BENCHED

by Abigail Graham

  “What?”

  “Your delivery. Your husband called it in.”

  “What husband?”

  “Groceries. We’ll bring them inside, no trouble.”

  I step back and gape at them as they haul load after load of bags into my kitchen. It takes them almost five minutes, and when they return to the door, they stand there. Expectantly. The taller one all but puts out his hand and coughs.

  “I’ve got it,” Wright announces loudly, stepping onto my porch.

  He pulls out a sheaf of bills and slaps one in both boys’ hands. They blink a few times, and the one almost opens his mouth before they realize that no, they are not dreaming and Broadside Wright just tipped them a hundred dollars, each. His look sends them scurrying.

  He steps into my house.

  “What are you doing?”

  “It’d be rude to drop all this on your lap and not help you put it away.”

  My mouth works, but I don’t manage to say anything before he walks right into my kitchen and starts organizing my groceries.

  “Hey!” I yell as he takes a couple frozen dinners and pitches them in the garbage can. “What are you doing?”

  “You don’t need this crap.”

  “What? Yes, I do. What are we supposed to eat?” I pull open one of the bags of groceries he bought for me. “Artichokes?” I blurt out, holding one up.

  “Yes,” he says, then snatches it from me and sticks it in the fruit drawer. “Time you and the kid ate some healthy food.”

  “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  He shrugs and keeps unpacking. “Are you going to stand there and rake me with your eyes or are you going to help?”

  I grit my teeth and start sticking groceries into the fridge. He starts rearranging them.

  “Milk goes on the left.”

  “In my house, milk goes on the right.”

  He stands to his full height and looks down at me. “Heathen,” he whispers, then reaches in and shoves the milk to the left hand side of the shelf.

  “These are all raw ingredients. What do you expect me to do with this, spend hours every night cooking a--”

  Just then, Carrie appears in the kitchen. “I’m done with my homework.” She stops in her tracks and cranes up to look at Wright.

  “Whoa,” she whispers.

  “Hey, kid.”

  “Are you going to make dinner again?”

  “No, he’s not. We’re having mac and cheese and Salisbury steak.”

  “Awww.”

  “Don’t aww me, young lady.”

  “Salisbury steak sucks.”

  “This does,” Wright says, shaking the box. “I’ll make you the real thing, kid. I got all the stuff here. Do what I tell you.”

  “Yes, sir,” she says.

  “Okay, get me the big frying pan, and…”

  “Excuse me,” I cut in. “This is my kitchen.” I put my hands on my hips, stare up at him and glare.

  “You are so cute when you’re angry,” he tells me.

  “Carrie, get the pan out like he said and work on putting this stuff away. I need to talk to Mr. Wright on the back porch. Follow me.”

  I storm outside onto my back deck and wait for him. He steps out, ducking a little as he passes under the door frame and stands next to me with his hands in his pockets.

  “So--”

  “Don’t you ever pull that ‘cute when you’re angry’ shit on me, you prick. Ever, do you understand?”

  “What?”

  “Look at me. Look. At. Me.”

  He looks me in the eye and I flinch. Why is my vision blurring?

  “I have to deal with that all day from the rest of the department and the whole goddamn town. Do you think you were clever with the stripper joke? I’ve heard that one a dozen times. Half the people I pull over try to flirt with me and the other half laugh at me. I’m a big joke all around, do you understand?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “I don’t care what you meant. I want somebody to take me seriously. Give me a little respect. Just a little. I have to claw my way through every day just to get back here and have some time with my little girl. I don’t want you ruining it.”

  “Hey,” he says. His big hands shoot out and his fingers close around my upper arms. Jesus, his hands are so enormous, he can close them around my biceps. I suck in air and it turns into a snort.

  “Don’t cry.”

  “I’m not crying!”

  “Yeah, you’re not. I’m saying don’t start.”

  I push his hands down my arms and off me. When they brush my skin, it’s like an electric current running through my flesh. His hands are rough, his palms calloused and coarse from lifting weights. Mine are the same, toughed by scrubbing dishes and gripping the knurling on my chin-up bar.

