Claiming His Labor Day Page 16

  Our maintenance team had recently striped the field with new white lines. The powder still hovering atop the blades of grass, not yet sunk in.

  Perfect.

  “Everything checks out!” I called to Noah, the high school’s head of maintenance. “You did a great job on the field. Couldn’t look nicer.”

  From the 50-yard line, Noah, a spritely seventy-year-old man who had worked at Mountain View High School since the late ’80s, grinned back.

  “Anything for you, Ms. Geffen,” he hollered over the din of the ball boys setting up benches.

  I winked and turned away, satisfied that the field was up to my standards. With the big game tomorrow, I couldn’t allow even a stray blade of grass to be out of place.

  Because tomorrow afternoon, Mountain View would host its yearly alumni football game, with players culled from the class that was having its fifth-year reunion. I think the theory went that five years was long enough to have missed Mountain View High School, but not so long that they wouldn’t be able to throw the damn ball.

  The alumni football game was a beloved Fourth of July tradition — when your town is only about thirty-thousand people, as Little Lane, Wisconsin was, traditions take on a new meaning. It’s like one big family reunion. There are the drunk uncles, the cheek-pinching aunts, the old flames. Or, err, I guess there aren’t old flames at family reunions. That would be, like, so wrong. But you know what I mean.

  Anyhow, this year, I was in charge of planning the game, and I couldn’t be more excited. Only the most beloved townspeople got to plan the alumni game, folks like Kyle, Mrs. Wall, Old Dougie, Poppa John. To follow in their footsteps… it was an honor I couldn’t even imagine.

  Out of nowhere, I felt a pair of hands on my shoulders jolt me forward. I startled, clutching at my chest as it filled with adrenaline.

  “Gotcha!” Jolie crowed, bouncing back on her arched heels. “God, you’re such a chicken.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, how dare I be frightened of someone attacking me.”

  “Don’t be such a baby. That little push? It wouldn’t have even scared your kindergarten class.”

  Well, that was probably true, but only because they were so desensitized to stimuli. In my class alone, I knew there were several kids whose parents let them play violent video games. Oh, the challenges of being a teacher today.

  “So, ready for the big game tomorrow?” Jolie asked, her brown locks lobbed into what she called ‘the mom haircut’ tousled by the gentle summer wind.

  I took a deep breath. “I think so. It’s a lot of pressure, obviously, but I’m feeling pretty good about it. The field’s done, the guys have all been notified on the list host, I have a ref, an announcer—”

  “I wasn’t asking for the play-by-play,” Jolie gently joked. “Knowing you and your type-A tendencies, I have no doubt, not even a shred, that it’s organized to the hilt. While I, meanwhile, am floundering under food duties. What I meant was, how are you feeling about it?”

  “Oh.” She raised an eyebrow, and I sighed. “I’m just… nervous, I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Girl, how are you so out of touch with your feelings?”

  Well, it was a fair question. I spent most of my day trying to teach kindergarteners how to access their emotions, and deal with them in healthy ways that made for a positive classroom environment. Meanwhile, I was so busy helping them process that there was no emotional bandwidth leftover for me.

  I shook my head, ignoring Jolie’s fair point, and diverted the conversation. “What’s going on with food handling?”

  She knew I was sidestepping, but went along anyway. We’d had the talk about me and my personal reticence way too often to rehash it in the middle of a field.

  “It’s miserable,” she wailed. “I only signed up because Travis said his friends’ moms were all doing it and if I didn’t, I’d be ‘lame.’ That was his word. Not mine.”

  Travis, Jolie’s three-year-old son, was a fan favorite amongst my teacher crew — he was funny, hard-working and just a little bit mature for his age. When I fell asleep at night and dreamed of having babies someday, Travis was the kind of kid I pictured.

  Jolie continued, “All the moms, though, have turned against one another, and we’re all competing for who can bring the best dish to the potluck. Mac n’ cheese with bacon, french fries, big puddings. And it’s like, do I have to be a star chef on top of being a mother every single damn day? I didn’t know a baby came with a Michelin star.”

