Class Act: A Coach/Student Romance

“WHAT DO YOU SAY, Coach? Any chance of us winning that game on Friday?”

Laurie Crawford, the math teacher, was a chronic gambler, and I was pretty sure he was looking for intel so he’d know how to bet on our upcoming game. I slipped my whistle over my head.

“We always play our best, Crawford.”

“That doesn’t leave me with enough,” he grumbled, pushing the wiry frame of his glass up his long, thin nose. “All your players in excellent shape?”

I shrugged. “As well as we can expect. Guess you just have to wait and see.”

He kept muttering under his breath, but I ignored him, grabbed my water bottle from the fridge, and sauntered out of the teacher’s lounge.

Walking along the corridor, I acknowledged a few students, who either addressed me by name or gave me a nod. It was nothing I would brag about, but unlike some teachers, I got along well with the students. Even those who complained about hating PE and said they were only doing it because they had no other choice.

I pushed open the door of the rear exit and headed for the field where my players were supposed to be warming up for practice when my phone rang. I fished it out of my pocket, intending to ignore the call and setting my phone to silent, but my wife’s name flashed across the screen. Frowning, I swiped the screen to answer.

“Hey, honey. Are you home already?”

Tonight was supposed to be date night. It’d been so long since we’d been out together, and I was looking forward to adult conversation, a nice dinner somewhere fancy, and sex after.

“I’m not,” Teresa said, and I stopped walking. “There’s this meeting that came up last minute and…”

I tuned out her excuse, which didn’t differ from all the others she’d made up. A client she had on retainer needed her services urgently. Her flight was delayed, and she couldn’t get home until the next day. She had met up with some friends after a conference and decided to stay another couple of days.

“You understand, don’t you, babe?” she asked.

“Yeah, sure.”

No amount of arguing would change the situation. I was married to a sought-after criminal defense attorney who made monthly what I did in a fucking year. I’d never resented her job until recently. It consumed so much of her time—time we should spend together as a couple.

“I swear I’ll make it up to you,” she said. “But I have to go now. See you later tonight, okay?”

She hung up before I could respond. I couldn’t avoid it anymore. We had to have a talk about this. We barely had much of a marriage going on.

After setting my phone to silent, I walked onto the football field, but the players weren’t warming up as I’d told them to do. I followed their distracted gazes.

Him.

The queer kid my daughter talked about every chance she got.

He was supposedly cool, but at the moment he was distracting my players with the dancing he was doing for the cheerleaders. He seemed to be demonstrating something because he was the only one doing any actions while the others watched.

The boy gyrated his skinny hips, and I widened my eyes. No guy should be able to move like that, but he could. He wore long hot pink tights with black stripes, and nothing—absolutely nothing—was left to the imagination when he shook his ass.

I dragged my eyes away. The football players were eating it up, laughing and nudging each other. At least one of the boys looked a little too flushed as he watched the routine.

“All right, boys, break it up,” I called, and they startled.

“Ah, shucks, Coach,” Bryson whined. “The routine was just getting interesting.”

“You want to trade your jersey for pom-poms? Just say the word, Bryson.”

The other players guffawed and fanned out onto the field to do their warm-up.

Thankfully, they focused on their routine now that I’d arrived. The team they had to play on Friday was good. So far, we’d won our first two games of the season, and we wanted to keep our winning streak going for as long as possible.

Practice ran for two full hours, and although the boys were dedicated, I didn’t want to overwork them.

“That’s it, boys,” I called. “Take it to the locker room and get out of here. Good job.”

I followed them inside.

“Hey, Daddy!”

I groaned. I’d long since stopped trying to get my daughter to call me Dad while we were at school. My primary concern had been that other kids would pick on her for it, but no one did, probably because she didn’t care what anyone thought of her, so it got old fast.

“Yes, pumpkin?” I turned. She walked toward me with her friend in tow. I couldn’t remember his name. Jesus. If I’d thought nothing was left up to the imagination from the back, his front was practically indecent exposure.

Mandy pulled a face. “I thought we agreed we weren’t going to call me that in public.”

“Just reciprocating with the ‘daddy’ bit.”

She rolled her eyes. “Is it okay if I go hang out at Emery’s? We’re studying for our trig test tomorrow.”

The boy seemed harmless enough. Slender and feminine looking, especially with the mascara and eye shadow he wore. I frowned. He still had a dick, though, and I would prefer if it stayed far away from my daughter.

“Is there an adult I can speak with?” I asked her friend.

