Page 8 of Cross My Heart

“Y-yeah,” he stammered, wiping sweat from his brow. “Th-thanks, Coach.”

“Remember, we’re all here to help each other grow.” Josh clapped him on the back. “No one should ever feel intimidated or unwelcome in this gym.”

“Yes, sir.” Sanjay nodded.

“Good man,” Josh said, smiling warmly. “Now, let’s find you a more appropriate weight and work on your form.”

As he guided the boy through a series of exercises, he tuned out the teenage gossip around him. His focus was on helping young athletes build confidence and strength, regardless of what anyone else might think or say. After all, it wasn’t his job to entertain idle chatter; it was his job to challenge bullies, protect the vulnerable, and help every student realize that a healthy body was something they all deserved.

Josh smiled. “Remember, you get where you’re going one step at a time.”

Just before lunchtime, Josh was on his way back to the athletics office when a loud commotion down the hall turned his head: students laughing and shouting in a clump near the main office. He frowned at the raised voices and what looked like teenaged animals jostling and crowding closer around someone. Please don’t let them be hassling a kid.

But then, as he got about twenty yards away, a familiar figure stopped him cold. Josh’s heart skipped and shunted him right back to horny teen anguish, his one hopeless schoolboy crush that had driven him nuts for longer than he liked to admit.

Tyler.

Towering over the students. Moving with the same feral intensity. Drop-dead handsome as ever. Tyler Fantana—NFL bad boy, America’s Tightest End, the cockiest heartthrob that ever graduated from Hamilton High—strode toward Principal Carver’s office, his legendary build commanding attention at this distance. Captain Fantastic.

After all these years, he came back.

As Tyler vanished behind the office door, scalding memories of high school flooded back to Josh, along with the intense yearning that had obsessed him from sophomore year on. He thought he’d outgrown that sweet pang, but his racing heart proved that was a lie.

He’d pined the way only a hormonal fourteen-fifteen-sixteen-year-old boy can pine. He’d cried and sulked. He’d studied football obsessively. He’d made emo playlists. He’d drawn elaborate pictures and doodled Tyler’s name in his margins. He’d written passionate letters full of football-themed fantasies. He’d scanned every room he entered for that perfectly tousled dark hair, jacked body, and sly hazel eyes. He’d ridden his bike past Tyler’s house so many times that even now he knew the way and could draw several routes from memory.

Without even realizing it, Tyler had ended up symbolizing a whole bunch of things to Josh during the hell of puberty. No human could live up to those expectations.

He gulped, feeling embarrassed by his visceral reaction. He’d let it go. It’d been a crazy crush. He’d been a horny idiot.

Fantasy. Insanity.

Shaking off the swoony nostalgia, Josh went to the office bathroom and splashed his pinked face with cold water. Grow up, Ayres. In hindsight, Nadia must have suspected back in high school, but she’d never broached the subject.

He hadn’t laid eyes on Tyler in more than a decade, and somehow nothing had changed. Josh was hardly that awkward, gawking stalker anymore, but surely Tyler’s celebrity had only widened the impossible gap between them.

Or had it? Josh’s new, improved body might not be ready for pro ball, but nobody could say he wasn’t built solid. That thought alone startled him.

Tyler Fantana was back in town, only now Josh wasn’t invisible anymore. Gone was the skinny dweeb lusting after the homecoming king from the bleachers. Josh had grown up. Collegiate swimming and regular rock climbing had transformed that anxious kid inside and out.

After he’d gotten a grip, he made his way back to the weight room, where he found a group of students working out during their lunch break.

“Hey, Coach, did you hear?” one of the boys blurted out between bench press reps. Josh had coached his brother but only knew his last name was Rawls. “Tyler Fantana’s here at school!”

“Really?” a freckled boy exclaimed, momentarily abandoning his squat. “Like, the Tyler Fantana? From the Swells?”

A girl named Debbie slapped the freckled kid’s arm. “Duh. He went here, like, a hundred years ago. Did you get a selfie?”

“His hair grew, I think,” the Rawls boy said from the bench. “I don’t know. He was fire, yo. Rich and ripped.”

“Duh. My sister said he used to date Carl Nassib and Megan Thee Stallion.” Debbie shrugged with perfect adolescent logic. The students probably knew more about Tyler than Josh did. “I mean, not at the same time.” She laughed, and the others laughed along at her gossipy tone. “But still….”

“Guys, focus,” Josh chided gently. Nowadays Tyler slept around plenty, guys and girls both if you trusted the tabloids, but nothing serious far as he could tell. That reveal hadn’t hurt Josh’s fantasy life any. The world had changed a lot in fifteen years. “This is your time to work on yourselves, not stalk the alumni. Don’t get weird.”

“Come on, Coach Ayres,” Debbie piped up. “It’s not every day an effing NFL superstar comes to Nowheresville.”

Josh sighed, understanding their excitement but wanting to keep the kids from doing anything foolish or dangerous. He leaned against a nearby weight rack, crossing his arms as he addressed the group. “I get that it’s exciting, but Tyler’s been through it this year. He deserves his privacy just like anyone else. If he’s visiting school, it’s probably for a good reason. Be cool. Give the guy some space.”

There was a grumble of reluctant agreement, and the students returned to their exercises, albeit with slightly deflated enthusiasm.