Chapter 17

17

Coach (Emmett)

The second I got the call there was a fight involving one of my swimmers in the dorm, I was up and out of my office before I could even get a name. Worry propelled me faster as I sped across campus. I had a lot of swimmers, but there was only one I was thinking about.

Images of him when I first saw him at the jail assaulted me. His bruised, bloodied face and haunted blue eyes. And then I thought about the way he looked a few days ago when I pulled his limp body from the pool as trauma shook his limbs.

I sent him away.

I shouldn’t have.

I had no choice.

The second I laid eyes on him, saw the smears of blood on his cheek and at the corner of his lips, all the conflicting emotions bubbled over, and I did something I definitely should not have done.

I hit a student. Me, a faculty member. Me, Elite’s coach who was supposed to be above petty outbursts of anger. God, it felt good, though. The smash of my knuckles against that jackal’s flapping lips. The verbal declaration to not touch what was mine.

I’d regret it later, but in that moment, it was satisfying. My satisfaction was short-lived, however, vanishing the second the RA spoke.

“Your roommate has alleged that you made…” He cleared his throat. “Unwanted advances toward him.”

My stomach soured, gurgling like old cottage cheese. The idea of Bodhi hitting on anyone made me want to throw another punch.

Bodhi made a rude sound. “I wouldn’t touch him if someone paid me.”

“So you are claiming these allegations are false?”

“I’m not claiming anything,” Bodhi said through clenched teeth. “I’m telling you. He’s a homophobe, and I caught him rifling through my things.”

I straightened out of the doorway. “What?”

“And that’s why you hit him?” the RA pressed.

Bodhi shrugged. I expected an outburst, some sort of justification or argument about the trouble he was in. His silence bothered me. His lack of fight. The blood and fresh bruises on his face. Beyond that, he looked tired.

I shouldn’t have stayed away.

The RA rephrased the question. “So he’s been bullying you?”

Bodhi shrugged again.

“Answer the question, Lawson,” I intoned, wanting the answer. I should have hit that miscreant more than once.

Bodhi glanced at me, his blue eyes burning. “Sure, Coach .” He turned back to the RA. “He’s been a jerk. I decided I’d had enough.”

“So you didn’t show interest in him romantically? He didn’t turn you down?”

“What the hell kind of question is that?” I barked, stepping forward to glare at the RA. “Be careful, Jeremy. You’re starting to sound discriminatory.”

Jeremy flushed. “It’s what Ronnie alleged. I have to ask,” he insisted. He glanced at Bodhi. “I mean no offense.”

“Yeah?” I groused. “Well, I’m offended.”

“Most millennials are,” he muttered.

He did not . Planting my hands on the desk, I leaned across. “What did you just say to me?”

“I, ah…” he stuttered. “Coach Resch, I’m sorry.”

“Right,” I deadpanned, feeling a headache forming behind my eyes. Straightening, I gestured to the tablet lying on the desk. “Just put in your report that they got into a minor altercation that was resolved in house,” I told him. “And that they’re being assigned new rooms upon request.”

He made a face like he had to shit. “About that…”

I glanced toward the ceiling, praying for patience. “What now?”

“The rooms are all full. It was hard finding a spot for your new swimmer as it was.”

“Well, you managed. Do it again.”

He shook his head. “There are literally no other rooms available in Peregrine Hall.”

“Then move him to another dorm.”

Jeremy flushed. “I’m having trouble finding a room in those too.”

“You mean to tell me there isn’t one open spot in any of the dorms at Westbrook that you can move that boy to?”

Jeremy averted his eyes and lowered his voice. “There’s also that Ronnie is claiming he’s the victim and asking him to move is victim shaming.”

“Victim shaming?” My voice was strained. And he thought millennials were the problem?

“He was assigned the room first. He was attacked first.”

“It’s fine,” Bodhi said, drawing our attention. “I’ll go. I don’t want to live there anyway.”

“It’s the Elite dorm,” I refuted.

“He has more stuff than me anyway. It won’t take me long to throw it all in some bags and go.”

“You’re sure?” Jeremy asked.

Bodhi nodded. “Can I go?”

I reared back and looked at him as though he’d just been body snatched . He’s asking? Since when did he ever ask permission to do anything?

