She glanced back at him, a satisfied smirk twisting her lips, then tore off down the court to break up whatever play the opposition planned on countering with.
Goddamn. He could live on the memory of that smirk for the rest of the day. If he stayed any longer, he knew he’d be pressing his luck, but it took every ounce of willpower he possessed to get his feet moving again. When the hell had the ponytail, shorts, and T-shirt look become such a turn-on for him?
Since Rebecca appeared in his life.
He’d made amends that morning with the promise that he’d keep things professional, and now that he’d vowed to stay within those boundaries, she seemed to be letting her guard down. Maybe even opening up the doorway to friendship. So he felt just the slightest bit guilty for ogling her in those shorts. For imagining that same sheen of sweat on her face in an entirely different setting. He let himself believe that this was a two-month practicum-long promise, that she wasn’t forever off-limits to him. Once he finished, there wouldn’t be any professional complications.
He rounded the corner and nearly collided with a student, so lost in his inner musings. “Oh, sorry,” he apologized to the teen who merely rolled his eyes and kept walking. “Friendly guy,” Will muttered. He must have reached the tech wing because the sounds of saws and grinders and drills drowned out any lingering daydreams. Kendal High was renowned for its technical courses, including woodworking, welding, hospitality and tourism, green industries, masonry, and auto shop. These specialized programs gave students the opportunity to hone their skills in vocations they could enter straight out of high school and to excel in something if academics weren’t their strong suit.
His stomach began rumbling as he drew closer to the cafeteria, housed next to the culinary arts classrooms. The smells emerging from there were much more appealing than sawdust, metal, and motor oil. He remembered Pete had shown him the staff dining entrance when he’d taken him on the tour last week. Entering through the designated doorway, he stepped up to the counter and scrutinized the lunch selections set out under heat lamps. Some not-so-creamy mac and cheese, chicken burgers, and soupy lasagna. Yeah, the pizza is probably the safest bet.
He rang the service bell, and a student in a hair net and white chef’s jacket came out from the kitchen to greet him. As soon as she revealed her braces-filled smile, recognition dawned.
“Hey, Mr. Whitney!”
“Hey . . . Magenta, right?”
“Yep! What can I get you?”
Will pretended to weigh his options. “As delicious as everything looks, I think I’ll have to go with a slice of pizza.”
She used a pizza cutter to separate an extra-cheesy slice from the peperoni pie, slipped it onto a plate, then slid the plate across the counter next to the cash register. “Anything to drink?”
“No, thanks.”
“The cookies here are really good.” She waggled her eyebrows and waved her hand over the basket of individually-wrapped chocolate chip cookies next to the till. Okay, those did look pretty damn good, and they were massive. Maybe he could split one with Rebecca at the end of the day.
“You sold me,” Will said, plucking a cookie from the assortment.
Magenta rang up his order, and he forked over the three dollars and fifty cents to cover his lunch. “Hope to see you again soon, sir.”
He smiled, hoping the very same thing, too. “I’m sure you will. Especially if you keep making cookies the size of my head.”
She laughed and waved goodbye as he collected his provisions. If he kept walking in the direction he came, he’d loop back around to the PE office. Right? Well, there was only one way to find out. Thankfully, he had enough spare time that he could take a chance on being wrong.
The orange walls of the tech hall became yellow at the next intersection. He followed the yellow brick walls all the way past the main office and into the foyer.
“Mr. Whitney?” he heard a voice call.
Will turned and was met with the warm smile of Patrick Dunn, the school’s principal. “Hi, Mr. Dunn,” he said, shaking the older man’s hand with his free one. “It’s good to see you again.” They’d met briefly on Friday, but Patrick had made an immediate impression with his kindness and welcoming nature. He stood tall, had a firm handshake, and looked you straight in the eye when he spoke to you. Will suspected he didn’t shy away from using his commanding presence when it came to disciplining students.
“Good to see you as well. How’s your first official day going?”
