3. Kourt with a “K”
three
Kourt with a “K”
H er reaction makes me laugh. The woman’s blue eyes flare wide with surprise, almost like a cartoon character’s. Amusing, that’s what she is.
Maybe it’s the shock of being run over out of the blue by a miniature vehicle, but I can’t help but be a little mesmerized watching her glance over her shoulder at Helen and turn to face me, stuttering, “ Kuh ... Kourt? With a K? Like I’m Erika with a K?”
Blink, blink, blink.
I give her a thumbs up with a grin I can’t quash. “Exactly. Kourt with a K.”
She’s trying to write my name on the back of a thin paper label she peeled from a can, cradling it in the palm of her trembling hand. Her lashes keep fluttering as she bites her lower lip, staring at the pen in her hand, mumbling, almost to herself, something about, “Sign.”
She’s a deer in headlights.
“Sign?” I dip my chin, locking my gaze on her, to help her focus.
She peers up at me then looks left and right, maybe for a place to run.
Blink, blink.
“Uh, I didn’t see a street sign. Sorry. I need your name and the street where it happened.”
“Kourt McClain. Third Street.”
She freezes and squints up at me in disbelief, then nods and goes back to scribbling. Fixating on her face, I zero in on those lashes. The longest fucking eyelashes I’ve ever seen… they’re paired with long, wild, wavy, almost-black hair that falls past her shoulders.
Long, luscious lashes.
“Are those things fake?” Dammit. It just tumbles out of my mouth like the cans rolling down the hill.
She cuts her gaze from the label in her hand to meet my eyes, then tucks her chin to peer at her chest—and her face comes back to mine with a look of horror.
It hits me— She thinks I was talking about her tits.
Her cheeks flame crimson. “I beg your pardon?”
You’d think I kicked a kitten.
“The lashes. You have the longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen.” And those might be the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen . “Are you wearing contacts?”
She blows a disgusted sharp breath. “Of course not. Do they look like I glued them on my face? Really? And I assure you I don’t need contacts. I just don’t know how to drive a stick.”
Before I can pull my foot out of my mouth, Helen intervenes. “Kourt, Erika is Josephine’s great-niece.”
“Ahh.” I tilt my head back. I should’ve known. Quirky begets quirky. “Blitzen’s very own eccentric’s phantom great-niece does exist.” I offer my hand. “Heard about you. An ad executive from Chicago, right? Nice to meet you, Erika with a K.”
She studies my hand as if I’m offering her a bottle of strychnine—and for the umpteenth time since our untimely meeting minutes earlier, her over-reaction pulls a smile from me. I can’t help it.
Nothing half-assed about this one. Her every emotion is on her sleeve for the world to see. Animated and unvarnished.
“I don’t bite, Erika.” Although given a chance, I might…
Her lips twist as she stares down at my hand and mutters, “That’s the biggest hand I’ve ever seen.” She tilts her chin haughtily to meet my gaze. “Guess I should ask if it’s fake.”
“Every inch is real.”
Helen harrumphs, “Okay, and because this just keeps getting weirder—he’s a basketball player. Or was. Kourt’s our basketball coach.”
“At the high school?” Erika asks. “As in Basketball Kourt .” She laughs wickedly at her own joke. “Get it?” She smiles at Helen before returning to me.
“Got it.”
Since I was ten .
“I also teach history and driver’s ed. I’d be glad to give you a lesson in driving a stick shift.” Among other things.
Helen clears her throat. “The Blitzers are state champions.”
For whatever reason, neither one of us can tear our eyes away from the other.
Poor Helen’s trying to figure out what the hell’s going on.
So am I.
I glance at my watch. “I’m late. I’ve got to round up these cans and get to practice. Nice to meet you, Erika. Helen, later.”
“Well, look at you.” Kelsey Waverly smiles at me when I walk into the cafeteria, carting the recovered box of canned goods from the coffee shop’s donation drop. She tilts her head at a table in the corner. “You can set it over there.”
“Got some scratch and dents in this batch,” I announce as I lug the box that’s damn near as big as Kelsey.
She jumped at the chance to chair our Christmas food drive. Lucky me. The food drive has always been my thing. Means a lot to me, my students and the town. Most people have no idea how much that food is needed this time of year. They’d be surprised what neighbors of theirs are on the list for it.
Kelsey’s made the most of making me her collection pack mule. Any excuse to throw us together.
“That’s okay,” she chirps. “The food bank accepts scratch and dents.”
I neglect to tell our single librarian and Chairwoman of the Canned Food Drive how they got scratched and dented. Not going into that story.
