Chapter 8

8

Coach (Emmett)

“How’s my daughter?” I asked Rush as I popped the lid off the large bowl he handed me. Steam rushed beneath my nose, carrying the savory scent of smoked meat accompanied by onion and garlic.

When Rush said ramen earlier, I pictured a packet of the cheap stuff they sold at the grocery store. You know, with the packet of powder you dumped into the water to give it flavor.

I’d lived off that stuff for years. Probably why I didn’t eat it now.

But this was not that.

Inhaling more of the rich scent, I stared at the bowl packed full of long, crimped noodles, fat slices of beef, two halved hard-boiled eggs with slightly soft centers, diced green onion, and bok choy. It all rested in a dark-colored broth that seemed steeped with flavor.

This looked damn good, and my stomach growled, reminding me we hadn’t eaten all day. Bypassing the chopsticks, I went right for the wrapped plastic silverware.

“The girls are having a sleepover at your house.” Rush’s words paused my actions and reminded me I’d asked him a question.

I frowned, thinking of Landry and her friends. “They’re at my house alone?”

Yeah, yeah, they were adults. Didn’t mean I couldn’t be concerned.

Rush scoffed. “Ryan, Jamie, and Kruger are on the couch downstairs.”

I didn’t know what was worse, the girls being alone or those morons over there with them. “Those three won’t fit on my couch,” was all I said out loud.

“There’s always your bed,” Rush quipped, shoving a huge roll of uncooked food into his face with a pair of chopsticks.

Sometimes I really wondered what was wrong with his generation.

Grabbing the whistle around my neck, I blew it long and loud.

At the end of the table, Bodhi abandoned his bottle of polish to slap his hands over his ears while Rush kept eating.

“Feel better?” he asked when I was done.

Yes. I do.

“Those mouth breathers better not even put a toe inside my bedroom,” I declared.

“Maybe you should get some more furniture,” Rush mused, grabbing more food from the second container in front of him. Groaning appreciatively, he said, “This slaps.”

“Not hard enough because you’re still flapping your lips,” I muttered and dug into the bowl of ramen.

Yes, it was a running joke around Elite that I had little to no furniture in my house. What the hell did I need all that useless shit for? I was at the pool eighty-five percent of my day. I had a couch, a TV, and a bed. What else did a man need?

Please note my daughter had a fully furnished room. I might not need stuff, but girls seemed to require an abundance of it.

Please also note this ramen did indeed “slap.”

“I’m calling Walsh,” I muttered, dropping my fork to grab my cell. I’d tell Elite’s unofficial captain what I thought of him using my house as a hotel.

Rush laughed beneath his breath. “Relax, Coach. They’re on the floor.”

“Emmett.” I reminded him. Why I bothered, I didn’t know.

“I’m going to bed,” Bodhi announced, standing from the table. I glanced at his uneaten dinner in front of him.

“You didn’t eat,” I pointed out.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You’ll regret it when your ass is sitting on a plane for six hours,” I quipped, feeling Rush’s stare bounce between us.

“About that,” he said, palming the bottle of dark-purple polish he’d been painting his fingernails with. “I’m not coming.”

Rush tossed his chopsticks down, and one bounced off the side of the takeout container and rolled into the center of the table. “You already agreed.”

He shrugged one shoulder, the exaggerated action dragging the side of the crop top he wore higher up his side. The sweats were riding low now, dipping well below his flat navel and teetering dangerously on his hipbone. “I changed my mind.”

“You don’t have a choice.” I reminded him.

Bodhi’s blue eyes widened, disobedience lighting them. “What are you going to do, tie me up and throw me in a duffle bag? If I don’t want to get on that plane, you can’t make me.”

I sucked in a deep breath through my nose and then expelled it the same way. Oh, the things I wanted to make him do.

“Give it a rest, Bodhi. You signed the court documents. If you don’t go, you’ll go back to jail,” Rush said.

“They’d have to find me first.” He challenged.

My gut burned. Frustration and the urge to force this blond brat into submission made it hard to sit still. Just before I could jolt to my feet and act on my urges, Rush spoke. His voice was even, flat, and resigned.

“Fine. Go. But don’t call me ever again. I won’t come back. I’m done.”

Bodhi straightened and rotated toward Rush. He stared at him, but Rush refused to return the gaze. Instead, he sat there facing ahead, stone-faced and determined. It was the face of the swimmer who first showed up at my pool last semester. Not at all the face of the man dating my daughter.

“Whatever,” Bodhi spat and then fled the room, disappearing down the stairs, the slam of a door echoing below us.

“I meant what I said.” Rush’s voice was quiet.

“I know.” I agreed, understanding completely. He had every right to protect himself, and I respected his boundaries.

“I appreciate you coming here with me,” Rush said, dragging the chair back as he stood from the table. “If he’s not here in the morning, I’m going home without him.”