“I’ve only gotten lost once so far, so I’d call that a win.”
Patrick chuckled. “You’ve already learned one of the secrets of teaching. Count every victory, no matter how small.” His gaze lowered to the plate in Will’s hand. “I see you’re eating a lunch of champions, too.”
It was Will’s turn to laugh. “Yes, sir. Just doing my part to support the culinary arts program.”
“Your patronage is appreciated. And, uh”—Patrick took a step closer—“between you and me, the pizza was a good choice.”
Will fought to hide a smile. “Happy to hear that.”
“Well, I’d better finish making my rounds. Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you, Mr. Whitney. My door’s always open.”
“I really appreciate that, sir.” His professors had encouraged everyone in his cohort to seek out their principals for a reference letter at the end of their practicums. He intended to do so with Patrick and prayed he’d make a positive impression on him during his two months at Kendal.
Will glanced at his watch when they parted ways, amazed that his prep period was almost over. He hurried his pace. There was barely enough time to wolf down his lunch and get changed. Students were filtering into the hallways, eager to begin their lunchbreak. Glad to see the familiar office door, he inserted his key into the lock and twisted the knob.
Rebecca breathed a sigh of relief when the lunch bell rang. One of her girls had gotten smacked in the face with a basketball, which caused a real gusher of a nose bleed. The girl had gone white as a sheet, then passed out at the sight of her own blood. Rebecca called Berg in for backup while she got the other students to clear the area and contacted a custodian to mop up the blood.
She’d been happy Will hadn’t been there to witness the drama, but then again, bloody noses, bruises, broken bones, and even concussions were all inevitable parts of the job. She had yet to make it through a semester without seeing a little O-negative on the floor.
Both she and Pete were First Aid and CPR certified with good reason. He’d tended to the young girl, and once she roused, he’d escorted her to the main office to fill out an injury report. They’d stepped up and stepped in for each other countless times in similar situations, and she was grateful to have a coworker like Berg to lean on.
But with him being otherwise occupied, she knew she’d have to cover his lunchtime supervision. Accepting her fate, she headed toward the PE office to snag her lunch so she could eat in the gym. She entered, took two steps inside, and froze. Will sat at his desk, next to hers. He’d changed into a T-shirt and shorts, his whistle still hanging from his neck, and his wavy hair still delightfully unruly. There was another man on campus now, and she’d have to get used to it.
“Hey,” he said, smiling as she neared. “You finished scraping those poor girls off the floor?”
Rebecca started to respond but lost her train of thought at the sight of the pizza sauce on the corner of his mouth. “You, uh . . .” She circled her index finger around her mouth in the general area. “Pizza sauce.”
He stared at her quizzically, catching her drift only when she passed him the box of tissues on her desk. He wiped his face and tossed the used tissue and his empty plate into the trashcan at the door. “I guess we’re even now, huh?”
She squatted down to open the mini fridge and retrieve her lunch bag. “Not even close,” she shot back. “You never told me I had hummus on my face.”
“I’d literally just met you.” He laug
hed. “But fair enough. I owe you one, then.”
“Yes, well”—she rose to her full height, a good half-foot shorter than him—“we can talk all about debts and repayment plans in the gym. Berg’s filling out an injury report for me in the main office, so I’ll help you with supervision.”
“An injury report?” Will stood, his eyebrows drawn together. “You might want to tone down the competitive spirit a bit,” he teased.
She gaped at him. “I had nothing to do with it. She took a ball to the face, got a bloody nose. It happens. You’ll see.”
Will gripped his clipboard and followed her to the door. “Was that a threat?” he asked, preceding her into the hallway.
She knew he was joking, but she didn’t answer. Better to let the man sweat it out. They walked a few steps, then pushed their way past the cluster of teens who’d gathered outside the gym doors, awaiting the green light. “We’ll be right with you, folks,” she told them. “And I don’t want a repeat performance of yesterday, okay? Food stays outside of the gym. No empty wrappers or containers of any kind are to be left on the bleachers.”
