He fucking coached kids’ football. I can’t even.
Without missing a beat, in my head I began to hear Smashing Pumpkins: “Today.”
Chad noticed that I was slowing down as we neared the football game. To be clear, when I said slowing down I meant full stop. Because seriously, I needed to stop or I’d likely wander into traffic, unable to stop staring at this guy.
“Pretty, right?” Chad asked.
“Pretty. Right,” I breathed back.
“Sometimes he runs with the kids, and oh man, is it something to watch.”
“If he runs, I run.”
“How very Titanic of you,” Chad snorted, slipping an arm through mine and tugging me in the direction of the game.
“For the record, I’d drown Jack Dawson myself if it meant that I could get in Oscar’s lifeboat.”
“For the record, I’d drown Rose and take them both. But I get what you’re saying.”
The two of us walked down to the edge of the game, taking a seat on the end of one of the benches. We weren’t in the middle of the parents and kids, per se; we could have been just watching the ducks. In that duck pond about fifty yards away. And speaking of fifty yards . . .
I watched as Oscar pulled a kid off the bench, squatted down in front of him, and spoke into the kid’s helmet. I could see the helmet nodding. It was obvious that some kind of sports play was being discussed, perhaps a go long or a forty-seven scooparound.
Never watched a football game in my life . . .
He sent the kid into the game with a smack on the helmet and an encouraging, “Go get him, Benjamin!”
Benjamin was “bagged” within ten seconds. I learned a new term. Bagged is when the quarterback gets tackled. Apparently Chad played high school football. Learning new things is fun.
“So what’s his story?” I asked, leaning closer to the councilman.
“Benjamin? Good kid, wants to be a pirate when he grows up. Tells terrible jokes on Halloween, though—”
“I realize we just met, and I am really hoping to get to know you better, Chad; you do seem delightful. But spill it or I’ll cut you.”
“Ah yes, the story of Oscar. It’s all coming back, it’s coming back to me now,” he said.
“Can it, Céline,” I warned. “Dish.”
He glared at me slightly. “For someone that I hired, you are frighteningly bossy. Not to mention a bit rude.”
I blinked back at him, not saying anything.
“Although anyone who can pull off those boots can be bossy and rude, I suppose.”
“Thank you. Dish, please.”
“There is surprisingly little dish. He moved to town a few years ago, before I came back. As far as I know he keeps to himself mostly, works on his farm, makes his cheese, and sells it in the city on Saturdays.”
“This I know,” I said with a sigh.
“Other than that, I don’t know too much. He started coming to the cooking class Roxie teaches. Hey! That’d be a fun class to come to. It started out as just a few of us, and now there’s a waiting list to get in. Oscar doesn’t always come, but often enough. Other than that, he’s not what you’d call . . . communicative.”
“You almost don’t have to be when you look like that,” I thought out loud, watching him from across the field.
“He’s crushworthy for sure,” Chad said dreamily. As we sat there, in the fall sunshine, watching tiny football players running here and there, I had another flash to what it must have been like to go to high school in a town like this. Hayrides, apple picking, Friday-night football games, and crepe paper homecoming floats.
A homecoming float has nothing on the balloon inflation party that takes place at Seventy-seventh and Columbus the night before Thanksgiving.
True. Grass is always greener.
Or concrete’s always grayer. People would kill to live where you live.
Also true. But as I thought of grass versus concrete, I suddenly felt tingles all over. I looked up, across the huddle and the tackle, and saw Oscar staring at me. I wiggled my fingers hello, he lifted his chin back.
And grinned.
“I feel like you might be adding a chapter to Oscar’s nonexistent story,” Chad murmured.
“Everybody has a story,” I murmured back, and set off across the field toward him, determined to elicit that chapter.
“Hi,” I said, a little breathlessly. That hike across the field had been murder on my boots. Heels made for concrete and cobblestone didn’t fare as well in ankle-deep leaves and mushy soil. But I’d made it.
“Hi,” Oscar said, glancing down at me. “Great turtleneck.”
“Thanks.” I laughed, delighted that it’d only been five seconds and I was up to three words already. “Great footballs.”
He arched an eyebrow at me, but said nothing, eyes on the field and intently following the action. “Right, so, I was thinking, maybe after the game I could stop by? See that barn you’re so proud of?”
“You’re inviting yourself over?” he asked, eyes still scanning the scrillage. Another football term I’d picked up from Chad. A scrillage is more than a practice, not quite a game. “Toby! Get your head down, or number seventeen is gonna take it right off!”
An enthusiastic “Okay, Coach,” floated back to us on the magical autumnal breeze as I considered what he’d said. I was inviting myself over. Somewhere between putting him in his own stall, and him invading my stall and kissing me so hard my lips could still feel it, I’d lost my uncharacteristic shyness. I was getting back on sure footing with this guy, back to where I knew what I was doing.
“I feel no qualms about inviting myself over. Especially when I’ll be there on official research purposes only. Scouting locations for publicity shots, you know. Checking out that barn, which could be featured in the Bailey Falls campaign. Maybe even the money shot.”
Even though he was trying like hell to keep his eye on the ball, he was also trying like hell not to smile. He covered the smile with a whistle, blew it, and yelled out, “Okay, team, that’s enough for the day. Huddle up!”
“Wow, you must really want me all to yourself, to call off your scrillage just to take me up on my offer,” I purred in a husky voice I knew drove men crazy.
He pulled something off from around his neck, underneath the whistle. A stopwatch. “The scrimmage was over—see?” He showed me the countdown, then took off toward the huddle of boys, turning around as he jogged backward. “Don’t go anywhere,” he called back.