Will stood on the foul line next to Ryan Purnsey. She craned her neck to try and hear their conversation.
“Games are lost and won by free throws, and you, being a top player, are gonna wind up on this line a lot,” Will said. “The problem is, you’re lining up square to the basket, which puts a ton of tension on your shoulders. I want you to try it again, but tilt your body position just slightly to the left, like this.”
Rebecca released an appreciative sigh as Ryan stepped to the line and took all of Will’s refining cues to heart. The ball swished through the mesh and rolled back to his feet.
“That’s it, good,” Will said. “Now, try loading the ball lower, at hip-level, to give you more momentum with your shot.”
Ryan nodded and did as instructed. “Like this?”
“Even a bit lower. Yeah,” Will added after Ryan made the adjustment. “Perfect.”
For the second time, the ball hit the mesh. Nothin’ but net.
Ryan retrieved the ball and dribbled it between his legs like he’d invented the technique, then he tossed it to Will. “That actually feels a lot better, man. Thanks.”
She felt the wattage of Will’s smile right down to the tips of her toes. “We’ll keep working on it next practice, okay?”
“Cool. See you tomorrow.” Ryan jogged to the sidelines, grabbed his gym bag, and exited through the entrance where Rebecca stood. “Hey, Miss L! You see that shot? I start sinking all my free throws, I’m gonna be unstoppable.”
“I saw. Guess we better start calling you Steph Curry now.”
Ryan laughed. “Have a good night.”
“You, too, hotshot.”
His long legs carried him down the hall and out of sight in seconds flat. She couldn’t very well follow in his footsteps—not yet, anyway—since he’d blown her cover and she’d have to at least say hello to Will. A little friendly hello, that’s all. Pulling her shoulders back, she strode into the gym, ignoring the nervous butterflies swarming in her stomach.
Will, still gripping the ball in his hands, turned to her with a grin. “Hey.”
Her lips curved into a smile of their own volition. “That was some serious bonding right there, Mr. Whitney. Well done.”
He ducked his head, the bashful gesture endearing and a bit unexpected. “He’s a good kid, like you said. Rough around the edges, but now that I’ve proven I know something about basketball, maybe he’ll ease up on me.”
Yanking the ball out of his grasp, she stepped up to the foul line, set her stance, and took a shot. When the ball swished through the mesh, she peered at Will and said, “I know something about it, too.”
He chuckled. “I’m aware. You wanna make it interesting?”
She quirked an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”
“Let’s play H-O-R-S-E, but instead of getting a letter when you miss a shot, you have to answer a question.”
The mischievous glint in his eyes should have deterred her from agreeing, but once a competitor, always a competitor. Besides, she didn’t plan on missing any of her shots. “I shoot first.”
She retrieved the ball and moved to the three-point arc, standing perpendicular to the basket near the right-side baseline. She could hit this shot with her eyes closed. Dribbling twice, she bent her knees, pushed off the balls of her feet, and launched the rock. As soon as it left her fingertips, she knew it was money. “You’re up,” she said, collecting the ball and chest-passing it hard at Will.
Will set himself at the line and mimicked her shot to a tee . . . other than the whole getting it in the bucket part. It bounced twice on the rim before giving up the fight. Huffing out a defeated breath, he scooped up his rebound and tossed her the ball. “Your question.”
She probably should have thought more carefully, considered her audience and the inevitable direction things would head in afterward, but the question flew from her lips before she could stop it. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-nine,” he answered without missing a beat. “How old are you?”
Okay. Young, but not super young. She had six years on the guy, though. Rebecca shook her head to clear it, his question finally registering in her brain. “Not your turn,” she said in response.
Will batted the ball between his hands, the distance that separated them evaporating as he closed in on her. “Oh, didn’t I mention that rule? The loser gets to ask the same question where applicable.”
She narrowed her gaze. “Those are some pretty arbitrary rules.”
“My gym, my rules.”
