him. When I finally descended the steps toward the entrance, he looked up through a curtain of mist and gave me a half wave, half salute. I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself down as I entered the security code and unlatched the squeaky metal gate. Then I slowly crossed the spongy red track, walking onto the turf. I stopped a few yards away from Coach, overcome with a rush of pure joy. We were completely alone on a beautiful night, and I simply couldn’t imagine anything more exhilarating.
“Hi, girl,” he said, giving me a half smile.
“Hi, Coach,” I said, wishing I could read his mind. There was no way to tell what he was thinking, his face expressionless.
“Little chilly,” he said, pulling the drawstring on his gray sweatshirt, a hooded version of mine.
“I know. I like it,” I said, nervously bending over to tighten my laces.
“Me, too,” he said, lightly jogging in place and stretching.
“Do you always run after games?” I asked, thinking it was easier to speak when he wasn’t looking at me.
“When we play like shit,” he said, sitting down to stretch more thoroughly.
I nodded, watching him.
“So did you get your story in?” he said, glancing up at me.
“Yeah,” I said.
“And?”
I wasn’t sure what he was asking so I said, “And … it’s done.”
“You happy with it?”
“As happy as I can be when I’m writing about a game … like that one,” I said.
Coach nodded, only his eyes smiling at me. “Don’t you need to stretch?”
I shrugged and reluctantly sat next to him, spreading my legs in a V-shape, imitating his form. I touched my toes a couple of times in a jerking, bouncing motion—the way they always tell you not to stretch—then stood up, murmuring that I was good to go.
“Youth,” Coach said. “If I stretched like that, I’d tear something.”
“We’re only, like, twenty years apart,” I said, feeling myself tense inside.
“Only twenty? That’s not the best reference tonight.”
I looked at him, confused, then remembered that was how many points our defense gave up.
“Oops,” I said. I waited for him to smile, and, when he did, I followed suit, as we walked a few steps over to the track, then began a slow counterclockwise jog. Coach started out on the inside but then moved to my right shoulder, two lanes over from me. The adjustment felt chivalrous, almost romantic, but I told myself to stop thinking such crazy, delusional thoughts. He probably just preferred an outside lane.
After one straightaway and two curves of the track, not quite a quarter-mile warm-up, I was already sucking wind, my thighs burning. Coach clearly was in better shape than I was, and I vowed to start hitting the gym with some regularity. You’d think dating a professional football player would have motivated me, but there was actually something about Ryan’s ridiculous physique that made me want to blow it off altogether. Running with Coach was a different matter.
After another couple of silent laps, Coach said, “Warmed up? Ready to go?”
“Yeah. Sure,” I said as he opened up his stride. Struggling to keep up with him, I said, “Damn. You’re fast. What’s your mile pace?”
“When I’m tired?” he said. “Because that’s the real question. Not your personal best, but how fast you can go when you’re tired. Down and out.”
“Are you tired now?” I gasped.
Coach shook his head. “Nope. But I am down and out,” he said. I caught him smiling again, and it occurred to me that I was making him feel better, at least a little. I felt emboldened by that notion, enough to increase my speed, hang in there with him.
We fell silent after that, as I lost track of our laps. But somewhere around the three-mile mark, he turned to me and, breathing hard, asked, “So how’s Ryan?”
Ryan was the last thing I wanted to think about now, and I was too winded for a long answer anyway, so I just panted, “He’s fine. Rams tomorrow.”
“Heard about the earrings,” he said, glancing at my ears, although I wasn’t wearing them now.
“Yeah,” I said, rubbing my left side where a cramp was beginning to form. “I tried to give them back … but—”
“I’m sure that didn’t go over,” Coach said, slowing a bit.
“No. He acted like they were a little something out of a gumball machine.”
Coach laughed, then stopped running altogether, leaning down to grab on to his knees. “Yeah,” he panted. “That boy’s so rich he buys a new boat when he gets the