  I mustered the most sympathetic look I could, quietly congratulating myself on dodging the food committee. As a teacher at Mountain View Elementary School, I was responsible for working at least one Fourth of July committee, and because of my popularity at the school, I’d been a shoo-in for the alumni football game. The food committee, on the other hand, was notorious for its vicious in-fighting that made Game of Thrones look mild-mannered. I could’ve warned Jolie about the error of her ways, but by the time she alerted me to her decision, it was too late. Now, all there was to do was smile and nod and coo.

  “I’m just ready to have all the hard work pay off,” she finished. “Aren’t you? I know it’ll be satisfying when it’s all done.”

  “Yeah, it feels like we’ve been planning this for, what, a year?”

  “Try ten years. At this point, I should have gotten a doctorate in committee coordinating.”

  Despite all my empathetic winging, the truth was that I was plainly excited. Watching the boys tackle each other on the field then share beers afterwards while the whole town congratulated them on their good showing even if they absolutely sucked… this was the part of small-town life that made me feel all warm inside. This football game wasn’t really about a ball or points — it was about community.

  And it didn’t hurt that the alumni class playing this year was the Class of 2014.

  Which is to say, my class.

  Jolie tugged gossip out of me, as was her prerogative. “So, how has Daniel S. been playing?”

  I looked around, then leaned in and whispered, “Not great. I don’t think he’s been to the gym since 2014.” She giggled, and I added, “But Daniel B.? Now he’s a sight to see. I guess he went off to college and like, joined the rowing team or something because, girl, he’s downright buff now.”

  “Wow,” she whistled with admiration. “Remember when he used to get his head shoved in the toilet like once a week?”

  “Yeah, nobody’s gonna pull that crap now.”

  In fact, I vividly remembered Daniel B.’s face-first run-ins with the toilet — mostly because I’d been the person to help him dry off afterwards.

  “You’re so lucky,” Jolie whimpered. “Getting to spend so much time with the boys. Watching them get all sweaty and shit.”

  Jolie had turned inconsolably horny since her son was born, something about how pregnancy turned your hormones into hyperdrive. At any moment, it seemed like she might start humping a nearby fire hydrant.

  “Get your head out of the gutter, babe. Besides, it’s not like any of them are as hot as—” I stopped abruptly, realizing that if I said another word, Jolie would mock me until possibly the end of time.

  But she’d caught my gist before I’d had the presence of mind to shut the fuck up.

  “As who, Fiona?” she asked, barely holding back a grin.

  “Oh, fuck off,” I mumbled, blushing to the roots of my red hair.

  “Now that’s no language for a teacher.”

  I flicked her shoulder with my forefinger and attempted to turn away but she danced in front of me, forcing my eyes to meet hers.

  “As hot as who?”

  Shit. There would be no escaping this.

  I lowered my voice and grumbled, “As Jagger. Are you happy?”

  Jolie clapped her hands together and squealed, feet bouncing up and down in my freshly mowed grass, leaving little size 6 footprints.

  “I knew it, I knew it!”

&nb
sp; “So? Everybody knew it. Jagger was the hottest guy by, like, fifty miles.”

  “Since he’s my brother, I’m not exactly allowed to say that. But I meant, I knew you still had a crush on him.”

  “Do not.”

  “Do so.”

  “Do not,” I repeated insistently. “Besides, no one has seen him since we graduated. He went straight into basic training. Hell, he doesn’t even have a Facebook account. Maybe he’s aged as badly as Daniel S.”

  Jolie frowned, and then I remembered myself. I smacked my forehead. “Shit, Jolie, I’m sorry, I—”

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she said, raising a hand. “Not your fault, I brought it up. Even though he and I don’t talk, sometimes it’s nice to remember that there are still people out there who, well, remember him. It means that he’s real, that he happened.”

  My heart ached with shame, and I tried not to let on that I shared much the same opinion of the matter. There had been a small, desperate part of me that hoped Jagger would reappear out of the blue a few weeks ago, announcing his participation in the game. But that was foolish. Of course his job took priority. You can’t leave Iraq, or Afghanistan, or wherever he was, just for a silly football game.

