6
The g
ym came as a surprise. More spacious than the arched-ceiling gym at Beverly Hills High, which went along with the Norman medieval style the architect had chosen in the late 1920s, this one boasted high windows that let in a surprising amount of light.
“It’s so bright,” Claire said as she stood at the edge of a wooden floor polished to a mirror sheen, looking up at one of the ceiling-hung baskets.
“Yeah, those windows really work well, even with all our rain. Plus, the ceiling’s painted with a reflective paint to better diffuse the light they let in.”
“I can’t imagine Matt not wanting to play here.”
The steel bleachers had been painted to resemble an American flag, with red-and-white stripes and a dark blue rectangle in each top corner. A blue dolphin mascot was painted in the center of the floor and blue-and-white rally banners hung on the high walls. Along with, she noted, a lone state championship banner dating back to 1978.
“You have quite a challenge cut out for you,” she said.
“You called that one right. Fortunately, if there’s one thing we EOD guys love, it’s a challenge.” His grin, which flashed a dimple at the corner of his mouth, was quick, easy, and too charming for comfort.
Rather than acknowledge the little tug, Claire focused on what he’d just said. “EOD?”
“Yeah. We’re the guys who defuse IEDs and blow weapons caches and other stuff up.”
“That must be extremely dangerous.”
He shrugged. “War’s dangerous. For the military and civilians . . . So, how’s your son with this move?” he asked in a not very subtle attempt to change the subject.
“He wasn’t thrilled,” she admitted. “And it’s going to take some adjustment. Which is another reason I hope he’ll try out for the team. Playing will be something familiar. Which should help with the transition.”
“Any more signs of drugs?”
Claire wasn’t surprised he knew of Matt’s locker episode. If she’d been the principal who’d read the note she’d sent along with his transcript, she’d have felt obligated to share the information with his teachers and coach. In a way she was a bit relieved that she wouldn’t be the only adult watching for signs of trouble.
“None. I believed he learned his lesson.” She dearly hoped so.
“What about his father? I know you’re a single mother,” he said. She listened for any judgment in his tone and found none. “But how much is he in the picture?”
“Not at all. And he never has been.”
She saw a flicker of something in his eyes. Something that looked like pity. “That’s tough.”
Damn. It seemed to be her day for being made to feel defensive. And she wasn’t enjoying it at all.
“I understand the thinking that boys need a man in the family to serve as a role model. But that really depends on the man, doesn’t it?”
When she’d found herself pregnant after a one-night stand with a man who turned out to be not just a world-class liar, but also an adulterer who’d conveniently forgotten to mention his wife, she’d come to the conclusion that not having Matt’s father in their lives would turn out to be a good thing.
Because no way would she have wanted a man with such a low moral character influencing her son.
He put his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and rocked back on his heels. “I suppose it does. That’s one thing sports can be good for. It gives kids a guy to talk with. Even about things they might not want to share with their moms or even their dads.”
“It’s an admirable concept. But I don’t think it’s worked that way for Matt.”
While she wouldn’t have changed a thing about that decision she’d made sixteen years ago, there were admittedly times Claire wondered if Matt didn’t need a male mentor who could help him make the right choices during this complicated, testosterone-driven time of his life. And, just as important, make him accept responsibility for his actions.
“Obviously I’m not in the locker room with him, but over the years I’ve gotten the distinct impression that his athletic ability has given him a free pass when it comes to behavior.”
“If he’s expecting a free pass here, he’s going to be in for a big disappointment.”
Even though she agreed with that idea in principle, his statement triggered a spark of maternal protectionism. And concern about this man being former military. “You do realize we’re talking about a high school basketball team? And not a boot camp?”
“Of course. But I’m also a big believer in personal responsibility. Every guy on the floor has to rely on every other team member to show up prepared to play. And to give everything he’s got at practice so he can be his best. Whatever his talent level.”
“Matt lives and breathes basketball.” She folded her arms and lifted her chin. “He’s no slacker.”
