Chapter 9
Nine
J oe
The sound of thunder woke Joe and sent him sprawling out of bed and into the bathroom.
“Bathtub, right? That’s where you’re safest in a thunderstorm.
” He thought about calling Marti, but he’d left his damn phone on the bedside table.
He crouched next to the edge of the tub, trying to decide if he needed to be in it.
Maybe he should have grabbed the mattress.
Did tornadoes hit the same spot twice? Within a week?
The unmistakable sound of male laughter filtered into Joe’s apartment and he frowned. Should he go tell them to run for cover? He was about to head for the door since he was supposed to be all responsible and shit now when he realized—
“Fuck.”
The sun was shining brightly through the bedroom window, meaning that rolling thunder he’d just heard was the hoofbeats of a student herd.
God, was this going to be his wakeup call every day?
Sound carried in this old building, apparently, right into Joe’s bedroom.
Maybe it wouldn’t be quite as noisy in the other apartment…
but no, then he’d get the slamming of the doors all day and night.
Joe questioned his life choices while he did a quick round of stretches. He took a lengthy hot shower, and was about to hit start on the small blender he’d packed in his suitcase for his morning protein smoothie, when his phone buzzed.
I’m grabbing coffee, can I get you some?
Joe smiled down at his phone, his irritation gone at the sight of Les’s text.
I told you, you’re going to have to be here in the morning to see what I prefer.
Not that Leslie Payton would be spending the night with him in his current housing situation.
Not with what was likely his whole football team upstairs.
He thought he’d remembered Matty telling him that many of the athletes lived in Higdon House and that a lot of the football players had been there for two weeks already.
Stop it. See you soon?
Joe asked him where they were meeting and Les texted back the administrative building, conference room on the main floor.
Joe hadn’t spent much time in the ad building as a student, and now he was about to attend his first meeting as a faculty member of a college.
Who thinks this is a good idea?
Joe had struggled to put together an appropriate wardrobe for working at a college. Lots of button-down shirts and khakis, a nice stretchy blend that he could move in. He hoped the material would be cool enough during the muggy months and warm enough for winter with the proper undergarments.
That made him snort. Long johns were not exactly what he would have considered desirable undergarments to have.
He’d much prefer something that showed off his hard-earned physique, the one he worked endlessly to maintain.
His main ass et was world-renowned. It had a reputation of its own as the male equivalent to the JLo booty, according to the more salacious corners of the press.
And his ass was running late. He downed the rest of his protein shake, and changed his shirt three times, settling on a slim-fit light-blue collared shirt. If he had a deodorant fail, it would be less likely to show.
The football players were long gone by the time he made it out to the lobby. He paused to take in the potential of the common room. It was a good-sized room. Perhaps in a pinch it could work for a studio. He had his first cheer meeting tomorrow with the returning kids, then it was time to recruit.
Music blared as Matty opened his door wearing only a pair of pink plaid pajama bottoms. And Crocs.
“Oh, hey, Joe! I can call you Joe, right?”
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
“Cool. I forgot to warn you, it gets a little loud when the kids come down en masse like that.”
“I figured that out a few minutes after I thought another tornado was coming through.”
“Oh, ha! That’s funny. Nah, you’d have heard the sirens in town if there was a tornado headed this way. You need some coffee? I made some extra just in case. My mom sends me a craft brew from Seattle. It’s tasty.”
If Joe was going to take coffee from anyone, it would have been Leslie. Better to keep him guessing.
“Thanks, I’m okay. I’ll see ya.”
“Later on, man.” Matty shut his door and turned his music up even louder.
It was country.
Alrighty then.
Joe was stiff and sore from cleaning the day before and wished he would have had the energy for an Epsom soak, but he didn’t have a tub here and he’d been so tired.
Thankfully, he’d packed a set of his favorite sheets and after a shower he fell into bed.
The place still needed a lot of work, and he needed groceries, some less harsh chemicals for cleaning in the future, and some goddamned house plants.
He needed some oxygen, or maybe it was the small town already suffocating him.
