“Not what I heard,” he said in a singsongy playground taunt.
I knew that he had to be referring to Ryan, but I just shrugged, hoping it would end the discussion.
But it didn’t, of course—because Miller had the maturity of the eighth-grade students he taught.
“You and Ryan,” he said, shaking his head, laughing. “Gotta say. That really stings. I mean, did you have to go for such an obvious upgrade? The guy who took my starting spot?” He put his hand over his heart, a gesture that someone would only employ if his heart weren’t the slightest bit hurt.
“We’re just friends,” I said, wondering why I was downplaying our relationship with an outright lie. Was it to spare Miller’s feelings?
Miller laughed. “Yeah, right. Ryan isn’t friends with girls. Is he, Coach? Least not hot girls.”
Coach Carr cleared his throat and said, “There are exceptions to every rule.”
Miller slapped his thigh and said, “Oh, man. You used to tell us that in practice! Flashback!” Then he changed the subject to an even more awkward topic. “So is the rumor true, Coach? About the NCAA investigating us?” he asked. It was a question I had avoided all evening, somewhat irresponsibly given my new job.
My instinct was proven right as Coach visibly bristled and said, “Where’d you hear that, son?”
“From Nan Buxbaum,” Miller said. By the cocky grin on his face, it was pretty clear in what capacity Miller knew Nan.
“Who?” Coach said.
“A professor in the sociology department,” Miller said, leaving out that she was gorgeous. If Nan didn’t get tenure, lingerie model wasn’t out of the question. “We’ve been hanging out since Shea here dumped me.”
“I didn’t dump you,” I said, objecting to the ruthless nature of the verb.
“The hell!” he said as our waitress stopped by and took Miller’s PBR order.
“What did she say?” Coach asked, his expression becoming increasingly agitated.
“She said an investigator is crawling up their asses. You know, since we all major in sociology,” Miller said, still referring to himself as a player. “They seem to be implying that Walker skates athletes through the department. I think that’s the gist. I bet they confiscate Ebert’s computer.”
Professor Ebert, widely known as Easy Ebert, had been around forever. He was a huge football fan, and athletes had always clamored to take his classes. But, to be fair, so had all the regular students. If Ebert was the problem, the NCAA’s case seemed rather flimsy.
“It’s a non-story, Miller,” I said, quoting Coach. “So don’t go spreading rumors.”
“I’m not spreading rumors,” he said. “About the NCAA or you and Ryan James. I’m just callin’ ’em like I see ’em. Gotta be real. Right, Coach?”
“Right, Miller,” Coach said, abruptly standing. Clearly, he’d had enough. “If you’ll excuse me a moment …”
I watched him walk away from the table and head for the men’s room, then turned back to face Miller. “Look. Coach is clearly upset about this NCAA stuff,” I said. “You might not want to talk about it so … casually.”
“Yeah. My bad,” Miller said, as I tried to think of a tactful way to get rid of him completely. But short of telling him to please go away, I came up empty-handed, and a couple minutes of babble later, Coach rejoined us and announced that it was time for him to go home and hit the hay.
“Shea, I settled up at the bar. So we’re good,” he said, zipping up his fleece jacket.
“Thank you,” I said, my heart sinking.
“You’re welcome,” he replied, holding my gaze. I got the sense that he was as irritated by Miller’s interruption as I was.
“You sure you don’t want to stay? You’re going to miss the end of the game … And I know how much you love the Cowboys …”
“Nah. Ryan’s got this one in the bag,” Coach said.
“Your boyfriend,” Miller said, pointing at me, thoroughly amused with himself.
“Shut up,” I breathed back as we all watched Ryan complete an impossible thirty-yard pass through a forest of red, white, and blue into the end zone. He took off his helmet and thrust one finger up in the air as I read his lips: Fuck yeah.
Miller happily chortled, clearly not really jealous of anyone, as Coach said, “See? I know these things. Game over.”
I laughed. “Would you call it over if you were coaching the Giants?” I said. “There are still three and a half minutes to play.”
“No,” he said. “But I also wouldn’t have put a block on and roughed the kicker with that much time on the clock.”