“I’ll buy that he loves playing the game. That showed from the game-film clips I saw. Call me a throwback to the dinosaur age, if anyone had actually been around to play roundball back then, but I see my role as teaching the kids to incorporate discipline and the ability to make clear-minded choices they can take from this gym to their lives beyond the court.
“My dad died when I was thirteen. I was angry at the world and probably could’ve spiraled out of control, especially since my mom, who is, by the way, a second-grade teacher, had to take on a second job to pay the bills, but I was lucky to have a middle school coach who stepped in to fill that gap. So the way I see it, I’m just paying it forward.”
Her annoyance receded like the ocean at low tide. “I like that idea.” Claire also hoped that Matt would decide to play for this man, although she knew that if she tried to push him into a decision, he’d balk and do exactly the opposite, just for spite. “Were you an only child?”
“No, I had four younger sisters.”
“You were definitely outnumbered.” She also suspected he might have been forced into the role of surrogate parent.
“Definitely.” From the way his eyes softened, she suspected he was looking back with more fondness than pain. “Though it wasn’t all that tough, since I learned a lot of stuff about girls most guys don’t.”
As that small dimple flashed again at the corner of his mouth when he grinned, Claire decided the last thing this man needed was any inside information.
“If you ever need someone to braid your hair, I’m your guy.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Was he actually flirting with her? And if so, was he the same way with all the players’ moms? Or just the single available ones?
He was good-looking. Okay, better than that. He was hot. But having grown up in Los Angeles, Claire had spent her life surrounded by good-looking men. And, because she wasn’t a nun, she’d gone out with her share who were charming, fun, and out for a good time. Throw a stick on any beach in Los Angeles County and you’d hit a dozen of them. They’d only been in it for the moment, which had been fine with her, because she hadn’t been looking for a long-term relationship. Nor was she now.
Wanting to know who was going to be coaching her son, she’d looked up his background on the school’s Web site. Since she’d guess his height at a little over six feet, she wasn’t surprised that he’d gotten an athletic scholarship to Texas A&M as a point guard. While that position tended to be one of the shorter players on a team, point guards were leaders, calling the plays on the floor, directing their teammates where to go, and making sure everyone got the ball at the right time.
They were, unlike most men Claire had known, adept at multitasking. Not only able to weave quickly between and around larger defenders, they were also known for their ball-handling skills.
Which drew her gaze to his hands. He’d hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans. While his hands were large enough to palm a basketball, those long dark fingers would have to possess finesse, wouldn’t they? In order to defuse a bomb without blowing himself and his teammates up?
His whiskey brown eyes were lighter in the center, like bursts of gold. They also had a way of looking at her as if they could see more than she wanted them to.
As he continued to look down at her, she felt the walls narrowing, boxing her in—even though the gym was larger than most she’d seen as she’d attended Matt’s games around Southern California.
And as those all-seeing eyes drifted down to her mouth and lingered thoughtfully, Claire felt much too alone with him.
“Well,” she said, feeling a sudden need for air, “I appreciate you taking the time to fill me in on your program. And showing me the gym. It’s very impressive, and I’d feel very comfortable with you as my son’s coach.”
“Thank you. I appreciate the vote of confidence.” A light dancing in his eyes suggested he’d recognized her unbidden, and definitely unwilling, awareness.
She glanced down at her watch. “I’d better be going. I have an appointment in ten minutes.”
“Doesn’t take much more than that to get anywhere in town.” He put his hand on the back of her coat again, a casual touch to once again guide her to where he wanted her to go.
And wasn’t that the problem with men? Always wanting a woman to go places she wasn’t comfortable going?
“I can see my way out.”
He cocked his head and gave her another of those looks. “Suit yourself.”
She’d been expecting an argument. Had been prepared for it. Yet, grateful as she was that he wasn’t going to insist on having his way, as she walked out of the gym, the heels of her boots echoing on the polished wooden floor, Claire was vaguely disappointed.
