If I Could - B. Celeste Page 0,28
that makes me want to deck him.
I don’t, obviously, no matter how tempting. I like the job, most of the kids, and the company of a certain English teacher too much to get canned because I decided to break a coworker’s nose for being a dickface.
Friday afternoon, I’m lecturing two boys on the football field who started shoving each other over a shit pass. While baseball is what I excel at, football is what I love most. I wasn’t cut out for the contact sport, but coaching it is another story, even if the team is rough around the edges. And by that, I mean half of them can’t stand each other. Not a great starting off point.
“If Cosmo were here—” Beckett, one of the team’s offensive linemen starts for the third time since I started coaching them.
“He fucking moved!” The quarterback, Ben, says, coming at him again. I swear to God, if I have to break up one more fight, I’m going to lose my shit.
I step in between them. “Enough!” I bark, eyeing them. The Wildcats team running back tugs on Beckett’s arm, drawing him away from Ben in warning. “I don’t give a shit if you think somebody else could do the job better.” That goes to Beckett, who’s too busy glaring at his teammate to notice my glower. “He’s gone. He’s on a new team, at a new school, which means this is your team, and these are the people you’re going to wipe the floor with. You need to stop focusing on what you think can be improved because then you’re distracting yourself from your own duty. And what is that?”
Beckett’s teeth grind. “To block the opposing players.”
“And?” His job as an offensive lineman may be to block the rivals coming for the ball, but it’s more than that. I knew the second I met Beckett Wright during our first conditioning practice that he was going to give me shit.
“Protect the QB.”
“Exactly. Not fight with him. Not tell him that the former quarterback was better. Understood?” He doesn’t say anything or acknowledge my pointed gaze.
Turning around to meet every single person’s stares that surround me, I add, “If I hear one more person bitching, they’re sitting out on next week’s game. Is that understood?”
The “yes, Coach” is weak, but it’ll do. Just when I think it’s settled and I tell them to get back onto the field and run the play again, Beckett decides to open his mouth.
“Faggot,” he grumbles, putting his helmet back on.
I step in front of him, blocking him from following the others. “What did you just say?”
From the distance, I hear someone murmur, “Dude, not cool” and feel multiple sets of eyes on us.
Beckett stills only for a minute, like he doesn’t have the balls to repeat the words. Thing is, the kid has real potential, his OL tackle position can take him far, but that attitude is going to screw him over if he doesn’t contain it. Nobody is going to want a homophobic asshole on their team to stir bad press. Been there, been on the shitty end of that. When he straightens to full height, which barely comes up to my chin because he’s five-ten, he says, “I called you a faggot.” A pause. Then, “Coach.”
There are a few more murmurs from behind me that I ignore as my nostrils flare at the douche standing with mock courage in front of me. He’s a coward though. Anybody who comes at someone else with any kind of slur is, and I wish I could say it doesn’t happen often, but it does. People will hate you, judge you, and say whatever the hell they want. Usually, I brush it off, but I’m not in the place of power to do that here. If I don’t put a stop to this, he won’t learn.
The little fucker doesn’t know when to shut up. “If you think girls aren’t going to search for you online, you’re an idiot. It took Kerry like an hour to find someone checked in with you at a gay bar in the city. Not everyone’s accounts are private, genius.”
If I could grind my teeth any harder I would. Hell, I’d even bite my tongue off if it meant keeping in the anger that boils over this shithead thinking he has the audacity to speak to me like this.
I’m not sure how I do it, but I ground out with as much calmness as humanly possible given the