“Can I just bring my bag of chips in, Miss L? I promise I won’t open them.”
Rebecca narrowed her gaze at the speaker. “Really, Cooper?” She shook her head. “Go put them in your locker.”
“But my locker’s on the second floor. Please. I’ll let you hold them for me and then you know I won’t—”
“Nope. I’m not your mother, and I’m not a safety deposit box, either.”
The other students—and student teacher, she noted—laughed at the exchange.
Cooper groaned, knowing he wasn’t going to win this fight. “That’s harsh, Miss L.”
“My gym, my rules.” With those parting words, and a victorious smile on her face, she opened the door to her domain. First, she inspected the floor to ensure it was fully dry where it’d been mopped. Satisfied that the surface was safe to play on, she moved next to the equipment room. Will wheeled out the cart of basketballs while she brought the wall-mounted scoreboard to life and set the timer for twenty-five minutes.
They’d been opening the gym to students at lunchtime for as long as Rebecca had been working at Kendal High. Whoever thought teenagers didn’t need recess, a chance to blow off steam, had it all wrong. In fact, many of the teachers who taught academic subjects had thanked her and Berg for granting the teens their “playtime” so they could de-stress before their afternoon classes and maybe not zone out quite as hard as they would without the exercise.
Taking one final glance around the gym, she circled back to the main door and let the herd stampede through. The guys sprinted for the cart of basketballs, wanting to get their pick of the limited supply. “Game balls” were reserved for the varsity team, and whatever was left over had to equip six Phys. Ed. classes and the lunchtime crowd. They’d seen better days, for sure, but the school’s limited budget didn’t allow for any splurging. She and Berg would put together a wish list at the end of every school year when they’d do inventory and jot down big-ticket items for shits and giggles, knowing they’d get the bare essentials and have to make do.
She strode back over to Will who stood just inside the equipment room, watching the goings-on through the propped open door with avid interest.
“Do they just shoot around the whole time?” he asked.
“For the first five or ten minutes, yeah. They might have a few one-on-ones, then they’ll break into a full-court, high-intensity, life-or-death game.”
Will laughed. “Sounds pretty serious.” He gestured to the group gathered on the bleachers. A handful of girls and the less athletically inclined boys took over the seating area. “Do any girls ever play?”
“Once in a while. But you know how guys are in high school. They’ll never pass you the ball unless they absolutely have to. And if by some ‘fluke’ you sink a basket, you might get lucky enough to touch the ball again. If you miss, game over.” She snatched her lunch bag from the table in the equipment room and unzipped it, removing a container of pasta salad and a fork. Teachers could bring food into the gym for their supervisions if they kept it inside the storage room.
“I apologize on behalf of the entire male population. Also, as a further peace offering, and to repay my debt . . .” He reached into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out a gigantic chocolate chip cookie. The plastic-wrapped treat was a cafeteria specialty. “I’ll go halfsies with ya.”
“Deal.”
Will carefully split the cookie right down the middle and laid out the two halves on the table. Was this becoming a thing with them? Sharing cookies? Better than sharing cooties, she reasoned. She turned her attention to the action unfolding on the court, frowning at the two varsity hotshots who kept hogging the ball. “Hey, MJ, King James, pass the ball and let someone else take a shot, or you’ll both be running laps at practice!”
Turning back to Will, she caught his smile. “Your gym, your rules,” he repeated her words. “I might have to steal that line.”
Grinning, she took a forkful of pasta and chewed. She could feel his eyes on her. He should have been watching what was happening on the floor, supervising the students and not surveying her. So why were her palms sweating, exactly?
“Do you think Pete will be back before lunch is over?”
She met Will’s worried gaze and frowned. “Not sure. You need him for something?”
“We were gonna go over my lesson plans before this afternoon. Would you mind if I, uh . . . Could I maybe run them past you instead?”