Rebecca almost laughed at his cocky assertion, how he used her own words against her. “This is definitely not your gym. And as a . . . not-twenty-nine-year-old, I have seniority.”
He moved closer still. “If you don’t answer properly, I’ll start guessing.”
Anxious to get the game back in motion and to calm her rapidly increasing pulse, she gave him the truth. “Thirty-five. There. Happy?”
Will’s eyes gleamed with mirth. He extended the ball to her, which she grabbed none-too-gently and moved the hell away from him and the heat that seemed to radiate from his body. This time, she decided to up the challenge even further and went for a hook shot just outside of the paint. She gasped in horror when the ball rotated the rim twice before bouncing out.
“You have got to be kidding me!” she cried.
“You were robbed,” Will agreed, but his smug smirk revealed a lack of any genuine empathy. He snagged the ball and copied her hook shot but from a different angle. And the bastard sunk it.
Now she had to duplicate his shot. She collected the ball and tried to shake off the negative energy from her previous miss. Thinking she was perfectly set for the shot, she groaned when the ball left her hand, recognizing in midflight that it was off the mark, and rushed to retrieve the rebound.
Will walked toward her, slow and steady. His gaze flickered to the ceiling as if he hadn’t yet settled on a question. Then he was in her space again, and she was finding it hard to do the breathing in and out thing.
“Are you single?”
Rebecca blinked, certain she hadn’t heard him correctly. “Uh . . . how is my relationship status relevant?”
Sidestepping the query, Will said, “There’s one other rule. If you fail to answer a question at any point, you admit defeat and the other player automatically wins.”
Oh, he was good. He had some kind of sixth sense about her and knew every button to push. She’d just as soon tightrope across a pit of venomous snakes than forfeit this game—or any game. “Yes,” she admitted. “And you?” It’s not that she cared, exactly. Fair was fair.
“Well, I’m not sure how my relationship status is relevant,” he teased, “but yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t call me ma’am.” And don’t stand so close, and stop pinning me with those ocean-blue eyes. She shoved the ball at him. “Your shot again.”
Will stepped back from the force of the shove and laughed. “Okay, here’s our next challenge.” He pulled up to the foul line, then turned his back to the target. “I mastered this shot in my high school days, but it’s been a while.” Glancing once over his shoulder, he raised his arms over his head and propelled the ball backwards toward the net. The lying liar face scored with ease. Been a while, my ass.
Glaring at him, she took hold of the ball and tried to replicate his form. Like most anyone who spent their days in a gym, she’d attempted quite a few no-look shots. Her scoring percentage wasn’t impressive enough to warrant any trash talking, but she’d be damned if she’d let him show her up. She let go of the ball a speck too hard, though, and it bounced off the backboard and trickled from the front lip of the rim. Shit.
“Hey, chin up. You’ll get the next one.”
His tone implied the comment was more taunt than placation, and she had to turn away to hide the smile of respect that unfurled. With her back to him, she missed his approach and didn’t realize his proximity until that familiar wave of warmth surrounded her. Spinning around, she swallo
wed hard. He stood inches from her, the ball resting on his hip.
“Kids?” he asked softly.
Her mind, traitorous as it was, conjured images of little basketball prodigies running around a backyard, all blue eyes and blond hair and . . . Jesus, snap out of it. “I’m sorry?”
“Do you have any kids?”
She was so shaken by the train of her thoughts, she answered right away. “No. You?”
Will let go of the ball, her heart bouncing with every dribble as it rolled to a stop. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. Wow. Does he seriously have a kid? Or multiple kids? This is a helluva way to find out.
“Wait’ll you see these.” Will scrolled through his pictures, clicked on one, then passed her the screen.
She held in a breath as she took the phone, bracing herself for a bundle of joy that would suck all the joy right out of her. But the image that stared back at her wasn’t a kid at all. It was the coolest pair of kicks she’d ever seen—besides her own, that is. A gust of laughter burst from her chest. Lime-green and neon-orange basketball shoes with black accents. Absolutely sublime. Deciding to play along with his joke, she asked, “How old?”
