Page 27

CHAPTER

TWELVE

DEAN

When I woke up this morning, the first thing I did was unlock my phone and look at my call log to make sure it was real and not in fact a very lonely man's dream.

But sure as day, there it is.

Clara June Colt.

She thought I only wanted to call her to talk about Tanner, and seemed genuinely surprised by my interest in her. I consider shooting her a text, but don’t want to come on too strong. Instead, I get out of bed and hit the weights in my garage for an hour before grabbing a quick shower.

Yesterday, Leah and West faced the education board and asked for three grand for the football and cheer team rooming accommodations for the big away game this year.

Every season, we take the bus there and back, and every season, we get off that bus in Bluebell scared shitless, wide-eyed, eager to hug one another out of gratitude to be alive and not road paste.

There’s only one way to get to the big away game in Mooreville, past Oakcreek, and it involves driving on Gull Road, the infamous road in the county for dangerous, blind turns and lots of accidents.

And every year on the day we’re supposed to drive out, it’s raining, making conditions ten times worse.

Once we had a flat, about five years back, and had to get out of the bus while the driver and I changed the tire in case someone hit it coming around the turn.

The school found it safer to have one hundred students on the shoulder in the rain, because if the bus got hit, it would have turned into a crumpled piece of paper after it met that ravine.

It’s dangerous. And stressful. And the game that I have athletes pulling out of every year.

This year, I approached West and Leah about getting a hotel for the students.

I even contacted the hotel myself, snagging a group rate.

Each student would share a bed, and in each room are two beds.

That means the cost of one room would only be thirty dollars per student.

Three grand for one hundred students to forgo a hazardous drive home seems worth every penny, but school boards don’t think with reason.

They think in terms of test scores, and not much else.

Leah told me to come to her office this morning, before the first bell. She and West heard back late last night, and when I talked to her she didn’t know the outcome yet, but she was hopeful. West was, too.

Still, I’m nervous. But we can’t forfeit the game or else we forfeit running for the Championship.

After dressing in my favorite jeans and top-grain leather boots, I slip into my lucky shirt—my royal blue flannel, aged just right so the material is thin and breathable, the black stripes and white crosshatch both looking more charcoal than anything.

I usually wear my lucky shirt before game days, but maybe today it’ll get us those hotels.

On the drive over, I try not to think about Clara June.

I want to think about her, that toothy grin and those wide blue eyes, how calm she was after Tanner’s hit, how much she manages.

Her strength, her sweetness, the subtle bloom of her hips and the swell of her breasts, the way her hair shines and her smile glows.

I don’t wanna think about her too much because I already like her to an extent that is maybe unreasonable.

I see her and I wanna turn the world on its head to make her life easier and better, to be the man she leans on when her strength wanes, to be someone who is in her life only to make her feel good, to support and love her.

See? Those are a lot of big feelings for a woman I’d never spoken to just a month ago. And if she isn’t sitting around writing Dean on her grocery list inside of a little heart with an arrow in it, which I’m certain she isn’t, I could be setting myself up for heartbreak.

Not to mention, she’s a student’s parent. A player’s parent. I have no business being head over heels for Clara June Colt, and yet, when I look up, all I see are my boots hanging over my proverbial head, taunting me with how bad I have it .

After putting my truck in park, I saunter through campus, shaking hands and bumping fists with the same smattering of students that are always conversational and friendly.

The students that have no problem conversing with authority figures when they’re in high school seem to be the ones that also easily find friendships and relationships first, because they’ve got confidence built into them.

I like those kids, because those kids are usually funny, loud, slight attention seekers, but they’re also kind, and help break the ice with the shyer students.

When I was in high school, I was unbelievably not an icebreaker kid but a quiet kid. Without Jake by my side, I’d probably have been quiet and reserved my whole life, but because he was big and loud—the polar opposite of who he grew up to be, ironically—I got to be part of that experience, too.

I think about Tanner then, as I tread over the steps in the rally court, heading toward the administration building in the corner of campus.

