Chapter 2 #2
“I won’t keep you. Just… Does your dad still have that apartment to rent?”
“You mean the one above the hardware store where you’d get to see yours truly each and every Saturday and Sunday? The one he wanted to rent to you, sight unseen, and you said thanks but no thanks? Yeah, I think Principal Crawford still has the place.”
Levi groaned, slowing his pace as he neared the town square. He could see the tall, painted sunflowers on the tree stump that survived the tornado the summer before, and the new, live ones—heads tilting up toward the sun—framing the square.
“He already gave me a job. I thought I’d have a couple weeks before the season began to get my bearings…and maybe I wasn’t ready to put my tail between my legs.”
Tommy chuckled. “You know this isn’t like college, right? He can’t hire you to just coach. You’ll have to teach too.”
Levi waved him off, even though Tommy couldn’t see him. “Sure, yeah. I know. P.E. How much harder can it be than what I do on the field?”
“And your license is up to date?”
Levi laughed. “Someone’s sounding an awful lot like their father these days. Yes. The license is up to date. And just because I’ve never actually done the classroom thing doesn’t mean I forgot everything I learned in college.”
That might have been a slight embellishment. But, like he said, how hard could it be?
“Yeah, yeah,” Tommy replied. “I’ve been doing it for ten years, and it still kicks my ass.
Talk to me after the first week is up, and tell me if you still feel the same.
Otherwise, I think the shop could use someone else behind the register during the week.
Speaking of which, the man in question is filling in for me today, so if you pop over right now, I bet you can start unpacking within the hour. ”
Levi sighed, already feeling a weight lift from his chest.
“You’re the best, Commissioner. I owe you one.”
“No way, man,” Tommy replied. “You sent the Bat Signal, and I saved your ass. I think that makes me Bruce for the foreseeable future.”
“You’re not Batman!” a female voice called somewhere in the distance on Tommy’s end.
“Shit,” Levi’s friend added. “I gotta go. We’ll celebrate when I get home.”
“Didn’t we celebrate last night?” Levi asked.
“We’ll celebrate your new place and new job, and…” He paused. “It’s a good thing,” he continued, the playfulness leaving his tone. “You coming home. Try and see it that way.”
And there it was again, the pressure on Levi’s chest that had been there since the university let out last spring and he knew he wouldn’t return in the fall.
“Yeah,” he replied, trying to force a smile into his voice. “Of course it is. Thanks for the help, Bruce.”
“Any time, Five-Oh-One. I better get back to the cabana.”
Tommy ended the call.
Levi glanced down at his attire, a gray T-shirt—now damp with sweat—and red basketball shorts.
Fine for hauling boxes, but what about appealing to your new boss for a place to live?
Sure, he’d known Principal Crawford all his life, but while Tilly Higginson saw Levi as a grown-ass adult who should call her by her first name, Principal Crawford had been Principal Crawford—presiding over the elementary, middle, and high school divisions of their tiny district—since Levi and Tommy were in sixth grade.
He had been Coach while Levi went to Summertown High School and Principal Crawford the few times Levi got himself into some trouble.
Those two monikers were the only options.
He and his best friend’s father were not and would never be on a first-name basis.
He could jog back to his truck in his father’s driveway and try to fish out something else to wear, but he only had access to the formal attire he’d had on last night, and he’d look like more of an idiot walking into a hardware store in that.
So, he squared his shoulders and strode on, mustering the confidence he once had on the field during any number of games.
A bell jingled the second he pushed open the door to Crawford’s Hardware and the man in question looked up from a newspaper spread across the checkout counter.
Seriously? Just like his dad, Coach obviously preferred the printed word to up-to-the-second news.
Was the universe trying to tell Levi he was too reliant on his phone, or was the fatherly vibe just permeating the air today?
“Mr. Rourke,” Tommy’s father crooned with a grin. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
A muscle in Levi’s jaw pulsed as he tried not to bristle at the title of Mister rather than being recognized as a fellow coach himself.
Then again, he was a disgraced coach who was lucky to even have a job at this point, and that job was thanks to the man in front of him, so beggars couldn’t be choosers, or he wouldn’t bite the hand that fed, or whatever other proverb fit his current predicament, especially since he was about to ask for more.
“Coach!” Levi replied, striding forward with his hand outstretched. “It’s good to see you.”
The older man gave Levi’s hand a firm grip and a hearty shake. His salt-and-pepper hair used to be brown, but the guy was probably more fit than others half his age. Levi wondered if he still ran drills with the teams.
Tommy’s father narrowed his eyes. “You’re not here to turn down that job coaching the varsity soccer team now that our Student Services Department has already printed the schedules, are you?”
Levi laughed, even as the thought of a schedule that included anything other than running football plays on the field made him a little nauseous.
“No,” Levi assured him nervously. “I’m grateful for the opportunity. I just kind of have another favor to ask you.”
Coach Crawford crossed his arms over his chest and smiled at Levi with bemusement. “Another favor, huh?” He scratched the white stubble on his chin like they were simply talking about the weather.
Then Levi grinned. “Wait… Tommy put you up to this, right? He texted you I was coming to ask about the apartment and told you to make me sweat it.”
Levi crossed his arms too, both of them in a typical coach’s stance as they eyed their team on the field. Only Coach Crawford did not return the grin. Instead he sighed.
“I hate to burst your bubble, Rourke, but I’ve already got someone upstairs looking at the apartment right now.”
Levi swallowed. “Your place is one of the few available immediately, isn’t it?”