Jeremy reached across his desk to grab a card and hand it over to him. “Here’s the head of housing’s contact. They might be able to help with the dorm situation.”

Bodhi stuck it in the pocket of his faded, ripped jeans. They hung so low on his hips that it was practically indecent. And he was wearing a crop top again, that diamond stud in his belly button on full display.

“Because I wasn’t able to find you anything immediately, you have forty-eight hours until you have to turn in your room key. You can stay there if you need to, but any more fights and I’ll have to get campus security involved.”

I made a sound. “There won’t be more fighting.”

“I don’t need forty-eight hours,” Bodhi said, tossing his key on the desk. “I’ll be out in thirty minutes.”

“Where will you go?” Jeremy called, but Bodhi was already out of the room with clearly no intention of coming back.

The RA looked at me.

“Thanks for calling me,” I said instead of saying what I really thought of him.

“Sure, Coach.”

I turned to leave.

“I need an address for his file!” he called.

“He’ll call you,” I replied.

Bodhi was already partway down the hall, and I jogged forward to catch up. “Bodhi.”

He ignored me and kept going.

I wrapped my hand around his wrist, halting his feet.

He turned. “You need something, Coach?”

The injuries on his face made it hard to be irritated even when he was clearly trying to push my buttons. “What happened?” I implored.

“The usual,” he said, tugging his arm free of my grasp and turning.

Before I could press him further, Wes appeared at the end of the hall, hands full. When he saw us, he gestured with his chin. “Hey, Bodhi.”

Bodhi stiffened as if he expected some sort of confrontation.

Wes acted like he didn’t notice, and when he was within distance, he held out a white paper cup with a black lid. “Here, I got this for you.”

Bodhi stared at the cup like it was poison. “What is it?”

“A trauma latte,” Wes answered. “It’s an Elite tradition.”

I rolled my eyes. I thought trauma lattes were stupid. Landry liked them, though.

“What the hell is a trauma latte?” Bodhi wanted to know.

“It has caramel,” Wes said, patient. “Believe it or not, you aren’t the only one around here who has trauma. The caramel helps with the adrenaline crash.”

“I got into a fight with my roommate. That hardly counts as trauma,” Bodhi deadpanned.

“Some trauma is worse than others,” Wes allowed. “Welcome to Elite,” he said, offering the cup once more.

Bodhi hesitated.

“You don’t like coffee?” Wes asked.

Bodhi took the cup.

Wes seemed relieved and held up a box of donuts. “Donuts are kinda a tradition too, but that’s because Jamie likes them.”

Almost as if he smelled the food, the door across the hall opened and he appeared. “They say you are what you eat, and if that’s the case…” Jamie said, flipping the top of the box open to grab a glazed donut and shove half in his face. “Bro, I am one hundred percent delicious.”

His lips smacked, and he shoved the rest of the donut into his mouth and reached for another.

“I thought you were going to dinner,” I said.

“We are. This is a snack,” he answered, chewing loud.

“I got you a trauma latte too, Coach,” Wes said, holding out the other cup in his hand.

Surprised, I looked at it.

“Seemed rude to not get you one too,” Wes supplied.

“What he means is we’re concerned about your blood sugar level,” Jamie mused. “You’ve been a little cranky.”

I gave him a look.

He pushed a donut under my nose. “Pastry?”

I took the coffee. “Thanks, Sinclair.”

“You’re welcome, Coach,” Wes replied.

Bodhi was watching me, and I gestured to his cup. “Drink that.”

God only knew if he’d been eating. Following that thought, I snatched a donut out of Jamie’s hands just as he was about to take a bite, and I laid it on the lid of Bodhi’s latte. “Eat that too.”

“Rude,” Jamie quipped, already helping himself to another.

Ryan came out of Bodhi’s room. “Everything all good?”

“Finally.” The kid whose face I’d punched appeared in the open doorway. “I was about to head to the dumpster.”

A bag sailed out into the hall, hit the floor, and skidded against the wall. Another bag followed. A couple colorful scraps of fabric were flung out next, and Bodhi tensed. I glanced down at the closest one… Was that lace ?

The mental image that lived rent-free in my head of that damned Bangr picture flashed into my mind. More specifically, the slinky little straps riding on the guy’s hipbones.

