Chapter 4
4
Charley
T he Warner University locker room smells like a concoction of BO, feet, and other things I’d rather not imagine. Before I enter the space, I take a deep breath and hold it. Of course, it only lasts as long as I can risk not breathing before I keel over. The only thing that keeps me from doing that is the idea of dying in this locker room. I might smell like eau de nasty boy forever.
What a terrible afterlife that would make.
The only good thing about being in the locker room is that I’ve never seen so many chiseled chests in my life. Not that I care. Or that I was standing around looking. Absolutely not. I’m here to be Coach T’s assistant, that’s all. A clear, professional capacity.
It’s not my fault I was still in here cleaning the benches like Coach asked me to when practice ended and all the guys filed in. Or that he called me into his office while the guys were walking to the showers.
At least it doesn’t smell like athlete’s foot in Coach’s office, though I don’t miss the air freshener he has hanging from a filing cabinet drawer.
“How’s it going?” he asks. “The boys haven’t given you a hard time, have they?” My face heats up, but he doesn’t notice. I wonder if he would count one of his players tackling me—nearly twice—as giving me a hard time. He keeps talking before I can answer. “They’re good kids. They might be a little over the top, so let whatever they say bounce right off you. They’re just a bunch of competitive athletes with testosterone. It’s natural.”
I guess competitive athletes with testosterone don’t spare me a glance—not that I’m not used to that or complaining. I’d rather it be that way.
“All good, Coach,” I answer, stomach in knots. I don’t know if it’s because of the stories my dad told me or the fact that he’s one of the most well-respected people on campus, but Coach T is intimidating.
“How’s your dad?”
I swallow the sudden dryness in my throat, thinking about the pile of fat and grease in the form of bacon I made him this morning. The thing about taking care of a person the size of my dad is sometimes I’m scared he won’t be breathing the next time I come home. “F-fine, sir.”
“That’s good to hear. He was quite the player in his day.”
“I’m sure he would appreciate you saying that.” My pursed lips stay that way. It’s hard to imagine my father anything like the twenty-year-old Coach T speaks of when all I’ve known him to be is an extension of the recliner in the living room. He doesn’t even sleep in a bed anymore.
“Why did you want this job?”
“Oh.” I fidget, avoiding Coach’s gaze. I don’t give a crap about football, but if I don’t tell him I’m the biggest Bulldog fan, will he get mad? Athletes, even former ones, like their egos stroked, don’t they? “I mean, football is great. I’m grateful for the?—”
He frowns. “I hired you because your dad said you didn’t care about sports. The last thing I need is some girl who thinks her ticket to a good life is hooking up with one of my players and following him to the big time.”
Shit. “Oh, I— I actually don’t care about sports.” I give him a weak smile. “I just didn’t want you to think I didn’t care about the job.”
He lets out a breath. “Well, that’s good news, but why do you want a job here?”
I fidget in my seat again. I can’t tell my dad’s former teammate that the reason I want this job is to make money to get as far away from my dad as possible. He could tell him. Or worse, he could look into the reasons why. “I need extra money for college expenses, and after talking about it with my father, he thought maybe you’d have something available. He trusts you.”
Coach eyes me for a significant period of time. Enough time to make me squirm. “I’ll cut to the chase, Charlotte.”
“Charley,” I correct.
“Charley. You were late today.”
My stomach dips. “I’m sorry about that.”
He holds up a hand. “I need to make sure you’re serious about this job and your dad isn’t making you do it. I’d do anything for old teammates, but I am looking for someone who actually wants to work.”
“I do,” I blurt out. “I apologize for being late. It won’t happen again.” I make myself look at him as I lie. The truth is, I’m constantly late. Not because of my doing, but because my dad always needs one more thing before I go. This morning, he needed more heart attack–inducing bacon to get him through the day until I got back, even though I’d already made him an entire package. Sometimes it’s that he needs his pillows rearranged, or that he needs pain reliever, or something—anything.
I’ve nearly given up. I tried getting ready earlier and asking him thirty minutes before I have to leave if he needs anything, and there is still always some last-minute task that needs to be done. It’s almost as if he likes the control.
It’s terrible to think that about my own father. But if I refuse to do it, I get to live in a house with a joy-sucking blob for a week. Maybe more.
