Dreaming of His Pen Pal's Kiss - Jessie Gussman Page 0,5

though, so maybe he’d be offered a better position straight out of the gate.

He definitely didn’t want to be an announcer, the way so many ballplayers ended up.

He didn’t want to be in front of a camera, speaking. He wanted to get his hands dirty in the action. If he couldn’t play, coaching was the next best thing.

“See you got a letter. The Big Dude signed you up for that.”

Coach Samuels. The head coach. Everybody called him The Big Dude.

“Coach Samuels? Why?”

Coach Samuels did some odd things, mostly based on his religion, similar to Tony Dungy maybe, although Coach Dungy was before Dante’s time. Still, he’d heard the comparisons and figured them to be accurate.

“He thought you needed it. He and the guy who runs that program went to college together back in the day. Stone ages, I guess, for you. Coach was worried about you, still is. Up here.” Coach Jacobs tapped his head.

Dante pressed his lips together and looked away. There was nothing wrong with his head.

“It’s my leg that’s broken. He’s worried about the wrong end.” He forced a smile and tried to put a little glint in his eye. One he definitely didn’t feel any more than surface deep.

“Can’t disagree with you. You’ve got the best attitude of anyone I’ve ever seen lying in this stinkin’ place for so long.”

“It’s only been a couple of weeks.”

“Long enough. Anyway, you know when The Big Dude gets an idea in his head, it’s best to just go with it. He wants you to answer that. Thinks it’ll be good for you.”

Dante shifted and tried not to grimace at the pain that seized his leg and ran up his side. “Does he realize it’s a woman?”

“Pretty sure he does. And a woman who isn’t involved in sports. At all. I’m pretty sure when The Big Dude talked to the fella in charge of that, those were his specific requests.”

“Those are exactly the things I don’t want.”

It was like Coach was doing it just to be a jerk.

Although Dante knew better.

Coach Samuels was just as much of a father to him as anyone had ever been. More maybe. Not that he wouldn’t hesitate to trade him or cut him if that turned out to be best for the team, but he was the kind of coach that Dante could stay in touch with for the rest of his life and would know the man would care about him. He was just that kind of guy.

Coach Jacobs stayed for a little longer while they chatted and discussed plays and personnel moves and things that would affect their year next year and their chances of making it to the championship game.

By the time Coach Jacobs left, Dante was tired but not sleepy, and the paper in his hand was soft and crinkled from his hand gripping it.

The Big Dude wouldn’t ask him to do anything that wasn’t in his very best interest. Not to mention, even in the off-season, one didn’t say no to the head coach.

He lifted his hand, and even though he’d already read the letter twice, he read it once more.

Dear Pen Pal,

I suppose some people would sit and stare at a blank page and wonder what in the world they’d say to a stranger.

It probably tells you everything that you ever need to know about me that I had to sort through all of the things I wanted to say and pick out the things I thought would be the most important.

I could fill this page up, and a whole notebook too, just chatting.

Somehow, I think that would bore you more than it would inspire you, so I tried to think of something that I could say to a man who is in the hospital that would be even a little bit interesting. It was a little hard since I know nothing else about you.

Of course, the top thing that comes to mind is that I’m a nurse.

I’m laughing right now, because that either made you happy, or it made you decide not to write me back.

People don’t seem to have neutral opinions about nurses.

Funny, because it’s all about our experience and not really about individual nurses. In other words, we don’t hate a nurse because she’s not nice, we hate a nurse because we had a nurse who wasn’t nice. Make sense?

Or we hate nurses because we hate being in the hospital. That’s possible too.

If it makes you feel any better, I’m also currently in the hospital