by L. P. Maxa
“That’s not what I said at all. I didn’t even know the team hadn’t been cleared yet. You aren’t listening, and you’re putting words in my mouth.”
“Like hell it wasn’t. Screw you, and screw the dean. You two obviously need me way more than I need you. So maybe y’all should both leave me alone and let me get on with my assessments.” She waved her hand toward the hallway. “Please close the door behind you.”
Well. That had gone fucking horribly. Dominic stuck his head into Keller’s office on his way back down the hall. “So it turns out that sorry excuse for a human never signed off for the boys to play. Ms. Cooper has to go through and reevaluate the whole team. And she only has a week to do it.”
“Only a week? That would mean she’d have to meet with more than two or three boys a day. That’s gonna be tough on her and the guys.” Keller leaned back in his chair and smiled up at Dominic. “Am I crazy, or were you getting a little territorial back there with the lovely Ms. Cooper?”
Dominic wanted to wipe that grin off his friend’s stupid and apparently handsome face. “Yep. You’re crazy.”
Keller gave a slight lift of his eyebrows. “I know you’re lying, Dom, I could feel the anger pulsing off you. You hid it well. I don’t think she noticed. But I’m your best friend, and I have flirted with plenty of your, uh, let’s call them conquests, and you’ve never reacted like that before. Now, tell me what’s really going on.”
Dominic collapsed into one of chairs facing Keller’s desk and placed his head in his hands. “I’m in over my head here, Kell. I met Corey yesterday before her interview with the dean and invited her to meet me for a beer after she was done. I never thought she’d get the job. I mean she’s young and beautiful, two characteristics the dean tends to stay away from in his staff.”
Keller let out a fake chuckle. “Speak for yourself, dude. I’m both young and beautiful.”
“You know what I mean,” Dominic rumbled.
“You mean that because she’s a woman the dean wouldn’t hire her, that he wouldn’t think she could handle the team and their antics?”
“Exactly. But when we met at Moon Bar she told me she got the job. I figured I could talk to the dean and explain that I didn’t think it was a good fit and he’d ask her to leave. I drove her home after dinner and we made out like teenagers on her front porch. It was hot. She was, I don’t know, I can’t even put into words what she was. She felt perfect in my arms. She told me I smelled mouthwatering, like all her favorite scents rolled into one. All these weird thoughts kept coming into my head. But then we heard a wolf way too close to the house. It killed a rabbit yards from us. My whole body went on alert, I had this insane urge to protect her and kill the wolf. Like instantly territorial.”
Keller sat forward, his gaze incredulous. “Let me get this straight—you already made out with the hot new guidance counselor?”
“Kell, come on, man, this is serious. I wanted to kill a wolf. I didn’t even know which wolf it was or what it was doing there. Corey brought out the beast in me. And mouthwatering? That’s how my mom used to describe my dad. All signs point to the same thing. Corey, she’s mine.” Dominic hung his head again. Saying the words out loud to his best friend made the whole situation all too real.
“Wow, man, I don’t know what to say. Are you sure?” The humor had left Keller’s face, as well as his voice.
“I’m pretty fucking sure, Kell.”
“Did you try talking to the dean?”
He nodded his head. “Yeah, first thing this morning. But he seems to think this is a great revelation. He can keep the new counselor and I was made to be her personal bodyguard. He won’t even have to pay me extra because apparently ‘it’s in my DNA.’ But I never wanted this. I never wanted forever. It destroyed my parents and it’ll end up destroying this team.” He sighed, more exhausted than he ever remembered being. “Anyway, she overheard the dean and me and she thought I was going behind her back to get her fired.”
“You were going behind her back to get her fired. No wonder she was pissed at you and flirting with me.”
“But not for the reasons she thinks. If she stays here, I’ll eventually claim her and everything will go to shit. I’m trying to save her, man.”
“Seems to me you need to let her make that decision for herself. You don’t really have another choice. If she’s actually yours, like you say she is, she can handle the truth. And she deserves it. Pretty soon she’ll know something’s not right, and she’ll be drawn to you against her will. You’ll be all she can think about, all she can focus on. Maybe you should try to stop being such a dick and make her actually want to be with you.” Keller folded his hands on his desk.