  “Admit it. Ms. Geffen, sweet, innocent kindergarten teacher, still has a little crush,” Jolie taunted.

  “Okay, we’re done here.”

  “Oh no we’re not, I have like way more teasing left to do.”

  “And way more food planning. Get back to work.”

  “What are you gonna do, send me to the principal’s office?”

  I muttered, “If only that were an option.”

  Jolie flicked a glance to her watch. “Well, luckily for you, I do happen to have an appointment about bread in five minutes. So you’re getting off easy this time.”

  “Thanks, officer.”

  She gave me a quick hug then flounced off to the stadium exit, pausing only briefly to shout back, “See you tomorrow, you little sex kitten!”

  “Goodbye, Jolie.”

  Her footsteps crunching atop the grass gradually receded until at last I was alone once more, just me and the smell of home.

  The game tomorrow would be good. Great, even. Now if only I could squash my perfectionist tendencies long enough to just enjoy the damn thing.

  After all, I hadn’t seen at least half of my class since graduation. People who live in Little Lane tend to do one of two things, either live here for the rest of their lives — the category Jolie fell into — or leave the minute they turn eighteen and have their freedom, like Jagger. But, save for the most insistent deniers of their birthplace, nearly everyone came back for reunions, especially the five-year one. Which meant that, except for guys like Jagger, it was likely I’d get to see so many familiar faces who I’d missed in the intervening years.

  I didn’t regret staying in Little Lane after getting my degree. The last five years had been wonderful. But I knew my time here was running out, a secret I could tell no one, not even my own parents.

  Just as I was beginning to feel that familiar surge of guilt rise and threaten to subsume me, I caught a glimpse of a shape emerging from the shadows of the Home Team locker room. I squinted, taking in a tall figure. Even from this distance, I could make out bulging muscles and a confident stride. Whoever this was, he was in charge.

  “Hey, we’re not practicing until later tonight,” I called, my voice echoing across the stadium. I assumed that it was one of the guys on the team, coming for the last practice before Game Day.

  And then the shadows began to resolve into familiar features — a prominent nose, a classic square jaw. Even from across the field, I could make out those bright blue eyes, so comically clear they looked like the fake contacts you’d get for Halloween.

  As he got closer, I saw that his head was buzzed, and he’d grown some light stubble around his jaw — which served only to maximize its impact — but otherwise, his face was exactly the same. Now, those muscles… that was a different story.

  Despite the intervening years, I recognized him as though we’d only been apart a day.

  Through a thin voice, tied tight by anxiety, I said, “Jagger, is that you?”

  I watched as he grinned.

  CHAPTER 2

  Jagger

  GOD, TIME had been good to Fiona Geffen.

  As I strode closer and closer, I saw that she’d finally grown into herself. When we were in high school, she’d been a little quirky, lots of colorful patterns, a haircut that didn’t quite make sense, and, at the risk of being crass, large breasts that were too big for her small frame.

  But now… now she was all woman.

  Fiona looked like the quintessential teacher, the kind you had a crush on in school and who haunted your fantasies ever after. Her red, curling locks had been sheared to shoulder length, and she’d grown bangs that framed her heart-shaped face. With her hair color and figure, she looked like Christina Hendricks, but from Wisconsin. She wore thick, tortoiseshell glasses that underlined her giant doe eyes. The only makeup I could see was a trace of pink lip stain. And let’s just say, the breasts suited her beautifully. Even regulated beneath her button-down short-sleeve shirt, printed with little cacti, I could see her chest straining to break free.

  My cock hardened involuntarily, as though I were indeed a young boy ago, unable to restrain my urges.

  You’re a soldier now, I told myself. Control yourself.

  But could you blame me? Nobody had warned me that she’d be here. In fairness, I hadn’t talked to anyone else, so this was probably an avoidable situation.

  Blood slowly seeped away from my dick as I finally came to a halt in front of Fiona, who still seemed at a loss for words.