I nodded. You couldn’t help someone who didn’t want to be helped. I knew it. I knew better than most.

So why was it still so damn hard to accept?

“There’s a guest room upstairs,” he said, pointing at the open railing that overlooked where we were. “I’m going to bed.”

I wondered if he was choosing two floors up from Bodhi so, if he left, he wouldn’t hear and be tempted to stop him, but I just agreed. “I’ll take the couch.”

He left his half-eaten dinner and went upstairs. The click of a door followed a few moments later. The house fell into heavy silence, and I stared at the dark windows without really seeing.

After a few minutes of nothing, I finished the bowl in front of me. I wasn’t really hungry anymore, but my body needed the fuel. When I was done, I eyed Rush’s abandoned sushi. Leaning across the table, I hooked my fork into the edge of the plate and dragged it closer. Stabbing one of the rolls, I held it up to my nose and sniffed.

The scent of uncooked fish slapped my nostrils. Nope.

I dropped the food back into its container and then put what I could in the fridge and tossed the rest. I thought longingly of a beer, or maybe something harder, but I didn’t go looking for anything because now was not the time.

I was the adult here. Even if sometimes that very thing blew my mind. I wasn’t a very good adult. I wasn’t a good man either.

I was a good father, though. And coach.

How I could be good at some of those things and not the others was something I didn’t understand… Except maybe I did.

You just don’t like the answer.

Shutting off all the lights except for the glowing stone of the kitchen island, I moved soundlessly to the large glass door leading out onto the deck. My mind was too churned up to sleep, so I slipped out into the windswept, salty night and into a wooden deck chair near the railing overlooking the beach.

Everything was dark, but the white-capped waves were white, and I watched them crest and crash onto the shore. The sound was relaxing, and the strong wind off the ocean might have been enough to blow the thoughts from my head.

It was love.

The reason I was a good father and coach. I loved my daughter more than anything else in life, and right behind her was swimming. I’d made more mistakes in my life, had more regrets than anything, but Landry? My baby girl was the best thing I ever did. Even if, yeah, she started as a mistake. I would never regret her, and in truth, she was probably the sole reason I was still here.

Swimming was also a reprieve. And coaching? A chance to make those boys better. Yeah, I rode them hard. Yeah, I was an asshole, and yeah, I blew my whistle more than I talked, but it was my way. My way of making them tough, loyal, and capable so they would be better at life than I ever was.

I put everything into coaching and fatherhood but nothing into me. Why?

I didn’t love myself.

Hell, most days I struggled to like the reflection I saw in the mirror. And no, I didn’t mean the way I looked. I’d been told more than once I was easy on the eyes. I didn’t care about that. It made me a catfish. Easy on the eyes… hell on the heart.

So no, I didn’t love myself. And I didn’t love being an adult. I didn’t much love humanity at all. So I put nothing into those things, and the places you don’t water die instead of grow.

I am stagnate.

So much for the ocean blowing away my thoughts.

Fuck it. I’m going to find a drink.

We were all adults here anyway.

That’s a dangerous thought, Emmett, and you know it.

Flattening my palms on the wooden arms of the tall Adirondack chair, I started to push up to go find that drink. It would be the only way to shut up my damn brain.

That’s when I saw it. A faint flicker. The glow of a small red light. Something passed in front of it, blocking it out, and then it reappeared. Sinking back into the chair, I stared at what I knew was a lit cigarette. It was so dark, the house that much higher than the beach, that I didn’t even know there was anyone down there. Hell, it had felt like I was alone for miles.

An uneasy feeling melted down my spine, congealing to the bone and leaving me suspicious. I waited for the small light to continue, for the person imbibing themselves of the cancer stick to keep walking.

Only, it remained rooted in place, right in front of the house. The light flickered and something passed in front of it, hiding the glow. Must be using their hand to block the wind. It appeared again, and I stared intently into the dark until I was sure my eyes could make out the outline of a person.

Sure, sure, it wasn’t a crime to walk on the beach and have a smoke. But the persistent feeling gnawing at my instincts wouldn’t let me look away. Ash flicked from the tip, fading out long before it hit the sand, and the cigarette was lifted back to a pair of lips. The person started moving, making the back of my neck tighten as they headed not down the beach but toward the house.

Quickly, I glanced from side to side, confirming what I already knew. There were no houses on either side of this one. At least not close enough for the person to be walking to them instead.

No, these bougie beach houses had “privacy” and “personal space” or whatever it was those monied avocado heads out there in Cali called it.

Even though it was dark and I was up here on the deck, I still moved slowly, taking pains to not make any noise or call attention to myself. I leaned forward to look at the stairway leading up from the sand onto the long wooden walkway that led to the house. There were three stories here (could have been more; I didn’t ask for a tour), so there was a deck below me and a partial one above, which made more than one way to access the house from the beach.

