by Iris Parker
Damned if I was going to be caught red-handed staring at Simon. No way.
“Hi, Coach.”
The look on Theo’s face brought me back to hard reality.
“Hi, Theo. How are you, today?”
“Not bad.”
As difficult as last night had been for me, it was obvious he’d had an even worse time. I did my best to maintain a pleasant smile, even as I winced internally and wondered what the hell I could say to him. The truth was, I didn’t know what he was going through.
My own youth had been wonderful, for the most part. Simon’s father had married my mother and adopted me when I was small, and things had been great for the most part. At least until Simon made his grand entrance, spending his first summer with us thirteen years ago. That had been hard, though not as hard as what some of the rec center’s regulars had to deal with. I opened my bag and gave Theo a cookie, hoping it wasn’t the only breakfast he’d get this morning. The badly-hidden gratitude on his face told me it was.
At least I’d never gone hungry.
Half an hour later, a couple more players arrived with sleepy eyes. I opened up the bag of vests with a dry, self-deprecating chuckle. My plan was immature as hell, but there was no way I was going to let Simon win round one.
Thirteen years without as much as a phone call, and now he wants to be my dad?
To join his perfect little life, so I can see how much better it was without me?
Without Mom?
He can burn in hell, and take his new fucking family with him.
“Get ready to warm up and run around the field,” she called, her voice resonating through the early morning air. With a whistle around her neck, ball cap atop her head, and binder in hand, Emilia looked every inch the coach. All around her, players were dispersing on the field, dragging their feet or sauntering their way around the edge.
I came up next to her, noting the way her nose wrinkled in distaste at my approach.
“I thought we’d agreed to start practice at eight,” I began, trying my best to keep any hint of reproach from my voice.
Emilia rolled her eyes, not even looking at me. “Let’s not pretend, Simon.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Acting civil with one another. It’s all just an act; we both know that we are far beyond politeness and manners. Frankly, I don’t want to waste my time acting like we’re colleagues. We’re not, and we never will be,” she said, spinning around and yelling at a cluster of stragglers to start running.
“All right,” I answered, doing my best to sound icy and terse rather than despondent. Hostility always was my best camouflage. Pulling a ball from one of the bags, I called out to the group who’d managed to pull ahead in the run.
Emilia’s hand shot out, grabbing my arm. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Leaning in close to her ear, I whispered my answer. “Following your suggestion. Being an asshole.”
“I didn’t tell you to take the initiative. You’re working under my command here, Simon.”
“Working with you—”
“—Under me,” Emilia corrected, cutting me off.
“Whatever,” I said, staring straight into her deep green eyes. “Working alongside you would require being your colleague. Which is it going to be, Coach Jones? You can’t have it both ways.”
“Oh nice, asshole,” Emilia spat, snatching her whistle and shattering my eardrums with its shrill noise. I took the opportunity to lie low, sitting on the bench and observing how everyone reacted to the situation and Emilia’s sudden drill-sergeant routine. She was explaining — shouting, really — the deal we’d struck, still making it a point to avoid introducing me even as several curious eyes looked me over.
There was a wave of grumbling and raised eyebrows at the mere mention of rugby, until a tall girl with a distinctive multi-hued orange mohawk raised her hand.
“Yes, Shauna?”
“What do you mean, rugby?”
“It’s a team sport. You know — massive guys scrumming it out on green fields, kicking past H-shaped goals, tackling each other, acting like Vikings terrorizing the coast….”
I burst out laughing, even as Shauna’s expression shifted from bewildered to outright concern. “Um, I’m not so sure about all this,” she said.
“Don’t listen to her,” I interrupted. Emilia shot daggers at me with her eyes. “She’s exaggerating. A little. Besides, we’ll be dividing the teams by gender, keeping you safe from rampaging Norsemen.”
After I finished my explanation, Emilia’s expression changed. The open hostility vanished, her eyes sparkling with barely-contained amusement even as her lips curled upwards. It was the same look she’d had earlier, when she was giving out the old vests.
I shivered.
Half an hour later, everyone was sorted into one of two circles, passing an oval ball around. I could see the tension in Emilia’s small frame as she walked around the players, trying to keep the most rebellious ones in line. Clearly, no one here was overly enthused about having to play rugby.
Rummaging through my bag, I pulled out a can of spray paint. A couple teens eyed me with curiosity, though they didn’t say anything. Nobody had really spoken to me at all; they’d noticed Emilia’s refusal to introduce me and were snubbing me accordingly. I wondered when the happy, smiling girl I used to know had turned so cruel, but I already knew the answer.
She’d learned it from me.
I put that thought out of my mind as I sprayed two blue lines down the field, a hundred feet long and joined together at a right angle. Emilia’s closed-off face glared at me in suspicion as I went back to my bag and pulled out a can of red paint, drawing two more lines and forming a large square in the dry grass.
By now, I’d drawn enough attention to myself that just about everyone was staring. I waved my right arm at a nearby group of players, projecting my voice in their general direction.