No way.

“That’s my laptop.” Bodhi’s angry voice snapped me back just in time to see him rush to the doorway to snatch a messenger bag from his roommate’s clutches.

His sudden burst of movement knocked the donut off the lid of his coffee, and it landed in the middle of the hall.

“Five-second rule,” Jamie called, scooping it up and shoving it between his lips.

“I told you not to touch my stuff,” Bodhi said, voice tight.

“What the hell is your problem?” Ryan asked.

“My problem is a bunch of mermaids are camped out in my room and I’m sick of it. If you want your shit, get it and get out.”

Bodhi shouldered into the room, disappearing from sight, and a fissure of panic tightened my chest. I thought about the last time he was out of my sight and shifted forward. The roommate moved like he would block the door, so I shoved my coffee into Ryan’s hands and grabbed the kid by the shirt with both hands.

I lifted, my arms trembling with the effort, pulling this guy off his feet and rotating to drop him in the middle of the hall. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay the hell out of my way.”

After taking the trauma latte back, I went into the small dorm room where Bodhi was picking things up off the floor and jamming them into an open duffle bag on his bed. It hit me then what I’d done. The tiny, impersonal room. The way his side of the room was empty and beige compared to the other side where his roommate had clearly taken over.

Even the blanket on the bed was the standard one Elite put out just so the students wouldn’t walk in to a bare mattress, though most students came with their own bedding and pillows and stuff.

Bodhi literally had one bag on his bed.

And the other two bags in the hall… which I was assuming he hadn’t even bothered to unpack. Like he hadn’t planned on staying.

I took a swig of the coffee, hoping the caramel would wash the bitterness off my tongue. It did but merely pushed it down into my stomach where it burned like acid.

He said nothing as he bustled around, shoving the contents of a small wooden dresser into the bag. When that was done, he went into the adjoining bathroom. Seconds later, he reappeared, nothing in his hands.

“You didn’t have anything in the bathroom?” I asked.

He shook his head once.

I narrowed my eyes.

“Oh, right. It’s all in the trash,” the roommate said, stepping in behind me. “Real men don’t need that many products.”

I turned, and whatever he saw on my face sent him fleeing into the hall.

The zipper on Bodhi’s bag cut through the silence. “Bodhi.”

“Don’t,” he said, voice tight.

Guilt ate at me. So did regret. In that moment, I wanted so badly to pull him close and kiss his head. I wanted to whisper I was sorry and that he wasn’t as alone as he thought. I wanted to beg him to forgive me for forcing him into this dorm with someone he didn’t know, someone who mistreated him.

“Uh, bro,” Jamie said, brushing past me to step up to Bodhi’s side. “It seemed kinda disrespectful to leave this just lying out in the hall.” His voice was more subdued than usual.

Between them, Jamie held out his hand, the bright fabric his roommate had thrown out earlier on display. Bodhi flushed and grabbed them with both hands, one of them fluttering to the ground. I stared at it, transfixed.

A thong.

A lacy thong.

Lust punched me right in the dick, and something feral in me tried to claw free.

“Thanks,” Bodhi said, quickly scooping it up and shoving it all deep into his bag. “I’m done,” he announced, dragging the strap over his shoulder, not even bothering to gaze around to make sure he got it all.

On his way to the door, I relieved him of the bag, swinging it up onto my shoulder instead. He glanced at me, and I shook my head. “I got it. Just go.”

Jamie, Bodhi, and I joined Ryan, Wes, and the asshole in the hall. The roommate wasted no time going into his room and slamming the door in our faces.

“Bro, he’s the literal worst.” Jamie decided.

Bodhi drank some coffee, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. When he was done, he strapped his messenger bag over his chest and grabbed the two bags lying on the floor.

“What now?” Ryan asked.

Everyone but Bodhi looked at me.

“You boys go to dinner like you planned. I’ll take care of this.”

Ryan seemed unsure. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, Walsh. I’m the coach. This is my job.”

“Bodhi?” Ryan called.

I made a rude noise.

“I’m good. Thanks for everything,” It was probably the nicest thing I’d ever heard Bodhi say.

Kinda pissed me off it was to someone else.

Guess I deserved it.

The boys hesitated, and I shooed them away. Finally, we were alone.