Coach Love(56)
Maybe she could convince Kent to move to Michigan. She’d liked it there well enough. The best part of living in Ann Arbor had been that no one knew her or her poor-white-trash backstory. Or the part where she’d tossed a perfectly wonderful man out of her life in the most hurtful way she could think of, to prove she could do it. So she could experience other men. She shook her head and chewed on her fingernail before remembering she’d had a manicure that morning.
Other men indeed. She’d never found anyone she loved as much as Kieran. Until Kent. Because she did love him, in a way she couldn’t explain even to herself anymore.
She made a disgusted sound down in her throat and attempted to focus on why she’d come here.
The place assaulted her with noise and odors. The crowd of loud, mostly drunk ladies and blaring music made her head ache. The stage, thankfully, sat curtained and dark for the moment. Cara spotted Helen in the middle of a throng of her fellow nurse friends.
“Congrats, honey,” she said with a smile. The woman raised her half-empty glass.
“Here’s to us. Marrying the men of our dreams!”
Cara nodded, disentangled from her friend’s hug, and headed to the bar. Sipping a weak vodka and cranberry juice, she decided to sit and watch as everyone else got steadily drunker.
But her mind would not settle. She had no idea how she could go through with marriage but at the same time couldn’t imagine how to break it off with Kent. Someone joined her, a tall, striking brunette who seemed familiar.
“Hi.” The woman settled into the barstool to her left. “Hope Kerrigan, remember? I’m the principal at the high school?”
“Oh right. Hey there,” she said, relieved since she sure as heck resembled “that Melinda” from a distance. “How are things so far this term?”
“Oh the usual mix of chaos, putting out fires, stopping fights, and sorting through personnel issues. You know, a principal’s life.” The attractive woman looked over at the larger group and shook her head. “I sure hope no one catches me on video at this thing.”
Cara nodded and sipped, wondering how someone so young could possibly be in charge of the large high school. With a jolt, she realized this woman had probably fired Kieran in June. As if reading her mind, Hope leaned close.
“I’m interviewing Kieran on Monday.”
“Oh? That’s nice.”
“We need a basketball coach. It only pays a few thousand but I thought....”
“Yes. I’m sure he’d like that. We don’t really, you know, talk anymore.”
No, you run into him at random outdoor events and make out like horny adolescents instead.
“Well, I thought you might want to know.” The woman kept her gaze down on her glass.
Cara entertained a brief fantasy about living somewhere she wouldn’t run into the random high school principal who looked an ingénue from the latest young-adult drama and who knew enough about her past to assume she would want to know about her ex-boyfriend’s employment status.
Both women flinched when the DJ yelled over the loudspeakers. Cara kept her face toward the bar. She’d never been into this kind of man-flesh spectacle and had only agreed to come to support her friend. The music shifted to something else, and the crowd screamed and cheered.
Ignoring it all, she pulled her phone out of her purse and pretended to be busy checking messages. Hope clapped and laughed along with the crowd but stayed seated next to her. She continued to block it, wishing the clock would move faster so she could go home. Propping her elbows on the bar, she pondered how much she dreaded that prospect.
The women cheered again in earnest, nearly deafening her. Hope bumped against her shoulder. “You gotta see this.”
“No, I’m good, thanks.”
She’d made it to within four days of her wedding. She should be home with her fiancé, snuggling or making plans or something, not here staring at half-naked strange men.
“No, really.”
Irritation bloomed in her chest but she turned and squinted into the bright lights hitting the three men on the stage strutting around in their jeans, work shirts, and hard hats. Kieran’s brother Dominic was hard to miss with that long blond hair and impish grin as he ripped his shirt open exposing an amazing array of intricate, and somehow familiar, body art. She didn’t recognize the other guy prancing around and the third one remained slightly outside her line of vision. The music changed again. Dom and the strange guy managed to rip their jeans off to the screeching delight of the women.
The third man’s jeans wouldn’t cooperate at first. He had to give them a few more yanks before they ripped at the seams. Embarrassed for him, she shook her head. When he moved into the middle of the stage, she shrieked and said out loud, “Holy shitballs, that’s Kieran Love up there...taking his fool clothes off.”