Coach Crawford raised his brows just as the bell jingled over the door behind Levi and a woman spoke as she approached.
“I’d love to take it,” she started, setting a ring of keys down on the counter. “But it’s a little out of my budget. I guess—”
Holy shit.
“Birthday Girl,” Levi said, and the woman’s whole body froze, hand still on the counter, palm covering the keys.
Or maybe he should have said Birthday Ghost.
He hadn’t been angry that she’d left. They were strangers, and maybe she’d gotten cold feet.
No way in hell he’d fault her for that. But the way she’d done it, sending him for ice so she could disappear without a word?
What if something had happened to her? What if…
What if… What if he could just admit that being ghosted like that kinda stung?
Levi traveled a lot as a coach and was no stranger to hotel beds and hotel guests.
But despite her insistence on not disclosing names, something about their short time together had made him think last night might have been different.
But he’d been the only one to feel that, right?
Otherwise she would have at the very least left a note.
Levi rolled his shoulders, attempting to shake off what he was sure was nothing more than a bruised ego.
The woman finally let go of the keys and smoothed nonexistent wrinkles from a fitted pink-and-black running top and matching leggings. He recognized the Under Armour logo and couldn’t keep the corner of his mouth from turning up at this tiny connection to his football world.
She pivoted slightly and finally met his eyes.
“Um, hi, Mr. Um…Tux.” She bit her bottom lip and winced, then mumbled something that sounded like “Merde.”
She hadn’t been wearing anything the last time they’d seen each other. But he wouldn’t remind her of that in front of Coach Crawford.
“Do you kids know each other?” the older man asked, eyeing them with raised brows.
“No!” the woman exclaimed, maybe a little too emphatically for someone who borrowed his Jacuzzi and took off with sixteen dollars’ worth of Swiss chocolate. He figured this warranted acknowledgment that they had—at the very least—met.
“Oh,” Coach Crawford replied. “That’s a shame, seeing how the apartment is a two-bedroom, and if you needed to offset the cost, you could rent it as roommates.
I mean, you will know each other eventually since you’ll both be working for the Summertown School District and coaching the boys’ and girls’ high school soccer teams. At least for the next year, that is.
” He raised a brow and gave them both a knowing look.
Levi wasn’t exactly sure what the guy knew.
“Of course, when I say ‘roommates,’ I mean roommates. With this next year being particularly important to both your futures, I trust none of us want any sort of…entanglements…that could get in the way.”
Her eyes widened, and her mouth fell into an O. Then she took a giant step back as if horrified at the thought of not only being his roommate but also having to work with him.
“I’ll take it, Coach,” Levi told him. “But you’re right about those entanglements.
I don’t think I need to split the rent.” He actually could really use the help with the rent.
But…no. Not with her. They were already—entangled.
He shrugged, eyes still on the woman in front of him, and reached for the keys on the counter.
“Damn,” Coach Crawford interrupted. “Would you look at that? I forgot to take my lunch break. I’m going to head on over to the inn for a quick bite. Go on up and take a look before signing on the dotted line if you’d like, Rourke. I’ll be back in an hour.”
Levi and his stranger from last night watched as Coach Crawford strode out from behind the counter and straight toward the door, flipping the sign to Closed as he marched out into the early-afternoon sun.
“Nice to see you again, Dash. I’m going to go check out my new apartment.” Levi moved to step around her, but she burst into laughter.
“Oh my god!” She pressed a palm against her stomach, still laughing. “Did you just change my nickname to the speedy little kid from The Incredibles?”
Levi halted mid-step and scratched the back of his neck.
And for a second, he didn’t know which made him cringe more: letting on that he’d been at all affected by her vanishing act or that he’d somehow revealed that he was a thirty-two-year-old man who clearly recalled character names from Pixar movies.
“Wait!” she added, holding out her hand as if to stop him.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t tease, and maybe I shouldn’t have snuck out on you without a word last night, but my head really wasn’t in the right space for what we were…
You know? But I am desperate here. My friend Emma’s family owns the inn, and they offered me a room at a great rate, but I can’t live there.
I need my own space that I can decorate and make feel like home, and…
” She squeezed her eyes shut, fisted her hands at her sides, and blew out a long breath.
Then she met his gaze again. “I have nowhere else to go,” she admitted, all amusement gone from her expression.
“I need this apartment, but I can’t afford it on my own.
Please, please, please split the rent with me.
I’ll take the smaller room. I’ll share my Netflix password. I’ll—”
“Okay,” Levi told her, no sign of his bruised ego in sight. Instead he found himself wanting to erase that look of worry from her hazel eyes.
“Really?” she beamed, her eyes turning glassy as she exhaled a shaky breath.
Levi sighed. “Really,” he replied, knowing that if they actually did this, they’d both have to put last night behind them. No way he was messing up this job opportunity or the much-needed recommendation he’d need from Coach Crawford for reinstatement to the NCAA.
“But what almost happened last night?” she added. “That can’t even get close to happening again. Like…ever. I do not date men I work with.”
Levi sighed. Good. They were on the same page. It didn’t matter that he could still picture her in that black dress she wore at the bar…or out of the dress as she climbed dripping out of his tub. From here on out, they were colleagues and roommates, and that was it.
“Like, never,” he countered. “But I do have one condition.” She nodded slowly, and he continued by extending his hand. “We need to introduce ourselves. I’m Levi.”
Her lips parted into a soft smile as she took his hand.
“Nice to meet you, Levi. I’m Haddie.”