Four
Rilee
His eyes smiled a moment before his lips.
A slow careless smile that accompanied the care worn lines around those handsome eyes.
The smile in them almost let me forget the shape of them and how closely they resembled my father’s.
But the dusting of scruff on his cheeks and chin were all Craig.
My dad shaved every day of my life. Craig’s rugged carefree manner matched the jeans and button up he wore, and that leather coat lined with white sheepskin.
Carefree but not careless. Even reaching to pick up his coffee cup from the table was measured.
The coffee cup, the metal table, the sun in my eyes and the chill in the air–I was still dreaming of him!
Even jumbled up, the dream repeated itself all night long.
After I’d picked out that blue pot, I thought I’d be done with Craig, but he’d been so interested in those bonsai.
It was like seeing a confused little kid, or maybe a freshman, they are totally clueless.
My dad would have hidden his confusion, like he concealed most things.
But Craig was different than I’d expected.
Less sure of himself despite his physical presence.
I’d fallen into bed thinking about the color of his beard and ended up back at the table with him.
That had to be normal, he was on my mind as I was drifting off, why wouldn’t I dream about him?
But it’s the same dream. The same place.
And now that I’d seen him up close he was definitely who I’d been dreaming about the last few weeks. Even before the basketball game.
Craig said something I couldn’t hear over the dull roar filling my ears.
The words were always just out of reach.
I stretched out my fingers to touch his scarred hand and he took them.
While I couldn’t hear what he was saying, the firmness of his fingers was reassuring as my thumb traced the spidery lines on the back of his hand.
His presence was reassuring. And I wanted to tell him something.
The words weren’t there but they wanted to come out, building up in my chest. I opened my mouth to make a sound and startled awake.
Sweat soaked my bed but I shivered from the chill of my clammy skin.
Tangled in my bedding, I felt icky. Snaking an arm out I checked my alarm.
It was too early to get up and too late to fall back asleep.
My legs were full of restless tension that wasn’t going anywhere.
If I didn’t do something about it, today would be a horror show.
Why wouldn’t my mind disconnect from this guy?
I barely knew him. I needed a hard workout. Something to totally blow me out.
In less than an hour the school’s weight room would be full of teenage boys which I really couldn’t put up with right now.
It was also too dark and icy for a run. There was a drop-in gym around the corner I’d used a few times which would work.
Pulling myself out of bed, I slicked my hair back into a ponytail and put on something warm.
Before work always seemed to be the busiest gym time.
The place was uncomfortably full which was why I preferred to use the school’s weights after work.
Gyms could either be great or awful depending on who was there.
There was always a class of guys that thought women in workout clothes wanted to be picked up.
The treadmills were full so I headed to an elliptical machine.
I’d wanted the pound pound pound of a good run to shake the funk out of my head but would have to settle for a high heart rate.
I tried to focus on next week’s basketball game and what I knew about the team.
What our girls needed to work on. When I got to thinking about Jackie Mace, I slipped right back to seeing her beside her uncle.
Which led me to how he looked across the table from me, which led me to the ever‐present question of why I couldn’t get this damn guy out of my head.
I didn’t even know him. I didn’t want to know him.
I couldn’t know him. He was Jackie Mace’s uncle and she was my student.
The elliptical was not doing it for me. I couldn’t get the machine spinning fast enough to stop my brain from working.
Slowing to a stop I left the machine and grabbed some free weights.
Unease still coursed through my legs and I settled into some lunges to burn it away.
My thighs went wobbly and my knee sank to the mat when I saw him, in real life, not just in my head.
Craig was standing at the pull‐down station in a pair of green gym shorts and a gray t-shirt.
A plastic contraption wrapped around the ankle and calf of one leg.
His socks were pulled up to his knees like an 80s basketball player, but they kept the brace from resting against his skin.
Staring at the plastic I remembered Craig’s stiff walk across the basketball court, and his irregular gait through Mace and Maize.
I’d spent enough time coaching to have seen all kinds of braces on knees, elbows, occasionally a wrist, but watching the substantial swell and ripple of his muscles as he pulled on the tower, the brace felt intrusive.
Even from across the room, as Craig pulled down on the rope lifting the weight stack, the roll of his flexor muscles across his forearm was visible.
They popped into definition in a way that sent an unexpected rush through me.
That was a man who had strong hands. My mind lingered on those hands and what he could do with them.
What was I doing?
I tried looking away, focusing on my lunges, but my racing heartbeat wouldn’t leave me alone.
When he left the machine and moved over to a bench and began doing some curls, I forced myself to stare at the ground.
There was a worn spot on the mat that looked like a seagull.
Well it looked like one if you concentrated really hard, and I was concentrating hard on that spot and nothing else.
“Hey, I didn’t expect to see you here.”
The seagull vanished at the sound of his voice. He was standing right there. It would be utterly rude to ignore him and I could already see the toes of his shoes.
“Oh, hi. I didn’t see you.” That was so dumb. I’d been trying not to see him for half an hour. I’d spent way too much time around teenagers not to recognize the idiocy coming out of my mouth.
I must have successfully hidden my awkwardness because he asked, “So, would you like to get a cup of coffee sometime?”
No. I could barely mutter five words. What would happen if I was expected to make real conversation.
And what would I say? Are you tired, because you’ve been running through my dreams all night?
Gag. It was a horrible idea. But why was he in my dreams?
And not just once but all the time. And in real life, too.
I kept running into this guy. He was standing and I was kneeling in a lunge which was super awkward so I set the dumbbells on the floor and stood up.
Glancing at the clock for safety I realized that while staring at the mat I’d let time get away from me. I was going to be late for school just fitting a shower in, and I needed a shower. He was still waiting for an answer, and I didn’t need him.