The way he brings other guys into the huddle, includes the other players in play making, and in class, has a way of playfully teasing other students to include them in the class jest. He doesn’t remind me of me, but he reminds me of the kind of kid I looked up to at that age, reminds me of the Jakes and guys like that.

As I reach Leah’s office, I take a deep breath, hopeful that the board recognized the danger we’re continually putting the teams in by making this drive home each year.

Her door is closed, but she sees me through the glass wall and waves me in.

Leah is wearing a robin’s egg colored suit jacket and dress pants, and a blouse the color of melted butter.

Her suits are wild, but the students love seeing what she’s going to wear each day, and they’re always complimenting her, and I think it’s one of the many subtly smart things she does to make herself approachable to the kids.

“Morning,” I greet after she hangs up the handset and pushes her black-rimmed glasses up to the top of her head.

“Good morning, Coach.” She glances over my shoulder, behind me, and motions someone inside.

“Coach,” West says, sinking in the chair next to me, his track pants swishing as he crosses his legs. He’s wearing his white pressed polo, and sneakers, and sweat pearls on his forehead.

“You work out before class?” I ask, because I’ve never seen him sweaty and out of breath in the morning. In fact, West is one of the faculty that uses the boys weight room and locker room, and he usually does right as practice is ending.

He shoves his hand through his hair, twisting to look at me. He’s a little pale, and there are bags under his eyes that aren’t normally there. “Coming down with something maybe, thought some exercise could help clear the cobwebs, scare the virus away.”

West is also one of those guys. The type of guy who thinks a long run is gonna chase a flu, whereas I’d rather try a cold beer because let’s face it, neither of those things are gonna beat a flu and a beer just feels way better.

He looks away somewhat quickly, then glances at his phone before shoving it back into his pocket.

He’s preoccupied, and he’s been that way for a few weeks, and I’m not sure I’m buying his “run off the virus” bullshit, even if that's typically who he is. Today it doesn’t feel genuine.

But you don’t push your buddy to spill his guts in front of your mutual boss, so I just nod my head.

“Hope it helps. There’s some hot tea at Goode’s that does wonders for a sore throat. I think it has steamed lemonade in it.”

He nods. “Thanks, man. ”

I look between them then because of the silence that falls between the three of us.

“I’m gonna make an educated guess that because no one is jumping out with good news, it’s bad news.” I tip my head back and scratch at my forehead in the spot that always feels itchy when I’m irritated.

West sighs. “Three thousand dollars for one game was just… beyond conceivable to them. They said the best they’d do is a ten dollar stipend per player.”

My mind catches on the word player. “What about the cheerleaders?”

Leah takes the glasses from the top of her head and tosses them onto the pile of folders on her desk. “Just the football players would get the stipend.”

I shake my head. “No. The girls are out there cheering on that field under those lights in all conditions the same way the boys are out there playing,” I start, a coil of unused energy unspooling inside me.

“And a ten dollar stipend ? What’s ten dollars gonna do?

What, they all gonna put their ten together and buy some pizzas, Leah? ”

“I know,” she sighs, just as frustrated and disgruntled as I am. And she is. It’s not bullshit. She’s as concerned about an accident on that road one of these years as I am.

“They said it’s for a meal. That we take the boys out after the game for a meal, to buy time for the traffic to die, then the road home is safer.

” West shrugs because he knows, despite being a Bluebell import and new to his job in the last few years, that the concern isn’t about traffic.

“I’m sorry Dean. We tried. We tried, we argued, and I’m pretty sure neither of us are getting promotions ever again. ”

Leah nods. “True story. I’m pretty sure I just pissed away Superintendent but…” she shrugs. “Worth it. Because you’re ri ght, Dean. That road is dangerous and someone is going to get hurt or worse.”

I shake my head, unwilling to put the kids at risk. “Parents don’t let their kids play football and become cheerleaders to put their lives at risk because the school district is more concerned with money than safety.”

“I know,” West says, bobbing his head as his knee begins to bounce. Maybe he’s more concerned about this issue than I gave him credit for?