Chapter Twenty - Asher
I’m creeping around the side of Coach Walker’s house like I’m in a heist movie.
Hoodie up. Dress shoes in hand. Duffle bag slung over one shoulder like I’m heading off to footy practice but also possibly committing a felony or coming from the scene of a homicide.
Wait is it a walk of shame, nah nothing shameful about anything that went on inside those four walls last night.
But right now, anyone watching would think I’ve just buried Scarlett Walker in the back garden and the way she screamed my name last night, they’d know exactly who the number one suspect would be.
Damn this house is beautiful. I take in the vast gardens and the white wrap around veranda—that I’m currently stuck to like glue to shimmy my way up the side path and out the little gated entrance to Scarlett’s side.
A big house like this is proving to be a real pain in the ass when I’m trying to sneak around like I’m not twenty nine years old and like I haven’t gone back in a time loop to my high school days.
Okay you caught me, it’s not my first rodeo when it comes to hiding from a girl’s dad, but it is my first rodeo when it comes to hiding from a grown woman’s dad because well he’s my coach, and he had a very stern chat to the whole team the week before she was coming to live here about how she is strictly off limits—but technically it was a rule I’d already broken long ago without even knowing.
The practice he gave us the ‘no Scarlett lecture’ the boys were speculating about what coach’s daughter would be like, and if his lecture was just protocol or if she really was a smoke show, definitely the latter.
Poor coach he probably would’ve been better off saying nothing at all.
The grass is wet adding to the struggle of my stealth mode, my sneakers are squelching with each step connecting with the morning dew, and I’m head down trying to catch a glimpse out my peripheral vision to any danger in the vicinity—AKA Coach.
My dignity is hanging by a thread—because I’m fucking shitting bricks, but I’m still riding the high of the night I just had.
Scarlett freaking Walker.
Scarlett Walker in my hoodie.
Scarlett Walker in my arms.
Scarlett Walker, asleep like a goddess in the granny flat that technically belongs to her father, my coach, and possibly the most terrifying man in a 500-km radius.
My car’s parked a few houses down the street, because apparently past me thought I was being smart.
Past me is an idiot. That’s extra extra stealth mode, longer to act casual be all nonchalant and less running away from the scene of a crime.
A crime I’d take 25 to life for in a court of a law just to do all over again.
But now, present me?
Present me thinks I’ve made it.
Freedom is less than twenty metres away.
I can see the sunlight bouncing off my windshield adjacent to coach’s driveway and two front yards down.
The birds are chirping, and I might just break out in a happy dance.
I am not far from victory flush with this veranda rounding to the front of Coaches house, totally in the cle—
“Morning, Kingston.”
I freeze. Oh fuck. That voice.
Like, full statue mode, like if I’m not moving maybe I’ll camouflage in with the front garden hedges, magically turn into some overgrown garden gnome.
I’m not even breathing, partly because my whole life flashes before my eyes and I’m imagining all the ways Coach will gut me alive for being here this early in the morning, which means I must’ve been here late last night.
Which means Scarlett and I were doing more than playing chess and checkers.
I turn my head very slowly—and there he is.
Coach Ted Walker.
Wearing a Ridgebacks hoodie, a cap pulled low, Crocs and socks—he’s a fashion icon, obviously—and holding a garden hose like it’s a medieval weapon. Gripped tight, so tight he’s got white knuckles flexing around it, probably imaging it’s my throat. Here it is the moment of truth.
He’s standing next to a bed of rose bushes, watering them like the God of Dad Energy, looking entirely too relaxed for someone seconds away from committing a homicide, the second crime to take place in the space of a few hours on this premises.
“Coach,” I say, voice cracking like a guilty teenager caught sneaking out the window.
Coach?! That’s the best I could come up with.
Better than I just spent the night fucking your daughter and moaning her name I suppose, God Asher now is not the time get it together, hope your ass is ready to ride that bench.
He lifts the hose.
I’m watching waiting for him to say something, ask, assume, anything? But I guess he doesn’t have to.
No hesitation.
Sprays me. Directly. In. The. Face.
“Holy—” I stagger back, hands up, hoodie clinging to me like plastic wrap on leftovers. “What the hell?!”
Ted doesn’t blink. He hoses me again, one more for good measure.
“Next time,” he says, as if he’s not actively hosing me down like a Labrador who’s been rolling around in mud “Park in the driveway, son.”
I’m dripping.
I’m pretty sure I just inhaled 80% of Dawson’s Ridge’s water supply through my nostrils. The boys are going to eat me alive. I look and feel like I’ve been water boarded.
“I—what?” I sputter. “You’re not mad?”
He lowers the hose to a casual angle, like he’s just giving the grass a little love now.
“I didn’t say I wasn’t mad.” He adjusts his hat, and he clears his throat. “I said don’t leave a classic car like that on the side of the road. Bad for the tires. Bad for appearances.”
He turns back to his rose bushes like this is normal, like he hasn’t just assaulted me with municipal water pressure and starts humming—humming—like a man at peace.
I stand there soaked to the bone, rethinking every decision I’ve ever made.
My training gear is wet. My pride is gone. My soul? Lightly misted.
“Oh, and son, don’t be late for practice.”
I open my mouth to say something—anything—but all that comes out is a weak, “Yes, sir.”
I slink down the path like a drowned golden retriever, water squelching in my sneakers, hoodie plastered to my back. My mind is reeling, did that just happen? Oh, fuck what’s going to happen now. I can’t be late to training now, so I’ll be heading there in this ensemble, whether I like it or not.
As I turn the corner and reach my car, I hear a laugh.
I look back through the gates toward the left of the property, following the faint giggles I’ve come to know all too well already.
There—on the granny flat veranda—is Scarlett, biting her knuckle, shoulders shaking as she watches me make my walk of shame in full human sprinkler-mode.
She winks.
I close my eyes and exhale.
Ted Walker: 1
Asher Kingston: Wet. Humbled. And hopelessly into the daughter of a man who just garden-hosed my sins away and is probably plotting my murder as I drip here.
I smile back at her shake my head and slide dripping wet over my leather seats. Now that’s a morning, who needs coffee when you’re greeted by a stone cold hosing and an exhilarating failed escape attempt.