“Three months.” He beamed like a proud papa.
She handed back his phone and retrieved hers from her shorts pocket. In seconds, she’d pulled up an image of her own precious “babies.” She gazed adoringly at her red, white, and black checkered sneakers, her most favorite pair. Angling the screen toward Will, she said, “Mine are almost a year.”
“Are they walking yet?”
“No, not yet. They’re still in the box I brought them home in.”
They both looked up at the same time, sharing a smile that only true sneakerheads could understand. From up close, the brackets that lined his mouth were mesmerizing. He had the tiniest dimples that delighted her in ways she couldn’t explain. His lips parted, and a frisson of excitement passed through her causing her knees to wobble. Will had a way of making her feel comfortable and utterly discomfited at the same time. And it was the former that worried her the most.
“I should go,” she said, dragging her gaze away so she didn’t have to see when that delicious smile disappeared from his face. Though it pained her to let him win the game, it was too dangerous to stay. The questions were becoming too intimate, and judging by the tremor in her fingers as she slipped her phone back inside her pocket, the likelihood of her scoring another basket was next to nil.
“Yeah, of course. It’s getting late.”
“And I’ve got that volunteering thing again tonight. Every Thursday, actually.” She wasn’t looking for a pat on the back, more that she didn’t want him to think she couldn’t take the heat.
“Right. What’s that for?”
“At-risk youth. It’s a support program run by the local hospital.”
His posture stiffened, and she noticed a sudden change in his demeanor. “Oh, I see. That’s great. I mean, that you volunteer, not that there are at-risk youth . . . Uh, I won’t keep you.”
She’d have to contemplate his unusual reaction another time. Walking several steps away, she chanced a glance at him. “Thanks for the game.”
He nodded. “Thanks for . . . opening up.”
Armed with two takeout cups of coffee and bacon and egg sandwiches from the Cup-A-Cabana, Rebecca made the short trek from the parking lot to Margaret’s office. They ate breakfast together once a week—usually Fridays—to catch up, share anecdotes, vent, whatever was needed. It was her turn to buy this week.
She turned into the stairwell and took the steps to the lower level. The teachers in the arts department shared an office, but they had at least a half hour before any of the others would start to show up. When she reached the end of the hall, the office door flew open and Margaret pulled her inside.
“Food, glorious food,” she sing-songed, taking the paper bag and one of the cups off her hands. “I could smell you coming. I’m starving.”
Rebecca laughed. “Just save one of those for me, okay?” She followed her friend into the rear of the office where Margaret had her own cozy nook. Sinking into one of the two tub chairs, she admired the space Margaret had carved out for herself. Countless award plaques and accolades lined the walls, complemented by pictures of her two children—her proudest achievements.
They each set down their coffee cups on the small table. Margaret tore open the bag and tossed her one of the sandwiches, barely getting the paper wrapping off hers before she chomped into it.
Rebecca unwrapped her sandwich and took a bite, the salty tang of bacon melting on her tongue. While she ate, she gazed at the woman next to her and reflected on their history. Truthfully, they’d been sharing food and laughs together long before Rebecca became a teacher and they adopted their Friday tradition.
Back then, though, the sharing had been completely one-sided.
Margaret was one of those special teachers who picked up on things others might miss. After her third fainting spell in PE class, she’d deduced that Rebecca had been exercising on an empty stomach and correctly assumed it wasn’t by choice. Instead of making a big deal over it, involving her mother, or worse, she started keeping snacks on hand or bringing “too much lunch” for one person, so someone had to help her eat it.
Margaret crumpled up her wrapper and used a napkin to wipe her mouth. “Damn, they sure do make a good breakfast sandwich.”
“I asked for extra bacon this time.”
“That’s why you’re my favorite. Don’t tell the others.”