I waited for an alarm to pierce the night. Surely, the rich were loaded down with them here. But none came.

The lit cigarette crested the stairwell, and I watched the man pull it from between his lips and toss it onto the deck. After letting himself through the small gate at the top of the steps, he put it out with his shoe.

My eyes narrowed, and I slid deeper into the chair. I watched him stuff his hands into the pockets of a dark-colored jacket and bow his face so all I saw was the top of a dark head.

He walked along the path almost as though he belonged there, like he wasn’t out of place or uninvited. A swift, powerful punch of something that made me intensely angry slammed into my gut, momentarily robbing me of breath.

Did Bodhi call him? Is this some kind of booty call? A little post-prison fun?

I jumped up from the chair, the wooden leg scratching the deck boards. The man below tensed and spun, looking over the railing.

Suppressing a curse, I slid back into the shadows as he pulled his face up to look toward the windows. When he saw nothing, he resumed walking toward the house.

Another thought assailed me. Is this guy gonna help Bodhi run?

Look, Rush might be resigned to letting his old bestie make his own choices and ruin his life. But me? Over my cold, dead body.

Like hell I’d let this little shit run off into the night with some hoodlum smoking a cigarette like he had no respect for his lungs. In my line of work, oxygen might be optional, but it wasn’t because our lungs were too diseased to work.

Kids these days acted like they didn’t have D.A.R.E. in school.

His shoe scuffed lightly against the wood, and I peered over the railing in time to see him disappear beneath the deck.

As quiet as I could, I rushed to the door and slid inside, ran soundlessly through the room, and hit the stairs.

Bang! Bang! The loud thudding hitting against something hard echoed through the house.

“I know you’re in there, Lawson! Open the door or I’m smashing it in!”

Forgetting about being quiet, I rushed down the stairs and into the hallway.

Bang!

The sound of a lock clicking and a large slider opening led me to a shut bedroom door.

“What the fuck—” The muffled voice was cut off by something being knocked over and breaking. There was a grunt and an oomph.

Grabbing the handle, I twisted, but the fucking thing was locked. This shit locked his bedroom door to keep me out.

Another grunt and clatter. My vision tunneled. With a roar, I backed up and went running, slamming into the door. A loud splintering sound filled the hallway, and then it gave way and I stumbled inside.

The room was dark, the only light from the moon shining in through the open slider door. A table was overturned, as was a chair and a lamp. Sheer curtains whipped in the wind, almost like a white flag of surrender.

“You think I wouldn’t find you?” a deep voice threatened, and I turned to where a man had Bodhi pinned against the wall by his throat.

Bodhi slapped and clawed at the hand holding him as he twisted and tried to kick.

Enraged, I threw myself at them, slamming into the attacker from the side. The force knocked him away from Bodhi, and we both went down in a tangle of limbs. I recovered first, straddling the man and slamming my fist into his jaw.

He grunted and twisted, stretching his arm out to grab some kind of basket and throw it at me. I batted it away, and he rolled from beneath me. Jumping to our feet, chests heaving, we locked eyes on each other.

The wild way I felt must have been clear in my expression because the man in the dark jacket swiped the back of his hand over his mouth and then spit. “This don’t involve you, man. Just move out of the way.”

“Everything about him involves me.” I watched and weighed his every move, readying myself for a strike. “So just forget it and go.”

“I’m not leaving until I get what I came for.”

He lunged, and I swiped his legs out from under him. He fell hard, and I leaped on him, grabbing his shirt and punching him again.

The guy laughed, his teeth outlined in red. “Wait,” he rasped, spitting out some blood.

I hesitated.

It was my mistake.

The man moved quickly, pulling a pistol out of his jacket and jamming the nose into my chest. “Back the fuck up or eat a bullet.”

I immediately lifted my hands and stood.

Cigarettes and guns. Bodhi was lucky he ended up in jail instead of six feet under.

“Emmett!” Rush’s voice came in from the hall, and I forgot about myself and turned to yell for him to get the fuck out.

But he crashed through the bedroom door before the words even left my lips.

“Whoa,” he said, taking in the mess and the fact I was being held at gunpoint.

Fear slammed into me, as did the reality of this situation. Moving fast and without turning my back, I grabbed Bodhi and tossed him behind me and then plowed him back until I was standing in front of both him and Rush.

“Get the hell out of here,” I told them. “Now.”

“No one is going anywhere until I get what I came for,” Smokey raged.

My heart was hammering. A whooshing sound filled my ears. I took a breath, willing myself to calm down as my mind whirled with ways to get them both the hell out of there before they got shot.

I spared a glance over my shoulder, eyes colliding with Rush’s. “Take him and get the fuck out,” I spat and then threw myself at the intruder.

And then the gun went off.