“Now’s not really a great time,” I croaked out. Next to us, an over–muscled blockhead was watching and a sneer crept across his face as I spoke. What a jerk.
Craig was nicer than I deserved. “Oh. Yeah, that makes sense. You’ve got work.”
The blockhead’s sneer grew wider. I wanted to punch his over–chiseled face.
“Really,” I said, picking up the dumbbells.
And just because I couldn’t knock Blockhead flat I said, “But we could tomorrow. There’s no practice on Friday.
I’d be free around four–thirty.” Take that jerk. Oh, shit, I’d said yes.
“Well great. There’s a Starbucks on Division not very far from school.”
I knew it. It was convenient, good parking, and popular with high school kids who would see the two of us together. Nope. “Actually, there’s a place on First near the Fox theater, just off Monroe. Let’s go there.”
“Sure. See you just after four–thirty tomorrow.”
“Okay. Great.” It wasn’t great. Why was I saying great? “Well, I’ve got to run or I’m going to be late.”
“Sure. See you tomorrow.”
That was so awkward. I racked the dumbbells and Craig shuffled back to the tower for another set of pull downs. Part of me wanted to watch him but if I did I’d lose the time I had left to clean up.
I hurried home and essentially walked through the shower, towel drying my hair and throwing on clothes.
The wet hair would give away to first period that I’d had a hurried morning but there wasn’t much I could do about it.
Besides, the rush kept my mind off what I’d just agreed to.
Why would I want more Craig in my life? It would be healthier to keep those eyes as far away from me as possible.
The wide‐open shape of those eyes, touched with lines of age, were so like other eyes that were full of deceit.
How many straight‐faced lies had Dad told us?
All the time his eyes, broad and bright, hiding his deceit.
I didn’t need more of that in my life, but I’d just opened that door.
What did I know about this guy anyway? He was just an image inside my head, an archetype.
One that wouldn’t go away. That wasn’t any healthier than my mother putting up with a man incapable of telling the truth.
First period we talked about biomes and I assigned reading and comprehension paragraphs.
By second my hair was dry and I’d mostly forgotten about Craig.
Well, he wasn’t front and center in my thoughts.
Instead, I did my best to keep Liam William’s attention but all he wanted to do was moon over the girl sitting two rows up.
He had it bad for her, like he’d woken up one day and realized girls were interesting and no one was more interesting than her.
She was so wrapped up in what other girls thought about her clothes she was oblivious to him and he was too proud to make a fool of himself in front of the other guys by doing something blatantly obvious.
Instead, he stared at the back of her head and the profile of her face all period long.
It was painful. So painful that I must have still had an unrequited look on my face when Mia and Fiona sauntered in.
“Who is on your mind?” Mia whistled as she looked me over.
“Liam Williams.” I glanced around to make certain the students were gone. “He is hopelessly smitten.” Fiona snorted and Mia shook her head.
“That look is not a sordid student look. It’s personal,” Mia said, setting her coffee cup on my desk.
“Who did you meet between yesterday and today?” Fionna asked. “Because I know you were here way too late.”
I don’t know what was worse, that I was so transparent or that Craig had gotten so far under my skin. “Nobody.”
“Nobody better be his name because you’re a bad liar,” Fiona barked.
That was a virtue I’d always encouraged. If you don’t need to lie it doesn’t matter if the dishonesty is obvious. Because in the end it always comes out. “A guy from the gym,” I relented. “We’re just meeting up for coffee tomorrow afternoon.”
Fiona let out a sigh I didn’t know she’d been holding. “From the gym is good. You spend so much time in this building I was worried you were going to end up like Jeremy Hansen.”
Jeremy Hansen. Melony Mickleson. The district fraternization policy.
And my cup of coffee. Craig was Jackie’s uncle, and Hansen got in trouble because Melony was living with a student.
Totally different situation, Craig was just an uncle.
One who I’d never seen before so they couldn’t be close.
I wrapped myself in the ambiguity of the situation because nothing was going on.
It was just a cup of coffee with a guy who I kept dreaming about against my will.
“No worries there,” I chuckled. “I hardly know the guy, and I’m just being nice really.”
“Well, you’ll have to tell us how it goes because an exciting Friday night for Silas and I these days is falling asleep in front of the TV,” Mia said.
Fiona checked her phone, mindful of the break.
“You’ve got to be careful of that, Mia. You’re going to be exhausted for years but you have to carve out some ‘you’ time.
And yea I know everyone always says it and that it’s impossible, but if you don’t prioritize, when the kids are gone you’ll wonder where ‘you’ went to. ”
Turning to me, Fiona added, “I registered us for the district’s first–aid class.
I noticed you needed to reup your certification.
If you ever want to move up to that head coaching slot you are going to need more than the basic certification.
And it’s possible Maggie Velasquez is retiring.
Or transferring. Just a rumor. I assume you’d heard she was looking around. ”
“You are the world’s biggest gossip.” I said, more than pleased not to talk about me, but sad Maggie may have finally decided to move on. She’d toyed with the idea for a few years now.
“Just looking out for you,” Fiona said, picking up her coffee cup. “Someone has to make sure you’re moving up in the world. Well, gotta go. See you around.”
I should have been angry at Fiona’s pushiness. Everyone needed the first aid training for their teaching certificate but head coaches took it yearly. But why not take the course? My weekends were sadly just full of grading and prep work.
Mia offered me a very tired smile as she made for the door.
The crush of the kids in the hall was frightening.
My third period students began drifting in and I tried to put things in order for class but there was a giddiness I couldn’t quite extinguish.
It had to be the lack of sleep and the exertion from this morning.