She hit me with her frigging car. Had it been anything but an old Beetle, had she not been stalled heading uphill, I might be in the hospital.
The box lands on the table with a thud.
Kelsey glances up from her clipboard with a needy look in her eyes.
She’s been trying to get me to notice her for years.
Trouble is, I have noticed her. Ash blonde, bouncy and cute, if not hot in her own way, but…
I don’t know. Not interested? It could be because I’d have to see her every day at work.
“That’s from the coffee shop, right?”
“Yep.”
Kelsey scribbles a check mark on the sign in sheet and cuts her eyes to me with her neck craned back so far, it has to hurt.
I hit six foot two when I was in the tenth grade and kept growing.
Me dating Kelsey would be like Paul Bunyan going out with a platinum blonde garden gnome in navy blue eyeliner.
Kelsey’s hot in the, I was a Blitzen cheerleader kind of way.
The problem is… she still looks like one.
She’s in her early thirties but looks and behaves freakishly like a student.
Okay. It’s not the height thing. She’s five-foot-two—I’m certain we could make that work. It’s just… this woman’s entire vibe suggests she fled Kentucky for Bama Rush last week, as opposed to having been our high school librarian for the last six years.
That’s not me sorority shaming. She just reads nightmarishly young. And nothing I do seems to detour her.
“Thanks for helping, Coach. It means a lot.” Her grey eyes roam my face. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t stepped up to help me.”
Umm… what we did last year when I helped before you were chairperson. This is becoming uncomfortable as hell.
“No problem. The boys look forward to it every year. We’ve got football, basketball, and track involved. If they’re in athletics, they’re helping feed those with hardships. ’Tis the season, and we’re aiming to break last year’s record.”
As I head for the gym, Kelsey calls out to my back. “Speaking of breaking last year’s record… getting down to the qualifying games.”
I turn to see her brows shifted high with anticipation.
“We lost three good seniors last year. It’s still early. We’ll see.”
“Well, good luck next Friday night. Will I see you at the town meeting next week?”
I moan. “I forgot.” Yeah, it’s definitely not the height thing. It’s this. Pretending to be interested in basketball… memorizing my schedule.
“You better not forget. We’ve got lots riding on that meeting.” She twists her vintage Tiffany charm necklace at me.
Yes, Kelsey. Got it. You see me every day at school, more than the norm for the food drive, and you are guaranteeing you will see me at my upcoming basketball game and the town hall meeting. This is precisely why we do not date. She’s good people and I would never hurt her feelings, but— goddamn.
I leave the cafeteria and head for practice with my thoughts ripped from my brush with death and Kelsey’s death grip, to the bigger problem at hand.
If our volunteer fire department doesn’t get a new truck by the end of the first quarter, we’ll lose our accreditation.
If we lose our state accreditation, everyone’s property insurance will be unaffordable.
Not a popular position to be in as assistant chief.
But fire trucks cost money. Lots of money. The town meeting next week is to brainstorm ideas for a fund-raising drive.
A shrill whistle brings me to reality as I step into the gym.
Never do I tire of that sound. This place is more home to me than my house. I played my first game on this court when I was fifteen. I went from Blitzen to the University of Tennessee on a basketball scholarship.
Thinking about what brought me back here, all the reasons that don’t matter anymore, I still don’t seem to want to get away from it.
The smell of leather, the echoes of basketballs bouncing off hardwood, the sound of players running bleachers, their shoes squeaking across the gym… the crowds, the buzzers— this is where I live.
“Defense!” my assistant coach, Trent Holcomb, claps his hands at the players. “Huddle up. We’re working on zone defense today! Teams of three—”
I’m tired of fighting him on this. “Why are you wasting time practicing zone?” I’m keeping my voice down. The players don’t need to hear us disagree.
He replies in an equally hushed tone. “To throw Willow Creek off. If we start with zone, they’ll relax.”
Not happening.
My heart takes it up a notch, along with my volume. “If we play zone while Willow Creek runs man, they’ll run up the score so fast we can’t recover.” He knows that.
Trent shrugs. “Just thought it wouldn’t hurt for our boys to be able to play both.”
We share an extended stare. “Start with defensive slides then mirror drills. I’ll be in my office.”
I don’t know why that crawls up my ass, but it does.
‘Hey Trent… meet Kelsey the librarian.’ They seem like a great fucking fit.
This is a sport. If it’s not broken… why change it? We won State last year and went to State the year before. What we do works.
But he’s right. It won’t hurt the team to know how to play zone. “Trent!” I poke my head out of the office.
“Yessir.” He jogs to me.