7
Matt was
seething as he walked past the jocks wearing their letterman jackets and lounging against the wall of the main hall of Shelter Bay High School. They were laughing and having themselves a good old time. And why not? They were the freaking stars of the school, and even some Martian who’d just landed a spaceship on the front lawn could’ve recognized it.
They were immersed in their own world, so unless you were a pretty girl they could hit on or some nerd they could laugh at, you simply failed to exist.
Matt wondered whether he’d been the same way back at BHHS and reluctantly decided he had. But since he’d also been a scholar-athlete, he’d had his share of nerd acquaintances. They might not be friends, like the guys on his team, but they didn’t have to worry that he’d be singling them out for public ridicule.
He forged through the sea of kids, finding the office without any trouble. Behind the counter stood a woman with wiry gray hair that stuck out from her head in a way that made it look as if she’d put her wet fingers in a light socket.
After he’d told her his name, she typed it into her computer, and the printer began kicking out his schedule, which she handed him, along with a stack of textbooks, a temporary ID card, and a map showing the campus and the interior of the school.
“This is your locker.” She plucked a yellow pencil from the bird’s nest of hair and drew a circle around a rectangle on the second floor. “And here’s your combination.” She wrote it on the paper. “Your first class is physics with Mr. Dillon.”
The basketball coach. Matt was trying to decide whether having a class with the coach would be a good thing, when the woman behind the counter called over a girl who was typing away at a computer across the room.
“This is Aimee Pierson,” she said. “She’ll be showing you around today. Aimee, this is our new student, Matthew Templeton.” She handed her a sheet of paper. “And here’s his schedule.”
The top of the girl’s head hit Matt about midchest. Her hair was coppery red, she had a sprinkling of freckles across her nose, and brown eyes smiled at him from behind the lenses of black-framed glasses. “Hi, Matthew.”
“It’s Matt.” Her glasses and the way she’d pulled her long hair back into a braid reminded him of the sexy librarian in a soft-porn video he’d watched one night with the guys on his team after winning the game that sent them to state. Though she definitely didn’t have a rack like the girl in the video. “And thanks for the offer, but I don’t need a guide.”
“Every new student gets a guide the first day,” the woman behind the counter informed him.
“It’s part of our Shelter Bay High hospitality,” Aimee Pierson said. White teeth encased in clear braces flashed in a smile even brighter than the one in her eyes. She plucked his map from his hand. “Oh, cool. Your locker’s on the same hallway as mine.”
Then, before he could insist yet again that he didn’t need a keeper, she was headed toward the door of the office. Thinking that he seemed to be surrounded by bossy females lately, Matt had no choice but to follow.
“Are you that basketball phenom everyone’s talking about?” she asked as they walked toward a stairway at the end of the main hall.
“I guess.” He shrugged, although he liked the idea that she’d heard about him. “So, does everyone really get the hospitality treatment?” he asked. Or maybe he was just getting extra attention to help convince him to join the team.
Matt had heard stories about high school senior jocks having sex with willing coeds assigned to make sure top recruits enjoyed college visits. He’d never actually met anyone who’d admit to experiencing it personally, but he doubted there was a guy out there who didn’t hope it would happen to him.
She nodded emphatically, sending her earrings dancing. He recognized the small pieces of blue sea glass wrapped in silver threads as one of his mother’s designs from last year’s spring collection. While he’d gotten used to girls in L.A. wearing his mother’s jewelry, it seemed weird to see the earrings show up here at the end of the world.
“Everyone gets a guide the first day,” she said, confirming what the woman in the office had already said. “One of the things you’ll find when you read your student information package is that all Shelter Bay students are required to do community volunteer work. I help out Saturday mornings at Dr. Parrish’s free clinic and supplement my babysitting money working in the office for a half hour before classes start in the morning.
“The new student guide was my idea. I’m a former Army brat, so I know how tough it can be coming to a new school. Especially when you’re having to start later in the year.”
“No offense, but I’d rather be anywhere than here.”
