Chapter 2
TWO
Olivia
There’s a trick to keeping a place like the Maple Creek Youth Center running when the roof leaks, the budget is a perpetual dare, and the county accountant keeps reminding you that “passion is not a funding source.”
It’s not magic. It’s triage.
You learn to spot the bleeding and stop it quickly, even if the bandage is duct tape and a prayer. You learn what can wait and what can’t. You learn that smiling at donors requires the same muscles as gritting your teeth at a city council meeting.
And you definitely learn not to get distracted by athletes with movie-star smiles and a talent for trouble.
“Olivia?” Jada sticks her head into my office and lifts her eyebrows toward the lobby. “He’s here. And he’s hot,” she whispers conspiratorially.
Of course he is.
I close the spreadsheet I’ve been wrestling with for an hour—the one that somehow insists our utilities bill is a hydra that grows two new line items every time I cut one—and take a breath.
I remind myself that this is temporary. A week, maybe two, and the Thunder Team will remember they’re a professional team, not a frat house, and they’ll stop sending me assignments disguised as men.
“Send him in,” I say.
He doesn’t wait to be sent. CJ Morgan saunters into my office like he owns it, grin turned up to eleven, Thunder hoodie unzipped over a T-shirt that reads I STOP PUCKS (AND HEARTS).
The backward cap is navy, the jawline is annoyingly symmetrical, and the eyes are the reckless blue of a summer storm.
He is every warning label I’ve learned to heed since I was nineteen and thought potential could pay rent.
And yet I’m instantly drawn to him.
I clear my throat, shaking my head slightly at the wayward thought.
“Afternoon, Director Walker,” he says, bracing a forearm on my doorframe.
“It’s morning,” I tell him drily.
“Right.” He flops into the chair across from my desk and grins like he’s immune to consequence. It’s an expression I recognize from some of the teenagers who show up here for the first time, all swagger and jokes, because it’s easier than admitting you’re scared.
What does he have to be scared about?
No! Don’t show interest in him. He’s here to volunteer, and we need to stay focused on the center.
“First things first,” I say, sliding a clipboard across to him.
“We’re a mandatory reporter site. You’ll read and sign our policies.
Phones stay away when you’re working with the kids.
No posting, no filming, no going live. If you see something unsafe, tell a staff member before you try to fix it yourself.
We do not need a lawsuit because you decided to be Spider-Man. ”
“That’s slander, I’m clearly more of a Deadpool,” he says, picking up the pen. Then, at my expression, he sobers. “Understood.”
“Three days a week, after school until close. You’ll assist wherever we need. And you’ll be on time.”
“I’m very punctual,” he says, signing.
“Your coach disagreed.”
That earns me the ghost of a wince. Good. A pulse of accountability under the grin.
I stand. “Let’s get you introduced.”
The gym is loud, almost deafeningly so. Laughter ricochets off cinderblock walls; a ball thuds against the rim; the ping of an ancient foosball table sounds like a wind-up toy wheezing its last breath.
On one side, two tutors coax fractions out of seventh graders who look personally betrayed by math.
In the corner, a pair of sisters hunch over a laptop, arguing about whether their coding project should feature a pink background or a glittery pink one.
“Hey, Miss O!” Malik calls, dribbling a basketball so fast it’s a blur. “We got next?”
“You’ve had next twice,” I say, and his friends hoot because fairness is a currency here, and I try to keep it stable. “Give the little ones a turn.”
Malik rolls his eyes and then notices the man beside me. “Yo. Is that—”
“Language,” I say automatically.
“—CJ Morgan,” he finishes, eyes widening. “For real?”
“The one who chugged the death shake,” another boy adds, awestruck. “My brother showed me the video.”
I look at CJ.
He lifts his hands. “In my defense, it seemed like a good idea before it got warm.”
“Nothing seems like a good idea when it gets warm,” I tell him. “Welcome to the gym.”
CJ spends the next thirty minutes proving me wrong about some things and very right about others.
He’s effortless with the kids, too effortless.
He flips a puck from his pocket into his palm and shows two fifth graders how to angle their wrists as if he’s been teaching forever.
He laughs with them, never at them. He crouches at eye level with a kid who has a stutter and waits patiently until the words come. He remembers names alarmingly fast.
He also turns everything into a bit, a dare, a gag. When he starts hyping a “half-court Hail Mary for a king-size Snickers,” I step in.
“No wagers,” I say.
“It’s a candy bar.”
“It’s the principle.”
He sighs theatrically. “You must be fun at parties.”
