Chapter 17
Levi and Haddie stood in front of their teams, their eyes shining with excitement.
It was Friday afternoon, and the sun was just beginning to set over the horizon.
Haddie couldn’t believe they’d pulled the fundraiser together in only a week and that they had a roster of customers prepaid and ready to arrive.
Haddie stepped forward, in her purple Muskies soccer T-shirt and shorts, grateful for the lingering warm weather even midway through September.
“Okay, everyone!” she called, her voice clear and strong. “This is how it’s going to work. Levi and I are in charge of the hose. You need your bucket filled? You come to us. You need your bucket refilled? Again, you come to us. Do you get where I’m going here?”
“Yes, Coach…” they sang in disappointed unison. Haddie had no doubt there would be at least one, if not several, water fights at some point during the day, but it wouldn’t be because a student got their hands on the hose.
“Your assigned group will be given a bucket, a sponge, and a stack of car-drying towels. Levi and I will be around supervising, but it’s up to you guys to get the job done. Got it?”
This earned her a slightly more enthusiastic, “Yes, Coach!” Haddie squinted through her sunglasses at the line of cars already entering the parking lot.
Adrenaline coursed through her like electricity.
If her first fundraiser was as successful as it was easy, she might have a real shot at saving the soccer program.
“You heard the boss, everyone!” Levi called out. “Let’s get moving. The car wash is officially open!”
The teams quickly got to work, some of them already flinging wet, soapy towels at each other to the surprise of absolutely no one, least of all, Haddie.
Haddie and Levi moved between them, offering tips here and there on how to be quick and efficient but also thorough.
As they worked, Haddie couldn’t help but steal glances at her roommate, admiring the way he joked with his students like they were bros but also commanded their respect when he needed to get them back in line.
She caught Levi looking too and flashed him a knowing grin, a spark of something passing between them.
They weren’t flirting because that would be ridiculous.
And dangerous. They’d established and reestablished that too many times to count.
It had been almost two weeks since the night of the storm, and Haddie still couldn’t stop thinking about how close they’d come to kissing in their bathroom…
how if Levi hadn’t stepped on the brakes, Haddie wasn’t sure she could have.
Just look at the man, for Pete’s sake! She’d have to be a troll hiding under a bridge not to notice Levi’s own Muskies tee ride up when he used the hose to spray down one of the taller SUVs.
Was Haddie supposed to not look at the patch of exposed skin above the elastic band of his shorts?
His looks weren’t the real problem though, were they? He’d protected her from the storm. He’d flat out told her that he wanted her to feel safe, and with a friend like him on the other side of her bedroom wall—a friend, dammit—how could she not feel safer than she had in years?
That was the problem. Levi Rourke was beautiful inside and out, and that is one lethal combination.
It was Sarah Ramirez, Haddie’s star goalie, who waved her hand in front of her coach’s face to interrupt her gaze.
“Um…Coach?” Sarah asked, and it sounded like maybe not the first time she’d tried to get Haddie’s attention.
“Huh?” Haddie asked, blinking several times before her vision focused on the student in front of her instead of the man a few cars away.
“Oh. My. God.” Sarah said softly. “You were totally checking Coach Rourke out!”
Haddie felt her face flush as she scoffed. “I was not!” She let out a nervous laugh, sounding like the guiltiest guilty to ever guilty.
“Coach Martin!” Sarah replied. “You are sweet on Coach Rourke! I knew it!”
Haddie rolled her eyes. “We’re colleagues,” Haddie insisted. “And roommates who are just friends. Also, I don’t know why I’m explaining this to you. A student shouldn’t be making inappropriate assumptions about two faculty members.”
“There is nothing in the Summertown High School Policy and Procedure Handbook that says students cannot speculate about two consenting adults possibly being sweet on each other.”
Haddie’s mouth fell open. “You read that?”
Sarah groaned. “You made us all sign off saying that we did!”
Haddie laughed. “I guess I didn’t think you all actually did it.”
Sarah’s eyes widened. “Wait, wait, wait, wait, WAIT. Did you say that you and Coach Rourke live together?”
Warning alarms sounded in Haddie’s head. Sarah already knew she was full of shit, and now Haddie was adding more fuel to the fire by letting it slip that she and Levi were roommates.
“Platonically!” Haddie whisper-shouted so no other students would hear.
But deep down, Haddie knew their relationship was teetering on a line between platonic and something more. Living with Levi started out awkward, then turned to something comfortable, but lately was starting to feel like torture, all thanks to a stupid broken window.
Tommy’s uncle Pete came up to the apartment the next day and measured the glass, and less than twenty-four hours later, she had a brand-new window, and the tree culprit was trimmed.