She nodded. “I totally understand. I’ve lived in nine houses in three states and two foreign countries. Every time I’d make friends, Dad would come home with new orders and off we’d go again.”
“That must’ve sucked.”
“It kind of did. But it wasn’t like I had any choice. When I was a little kid, I was really shy—”
“Get out.”
“No, really. I had the hardest time even talking to anyone at school and spent most of my time at home in my room either crying or reading. Then, around fifth grade, some boys made a paper airplane out of my homework and threw it out the bus window, so I finally figured out that if I wanted to fit in, I’d have to just put on my big-girl panties and throw myself into the stream of things.”
She might not be all that hot. But that comment about her panties had Matt wondering what she was wearing beneath that baggy blue sweater and pleated plaid skirt. Since she wasn’t wearing any makeup, he figured whatever underwear she
was
wearing probably hadn’t come from Victoria’s Secret.
“When Dad retired last year, he promised our move here from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, up in Washington, was our last.”
Matt was relieved she couldn’t see the image that had flashed through his head of Victoria’s Secret supermodel Erin Heatherton on the fashion show runway, not wearing much more than wings, high heels, and scraps of lace.
“He teaches electrical engineering at Coastal Community College.”
Although he wasn’t about to call her a liar, he still had a hard time imagining Aimee Pierson being lonely and crying in her room. She was probably the most talkative girl he’d ever met.
“Does everyone in school know about me moving here?” On the HD video screen in his mind, Erin had just bent down from the end of the raised runway to throw him a kiss.
“Probably. Shelter Bay’s a small town. Everyone pretty much knows everything about everyone. And all the people who care about basketball talk about you as if you’re the Second Coming.”
“You sound as if you’re not one of the people who care about basketball.”
“Oh, I don’t dislike it,” she assured him as she stopped in front of a gray metal locker with a combination lock. “It’s just that I’ve never had any reason to get into it.”
“Maybe you’ll change your mind once the team starts winning.”
She paused in twisting the dial to look up at him. “So you’re going to try out?”
Try out? She made it sound as if there was any question about him making the team. Which there wasn’t. “I haven’t made up my mind. Though with all the rain, it’s not as if there’s a lot of other stuff to do.”
“Oh, but there is. Of course in winter the beach can get pretty chilly, but when the sun comes out, as long as you bundle up, it’s still fun.”
A boy with hair the color of a carrot was taking a stack of books from his locker across the hall and called out a hello to her. She said a cheery “hi” back, and waved.
“That’s Johnny Tiernan-St. James,” she told Matt. “He’s a junior and probably the only kid in this school who’s lived in more places than I have. He’s trying out for varsity, so you’ll probably become friends. He’s a really nice guy. For an athlete.”
Color suddenly flooded into her face. “Not that I was saying
all
athletes aren’t nice people, but—”
“I know what you meant.” It was pretty much what he’d been thinking when forced to walk past the jocks in the main hall.
“Good, because I definitely didn’t mean to insult you. . . . If we had more time”—she glanced down at her geeky relativity watch with its rotating numbers—“I’d introduce you to Johnny, but if you do try out for the team, you’ll meet him this afternoon.
“And don’t worry about finding things to do around here. There are lighthouse tours, and all the nearby towns have historical museums, if you’re into that sort of thing. And the Oregon Coast Aquarium and Hatfield Marine Science Center are just down the coast highway in Newport. Some Oregon State University scientists working there predicted an undersea volcano five years before it even happened.”
“Did it actually blow out of the water?”
“No, there was a lava flow on the seafloor. But it still would’ve been way cool to see.”
She said it with the same awe and excitement girls back at his old school might’ve reported a Robert Pattinson—the pale, skinny heartthrob from
Twilight
—sighting. “So I guess you want to be a scientist?” Matt asked.
“Actually, I want to be a family physician. Or maybe a pediatrician, because I really like kids. Which is why I’m volunteering at the clinic. But, to the despair of my mother—who was probably accessorizing her pacifier to match her onesies in her cradle—I take after my dad. I guess nerd runs in my DNA.”
