Only pieces remained out of reach…so many pieces.
He didn’t look like a cop.
He didn’t look like a disgraced coach.
He didn’t look like the bad idea he was…at least according to my team.
If being friends with him could ruin our chances with the WRDF, did I really want to be in the WRDF to begin with? Not that this was solely my decision to make. And if I stood my ground, and my team didn’t feel the same—nope, not going there. Even in my head…Not. Going. There.
Hot memories lingered on torturous replay of him skating ahead of Jackson, lean muscular legs in baggy blue jeans, his tank top caught on the edge of his thick black belt so whenever he raised his arms higher or swung them faster, he gave me a glimpse of hard abs. And that smile on his face with the way he bit his lip?
He was way more than a gooey cookie, more than an edible, way more than a snack, he was a whole damn meal.
A captain’s seafood platter piled high with fried haddock, whole-bellied clams, scallops, and shrimp with none of that pesky slaw on the side to take up space on the plate.
No lemon wedge either.
And fries? Fuck fries. He was a straight-out-of-the-sea-that-day, drool-worthy bag of yum fried in fresh oil.
And this bitch was hungry.
Joining him sent shivers through me, even now. His hand holding mine, the pads of his rough fingertips barely digging into my skin, making me want them on me harder and more insistent. The confidence in the way he guided me, spun me, trusting me to keep up, but confident just the same that if I couldn’t, he had this.
Was I really that woman? The one who wanted a guy who could take control and did so without asking first.
Yes, yes, apparently, I am.
The brooding man had all but disappeared except for a few glimpses here and there. Like when I caught him watching us from the shadows near the lockers, and later, when his eyes landed on that table in the corner.
His mother’s table.
Every revelation only made me all too aware of how much more there was to learn. A dangerous proposition with my team’s application to the WRDF, with Eve ready to snarl at anyone getting close to me, and with the kind of potential this had to annihilate my heart.
Cozying up to the controversial coach wouldn’t endear me to a good part of the town and these people were all I had. Sure, the sheriff liked him. So did Patti. But my team?
Lukewarm didn’t even loom on the radar.
Rylee wiggled next to me, her eyes wide open as she chewed her lip.
“What’s the matter?” I whispered down to her, giving her a snuggle.
“Nothing,” Rylee said quietly.
I nudged her little chin. “Hmmm, I don’t know about that. When a girl says nothing, it’s almost always something.”
“How would I get to spend time with you if I can’t go to the center anymore?” she asked, her voice small and broken.
I tipped her face up to mine, surprised to see the glistening of tears welling there. “Why wouldn’t you get to go to the center anymore?”
“Well, if it closed down or something.”
“Honey, the center is not going to close down,” I said, squeezing her close.
She glanced away, her voice barely a whisper. “Okay.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“It’s just…well, I heard…”
The tentative beginnings of a confession made me breathless. I swallowed against my suddenly dry throat in an effort to keep my voice strong and reassuring. “What? What did you hear?”
“I was listening in when I shouldn’t have been.”
A lump of dread lodged in my throat as I told myself to stay calm and keep the conversation light. “You’re not going to get in trouble, honey. Just tell me what you heard.”
“Mrs. Rutledge said she didn’t know where the kids would go after March. Do you know where we’re going?”
I glanced around at the kids sleeping peacefully in the van, my stomach pitching. “Maybe she wasn’t talking about you. It’s hard to know what she was talking about when we don’t know what the other person said, right? That’s the danger of eavesdropping.”
“I didn’t mean to. It’s just, she sounded worried. Really worried. Like my mom used to sound right before my dad came home.”
Rylee’s father spent years beating his wife and kids with little to no consequences. Over and over her mother took him back, accepting his apologies, lying to herself, thinking that maybe this time if he did fly into a rage, he’d keep his hands off the kids and only hurt her.
And so what if he did commit to only hurting her. Every yell, curse, slap, punch, and kick, even if only directed toward their mother, was a yell, curse, slap, punch, and kick for them.
Sheriff Chase and his officers repeatedly hauled him off to jail only to let him out hours later because Rylee’s mother made excuses for him or worse, refused to press charges.
Rylee’s dad was a pro at making sure to be careful of the visible marks he left on their mother, making it hard to press any sort of lasting charges. It wasn’t until Rylee borrowed a friend’s cell phone overnight and caught one of his worst beatings on video that the kids finally broke free.
Their mother had a long way to go to prove she could handle having her kids back. First, she had to start with getting well herself.
As for Rylee’s dad, he’d be behind bars until well after Rylee became an adult.
“Mrs. Rutledge’s words gave you that funny feeling in the pit of your tummy?”
Rylee nodded and snuggled in closer.
The sign for Crossroads appeared around the corner, letting me know I only had a couple minutes to make her feel better.
“How about
