Page 74 of Built To Perform

Luke nodded, still glancing between the three of us. “It’s good to finally put faces to the names.”

Jefferson chuckled. “Do you only hear about the disappointing competitions and the lackluster practices?”

“You mean there are successful competitions?” Luke’s grin made the joke clear.

“Not enough of them,” Coach interjected, joining us.

It was funny, feeling Jefferson and Brayden stiffen slightly on either side of me. Standing just a touch taller; their posture a little more crisp. Then again, it wasn’t like I was ever entirely relaxed when Coach was around.

Apparently Luke didn’t feel the same way. At least, not going by the way he elbowed his boyfriend in the ribs.

“Ever the big, scary hard-ass,” he teased.

“It’s good to have high standards,” Jefferson said.

Luke snorted. “Don’t encourage him.”

There was something deeply strange - though more than a little entertaining - at seeing Coach left speechless. Not that I dared look too closely.

“I’m going to finish with, uh, the tent,” Coach spluttered, eventually.

Luke patted him on the arm. “Excellent idea.” He turned, to fix me with a stare. “Eoin and I are going for a walk. You guys can handle things here, right?”

Jefferson and Brayden - traitors both - didn’t insist they needed me for my vital, must-be-excused-from-embarrassing-conversation contribution. Which left me with no alternative but to follow Luke as he set off down the path.

Chapter Thirty-Four

I wasn’t great with strangers, and most strangers hadn’t watched me blow my load. I couldn’t exactly claim to be surprised that being left alone with Coach’s boyfriend had my nerves turned up to eleven, and the digging, stretching plug wasn’t helping.

Luke, though, seemed blithely unaware of either my mood or the vibes I was responding to. Apparently happy to walk in silence as we headed down through a gap between the trees toward the river.

I could hear the water, getting louder with every step. There was something reassuring about its white noise; not so much settling my anxiety as layering with it, and filling in the gaps where my brain hiccuped and stumbled.

“He’s been nervous,” he said, finally.

I blinked, momentarily wrong-footed. An embarrassing amount of time to realize just who “he” was in this context. That it wasn’t some odd way of Luke referring to me.

“I... That seems...”

Luke glanced at me, already grinning. “Out of character?” The grin spread wider at my nod. “I guess we have very different experiences of the same man.”

Not like I hadn’t known Coach must have a life outside of school, of the team, of being the hard-ass who demanded ever-escalating commitment and energy from us. It’d just never seemed like my place to investigate what more there might’ve been.

And not like the man himself made that prospect feel anything but foreboding.

“Everyone respects him very much,” I blurted out, because it felt like I needed to say something. Defend the perception I had - that we all had - which now seemed childishly two-dimensional.

“I’ll be sure to remind him of that next time he forgets to put the laundry into the dryer,” Luke said, tone wry.

No way to hold in my snort of laughter, like a head of trapped steam suddenly releasing. After a moment, Luke laughed too.

“Sorry if that ruins the mystique.”

I shook my head, still trying to overlay the image of Coach - with clipboard, and whistle, and frown - at the side of the mats, with that of a man with a boyfriend, and a home, and chores to do.

Well, a boyfriend, and a home, and chores, and apparently a taste for entertainment I couldn’t have predicted.

“I never thought I’d see him at... at a strip club.”