It sounded like she’d guessed right. But she was pretty cute for a nerd. Of course her not liking basketball was a negative.
“From your schedule, you must like math and science, too,” she said.
“They’re okay,” he said with an indifferent shrug as he hung his jacket on a hook inside the locker. “But I mostly take them because they’re easy for me. So I can concentrate more on basketball.”
Matt loved being on that polished wooden floor, doing what he did best. There were lots of times, lying in the dark in bed after a game, although he’d never in a million years admit it, that he’d fantasize about his father reading about him being drafted first into the NBA for a multimillion-dollar contract and realize the mistake he’d made, tossing his own son away and never looking back.
As good as that story was to think about, he’d never figured out what he’d do if the father he’d never known actually did show up to make amends. Would he forgive him? Or would he turn his back on the guy whose only contribution had been to supply the sperm and say, “Too little, too late, dude.”
“Does that mean you won’t be joining the science club?” Her question broke into the thoughts he’d been having more and more often since his mother had told him that they were leaving California, and no, he didn’t have a vote.
“Probably not.” After he twirled the lock, they began walking down the hall again.
“That’s too bad. Next week Mr. Slater’s taking a cannon down to the beach and we’re going to shoot it off.”
“That sounds kinda cool,” he admitted.
“Oh, I think it’ll be a lot of fun. Also, there’s great skiing at Willamette Pass, which isn’t that far away. The ski club takes a big trip there every year. Maybe you’ll want to join them.”
“I’ve never been skiing.”
“That makes sense, since you grew up in Los Angeles. But you’re an athlete; it shouldn’t be that hard to learn. They have classes and beginner slopes, so you could ease into it. The ski trip’s during Christmas break and we have a really great time. And if you don’t enjoy skiing, there’s snowboarding on the back of the mountain. Lots of guys really like that.”
Having already blown off the science club idea, although he had no intention of risking an injury that could prevent him from playing college, then pro ball, Matt said, “I’ll think about it.”
“Great.” She smiled up at him as they passed a couple plastered together against a locker.
The girl was blond and the guy was wearing a blue Dolphins jacket. The graduation year on the right sleeve indicated that he was a senior. Matt wondered what sport he’d lettered in.
“We have two classes together,” she continued, either not seeing the hallway make-out session or choosing to ignore it. “Mechanical physics with Mr. Slater, who’s really nice and, as you probably already know, the basketball coach.”
“Yeah. I figured that out when I saw the schedule.”
“And after lunch is Mrs. Lessman, Honors English.”
Oh, yay. Although his stupid test scores and grades had landed him in the honors program, English wasn’t his favorite subject because, unlike whipping through a math problem, reading took time away from the three hundred shots he made himself take every day.
And reading lists were lame, since most of the books were written by dead writers about boring olden days. Though he’d checked online while they’d still been in L.A., and Pat Conroy’s
A Losing Season
, which he’d already read without being assigned to do so, turned out to be on Dorktown High’s assigned list. Of course so were two Jane Austen novels, which girls always seemed to go orgasmic about.
When he’d complained about those to his grandmother, shortly before she died, she’d briskly told him that sulking was unattractive. Then she’d added that girls liked boys who were able to discuss something other than sports and cars.
So he’d tried reading
Pride and Prejudice
, and although he’d been hoping it’d at least have some sex in it, his grandmother had turned out to be right. Just carrying it around had been a chick magnet, causing even senior girls to comment on how nice it was to see a guy willing to “embrace his sensitive side.”
What he didn’t bother to tell them was that he’d given up at about page fifty and settled for watching the movie. It had been slow and way too talky, but the way Keira Knightley’s nightgown kept sliding off her shoulder sort of made up for the boring parts. Unfortunately, his teacher caught his ruse when he made the mistake of including the scene in his report of Elizabeth running over the bridge and Mr. Darcy running after her to declare his great and abiding love.
Who knew that hadn’t been in the damn book?
She stopped in front of an open classroom door. “Here we are.”