I make my own emotional prison, and I’m done doing that.
Coach must think I look sincere because he nods. Suddenly, his gaze moves above my head. “What do you want, Farmer?”
I jump, spinning to glance behind me. My hackles rise when I spot the same guy. Mr. Tackles Whoever He Wants and the annoying Gatorade jug guy. Was he there the whole time? Listening to Coach reprimand me?
“Oh, nothing,” this Farmer says. He peers down to wink at me, and my body flushes from head to toe. This a-hole … My stare travels downward, and I swallow. This a-hole who clearly has one of the nicest physiques I’ve ever seen in my life . Pecs, abs, arms that bulge with muscles. He even has a trail of dark hair beneath his belly button that leads under the towel slung around his waist…
“I’m in the middle of something. Do nothing somewhere else.”
“Yes, Coach,” he says, lips curving into a smile as he hesitates in the doorway a few seconds, his gaze never leaving mine.
“Charlotte—”
“Charley,” I correct, watching while the male specimen saunters away running his hand through his freshly showered hair.
“Sorry,” Coach mumbles. Turning, I find him flustered and frowning down at his papers. “I met your mother a few times. Nice lady, and if I’m not mistaken, she was also a Charlotte.”
I nod, a picture frame on Coach’s desk catching my eye. It’s of a girl close to my age. He doesn’t say it, but I feel the question burning on the tip of my tongue because I’ve wondered the very same thing. Why did my dad name me Charlotte? So he could spend every day having to say the name and remember my namesake was gone, ripped from his life forever? Because of me.
Because of me.
“That’s why I prefer Charley,” I say softly.
“Well, it’s a pretty name. Both of them.” He angles the picture I’ve been staring at toward me. “This is my daughter, Kennedy. You might’ve seen her around campus.”
Narrowing my gaze, I study the picture again. I don’t know why. I don’t know anyone on campus. The faces I see around might as well be interchangeable. “That’s a pretty name, too,” I tell him, peering up.
He smiles fondly and arranges it back on his desk. “Not going to lie, she usually helps me around here, but her coursework is getting harder, and her mom and I thought it would be better if she started focusing on her academics. Same goes for you,” he says, finally looking up and catching my eye. “I’ll be pulling your grades along with the players after every semester. Anything below a 2.5 GPA and you’re out of here.”
I try not to laugh. There’s one beneficial side-effect of not having a life: I’ve had a perfect 4.0 since I’ve been at Warner. “Shouldn’t be a problem, sir.”
“Great.” He shuffles papers around on his desk before gathering some together. “My calendar is out of date. Could you take it and fill in everything by next practice?”
I take the unorganized stack he hands me. Post-It notes with names and times riddle the top, along with full-length papers jutting out from every angle. “I’m on it.”
“Excellent. Off with you, then. See you next practice. And be here on time. No, be here early.”
“Will do, Coach.”
He doesn’t wave or say goodbye. He just turns his attention toward his computer, hitting the space bar a couple of times.
I take that as my cue to leave and stand. Voices of players can still be heard around the locker room while I exit, but it’s a straight, empty shot through the main walkway to the double doors that lead outside. The actual players’ lockers are to the left—hidden from view—most likely so people can come in and out without seeing half-naked bodies. Not that I was thinking about their half-naked bodies. Only that the design of the locker room was sensible…if you didn’t want your players on display.
The fresh air is a welcome reprieve from the anti-bacterial spray I was using earlier to negate the musk and BO. Freshly mowed grass along with a slight floral smell invades my nostrils, and I pause, taking a deep breath, enjoying it for a moment before sliding Coach’s papers into my backpack.
Following the sidewalk around the parking lot, I come out onto the side road of campus. Luckily, Warner isn’t all that big and my house happens to be within a few blocks. I pull my backpack up my shoulders and rub my neck, a tingle of awareness crackling there. Immediately, I peer up, searching the area. I don’t see anything in my first pass, but on the second, I jump when a car gives two short beeps before it slows next to me.
I press my hand to my beating chest, stepping back when the window rolls down.
“Need a ride?”
It’s the same football player from earlier. The only one who knows I’m alive. This can’t be happening. “Even if I was sure you weren’t an axe murderer, no.”
