Chapter 6
Levi and Haddie hadn’t crossed paths since they drove to campus earlier that morning, and he felt inexplicable relief when he filed into the high school gymnasium to find her sitting with a group of who he guessed were other elementary teachers.
He didn’t recognize a single one of them from all the high school meetings he’d been in that day.
“Looking for someone?” a voice questioned from behind, and he spun to find Tommy Crawford grinning back at him.
“Commissioner!” Levi exclaimed. “When did you get back in town?”
The two men shook hands and gave each other their usual dude pat on the back.
“Got back late last night. Figured if I was going to do the honeymoon thing right, it meant not dragging my ass back to town until I absolutely had to.”
“That was cutting it close, don’t you think?” Levi asked his friend.
Tommy shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest. “Teacher in-service and back-to-school night.” He sighed. “I’d have cut it closer if I could have, but this was as close as I could get.”
Levi laughed. “Come on. A day full of impractical meetings and busywork followed by your dad getting behind the podium to welcome everyone back? What’s not to love?”
Tommy groaned, his ever-present grin dimming for just a moment. “You say that as if you know what it’s like to have endured it for the past ten years. You’re just getting started, my friend.”
“Mr. Rourke…Mr. Crawford…how nice of you two to hold up traffic while the rest of the faculty are trying to enter.”
Both men spun to find Tommy’s father, the man in question, with his brows raised and a stern look on his face. He and Tommy looked so much alike yet couldn’t be more different.
They both had brown eyes, the same wavy hair, though Tommy’s was sandy-colored where his father’s had more salt than anything else these days.
They even had the same square jaw, the same winning smiles.
Yet Coach Crawford prided himself on the number of trophies he continued to add to the football showcase in the school’s entryway while Tommy’s speech and debate medals got tucked away in a shoebox in Tommy’s childhood bedroom.
Levi and Tommy moved out of the way of the other teachers filing in, and Coach Crawford followed them.
“Sorry about that, Da—” Tommy started but then course corrected with, “I mean, Principal Crawford.”
Levi clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I just haven’t seen Tommy since the wedding, so we were catching up.”
Tommy’s father appraised them both and gave them a curt nod. “How about you two finish catching up in the bleachers with the rest of the faculty. Announcements are starting soon.”
“Sure thing, Coach,” Levi replied.
“Sure thing, Coach,” Tommy mimicked, though Coach Crawford either didn’t notice or didn’t care as he strode off toward the podium that faced the home-team side of the bleachers.
“Yikes,” Levi said when Tommy’s father was a good enough distance away. “After that speech he gave at your wedding, I thought things were better between you two.”
Tommy scoffed and scrubbed a hand across his visibly tanned face.
“Coach sure knows how to work a crowd,” he admitted.
“But the second he sees me on school grounds wearing civilian clothes instead of a coach’s polo?
” He raised a brow at Levi. “He asks himself the ever-present question of, ‘Where did I go wrong that my son turned out like this?’”
Levi shook his head and laughed. “Like what? The only teacher in the entire district who has received the Illinois Teacher of the Year award…twice? The only teacher…I hear…who comes up as the most requested when students are filling out their schedule requests for the following year? Or the only coach I know to have smoked his debate opponents every time at the state debate meets?”
Tommy laughed. “Okay, now you’re just being an asshole to embarrass me.”
But Levi shook his head. “You’re hot shit, Tommy Crawford.
You don’t need to throw a pigskin across a field to prove that to anyone.
” But something in his chest squeezed. Levi believed the words he said to Tommy, but it took Tommy years to believe it about himself, that he could still be hot shit in a coach’s polo rather than pads and a helmet.
Now here he was, knocked down a peg again, a true fish out of water where he used to be king of the ocean.
“Thanks, man.” Tommy shrugged, thankfully oblivious to Levi starting to spiral. “Somehow, though, I don’t think he ever got the memo. Good thing he always had you around to fill the void, right?”
Tommy smiled as he said the words, but Levi could feel the bitterness behind the grin. Is this what he’d missed being gone for so long? His best friend still feeling less than in his father’s eyes all these years later.
“Come on.” Tommy nodded toward the bleachers. “Let’s stop holding up traffic and let the big guy have his spotlight.”
Tommy strode ahead, and Levi followed a couple steps behind, an ache in his gut that seemed to be growing by the minute.
