Page 26 of Coached By the Grumpy Gargoyle

"For the record," she says as I turn in past the flagpole, “you snored all night.”

"I'm a gargoyle. We do not snore.”

“Like an old lawnmower. It was awful,” she repeats, delighted, like she's won something.

Her car sits where she left it last night, frosted white to the door handles. I pull into a space near it. The bolted sign at the head of the staff row says HEAD COACH, and the space under it is already full, because it's a playoff week and Gene Thackery is always the first one here.

Good. I want him early. I've been thinking about what I'll tell him since last night. I want him to hear it from me, coach to coach, before the building fills. Gene cares about every kid on that team. He'll be sick about Friday, and then he'll back me. After eight years working beside him, I can't imagine him doing anything else.

We come in through the side door together, into liniment and floor wax and the gold-and-navy of my wing, and Rory peels off half a step toward the main corridor, letting go of her smile. That's when Gene's door opens.

He fills the doorway the way he fills every doorway. He's six foot eight of moss-green orc, with an iron-gray buzz cut, polished tusks, and a barrel chest. At forty-eight, he's still fit enough to put most of his players to shame. Usually, he'd already be asking me about practice. He doesn't say good morning.

"My office." His amber eyes go past me and land on her. "You too, Miss Hale."

Rory stops beside me. I look from her to Gene, the pleasure of the morning fading as he steps back to let us in. Gene's office door is usually open so the whole wing can hear him run his program. He waits until we're both inside and then shuts it, and I turn at the click of the latch.

The walls are covered in plaques, team photos going back twenty seasons, and clippings gone newspaper-yellow in their frames. A game ball sits mounted on a walnut stand, beside a desk that leaves little room for the two visitor chairs in front of it. Nobody sits. Gene plants himself in front of the photo wall, arms crossed, and looks at me the way he looks at a player who’s late to practice.

"Patricia called me at my kitchen table at six this morning." He runs loud at practice and quiet when it counts, and eight years taught me which one to worry about. This is the quiet one. “That’s how I found out that my own assistant coach benched my star quarterback two days before playoff and filed paper on him with the principal."

"You'd have heard it from me in about four minutes. I came in early to brief you."

"Brief me." He bites the words like they taste bitter. "There are recruiters driving up Friday with offer sheets in their glove boxes for Cole Braddock. That boy is the best thing this program has produced in decades, and you think to just ruin this for all of us? Without even running it by me first, on top of things.”

"I saw what I saw."

“Well, here's what happens now." He doesn't argue with what I saw. He doesn't ask about Eli, either. He looks at me as if he's giving me instructions before practice and expects me to get on with them. "You withdraw the complaint. Both of you. Cole plays like planned and we make the run this town has been owed for fifteen years, and by June nobody remembers this week happened. We handle it within the team. It doesn't need to go any further."

"No."

It comes out flat and immediate, and his jaw shifts. For a second, neither of us moves. I stand my ground, waiting for him to argue with me.

Instead, Gene turns away from me and to Rory.

"Miss Hale." His voice becomes almost gentle, which is worse. "Walk me through your proof. Because here's what I'm looking at. A boy with four spotless years. Not one complaint, not one mark against him, a family this whole town knows and respects. And you're hanging an accusation on him that follows that kid for life."

"I have proof.” Rory's feet are planted, and her voice is clear and steady. There is nothing friendly about it. "I've seen Eli's injuries. He's told me who's been hurting him. And I have a signed eyewitness account from your own assistant coach, who walked in on it happening."

"A tipped laundry bin and some horseplay is all this was.” He says it without heat, without even glancing at me. I can hardly believe he's describing what happened as if he was there. He hasn't heard a word of it from me. "Boys scrap, Miss Hale. It's a locker room, not a library. What you have is a story you decided to believe, and you're set to taint a bright kid's future with it. And the way I learned this business, your job is the kids. All of them. Including the seventeen-year-old you're about to burn on a hunch. From where I stand, that's not doing your job. That's failing at it."

"Failing at..." Her chin comes up. I know how much she cares about this job and those kids. Hearing him accuse her of failing them makes me want to step between them, but she's already answering him. "There is a sixteen-year-old in this school who has been bullied for months, right under your nose. It’s not me who failed him, it’s you.”

"Then where is he?" Gene spreads his big green hands. "If it's real, the kid comes forward himself. He sits in Patricia's office, he puts his name on it, he says it out loud. That's how this gets taken seriously. Not a counselor building a file out of guesswork."

"He's afraid of Cole." Her hands cut the air. "He is half his size and terrified of him, and you want him to sit in a room and tell everyone what happened while he's afraid of what Cole will do afterward. I won't put him in that position."

"Then you've got nothing." The gentleness leaves his voice. "And understand me, because I'll say this part once. Your contract renews every June. Every June, somebody upstairs decides whether Saltford High needs you back. Keep pushing these baseless accusations at one of our star students, and you are risking your job. That's not a threat, Miss Hale. That's a fact."

I draw a breath and hold it. My chest is burning, and my wings have pulled in so tight the ache runs to the roots. Eight years I've given this man my time, stayed late, came in early, done it all gladly. Now he's threatening Rory's job because she won't let him ignore what happened to Eli.

I can still hear the kid hitting the lockers. I can see him break down in tears in Rory’s office.

I want to get in Gene's face. I want to tell him what will happen if he goes after her, and I know what I'll sound like if I speak now. He'll hear more than an angry assistant coach. He'll hear a mated gargoyle defending his mate.

And I can't let him know that.

Gene hasn't threatened my job. Nothing about me renews in June. My file is clean, my position is permanent, and I'm the man he's spent eight years grooming to take over from him. He knows how difficult it would be to get rid of me. He's aiming at the one person in this room on an annual contract. If I lose my temper over what he's said to her, I could give him something else to use.