like smile. “Any excuse to check out the hot Marines, right?” She moved to the clean cooler and started scooping ice, raising her voice above the crashing sound of the metal breaking through the chunks. “How can you be stuck in here all morning and not have any urge to peek? Half of them aren’t even wearing shirts anymore!”

“Old news.” Marianne shrugged, but grinned back. “I was raised here, remember? I think I got that out of my system in my teens.”

“There is no way you can get ‘hot guys’ out of your system. I’d have to be half-dead before I couldn’t recognize quality beef like that.”

Marianne’s mother would have agreed readily. Marianne just chuckled and went back to inventorying the bandages.

“Hey, Marianne?”

She turned to look at Levi, whose head was poking through the door. “Yeah?”

“The coach wants you to come out and meet the team. They’re about to break for lunch, so he says now’s a good chance to introduce you.”

“Sure thing. Just a second.” She finished up counting rolls so she didn’t lose place, documented the number and set the clipboard aside and headed out of the room.

The air was the first thing to change. Moving from the cool, AC-infused air of her training room into the muggy, heavy, humid air of the gymnasium, she almost struggled to breathe for a moment. The lights were dim, coming from far overhead, and her eyes adjusted before she walked toward the group of Marines and the three coaches. The men were in formation, feet shoulder-width apart and hands at the smalls of their backs, eyes straight forward. Though she knew they could hear her tennis shoes squeaking across the floor, not one of them moved a muscle to see who was coming.

Too well-trained.

Putting on her professional, distant smile, she shook hands with the head coach, whom she’d met the day before. “Hey, Coach Ace. How’s the first practice going?”

He smiled and shook. “Not too bad, Ms. Cook.”