The uncertainty in his tone touched her in a stomach-tingling sort of way. It was nice that he sought her guidance, valued her input. “Sure, I’d be happy to look over them.”
His lips curved upward, and she shoved another forkful of pasta into her mouth to hide her answering smile. Her eyes darted to the court just as an alley-oop pass finished in a sweet dunk that lasted a little too long for her liking. “Thompson!” she called out. “Quit hanging off the rim. If you break that thing, you’re buying us a new one!”
“You have to admit, that dunk was pretty epic,” Will said. “I’d be showboating, too, if I were him.”
“I don’t doubt that,” she retorted. Setting down her lunch, she took the clipboard from his hand, overwhelmed by the copious amounts of notes he’d written. “Wow. This is . . . a lot.”
Will’s eyebrows knit together. “Too much?”
“Give me a few. Watch the kids.” She skimmed through the pages, admiring his penmanship and that he’d handwritten his plans in the first place. Very old school, but she dug it. She remembered her college days, when her professors had insisted it was better to overprepare than be stuck with twenty or thirty minutes to fill at the end of the period. Will’s lessons were painstakingly detailed with many talking points, but kids only gave their attention for so long, especially in a Phys. Ed. class. They wanted to be up and moving, not sitting and listening to endless instructions and introductions.
He glanced at her, and she met his gaze, knowing he was anxious for feedback. “You’ve got some good stuff here,” she assured him, “but you’ll never get through it all. I’d suggest nixing the getting-to-know-you icebreaker stuff. Most of these guys won’t buy into it, and you can get to know them in more authentic ways—as you circulate around the gym or on the field outside, when you help them refine certain skills, when you see them between classes, etcetera.”
“That makes sense,” Will said. “Anything else?”
“You have a lot of drills, which is fine, but you might want to spread those out over the remaining days this week. It’s too much to take in at once. Keep in mind, our key objective is to get them active. If they’re sitting too much, they’ll get antsy, ornery, and on your nerves.”
An emphatic buzz vibrated from the scoreboard. “Do we start kicking them out now?” Will asked.
“Yeppers. Time’s up!” she hollered to the masses. Using the remote control, she cleared the scoreboard and powered it
off. “Pretty easy gig, huh? Just make sure you always set the timer. The kids get all weird when they don’t know exactly how much time they have or if they think you short-changed them.”
Will’s shoulders shook with laughter. She was glad to see he’d relaxed some following her critique. “Got it.”
“Okay, you go coerce them into handing over the game ball and check for any others by the bleachers, and I’ll close up the equipment room once we’ve got them all.”
Nodding, he walked straight onto the court, and thus began a heated negotiation between him and the diehard basketball crew. She giggled as she packed up her remaining lunch, then stared longingly at the cookie on the table. From experience, she knew she had a good three, maybe four, minutes before Will would regain custody of the ball. Picking up the slightly bigger half, she took a bite, and her eyes rolled back into her head.
Five minutes later, Will trudged over, adding the game ball and the other balls he’d acquired to the rack. “I promised them an extra minute of playing time tomorrow. Was that wrong?”
Rebecca dropped her head and shook it side to side. “Oh, Whitney. We need to work on those negotiation skills of yours.”
Will rolled the cart inside the storage room and grabbed his clipboard from the table. He looked at her, then back at the table, then at her once more, his gaze questioning. “Hey . . . did you eat my half of the cookie?”
She shrugged as she led him out of the room and locked the door. “I might have.” At his shocked expression, she flipped her ponytail off her shoulder and with a teasing wink, added, “My gym, my rules.”
8
My gym, my rules.
The way she’d uttered those words for the second time, combined with the hair flip, did things to him. Stirred things in him. And she’d called him “Whitney.” Not Will or William. Was that to firmly plant him in the friend zone, or was she flirting with him? She’d left the gym moments ago, and he stood rooted to the spot, overanalyzing every single detail of their interaction.
Learning to Love Page 7