His feet carried him on autopilot to the ad building and he took the front steps slowly to avoid that stabbing pain in his knees that nearly knocked him on his ass. He pushed open the front door and spotted Leslie down the hall talking to Barry and another guy, none of whom looked happy.
He’d sounded terrible the previous night.
Joe had talked Leslie through some migraines in the past, but he didn’t recall them being so bad.
Joe had asked him about them but Leslie had blown it off.
“Stop it. You keep after me and I’ll get the wrong idea from you.
” Truth was, there was no wrong idea. As much as Joe fought against settling down, settling for anything, he knew that being with Leslie would be so good.
But Joe had always been selfish, putting himself before Leslie’s wishes time and again.
Leslie deserved better than that, better than a guy who was more worried about how many shows he had left in him than about being a good partner. Leslie was more than Joe deserved.
“Good morning,” he said as he approached the men. Leslie’s smile, while not as intense as usual, was still enough to make Joe giddy.
“Thanks for coming,” Barry said. “Joe, this is Jacob Wright. He’s the publicist for the school.”
Joe shook his hand and figured that the way this guy was looking at him he was thinking about how he could use Joe to gain attention for the school. Joe knew that was part of the reason for being there, but he didn’t like that kind of attention.
“Let’s hear from the adjustor and then I have some ideas,” Jacob said and he gestured for them to all come in and sit around the big conference table.
Barry introduced a bunch of folks and Joe tried to remember them all.
The news was bad. Joe let the numbers pass over his head but they were looking at months, not weeks, before there would be an athletic center of any kind for the teams to use.
That meant they were out a training room as well.
Terrence sat quietly with his arms crossed over his beefy chest during the discussion.
The other coaches had on their best poker faces as well.
“The damage to the structures will be covered, but there likely will not be enough to cover the costs of replacing the fitness equipment as most of what was in there was dated. As for the field, that will take top priority and should be ready in about three to four weeks, if the weather holds, that is. The bleachers can be easily replaced as well. ”
Joe looked to Leslie, but other than a slight line in his forehead, he wasn’t giving anything away.
“Now, what this means,” Barry said, standing up at the head of the table, “is that a lot of our plans will need to be pared down or even postponed until we take care of this. We’ve made arrangements with the high school to use their facilities as needed, and we are also in talks to reschedule some events.
There are PE classes to consider. All of your jobs are secure, that’s a different pot, but things are going to be…
tight. My office will work on budgets with you.
We’re open to discussing any and all ideas. ”
No one spoke. A few of the coaches traded looks.
“May I share my thoughts?” Jacob chimed in.
Barry gestured for him to take the floor.
“Thank you, President Payton. I think we have the real potential to appeal to the alumni and community at large to respond to this disaster. Greenvale is certainly not the first college to experience a natural disaster, and we need to pull upon our strengths and connections and get the media involved. I think it’s a valid way to call attention to our plight. ”
Jacob clasped his hands and looked at Les. “One thing to consider, and I know you weren’t crazy about this idea, Coach Payton—”
“You’re right. It’ll be a distraction.” Les scowled at the PR guy.
Joe frowned. What could be so bad?
“I think we’re all going to have to get comfortable with distraction this fall at the very least. I don’t think a camera crew would be any more distracting than crews working on the felled trees or the construction workers repairing the gym and athletic center.”
Joe’s ears perked up. “Camera crews?”
Jacob grinned at Joe. “We’ve had a request to do a miniseries reality show on the attempts to rebuild the college.
There are networks who are very interested in you and Coach Payton being hired, as well as some of the other more notable staff.
Networks that would spend good money to obtain the rights to this phenomenal story. ”
“That’s not going to happen,” Leslie said. “I told you we don’t need that kind of distraction. I have a brand-new team I’m going to be putting on the field and many of these kids have very little experience. They need all of their focus to be on the game. ”
Joe, on the other hand, was intrigued by the idea. A reality show? It was definitely in his realm of experience. But then he also knew how much Leslie needed to be out of the spotlight to recuperate at times.