As they approached the bleachers, Haddie’s eyes met his, and a smile spread across her face that turned the ache into something warm, something like comfort.
“Hey, Commissioner…” Levi caught up to his friend and backhanded him on the arm. “Come here. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
Tommy sighed and followed Levi to where Haddie sat, climbing into the empty row above her and the other teachers she sat with.
“Who’s your friend, Coach?” Haddie asked, spinning to face them. Her hazel eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled, and he took a certain pride that after doing this roommate and friend thing for almost two weeks now, he could elicit such an expression from her.
“Haddie Martin, this is Tommy Crawford, my best friend since elementary school.”
Haddie’s eyes widened. “Well, that is about the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard. No wonder he asked you to be his best man.” She held out a hand, and Tommy shook it.
“Don’t fall for that bullshit charm of his,” Tommy told her. “He got into his share of trouble back in the day.”
Haddie leaned toward them and stage-whispered. “I expect you to tell me all about this trouble you speak of when Levi isn’t around.”
Tommy laughed and elbowed Levi in the ribs. “I like her,” he told his friend. “It’s been a while since you’ve introduced me to someone you’re seeing.”
Levi choked on a laugh, and Haddie snorted.
“Oh god!” she told Tommy. “We’re not dating. We’re just living together.”
This time Tommy let out his own choking sound. “Excuse me?”
Levi cleared his throat. “Remember when I asked about the apartment? Haddie sort of already had dibs on it but couldn’t afford the rent.”
“And your best man here didn’t want to go halfsies at first,” Haddie chimed in.
“You didn’t even want to tell me your name,” Levi reminded her.
She scoffed, then turned her attention back to Tommy. “I didn’t like your friend much initially.”
“You mean I didn’t like you,” Levi countered.
“Ha!” Haddie cried. “You liked me so much that you—”
“We came to an agreement, put our mutual dislike aside, and now we’re roommates!” Levi blurted out, not wanting to find out how her sentence would have ended or what images it might have conjured in his head.
Shit. Images were already conjuring. Haddie in his bathtub. Haddie naked and wet climbing out of his bathtub. Haddie’s lips…
Tommy barked out a laugh. “Sure. Not dating. What did she say about ‘adorable’?” Tommy asked, nodding his chin toward Haddie.
“So… Did you two just meet with the whole apartment thing?” He straightened back to his regular sitting position and glanced back and forth between Levi and Haddie, who were both staring at each other.
“Yep,” Levi replied, beating her to the punch. “Met the morning I called you on your honeymoon asking about the apartment.”
“Yeppers…” Haddie added. “First time we ever saw each other was in the hardware store.”
Tommy glanced at his friend to see if he was buying their story.
“Yeah, well, seems like you’ve known each other as long as me and Five-Oh-One have,” Tommy told Haddie. “Because you push his buttons about as well as I do, and not gonna lie… It’s damned funny to see.”
Haddie grinned and clapped her hands together.
“Five-Oh-One? Okay, that is even more adorable than him introducing you as his BFF from elementary school. Seriously. You two must have been lethal in high school with all that sweet, small-town boyish charm. I bet you both broke a lot of hearts.” She laughed.
“Or maybe you didn’t because you’re both too damned adorable. ”
At this, both Levi and Tommy straightened their posture and jutted out their chins, peacocking for the pretty woman who totally had their number.
“I mean, I broke a heart or two,” Tommy said, his voice dropping an octave. “I wasn’t that sweet.”
“Yeah, same,” Levi grunted. “We were total assholes.”
Levi was one of the good guys when he was a teen.
Sure, maybe football always rode shotgun, but any girl he dated knew that and seemed okay with it.
That was high school. Levi never saw himself as book smart like Tommy and Matteo.
Football was his shot at a big future, and if that meant putting everything else second, then so be it.
But when it all went to hell—when he lost his mom, his career, and in a way, his brother soon after—that sweet, adorable guy was lost too.
What would Haddie think of the man he’d become since then? And even more so, why did he care?
“Good evening, everyone!” Principal Crawford’s voice boomed through the gymnasium’s speakers, echoing off the high ceilings.
Haddie gave them both a quick wave and then spun back to face the floor.
“Here we go…” Tommy remarked with a sigh, and he leaned back, resting his elbows on the empty bleacher behind him.
“Welcome back to what I’m sure will be another winning year for the Summertown Muskies.”