“I thought if I could get her to leave, then it wouldn’t even be an issue. We have only spent a few minutes alone together. If I could have gotten her in her car and out of town by this afternoon, everything would have been fine. But now we need her, the team needs her. Baseball is the only thing holding these kids together some days. If they can’t play, they’d lose it, you know that.”
“Then you have your answer right there, bro. And who knows, this might be the best thing that ever happened to you. I hear sex with your soul mate is mind-blowing,” Keller said with a wicked grin.
“Really? Did your mated sister tell you that?” Dominic grinned and waited for Keller to start gagging before he got up to leave. He turned back toward Keller with his hand on the doorknob. “Oh, and if I ever catch you winking at Corey again, I’ll rip your eye out of its socket. Bro.”
Keller’s laughter followed him all the way into his office and made him smile. Keller and Dominic had been close from the start. Kell was the first assistant coach Dominic hired after he’d been given the head-coaching position at St. Leasing. Keller played college ball down in Texas and had even played a few seasons on a farm league. He was good. He was calm and mild-mannered. He never overreacted, he was quick with a joke or a laugh, and helped keep the boys calm. He helped keep Dominic calm too.
And he was right, Dom needed to talk to Corey. He needed to bite the silver bullet, so to speak, and lay it all on the line. The more she knew about him and his team, the better she could help them. And, yeah, maybe he was being a sexist asshole. These kids were away from their families and surrounded by nothing but male influences. Hell, maybe a woman’s influence was exactly what they needed. Maybe they’d shower more and cuss less?
He’d have to sit them down and set some ground rules, like no touching, groping, sniffing, or flirting with Ms. Cooper. For the younger ones he’d probably have to add no trying to gross out Ms. Cooper. Dominic felt himself start to relax; if he was smart about this, and smart about her, maybe it would all work.
Chapter Nine
Corey
After Dominic left her office, Corey spent an hour trying to focus on what to say at the staff meeting that night. But it was no use. Dominic kept invading her thoughts. Ugh. She was so mad at him, but every time she’d push him out of her brain he’d creep right back in a few minutes later. Finally she’d had to give up. She would wing it tonight. The dean wanted her to introduce herself, not give a thirty-minute monologue.
She needed to clear her mind and burn off her lingering anger. Which was how she found herself running around the track with about ten muscular baseball players. She could tell they were on the baseball team because they were all wearing identical shirts, the same shirt Dominic had worn to the bar last night. St. Leasing Baseball. They kept lapping her, but they were younger and in better shape, and she had never claimed to be some kind of track star. Every time one would pass her, she would feel their eyes sizing her up. After about a mile she walked to the grassy area in the middle of the track and started to stretch. Even though she had spent twenty minutes getting gawked at, she felt much better, more centered. She sensed one of the boys walking up to her.
“Excuse me, are you lost?”
He didn’t make the statement sound rude or accusing, it was as if he was ge
nuinely asking if she needed help. Did all the males on this campus assume any female must be lost?
She smiled, looking up in his direction, shielding her eyes from the sun. “No, I’m not lost, just burning off a little steam. I’m Ms. Cooper, your new guidance counselor.” He had black hair and dark eyes, and he was huge. They all were.
The kid looked perplexed. She guessed the fact that she was a woman coupled by the fact that she had been out here running with them had thrown him for a loop. “I’ve never seen you before and teachers never come out here to run.”
Was he accusing her of something? Who lied about working out? “What’s your name?”
“Jace.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Jace.” She stopped stretching and walked over to grab her water off the ground as another player approached them.
“Well, what have we here? A new teacher? Please tell me you teach Sex Ed.”
And so it began. She looked over her shoulder at the boy who’d joined them. Instead of the leering creepy look she expected, he wore a big friendly smile on his face. He looked like Jace; they were almost identical, twins. Where Jace’s tone had been cool and calculated, twin number two sounded playful and full of life. “Nope, sorry, kid, not Sex Ed. I’m the new guidance counselor.”