His warm brown eyes met mine. “Well, uh, there’s just my dad, but—”

“You can study at our place.” No way was I sending my daughter to two men I didn’t know, even if one seemed to prefer skirts and dresses, based on what I’d seen him wear on campus.

“Oh, that’s right,” Mandy said. “You and Mom have date night, so we’ll have the house to ourselves.”

“Actually, date night’s canceled.”

“Again?”

Heat crept up in my cheeks. Mandy didn’t say anything else, and I was glad. I didn’t want to get into our family’s business with him around.

“We’ll talk about it when I get home,” I said. “I expect you to study. Better yet”—I ruffled her hair—“bring home a B, and you can take over the entire house to study anytime you want.”

She slapped my hand away. “Dad, stop. You’re messing up my hair.”

Emery laughed and grabbed her arm. As they walked away, arm in arm, he said, “He’s just being affectionate. I wish my dad would be that way with me.”

“See you at home, pumpkin,” I said again, just to annoy her.

Were they really just friends? I wasn’t stupid. He didn’t have to be gay just because he liked wearing makeup and dresses. He could be into girls too. Not that I thought Mandy was innocent. She’d had boyfriends before, so why did it bother me thinking she was involved with this guy?

***

All afternoon, I kept thinking of Mandy having an interest in her new friend. I stayed at school for another hour, then dropped by the bar of my best friend, Lynn. She saw me coming from across the room and had a beer ready by the time my ass hit the stool.

“Let me guess.” She threw the rag she’d used to wipe down the counter over her shoulder. “Teresa canceled on you again?”

“Yup. No surprise there.” I downed the entire bottle of beer in one go. “Can I have another one?”

“You don’t need beer. What you need is to tell your wife how you feel about how her career supersedes everything else.”

I grabbed a handful of peanuts still in their shell out of the small bowl on the counter and popped one open. “You know how it is. If I bring it up, she might think I’m jealous of her career.”

“You’ve been supportive of her career since day one. Talk to her, man.”

“Maybe. If it’s the right time.”

“Pussy.”

I threw a shell at her, and she scowled, plucking it from her short brown hair.

“You’re no better than the kids at school,” I said.

“To be honest, back in the day, I think we were worse. At least you have a good kid who doesn’t contribute to your gray hairs.”

“I don’t have any gray hair.” I leaned sideways and peered at myself in the glass on the other side of the bar. My honey-blond hair was almost as full and lustrous as back in high school with no fucking gray in it.

“Exactly my point. How’s Amanda, by the way? Final year of high school. Has she decided whether she’s going out of state for college yet?”

“I think she will, but we haven’t really talked about it.”

“What are you waiting for? The day her bags are packed at the front door?”

“I just don’t want to think about it.”

“Seems there’s a lot you don’t want to do. What do you want to talk about?”

“The scenery.”

She laughed, her voice booming, and went over to serve another customer. I’d drunk my beer way too fast, and now I craved another, but I still had to drive home. Hardly could get wasted on a school night.

I opened my phone and thumbed through my apps. On Instagram, I hovered over the search bar. I shouldn’t, but what kind of father would I be if I didn’t snoop a little to ensure my daughter was fine? Yeah, that was a solid excuse.

I typed in my daughter’s handle. I didn’t make a habit of it, but I liked checking up on her every once in a while. Since she was too cool to send her old man a follow request, this was my last resort.

She’d changed her profile picture since the last time I checked out her account. Now it showed a photo of the boy, Emery, licking her cheek. How obscene. They looked happy, young, and carefree. Who was I to look too deeply into their friendship?

I was such a fucking tool for stalking my daughter. The photo had garnered a lot of comments, some recent ones. A few were rude and homophobic about what she was doing with Emery. Some rather graphic ones told her to dump Emery for a real man and that they would show her a good time. My stomach roiled.

God, I hate social media.

My fingers flew over the buttons, and before I knew it, I’d pressed Send, putting that last commenter in their place. I froze. What the fuck had I done? I rarely used my social media apps, and here I was, commenting on my daughter’s post.

“Why do you look like you’re choking on a dick?” Lynn asked.

I showed her the phone, too panicked to formulate words.

“Did you just go all dad mode on your grown daughter’s Insta pic?”

“Fix it.” I thrust the phone into her hand. “What do I do?”

“Just delete it.” She tapped on the screen, then handed me back the phone. “See? Comment erased. Man, what were you thinking?”

I refreshed the photo and sighed when the comment didn’t show anymore.