He smirks, his charm oozing off him once more. “I’m a tad busy to be an axe murderer. I think you’re safe.”
“Sounds like something an axe murderer would say.”
“Touché.” I start to walk again, and he presses on the gas to follow. “Hey, really, let me give you a ride.”
“Nope.”
“I’m sorry about tackling you. I hope you weren’t hurt.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Good, then let me take you home.”
“Not a chance.” Not only do I not make a habit of letting strange men drive me home, but there’s no way I would want him—or anyone, really—within a few feet of my house. I would never be able to live down the embarrassment.
He stops the car on the road and gets out, slinging his elbow onto the hood. “Would it help if we were formally introduced? I’m Cade Farmer.”
Okay, so his last name is Farmer. I thought he had some sort of weird football nickname.
Still don’t care, though.
I keep walking, and he runs up to me. “This is the part where you tell me your name and then you get in the car so I can be a gentleman and drive you home.”
“No, this is the part where you realize I don’t need anything from you, so you return to your car and leave me alone.”
His smile falters. “I overheard Coach giving you a hard time and wanted to make sure you were okay. I’ve been on the other side of his lectures before. They’re?—”
I stop and turn toward him with my stomach churning. “You were eavesdropping?”
“Listen, the locker room is like a cavern. It wasn’t hard to miss.”
“Especially when you’re standing right outside the room. Then it’s probably impossible.”
“Yeah, that might’ve helped.” His lips start to upturn, and I really don’t think this guy knows I don’t like him. He thinks no one dislikes him. How weird is that? His brown eyes light up. “How else was I supposed to show you what I’ve got going on if I didn’t make myself known?”
His hand comes to rest on his abs, and I can’t shake the picture of him in a towel from my head. I blink, and it’s as if I have X-ray vision. Delectable dips on his stomach, the hard curve of his pecs… It was something out of a magazine. But the real question is why he cares to show it off to me .
“And yet, I’m unfazed.”
He clasps his heart. “You wound me.”
His feigning to be hurt nearly makes me smile. Nearly.
I turn and walk away, and he follows. “Come on, a name? How else am I supposed to know who’s about to fall in love with me?”
I snort at that, remembering what he said on the sidelines. “You must mean lust.”
“So, you are in lust with me?”
The dip in my stomach says maybe, but I can’t say that aloud. “Please,” I argue. “You’re the one pimping out your body to grab my attention. Newsflash: it isn’t working.”
He stops following, and a pang of regret rings through me. That was a tad harsh. He was trying to be nice. Flirty, even. If he was being sincere, though, I can’t give him any reason to think I would be interested. I’m way too preoccupied with Dad. Not to mention that meeting anyone would come with a whole host of issues I’d have to address, and honestly, I don’t have the strength.
I just want to be left alone.
Maybe I can think about relationships when I have my own place. When I’m free.
“Well, joke’s on you Charley-not-Charlotte. I overheard your name. I was just being polite.”
I shrug, continuing to walk away. This guy must always get everything he wants. For whatever reason, he might think it’s some sort of weird conquest to get the outcast to like him. Joke’s on him.
I live in armor, Pretty Boy. Nothing penetrates this.
Despite that, when he gets in his car and drives past me, a hollow ache rears its head. I can’t have friends because they’ll ask too many questions, but the human interaction was kind of nice.
He gives me a little wave, and I peer away like I didn’t see it. Why? I don’t know. A wave isn’t a marriage proposal or all that friendly. People wave to each other all the time.
It’s easier to keep my walls up.
I hike my bag up my shoulders again and trudge on, fantasizing about what it would be like if Mom never died. It would probably be so easy to have a guy like Cade Farmer give me a ride home. My parents would tease me or do what they do on TV and pretend they never saw, even though they’re squealing on the inside.
My dad… Well, he wouldn’t be morbidly obese and miserable. If a guy brought me home now and came into the house, my dad would blow a gasket.
A dark cloud settles across my shoulders, and I shake my head. There’s no sense in wallowing about what isn’t reality, but as I do so, a glint of sunlight catches my eye, and I turn toward a car idling on the street. A small black SUV. Shiny. Familiar.
I swallow, my heart rate picking up before I turn down the next block, leaving that person behind.