“Kid? Come on, miss, I’m seventeen. Almost legal.” He still wore that big easy smile.
“Ms. Cooper, this is my brother Jasper. He has a hard time controlling the things that come out of his mouth.”
“Don’t worry, boys, I can take a joke. No harm, no foul. And I’m so sorry, Jasper. Even at eighteen I’m way too old for you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my office. I planned on spending the afternoon going over your files.” There, maybe that would knock some sense in twin number two.
“Our files? Why?” Jace calmly asked.
“I have to start meeting with you guys tomorrow. It seems that your old counselor never actually signed off on y’all so technically you aren’t cleared to start the season yet.” She kind of frowned to show she was as bummed about this as she assumed they were. Empathy was key when dealing with kids.
“What? That’s bullshit,” Jasper shouted. “We spent weeks meeting with that lame-ass Mr. Henderson. He asked us the most personal ridiculous questions. We had to miss practice. I’m not doing that shit again.”
She gave them a small smile. “Look, Jasper, I’m really sorry that Mr. Henderson dropped the ball. But this is something that has to be done or you can’t play. Believe me when I tell you that I am here to help. I want to get through these evaluations as quickly as you do. So if we work together, it’ll be over before you know it.”
Jasper’s shouts had brought a few other boys over. One of them punched him on the arm. “Jasper, what the hell are you yelling about? You want Coach to hear you? He’ll make us run more laps because you can’t ‘control your tone.’ So shut the hell up.” The new boy was larger than the others, and he had floppy red hair and a face full of freckles. His size was a contradiction to his boyish looks.
“Ms. Cooper, this is Riley. Riley, Ms. Cooper.” Jace made the introductions. “She is here to take over Henderson’s job. Seems he never cleared us to play.”
“All right, guys, look, I really need to get back to my office.” And away from all this teen angst. “How about I come meet with you guys at practice this afternoon and explain everything to everyone at one time?”
“Whatevs.”
Whatevs? That would be Jasper, flirty twin number two, sounding like a Kardashian. Corey walked off the field and back into the athletic building. She smiled to herself. It still smelled like vanilla in here despite the fact that she’d blown out the candle hours ago. She stopped at Dominic’s door and knocked lightly.
“It’s open.”
His voice sent unwanted shivers down her spine. Her body was a traitorous bitch. “Hey, Dom, look, I talked to some of your guys out at the track—”
“Oh, so now it’s Dom? We went from Coach Hardy, bypassed Dominic, and straight to Dom?”
His playful smirk wasn’t helping the attraction she was trying so hard to squash. “Sorry, Coach Hardy.” She mustered up an irritated look when all she really wanted to do was lick his neck. “I talked to some of your players down at the track. They came up and asked who I was, and I introduced myself and explained that I would be meeting with them all at some point. They seemed kind of pissed that they had to go through these evals again. Everyone started asking questions and getting riled up, so I told them I would come down to the field during practice and explain everything.”
His eyes narrowed and his arms folded across his chest. “What were you doing at the track?”
She chuckled. “You the track police?”
“I’m the athletic director so, yeah, pretty much.”
Damn, he had her there. “I was running. I couldn’t focus on my work, so I went for a run to clear my head. Is that a problem? Are teachers not allowed to use the track?”
He smirked. “Teachers can use the track anytime they want. You, however, aren’t allowed to use the track after dark. And before you start to argue with me, I’m sure the dean would agree.”
“Whatevs.”
Dominic raised an eyebrow. “I see you met Jasper.”
“Yes I did. I also met Jace and Riley.” She pushed away from the door. “Look, you have nothing to worry about. They were all polite and respectful.”
He snorted. “I know Jasper, and I know you are lying. Plus, Jace can be an asshole.”
“Are we allowed to call students assholes?” She winkled her nose and pursed her lips.
“I wouldn’t advise you calling students assholes, you are the guidance counselor. You are supposed to be uplifting. But I’m their coach, I’m allowed.”