That meant Haddie only had to suffer two nights on the couch, tormented by the muffled sounds of a naked Levi tossing and turning in his bed while she tried to sleep.
Okay, nearly naked, but what was left to the imagination had been haunting her dreams ever since.
And now those dreams were a waking nightmare.
“And what do you mean you knew it?” Haddie asked Sarah.
Her student shrugged. “There’s just some of us on the team who’ve been speculating, but we had no idea you guys lived together!”
“Who lives together?” Teddy Kostas asked as he strolled over with a noticeably empty bucket.
“Coach and Coach,” Sarah informed him, and Haddie groaned.
“No shit!” Teddy exclaimed. “Go, Coach Rourke!”
Haddie shuddered. “Teddy, I am going to pretend you did not just say that and forbid you from ever saying it again. Sarah? If I had begged you not to tell Teddy a second before he showed up, would you have complied?”
Sarah pursed her lips and shook her head. “This is too good not to share.”
Haddie filled Teddy’s bucket while she pondered the situation.
“What’s it going to take to have you two keep your mouths shut about this?
” she asked. “Not that I need to defend my purely platonic friendship with Coach Rourke to either of you, but if the rest of your teammates find out, the focus of our practices will no longer be the games, and I’m pretty sure you want to continue winning games…
” She glared at Sarah. “And you probably want to start winning games, correct?” This time she directed her attention at Teddy.
“Harsh, Coach,” Teddy replied with a sigh.
“The truth hurts, but she’s got a point,” he told Sarah.
“Guys my age have zero maturity when it comes to shit like this. I should know. I’m a guy my age, and my brain is already on overdrive with totes inappropriate speculations.
” Haddie gasped, and Teddy held up his hands in defense.
“What? I didn’t say, ‘Go, Coach Rourke,’ again! ”
Haddie groaned. She’d brought this on herself, and now she needed to fix it.
“Please, you two. I really need you to keep our living situation in the vault.” If a handful of students were speculating about the two of them after barely a month of school, how long would it be before they were the talk of the district?
Or even the town? Haddie needed to shut this down before it went any further.
“If you do this for me, I’ll…” She sighed. “I’ll buy you both coffee for a week.”
Sarah raised her brows. “Well, this just got interesting.”
“I know, right?” Teddy agreed with a dude bro laugh. “I was ready to comply just based on the whole respect-your-elders thing my mom is always telling me, but I’ll take free caffeine.”
Respect your elders? Haddie didn’t even know where to begin with that one. But this wasn’t about her ego. It was about protecting her privacy and Levi’s too.
“Fine,” Sarah replied, but Haddie could see the wheels turning in her head. “But we get to choose the beverage type, size, and when it is delivered.”
Haddie’s mouth fell open. But then she reminded herself that she was the grown-up here…or the elder with authority that they both needed to respect.
“This is how it’s going to go down,” she told them.
“The elementary school starts earlier than the high school, so I will have your drinks made to order and waiting for you on a chair outside my classroom door. If you want the drinks fresh from the coffee shop, you’ll be at my door at eight sharp.
If you order iced and don’t mind it a little watered down or hot and don’t mind a little cool off, pop by before first period.
You’ll email me your five orders by Sunday evening, and after that, no changes, take backs, or swaps. Got it?”
Teddy stood at attention and gave her a salute. “Got it, Coach!”
Sarah held her gaze for a couple of beats more before letting out a breath and saying, “Got it, Coach.” But the lilt in her voice and the glint in Sarah’s eye set off a tiny alarm in the back of Haddie’s mind.
Something told her this wasn’t her goalie’s first rodeo when it came to blackmail, and that was both impressive and terrifying, especially since Haddie thought blackmail was only something that happened in fiction.
“Okay, then,” Haddie said. “Your bucket is full, so get back to work.”
Teddy saluted her again and grabbed the bucket by the handle. “Got it, Coach!” he said and took off back to his and Sarah’s station. That was when Haddie realized that Sarah had approached her before Teddy showed up with the bucket.
“Did you need something else, Sarah?” Haddie asked.
Sarah gave her a mischievous smile. “Nope,” she said, then spun on her heel and sauntered away.
“Shit,” Haddie mumbled, and then she shrieked as a blast of icy water sprinkled the back of her tank. She spun to find Levi absently staring at the sky as he refilled another group’s bucket, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Don’t be flirty, she silently warned him, hoping he might get the hint.
But when she glanced to where Teddy and Sarah were working with their latest car-wash customer, she found Sarah staring right back over the frames of her sunglasses.
From here on out, Haddie and Levi would have to watch their every move because as long as they were on school grounds or at a school event, someone would be watching them.