  I used to have soft hands. I used to have a soft me.

  “You, okay?”

  Even though I despise myself for it, I rub my eyes with my hand. The back of my wrist comes away a little wet with tears.

  “What are you doing this for? What do you want?”

  He shrugs. “I told you. I want to make up for what I did.”

  “You are. You’re coaching the games. You don’t have to be my butler.”

  “I’m trying to take a burden off you. Like you said, I don’t have anything better to do.”

  “Yes, but you don’t have to make it up to me. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  I fold my arms over my chest and give him an arched eyebrow. Carrie calls it my Mommy Eyebrow.

  “Why?”

  “‘Cause I don’t give a shit about the ticket. Or the car, they can keep it.”

  “Oh, please, this isn’t the time to make a pass at me.”

  “I want to make it right with you. I gotta go cook.”

  He turns before I can say anything and strides back into my house like he owns the place. I run after him, back through the mud room and into the kitchen.

  “You ready?” he asks Carrie.

  “Ready for what?”

  “I’ll handle dinner, you go sit on the couch or whatever. Draw a bath and light candles, whatever girls do to calm down.”

  I give him a sharp look, but stride past him and into the living room. There, I sink into my couch and let out a blissful sigh. I have a great couch, one of my favorite possessions. It’s comfy as hell.

  This time I’m not treated to the sight of my own house on CNN. The media has moved on, probably. No one cares about anything for more than a day or two, anyway. I specifically avoid ESPN. No need to see myself on Sports Center or whatever.

  At some point, I fall asleep and wake up to Carrie shaking me by the shoulder.

  “Dinner, Mom.”

  With a yawn, I rise and walk into the dining room. Wright made good on his promise, and there’s a casserole dish full of steaming beef patties in onion gravy in the middle of the table, along with a big bowl of vegetables and rice. Carrie hungrily serves herself. She glances at Wright and puts a big pile of veggies on her plate.

  He stands and serves me when I reach for the big serving spoon. I glare at him but say nothing as he loads up my plate, then sits to fill his own.

  God, he must have cooked twenty burger patties. Yet, somehow, they disappear. I keep my mouth shut and watch Carrie animatedly talk about football things with him.

  To tell the truth, I don’t much care for football. At all. I don’t even really know how it’s played beyond the basics. I don’t know how Carrie became so fascinated with it. I don’t know why I didn’t try to discourage her, but it just feels wrong for me, being who I am and doing what I do.

  The only thing that bothers me is that she’ll have to stop. She’s not going to play in high school, period. I worry she’ll get made fun of, but no one seems to care. They give her more shit for me being a cop than anything else.

  Wright is telling her some story about a game. She listens to him like he’s a t
ime traveler or an alien, hanging on every word, absolutely rapt. He still shovels food in his mouth, but he answers all of her animated questions and patiently listens to her talk.

  I blink a few times. He’s really good with her. Why am I thinking about that?

  “So, you have a game tomorrow,” I say, cutting in.

  Carrie turns to me. “Yeah! We’re playing the Hawks.”

  There’s two teams in Sylvester. I shudder when I hear she’s playing the other one tomorrow, and not one of the out of town teams. The other team is different. There are no girls. The coach is…

  Well, for one thing, he’s my brother-in-law. I suppress a shudder. “I’m sure you’ll win, honey.”

  Wright nods sagely.

  I can’t believe how much he eats. I barely finish my first helping, and he has more, and piles it up on Carrie’s plate too. I think she eats more than I do.

  When we finish, he nods to her and Carrie helps him clear the table. He comes back in as the sink fills.

  “Look,” I tell him, quietly “I do appreciate this, but it can’t be an everyday thing.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because… it can’t. We’re not doing this. I’m not dating you.”

  “It’s not a date, it’s dinner. Date is Friday night. Have you gotten a sitter yet?”