“Well, I’m gonna go before you set any more rules for me to follow.” Corey turned to leave his office.
“Would you like to come over tonight after the staff meeting? We could have a beer. I’ll even buy you a six-pack of Coors. I really want to apologize for earlier today. Plus, I can give you some insight on the boys you are meeting with tomorrow.”
Corey took a deep, steadying breath. She should say no, her brain said fuck no, but her mouth and girly parts had other opinions. “Sure, that would actually be really helpful. Thank you.” And apparently the G-parts were stronger than her brain.
“Okay, great. Then I guess I’ll see you this afternoon, and then again this evening. Come down to the field around five. I’ll gather the boys up after practice.” She nodded and left the office before he could see the blush on her cheeks.
Why did he have to be so damn hot? The other coach was gorgeous too. Why couldn’t he be the one that gave her butterflies? He was nicer. And he had that Texas twang that kind of reminded her of home. She sighed and she slipped into her desk chair.
Was she destined to always fall for the dickheads?
Chapter Ten
Dominic
Dom wished he would have stayed in the quiet sanctuary that was his office. Practice was a bitch today. The team was pissed about having to redo the evaluations, and the coaches were on edge thinking that maybe some of the boys wouldn’t pass. Apparently there was a new rumor going around campus that Henderson left without turning in the paperwork because he was going to bench the team. So the coaches were acting weird and the boys were picking up on it and acting like little jerks. Practice was a wash. Halfway through Dominic called it and made everyone, coaches included, run bases. He knew his boys would pass. They were okay kids. Some of the best he ever had the privilege of coaching. He hoped that they showed their good sides to Corey, not their hormonal horny teenager sides. Tonight, he’d talk his boys up. Make sure she saw their good hearts and bright futures when she talked to them, not their surly boy behavior.
Dominic saw Corey heading out to the practice field. Even from a distance, she looked good. She was wearing skinny white jeans with that black top that made her chest look so damn good. S
he was beautiful and effortless. She wore barely, if any, makeup and had on some black Chucks. He needed to control his reaction to her. The basketball shorts he was wearing wouldn’t be forgiving.
“All right, coaches, bring the boys in. Ms. Cooper is coming down to talk to them about the interviews this week.” Dominic turned his attention back to Corey. He was really hoping that his Oakleys would hide the fact that he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Was this part of their soul-deep connection? Or just because she was a gorgeous girl?
“Hey, Coach Hardy, thanks for letting me invade your practice like this.” She smiled at him.
A rather flirty smile if he did say so himself. After all the players made their way over and had taken a knee, he introduced her. “Fellas, this is Ms. Cooper. She is the new guidance counselor. It has been brought to our attention that that jackass Henderson never signed off for you guys to start the season. I know that you spent a lot of time meeting with him so we could get this done. I really appreciate that you did, and I am sorry that you are going to have to do it again.” A wave rippled through the team and everyone started protesting at once. “Pipe down. I’m not finished.” He waited for silence before he started again. “As I was saying, you are going to have to go through the evaluations again. Only this time you will be meeting with Ms. Cooper and she only has a week to meet and evaluate all eighteen of you. Since we are on such a time crunch, I expect your undivided attention and cooperation during these sessions with Ms. Cooper. You will treat her with respect, or you will answer to me. Ms. Cooper, do you have anything you would like to add?” Dominic turned to her.
She stepped forward, and the wind blew her long hair around her face for a moment. “I want to say that I know this is the last thing y’all want to be doing. I am so sorry that Mr. Henderson dropped the ball. I looked through all his paperwork and computer files trying to find the evaluations he did so we wouldn’t have to do this again. But I didn’t find anything I could use. We are on a tight schedule and if I’m going to get through all eighteen of you in a week, I’m going to need you to show up on time and without fail. Each day Coach Hardy will post a lineup of who I need to meet with. I want nothing more than to get done with these evals and clear y’all to start the season. Again, I am so sorry.” Corey gave them an empathic smile.