Page 20 of Rock Bottom Girl

The desperation in her voice made me laugh. “Not on the clock, Coach.”

We trooped down the hill that the high school sat on, staying on the treelined sidewalk to soak up the shade. Mariah’s Italian Ice Shack was a glorified shed she plopped in the backyard of her row home across the street from the high school. She’d held down some administrative job at a local hospital before being downsized a few years ago. With her fancy severance package, she opened up the shack and supplemented her income with work-from-home gigs. She kept students and faculty cool in the summer with crazy flavored slushies and warm in the winter with the best hot chocolate in the county.

When we turned down the alley, I could see the rows of paper cups already lined up. The bright green of the pickle juice ices against the red, blue, and orange of the sports drink ones. Mariah knew how to do preseason right.

“One of each,” I told the kids as they descended like sweaty, pimply locusts.

Snagging two of each, I directed Marley to one of the picnic tables Mariah had positioned under the big oak trees that crowded her tiny backyard.

“Here.”

She sniffed at the cup. “What is this?”

“Pickle juice.”

“No way.” I expected her to wrinkle her nose in disgust, but her pink tongue darted out and sank into the green ice. My reaction was instantaneous. It wasn’t like I’d handed her a banana and told her to go to town. I was still royally pissed at her total lack of regard for the well-being of her team. But I was also turned on.

Huh. Interesting.

She was less pale now. The summer heat was bringing a pink flush back to her cheeks. She had a dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. They spread out more on her cheekbones. Those brown eyes were warier now, less dazed.

“Wards off muscle cramps,” I said, gesturing at the sinus-infection-colored ice. “And this one’s got electrolytes.”

“Mmm, come to mama,” she murmured, scooping the orange-sports-drink-flavored ice into her mouth.

All around us, high school athletes snickered and chatted. I noticed there was a definite divide right down the middle of her team. I couldn’t be sure, but it looked like the leader of Team A was Ruby, and Team B belonged to Sophie Stoltzfus. And then there was godawful Lisabeth Hooper who worked her demon magic on both sides. I worked my ass off to keep the drama out of my team. A slightly easier feat with the mix of the sexes. I didn’t envy Marley with the brewing disaster she had on her hands.

“What’s going on with King and Stoltzfus?” I asked.

Marley looked up, brow furrowed. “Who?”

“Ruby making eyes at Ricky and Sophie with the hair.” I waved my hand around the back of my head to call attention to Sophie S.’s twisted braid bun thing.

Marley looked in their direction and took another spoonful of slushie. “Hell if I know.”

“Look. It’s your second day on the job. I’d cut you some slack, but you coulda put your entire team in urgent care making them run like that today—”

“Your team was running,” she interrupted.

“Yeah, but my team is used to this. And in deference to the weather, we took it slow and stuck to the shady route with water breaks,” I said pointedly. “What are you trying to prove?”

“Apparently that I’m nothing but a hot mess,” she huffed.

“No need to get snippy. I’m just being honest with you. Don’t push ’em so hard when it’s this miserable outside. You’ll get more out of them when they’re comfortable. And from here, it looks like you need to focus more on theteamthingthan the training.”

Sophie S. was glowering hard at Ruby. If I were Ruby, I’d be feeling around between my shoulder blades for a knife.

Marley gave the girls a long look and sighed. It was the sound of overwhelm. Of utter helplessness.

That Hooper jerk wandered by one of the smaller JV players and slapped the ice out of her hand.

“Hooper,” I bellowed.

“What?” she asked, batting her spidery eyelashes.

“Get her another one and don’t dick around with it.”

The girl stomped off.