  I sigh. Hard. Purposely. In an exaggerated and angry fashion. “No, because I’m not going out with you.”

  “Yeah, you are.”

  “Mister Wright,” I start.

  “Whoa, let’s not move that fast.”

  Exasperated, I throw my hands up.

  “Why don’t you call me Alex and I’ll call you Phoebe.”

  “Fine, Alex. Go home, Alex.” I feel like I’m scolding a horny teenager.

  “Fine, until tomorrow. Carrie can handle the dishes, you go lie down.”

  “I’ll walk you to do the door.” I follow him and close it behind him, and my hand lingers on the doorknob.

  He’s not a complete jerk. He was actually very nice tonight, and Carrie likes him.

  Oh, dear God, Phoebe. You are not thinking about going out with this meathead, are you? No, I am not doing this.

  I argue with myself for half a minute before I go to help Carrie with the dishes. She keeps smiling at me like she knows something. I tell myself it’s my imagination and she’s not in cahoots with him, trying to get me to go on a date. She wouldn’t betray me that way, my own flesh and blood.

  Yeah, she keeps smiling at me. Maybe she’s just excited that her hero cooked her dinner. She’s a kid, after all. I refuse to believe she even knows what dating means.

  Once we’re done, I give her a pat on the back and send her upstairs to do her homework and get ready for bed.

  I am so tired. I collapse on the bed and lay there for a while, trying to stay awake in case she needs me for something. After she brushes her teeth, she pops her head in my room.

  “Goodnight, Mom.”

  “Night, honey.” I yawn.

  Her light clicks off, and I rise, turn mine off, and flop on the bed in my clothes. Another day, another ten tickets. Sometimes I wonder why I haven’t run out of speeders yet. I swear I’ve tagged several people more than once, yet they go tearing through town as though it’s not here every time.

  I’m starting to hate marking my life by the number of tickets I’ve written. Is this all there is?

  In the dark, I slip off the bed and stand. I do need to change my--

  Holy crap, he’s naked.

  I feel dirty just for looking, but I end up peering through my drapes across the gap between our houses to were Alexander has just taken a shower and is walking around his bedroom nude except for a towel.

  My God, it’s better than the poster. I think he’s bigger than when they took that photo, and he’s just as rock hard and sculpted, every visible inch of him perfect.

  Solid muscles ripple under his bronzed skin as he moves, and he has more abs than a person really should, with a pronounced Adonis belt and wide back that makes him like a Greek statue. His chest is huge, his arms as thick as a normal man’s legs, and somehow he’s all proportional, strikingly handsome. If it weren’t for a bend in his nose where it’s been broken, he’d look like an underwear model, but scaled up to enormous height and mass.

  Then he takes off his towel.

  Oh my God, his ass, I can’t stop staring. He’s going to turn around any second. He has to. He turns, tossing the towel on the bed.

  I snap my head away and close the drapes before I get a look at the full monty. No, Phoebe, you are not going to watch him through his window and drool over his dick. Seeing him naked is not going to make me accept his invitation to a dinner date.

  Even if I did, I would not sleep with him. Period. I’m permanently single, all that matters is my daughter.

  Why am I so damn horny? I swear I started walking toward my door, like I was going to his house, before I caught myself.

  Swallowing hard to wet my dry throat, I step to the window and spread the curtains open just a little. Now he’s lying on the bed in lounge pants, still stripped to the waist.

  Reading?

  I blink a few times. The book is absurdly tiny in his hands, but the sight of him reading is a shock in and of itself. I never pictured a football player with his nose in a book.

  Sort of like how no one pictures a short stack like you being a cop, huh, Phoebe?

  He’s very inviting to look at. If he wasn’t such a jerk, it would be nice to lie next to him. Maybe tuck up in the crook of his arm and read a book of my own. I still haven’t finished that Vanessa Waltz novel I was trying to read. That would be nice.

  Not with him, just generally.