“You lot, get in there,” I shouted, gesturing towards the square. “When I call a color, you’ll try to score a try below that color’s line.”
“What’s ‘scoring a try?’” called a voice, and I smiled. It was the girl with the orange mohawk, the one Emilia had referred to by name earlier. Despite her best efforts to keep me in the dark, I still had a chance to make a connection.
“Thanks for asking, Shauna. Think of it like football. I’m going to give everyone a ball, and you need to run with it. Get it behind the line as quickly as you can.”
“Red!” I yelled after everyone had shambled into place with their practice balls. They casually strolled towards the red line, moving at a pace that would’ve made one of the senior citizens over at Johnnie’s impatient. Off to the side of the square, Emilia and the other players were laughing.
Turning towards another group, I motioned for their attention.
“Now you guys get in there, too. No balls for you. Instead, your goal is to prevent the other team from scoring a try. Anyone care to guess how you do that?”
“By tackling them?” Shauna suggested.
“That’s right! You’re not allowed to go for the head, neck, or shoulders, but everything else is accepted.” The second group milled their way into the square.
“Red!” I shouted, and immediately the defenders ran to grab the attackers as best they could. It wasn’t exactly rugby yet, but we were getting there.
“Shauna, get in there,” I called after noticing she was loitering outside the game area.
She didn’t move, glaring at me in defiance. I raised an eyebrow, returning the stare, and eventually she got the message.
“Fine,” she muttered, reluctantly entering the painted-on square.
“What do you call Emilia?”
“‘Coach,’ I guess.”
“Then I guess you can call me Coach, too,” I said, politely overlooking her rolled eyes as she took her position. Without warning, I threw one of the remaining balls at her. She caught it midair without any trouble.
Pulling a whistle from my pocket, I blew on it and called blue. Shauna sprinted towards the line without missing a beat, effortlessly pulling ahead of everyone else. No one was able to catch her, and she scored with ease.
I shot a furtive glance at Emilia, only to find that she was already staring at me. Clearly, she was thinking the same thing I was. Shauna was a natural.
The second practice game went much faster than the first, and by the third game everyone forgot that they were supposed to be hating this, the taciturn reluctance replaced by laughter and enthusiasm. Soon after that, I assigned a couple of the older players to paint more squares, and within half an hour the entire crowd was running to the sound of “red” and “blue.”
I glanced at Emilia, only to discover that she was once again staring at me. Her eyes caught mine and she blushed, crossing her arms over her chest before spinning around with an annoyed grunt.
She’d won the first round, but I had just won the second.
What the fuck does he want me there for? He says that he’s found me a damn football team to train with, that he wants to reconnect, to know me better, that we can be like father and son in spite of the time lost.
“Time lost,” what the fuck does that even mean? He didn’t lose it, he threw it away.
He doesn’t know what I can be like. I’ll make sure he gets a good idea fast.
Very fast.
Waves of heat poured from my oven as I opened its door and threw a frozen pizza inside as quickly as I could. Warming up my small apartment in the hot, muggy stillness of an early June evening was not ideal at all.
Even so, I was too hungry to care. I hadn’t eaten anything today. Come to think of it, I hadn’t eaten anything yesterday, either. Not since the news of the rugby deal had knocked me off-balance, and Simon had waltzed over and toppled me the rest of the way down. It had been a rough couple of days, that was for sure.
I grabbed an icy bottle of beer from the fridge and downed half of it in a single, long draught, the condensation forming right away and dripping onto my sticky skin. Drinking myself into oblivion seemed like a good plan, but one I couldn’t afford to follow. Sitting down at the kitchen table, I went over my sports binder and the lesson plans I’d so painstakingly made last night.
Beginners’ rugby.
Not that it had mattered.
Against all odds, he’d somehow been good at teaching. A natural. Thoughtful, patient, with just the right tone and just the right amount of authority. Infuriatingly, he’d even been exactly the right level of friendly, something that had taken me years to perfect. Too little and they resented you, too much and they’d try to walk all over you.
Somehow, he’d fucking nailed it.
Asshole.
I’d expected to see his rebellious streak back. I thought he’d get pissed off at the first little mistake, cussing them out into little balls of self-hate who could only see their own shortcomings.
Thirteen years ago, he’d been a natural at that.
I chugged down the rest of my beer and snatched another from the fridge, my head swimming a little from the sudden rush of alcohol on a completely empty stomach.
Did he handle them so much better because they were better? Had I really been, as he’d described so eloquently, a good-for-nothing piece of shit?
No, I didn’t believe that. I’d proven myself time and again over the years, and I wasn’t about to let Simon send me into another tailspin of angsty self-doubt and handwringing.
Still, what did that leave?
That he’d changed?
That somehow, he’d crawled out of the primordial ooze and turned into a human being?
Give me a fucking break.
Whatever the cause of his good Samaritan act, I wasn’t going to be fooled. This was still a war, and I still had one weapon left. One he’d given me himself earlier this morning.