“I’m excellent at parties that pay for our electric bill,” I say, and nod toward the storage closet. “Come help me with the chairs.”
“Is that a metaphor?” he asks hopefully.
I ignore the way my whole body warms. “No,” I say dryly.
We lug folding chairs across the gym for the family reading night we host on Thursdays. He takes three stacks to my one like he’s showing off, and I refuse to be grateful for how quickly that finishes the job. Gratitude can be as dangerous as any crush if you let it slip its leash.
“Hey, Miss O!” A small figure skids to a stop near us. Bea is eight, hair done in a dozen small twists that jut like exclamation points around her face. “Kayla won’t let me use the computer, and I need it to email my teacher because I got my book report, and she said it needs more conclusion.”
“More conclusion,” CJ repeats solemnly. “I hear that a lot.”
I give him a look before turning to Bea. “You can use my office computer for five minutes. Then you share with Kayla. Deal?”
She nods and looks at CJ like he’s a constellation. “You’re the goalie. You blocked that guy’s slap shot with your face.”
“Mask,” he says, hand over his heart. “Very important differentiation.”
“You’re funny,” she announces, like she’s discovered something useful. “Do you know how to type fast?”
“I am the fastest typist in all the land.”
“Faster than Miss O?”
He hesitates.
“Good answer,” I say.
Bea giggles. I send her toward my office, then catch CJ watching me. Not like the other men who’ve looked at me while I told them what to do—annoyed, defensive, calculating, but curious, but like he’s counting puzzle pieces and finding a picture that surprises him.
“You grew up here?” he asks as we head for the supply shelves.
“In Maple Creek? Mostly,” I reply. “Not in this building. The center used to be a church basement with folding walls. We moved in here after the city decommissioned the rec center.”
“And you’re… what? An angel in flats who keeps the whole thing from collapsing?”
“Angels don’t write grant proposals at two in the morning,” I say, tugging down a box of markers. “We do what we can with what we have. The rest is hustle.”
He leans a hip against the shelf and studies me. I feel it even before I meet his gaze—the shift. Jokes as armor, meeting someone whose armor is competence.
“Okay, Hustle,” he says. “What’s the worst fire you’re putting out this week?”
I don’t owe him honesty, but the way he asks—no pity, no fix-it swagger—makes the truth easier than a deflection.
“The worst? Our lease is up next summer, and the landlord can get more rent from a developer who wants pickleball courts. So, I’m trying to raise a down payment to buy the building before he sells it out from under us.
Also, the tutoring grant we used for math fellows was cut.
And the HVAC died on Monday and came back to life like Lazarus on Tuesday, so I’m praying it keeps believing in miracles. ”
He whistles low and falls quiet for a moment.
“Pickleball,” he finally says with the gravity of a diagnosis. “Brutal.”
A laugh escapes me before I can stop it. It’s small and disloyal to my principles. It’s also human. “You asked.”
“I did.” He nods.
For a moment, the gym narrows to the two of us and the unglamorous music of community: sneakers squeaking, pencils scraping, the clatter of plastic cups by the water cooler. His grin softens into something like attentiveness. It’s dangerous, that look. It says he’s capable of more than chaos.
“Hey, CJ!” Malik calls from the free-throw line. “You in or you scared?”
CJ straightens. The grin flips back on like a stadium light. He cups his hands around his mouth. “I fear nothing but bees, tax season, and your left hook, Mal. Give me that ball.”
He joins them. I go back to the office where Bea is pecking at the keyboard like a suspicious chicken.
“You don’t have to write ‘Dear Ms. Tran’ four times,” I say gently, pointing. “One salutation is plenty. Then your paragraph, then your conclusion.”
“I’m adding more conclusion,” Bea informs me, a focused furrow between her eyebrows.
“Of course you are.”
When I step into the hallway again, Jada is leaning against the doorjamb with two paper cups of coffee and a look on her face that says I’m about to have to be a person, not a director.
“So,” she says, offering me one, “our team-ordered helper is… something.”
“He’s a lot,” I say, accepting the cup. “But the kids like him.”
“The kids like cotton candy, too. Doesn’t mean it’s nutritious.”
“Fair.” I blow on my coffee. “We’ll see if he shows up tomorrow. Consistency is nutrition.”
Jada hums. “And you’re good?”
I know what she’s asking. Not, “Are you good at your job?” We both know the answer to that. She means, “Are you okay with a hurricane in a hat blowing through your routines? Are you steady enough to make space for someone who upends your rules?”
“I’m good,” I say. “I don’t have time not to be.”