“I don’t know. The things they were saying just made me want to punch them through the screen. What an asshole.”

“Yup, but you know Mandy won’t like you interfering. She’s got an independent streak going just like her momma. Hopefully, she didn’t see it.”

“You think she did?”

She shrugged. “Maybe not, but you know these teen girls. They check every notification as fast as they appear.”

I groaned. “I hope she didn’t.”

“Who’s that cute guy she’s with?”

Cute? I glanced back at the photo of Emery with his curly, short brown hair, his smooth face, makeup, and bright smile. He wasn’t just cute. Some would say he was beautiful. If they were into that kind of thing. Apparently, my lesbian best friend found him interesting too.

“She claims he’s a friend.”

“He looks gay.”

“Weird for you to say. People don’t look at you and think you’re lesbian, do they?”

“Have you seen me?” Lynn laughed. “I’m butch as fuck, thank you very much.”

“I’m just saying. He can be bi, but even if he is, that doesn’t mean anything is going on between them.”

She arched an eyebrow, the one with the curved barbell through it. “You don’t approve of him.”

“It’s just that I don’t know him well enough to approve or disapprove of him. I think he’s harmless.”

“But?”

“No but.” I slid off the stool. “I should go home. I’ll settle my tab this weekend.”

“No problem, man. Drive safe, and call if you need to talk.”

I waved at her and walked out of the bar to my car. Apparently, I still hadn’t learned my lesson. Instead of driving home, I revisited my daughter’s Instagram profile and clicked on the new picture she had posted less than a minute ago. A picture of her and Emery on the floor of her bedroom, making kissy faces at the camera.

Already a few comments about the two of them had been posted, the same kind of comments. As bad as what they said about my daughter was, Emery got the worst of it.

Why would anyone stay on a platform that was so toxic?

One of the comments was from Emery. Just a series of heart emojis. I tapped his name, and his profile popped up.

Fuck.

His profile was filled with photos of him and a few with my daughter. Some were videos that looked like makeup tutorials. He had a penchant for showing off what he was wearing—mostly figure-hugging outfits that showed off his slender body. He must have deleted all the negative comments because these were all positive. Way too positive and forward about him calling them for a good time—and that was putting it mildly. He had nearly two hundred thousand followers.

My finger slipped on the screen and hearted a photo of him in a pleated skirt and halter top that was so sheer it showed off the points of his nipples.

Fuck.

I tapped back on the heart button to remove the like and immediately swiped away the app, then threw the phone onto the passenger seat. My throat was tight, and my face was all heated. What the hell was I thinking? So I was curious. I’d never met anyone like him before. Didn’t mean I had to stalk the guy. I just needed to know my daughter was safe around him.

That was all.

I started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. Ten minutes later, I was home. A Volkswagen was parked in the yard. I groaned. He was still here. I tapped the steering wheel. Why was I stalling? This was my house, dammit.

When I opened the front door, the sound of the television greeted me. Good. I knew which room to avoid. All I needed was another beer, and I could relax in front of the tube in my den for a few.

I entered the kitchen and halted. The boy was peeking into my cupboards. He’d changed into a fire-red sweater and a pair of denim cutoffs. He stretched to a high shelf. His sweater pulled up and his waistband dipped, showing off a bit of black lace.

“Yikes, who eats all these Cheetos Puffs?” he muttered. He bypassed my favorite snack, grabbed a bag of potato chips, shut the cupboard, and turned.

“Fuck. I mean, shit. Oh my god, you scared me.” His face grew as red as his sweater.

At least I knew one vice. He swore like a sailor.

“Sorry. Just grabbing a beer.” Like I needed to explain what I was doing in my kitchen.

“Mandy told me where to get the chips,” he said. “I didn’t—”

“It’s fine. Just food. You can find bowls here.”

I opened the bottom cupboard where we kept the bowls.

“Oh yeah.” He snorted. “The Queen of Sheba doesn’t eat chips straight from the bag.”

I chuckled. “Or so she says. When no one’s around, she damn near licks the inside of the bag too.”

Emery laughed and poured out the chips. I sidestepped him and grabbed a beer from the fridge.

“There are drinks in the fridge if you guys want.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” I nodded at him and walked out. At least he was polite. He wouldn’t be the worst guy my daughter ever dated if they ended up being more than friends.

That peek of black lace, though. I shook my head. Teresa had a drawer full of the things. She wore them all the time. I just didn’t get to see them on her ass as much as I liked anymore.

Damn, I missed that. Lynn was right. We needed to talk about our relationship before things got worse.