of her freakish upper body strength. “Mariah said she saw you at the ice shack, and now here you are. You look gorgeous by the way. You obviously haven’t ruined your body giving birth to three ungrateful kids.”
“Mom! Are we going?” the grumpy teenager demanded from the van.
“Shut up and eat your snack,” Vicky said cheerfully. “We need to catch up.”
“Yes. Please.” I was suddenly desperate for a friend. Hmm, a friend who had played soccer with me. “Hey, what are you doing in half an hour?”
“Yelling at these bozos probably,” she said, shooting her thumb at the van behind her. “Why?”
“I need an assistant coach—”
“Yes. Oh my fucking God, yes.” Vicky said, taking me by the shoulders and shaking me. “I got laid off from the hospital two months ago, and if I don’t get out of my house to do something besides sell bullshit wrinkle cream to ‘all my closest friends,’ I will die.”
“Are you serious? I could really use the help. Like desperate measures.”
“Let me get these ungrateful wombats back home, dump them on Rich, and I’ll meet you back here.”
One of the ungrateful wombats was a sticky-looking toddler waving a plastic dinosaur at me. I waved back, and he burped.
“Thank you, Vicky. You have no idea how grateful I am.”
Vicky rubbed her palms together. “This is going to be amazing,” she predicted. She grabbed me one more time, placed a smacking kiss on my cheek, and ran back to the van. “Peace out, Girl Scout!”
She revved the engine and took off, tires squealing.
I shook my head and started the climb back up the hill. Vicky had been the ridiculous sidekick to my boring self. She brought fun and adventure to everything we did. Even if it was just sitting in class together. I’d missed her and hadn’t even realized it. Judging from the van full of kids, she had an entire life I wasn’t even aware of.
“Did I miss anything?” I asked Haruko.
“Eh, just a knife fight and an FBI van rolling through. I see you, Mr. Aucker! There’s no need for you to take your shirt off just to drive home,” she yelled to a scrawny, trucker-hat-wearing boy. “They’re basically animals, you know? Without us, they’d be not showering and wandering around naked just licking things. We’re goddamn superheroes.”
The parking lot slowly emptied, and Haruko and I went our separate ways. She to her classroom to grab her cross-stitch and Kindle to head home, me to the locker room to change for practice.
School was out, but with fall sports, there were plenty of students loitering in and around the gym. I didn’t have the energy to yell at them to stay off the climbing ropes, so I ducked into the hallway.
And ran smack into a wall of male muscle.
“We meet again,” Jake said.
His hands were like warm, sexy vices on my biceps. What was it about this guy? I wanted to stare at him, follow him around, dissect his appeal. If I understood it, I could avoid it.
“At least I’m not vomiting this time,” I said.
His lips quirked, and his eyes crinkled. Hot damn. Crinkly eyes. Add that to the list of Things That Turn Me On.
“You seem to be holding up.”
“Made it through preseason, my first day of school, and I just hired as assistant coach. I might just survive this semester.”
“That’s the spirit.” His fingers squeezed my arms once before letting me go. My flesh sizzled from his fingerprints. “Hey, if you need any teaching or coaching tips, I’m your man.”
I’m pretty sure I wet my lips in that stupid “I’m fantasizing about licking every inch of your body” way because his eyes narrowed just a little bit, and he snagged his bottom lip with his teeth. Then he was winking and walking away.
My face was flaming when I walked into the chaos of the locker room. There were girls everywhere in various states of undress. I averted my eyes and ducked into my office. I needed to change, too. But I wasn’t going to do it in front of students. I’d already puked in front of them. They didn’t need to see my mismatched bra and underwear, too. I grabbed my gym bag and hustled back out of the locker room to the nearest restroom. I wrestled my way into my sports bra, knocking my elbow into the stall wall and seeing stars. Dressing quickly and clumsily, I hurried back out. I cut through the gym and headed straight to the practice