  “Fiona.”

  “Jagger,” she replied, mirroring my greeting. “What are you—”

  “Are you—”

  We both stopped, laughing a little at our obvious, mutual surprise and discomfort.

  “You go first,” I said, remembering my manners. They were a bit rusty from years overseas, spent mostly with guys and tomboys.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, clutching the clipboard in her hand to her chest.

  “I could ask you the same thing.”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t,” Fiona countered, always the debater.

  “I just finished my tour. So, I came home to visit. Your turn.”

  Her mouth hung wide open, still in obvious shock at seeing me. I reached out a hand and gamely placed it under her chin, closing her lips together.

  The touch seemed to bring her back to Planet Earth. Though her words were fractured, she managed to say, “I, um, I’m, yeah, running the alumni game? Tomorrow? Because I’m, uh, a teacher here. At Mountain View Elementary.”

  “I know where ‘here’ is,” I replied, unable to help a grin. “I went here too, remember? We were in the same class.”

  That snapped her out of her bafflement. Fiona rolled her eyes and snorted. “Yes, we were in the same class, Jagger. And, as you might recall, I was Jolie’s best friend. Still am.”

  “Yeah, my twin sister’s best friend is hard to forget. Especially when she looks like you.”

  Fiona’s doe eyes widened even bigger and she hastily replied, “You just missed her, actually. I can call her if you’d… not that you two are… “

  “Actually,” I interrupted, saving us both the embarrassment of discussing Jolie and the past, “I’m here to see you. Or, whoever it is who runs the signup sheet for the football game.”

  “Oh.” She looked… disappointed? Was that it? “Yeah, that’s me. But the game is tomorrow, we’ve been practicing for weeks.”

  “Can’t you make an exception for an old high-school quarterback?” I said, leaning in a bit closer and letting my charm work its, well, charm.

  She bit her pink lip with a contrasting white tooth. “I’m not really supposed to…”

  “Come on, Fiona. It’s me we’re talking about.”

  She looked up at
me with such a devoted, thrilled expression that I almost felt bad for taking advantage of her good nature. She always had been a touch susceptible to my wily ways. Back then, I hadn’t much cared — all the girls in school practically fainted when I walked the halls. Now, though… now she was the kind of chick I’d have pushed against my locker, making her late to class with my kisses. Had I really forgotten her beauty in such a few short years?

  Or, had I subconsciously forced myself to forget?

  Maybe it was because, back then, I’d known nothing could happen between us. Besides the popularity gap, she was Jolie’s best friend and my sister’s best friends were off limits. And then once school was over, I enrolled immediately and then there was no point thinking about any girls who were halfway across the world.

  I pressed further. “I wanted my participation in the game to be a surprise. My little way of letting everybody know that I’m back in town.”

  That did the trick. Fiona exhaled, and the air caught her bangs into an updrift, ruffling their silky strands.

  “Fine, fine,” she conceded at last. “You can play. The truth is, the red team could use a little assistance and there was an injury at the last practice. They’ve been getting their asses handed to them in the scrimmages.”

  Hmm, so Fiona had developed a bit of a mouth since I’d been gone. Naughty girl.

  “You remember how to play?” she asked, her voice light and playful.

  “I think it should come back to me,” I returned, matching her tone.

  She eyed my muscles. “You sure you’re not too weak. That you’ve been hitting the gym enough?”

  I lifted my left arm in the air and curled my bicep. The Marines tattoo that defined my muscle popped as I flexed. Fiona audibly gulped.

  “How’s that for muscle?” I asked, letting my arm drop back down to my side.

  “Umm, that’ll do,” she stammered.

  “Good.”

  I realized that, unwittingly, I’d moved a step closer to her, and the air felt thick with tension. The smell of fresh cut grass, which I recognized from my years on the field, and then beneath that, something like orange blossoms and wood. Her scent, my mind immediately supplied. Like the rolling hills of France during winter, on the cusp of spring. Though we were still in Little Lane, she smelled of promise, of elsewhere. She was bigger than this town.