I know what everybody is thinking, but they’re wrong.
It wasn’t just another bar fight. There’s no way those guys were going to back down. I threw the first punch, but it was self defense. If I hadn’t, they would’ve killed somebody.
Coach isn’t really going to kick me off the team for this, is he?
He can’t.
I’ll do whatever he wants, even teaching rugby at that summer camp.
I’ll learn.
I won’t let anyone else down, not again.
I leaned back with a stretch as Johnnie came back to the counter, my food finally ready. Not that I minded the delay. It’s not like a small-time diner could reasonably expect a huge order first thing in the morning, and I had nothing better to do this early.
Waiting around for freshly baked muffins seemed like as good an idea as any.
A lot of muffins, I realized sheepishly as I eyed the stack of boxes in Johnnie’s thick arms. It had made sense at the time, but maybe I’d gotten a little carried away when I bought a dozen of every flavor.
In retrospect, some muffins probably weren’t going to be very popular. Unless I had stumbled across an unlikely enclave of banana bread lovers in the middle of Colorado, I was probably going to end up with leftovers.
Well, stranger things have happened.
Like, say, me being nervous about teaching rugby to a bunch of troubled youths, even though I’d done it a million times before.
By the time I made it to the center, I found Theo already waiting inside. He waved when he saw me, helping me with the door.
“Thanks.”
“Welcome,” he answered, and then sniffed the air. His eyes went wide when he realized what I was carrying. I nodded towards the end of the hall, silently suggesting he run along and share the good news.
Breakfast was an important meal, but the look on Theo’s excited face before he zoomed away really drove home how much more important it was now. It drove home something I’d known all along; this center was a good place. Hell, if I’d listened to the people who worked here when I was Theo’s age, it would’ve saved me a whole world of trouble.
Of course, without that trouble I would have never been shipped off to England, never learned that I was a natural at rugby. I’d have probably ended up in prison or something, and never been able to come back here.
Funny how these things work out. Who would’ve guessed? Certainly not me.
Of course, I also hadn’t guessed just how difficult this was going to be for me. Over the past decade, I’d helped plenty of people and places. I’d never imagined how different it would feel this time. Being back here was surreal enough, but seeing my stepsister running around in those tight shorts, seeing them ride up her sweet little ass for hours on end….
Well, I was starting to question just how altruistic my motives really were.
More than the way her body looked, though, was the way her face looked. The way it lit up when Shauna scored her first try during our first mock game, the way she beamed enthusiasm back at Theo when he smiled.
Yeah, I was getting something out of this. A hell of a lot.
I’d been elated after our first day of practice, celebrating in the nearest thing to a pub I could find. The beer hadn’t been great, but I’d had worse. By the time I got back to the hotel, I was a little tipsy. Didn’t stop me from enjoying another of the gifts she’d given me, though.
The abso-fucking-lutely incredulous stare of disbelief when she realized I was actually good at this. Of course, she’d had no idea about my previous experience. No idea that this wasn’t my first rodeo. No idea I’d gone to the center myself, no idea that I’d coached people in the same position many times before.
Not that I’d had much choice, at least originally. My coach back in England had insisted on it. According to him, it didn’t matter how old I was physically, mentally I was still just a shit-headed teen and maybe being around a bunch of other shit-headed teens would bring me to my senses.
Of course, he’d been right about everything. All that responsibility in my hands had made me finally grow up, and now I was a hal
f-decent coach myself. Working so closely with Emilia was going to be a little awkward, but dammit, these next couple of months were going to be fun.
Finally arriving at Adam’s office, I saw that he and Emilia were already hard at work.
“What’s up?” I said as I walked in and put the muffins on Adam’s desk. Emilia’s eyes shot down to her coffee, staring at it for a few moments before taking a long swig.
“Simon! Wow, are you going to make this a habit?” Adam’s eyes sparkled when he saw what I’d brought.
“Sure, why not?”
“Well, I’m not sure my doctor will approve,” he winked back, taking one of the chipped mugs from his windowsill and filling it with coffee for me.
“Thanks Adam,” I said, noting Emilia’s continued silence as I grabbed a chair and sat down.
“So,” Adam began. “Emilia and I were discussing long-term strategy for this summer, and she had a brilliant idea. Care to explain it, Em?”
“Sure,” Emilia said, her frozen features melting as a smile began to creep across her face. It grew and grew, making me shift in my seat a little. I’d never seen her this happy.
She was beautiful like this.
“Starting today,” she continued as her eyes locked onto mine, predatory and cold. “You’ll be teaching the girls’ team, and I’ll take care of the boys. You’ll be on the east side of the field, across from Johnnie’s, and I’ll take the area closer to the police station.”
I almost snorted coffee at the news. Her smile continued to shine at me like a cat who’d cornered a mouse.
Maybe it had been a mistake to show my hand so fast. By managing the situation so well yesterday in spite of her efforts, I’d ensured she would push back hard today.
Of course she was going to make another move in our little game, and once again, she was threatening to win big by surprising me like this.