There was no question Margaret Robinson had been her favorite teacher in high school. She’d taught her twice, coached her, cared for her, and gave her purpose. Rebecca hadn’t really known what she wanted to be in high school, not right away, but she knew who she wanted to be like. The rest of it just sort of fell into place. And as she returned her focus to the collection of family pictures on the wall—the husband, the kids (now fully grown), the home they’d built—she still wanted to be like Margaret.
Chewing and swallowing her last bite, Rebecca reached for her coffee to cap off a breakfast of champions. She took a fortifying swig and released a satisfied sigh. “Caffeine, do your work. I am dragging today.”
“I’m not surprised. You were here pretty late last night.”
The comment jolted Rebecca more than the hit of java. “Oh, uh, yeah. I had some marking to do . . .”
Margaret smiled like a cat who’d eaten a dozen canaries. “I was organizing costumes for the fall play and happened by your office to see if you were still here. That’s when I noticed you and a certain studly student teacher in the gym.”
“‘Studly’? Do people even use that word anymore?”
“Don’t change the subject, missy.”
Her older, wiser, annoying-er friend had an innate ability to sniff out any secret, especially if said secret had something to do with the opposite sex. “He helps Berg with basketball practice and stayed to work with Ryan on his foul shots after. I poked my head in just before Ryan left, and Will challenged me to a game of H-O-R-S-E, which was super unfair because he kept changing the rules.”
“In other words, you lost,” Margaret concluded.
“Well, yeah, but it wasn’t an official game and we didn’t play the full number of rounds necessary to properly determine a winner.”
Margaret fed her a smile laced with jock sympathy. “You don’t get this bent out of shape when you lose to me.”
“That’s because you’re not a boy.”
“A boy you have a crush on.”
Rebecca gaped at her friend for a full minute. “You take that back!”
“I won’t.” Margaret laughed. “You think I didn’t notice you two making eyes at each other in the gym last week during dodgeball? And you just had to make him your number-one target, didn’t you? Not that I blame you. That young man’s got all the ladies here in a tizzy.”
She sputtered out incoherent, half-formed words until her brain finally caugh
t up. “How can you even joke about this when it’s so inappropriate? Plus, you know my rule about dating teachers. I’m not about to add another failure to the list.”
Margaret leaned back in her chair, coffee in hand, and took a long sip. “Honey, you need to get over this teacher-dating phobia of yours. The pool in Kendal is barely bigger than a thimble. Will’s not gonna be on his practicum forever, and there’s nothing wrong with a little harmless flirting.”
Except there was no such thing as harmless flirting when it came to Will. She’d need to wrap herself in Teflon if she had any hope of coming out unscathed. She startled at the sound of Margaret’s office phone. “I got it,” she said, grateful for the distraction, then jumped up to grab the phone from her friend’s desk. “Arts department, Rebecca speaking.”
Patrick Dunn was on the other end of the line. “Ah, Rebecca. Just the person I was looking for. I tried your office first, but this was my next best guess. Pete won’t be in today,” the older man said. “We’ve arranged a substitute teacher for your classes, and I was hoping you’d step in to supervise Mr. Whitney.”
And just like that, all the oxygen vacated her lungs.
“The whole day?” she asked—more like squeaked.
“If that’s all right with you.”
She could stop this. All she had to do was say no, but what reason could she possibly give? An entire day with Will. Stupid Berg. Was it too late to go shopping for Teflon armor? Stupid, stupid Berg.
“Are you still there, Rebecca?”
“Yes, sorry, Patrick. That’s fine with me,” she lied. “I’ll go touch base with Will and make sure we have everything we need.”
“Wonderful. I really appreciate this, Rebecca. Don’t hesitate to give me a shout if any issues arise.”
She hung up and turned to Margaret who sat perched on the edge of her chair, grin cemented in place. “What do we need to touch base with Will about?”
Rolling her eyes at the syrupy tone, Rebecca grasped her coffee cup and the detritus that remained from their breakfast. “I’m supervising him all day because Berg is a jerk.” She fixed Margaret with a pointed stare. “You better not have had anything to do with this.”
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