  I’m not thinking about lying next to him. I’m not thinking about sitting up and running my hands over his chest. I’m not thinking about his hand resting on my hip and sliding into my underwear to squeeze my ass, and I’m definitely not thinking about sucking--

  Gah!

  I swish the curtains shut and finish changing. It’s a good thing he wasn’t looking my way, he’d have seen me in my underwear making googly eyes at him.

  He doesn’t seem that bad, but he was still speeding in that stupid car and…

  I sigh loudly. It’s starting not to bother me as much. He has been very nice. So what’s he up to?

  Flopping on the bed, I stare at the ceiling and think about all the times I’ve seen him in passing, on Facebook, or on those stupid TV gossip shows I don’t let Carrie watch. He’s always got some arm candy flouncing around with him to this or that, and he’s always rumored to be paired up with some starlet or supermodel or other.

  Guys like that have no use for a plane jane tomboy like me. Still, I could swear he was looking at me tonight like he was seeing more than the psycho cop that pulled him over. The way he touched my arms, the way it made me feel. If the feeling of his fingers on my shoulders set me off like that, imagine what he could do if I let him…

  I shake my head. No. Besides, he’s not staying here. Once he coaches a few games, his lawyer and agent will probably get him out of the community service rap. He’ll probably be gone in a few weeks, break poor Carrie’s heart in the process, and forget we exist. I’m not going to be a notch on some uberjock’s bedpost. That’s all I’d be. I’m sure he’d have a good brag in the locker room about that, how he got the cop that pulled him over to suck his dick.

  I really need to stop thinking about sucking his dick. My daughter has a football game tomorrow.

  Chapter Five

  Alex

  Since I couldn’t get it myself, I had Lou send somebody to bring up my other car. The Ferrari is still in impound, so I’ll have to make do with my 1989 Cutlass Ciera, she of the dark blue paint and interior with a custom cassette deck and bucket seats. No one pays me much mind in the school parking lot until I shut it off and step out. Then they mob me.

  Kids.

  Kids have no fear at all. They’re not like adults. I don’t know when th
ey start getting the fear, but until they do, they’re genuine. I’m a person to them, not a figure. Adults stare at me or try to act buddy-buddy with me like they know me because I play for the city’s team, but it’s a put on, an act, they’re not being themselves. They present to me the person they want the person I am to think they are.

  Makes my head hurt.

  When I got into this, coaching was never on the table for me. When players retire, there’s lots of directions to go. I can open my own gym or get a job on a pre- or post-game show or start a restaurant chain or just about anything. If you’re good enough, you can be tapped to coach a team.

  None of those have any appeal to me. When my career is over, I want out.

  Now here I am, mobbed by a four-foot-tall football team. And their regular coach, this guy Eddie, he’s hostile, confrontational, and doesn’t want me here. Doesn’t want me interfering with his team.

  I like him, though. He feels like a good guy. Salt of the Earth. Besides, I’m not here to converse with him.

  “You ready?” he asks me.

  “What do I need to be ready for? I’m just standing here.”

  He snorts. “This isn’t a joke.”

  “They’re just kids.”

  “They’re here to learn discipline and respect. It would be nice if they saw some from you.”

  I don’t feel particularly humbled, but I give him a placating nod. I don’t have to be here much longer. The season doesn’t run that long.

  At the end of the day, it’s a fair trade off considering the alternative is jail.

  I don’t really blame Phoebe anymore. If I were her, I’d be pissed at me, too. She was just doing her job, after all.

  Carrie follows me like a shadow to the field. She’s already suited up, including her helmet. I was shocked to hear they let girls play on this team, but I guess at their age, it doesn’t matter. I can’t tell them from the boys with all the pads and their helmets on.

  They get a charge out of me being here, so I lead the team captain, some little boy, out to do the coin toss with the other team. That is where I meet their coach.

  He’s wiry and lean, with a brown porno-stache clinging to his upper lip and a comb-over. I don’t usually judge people when I meet them, but something about him gives me that feeling like the phantom of a bug crawling down my back.