Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 163209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 816(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 816(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
He held the nickel out toward Jeremy. “We will do it your way, and we will win anyway.”
At last Jeremy smiled, and it almost looked real. He reached blindly for the coin, and Jean pressed it into his palm so Jeremy could keep his eyes on the road. Jeremy gave his fingers a quick squeeze and said, “With you on our side, how can we lose?”
He was going for warmth, Jean knew, but his tone fell a bit short. Still upset over letting Zane get away with this, Jean assumed, and he cast about for an appropriate distraction. What he stumbled over was an ill-advised, “Coach is—” that he couldn’t finish. It was unforgivably bold to make such a presumptuous statement about a coach. He settled for a vague and uncertain, “Coach and Adi.”
Jeremy finished it for him: “Are partners, yeah. They’ve been together something like twenty-seven years. Maybe twenty-eight, now. But they’re pretty lowkey about it. Don’t know what people will say about a gay man running a college sports team. Locker room, impressionable athletes, all that prejudiced nonsense. Officially Adi is Coach’s best friend from college. Two bachelors living the dream in LA, or something.
“I’m not even sure how many Trojans have figured it out, to be honest. Adi generally avoids the stadium outside of championships, and Coach doesn’t bring him up in mixed company. I met him my freshman year, after...” He trailed off, knowing Jean could guess the circumstances without his help. Jeremy gave him a moment to take it in before cautiously asking, “Does that make you more afraid of Coach or less?”
Jean settled for an honest, “I don’t know.”
On one side was Riko’s scathing, “I will bleed this out of him,” Kevin’s weary, “They were supposed to be a warning, Jean,” and a thousand judgmental slurs hurled his way with devastating accuracy. On the other was Neil’s blasé, “I’m sure he knows,” when Jean warned him to hide Andrew from Ichirou, the Trojans’ casual acceptance of their floozy line, and a partnership that somehow survived twenty-eight years in this heartless world.
Jean picked at his knuckles as he considered the vast distance between these realities. It was a waste of time to wonder, he knew. He was Moriyama property; there were lines he could not cross no matter what.
“I would trust him with my life,” Jeremy said, “but I haven’t had to face the things you have, so I won’t try to convince you. I know you need to get there on your own.”
The silence that settled between them wasn’t comfortable, but it was calm, and Jean chased his thoughts in exhausting circles. In the end he only found peace by counting: A cool evening breeze. Rainbows. Open roads. Friends. Fireworks. After a beat he added a tentative, Coach, but that was so repulsive he had to reject it. Tetsuji Moriyama was also a coach, and Jean refused to associate Rhemann and Wymack with that violent nightmare.
He’d run into this same problem when trying to account for his teammates, but there was no easy solution this time. Jean turned it this way and that in increasing frustration until a stray memory brought him up short. “My kids,” Wymack had called the Foxes, and Rhemann had said the same this summer: “You’re one of my kids now.”
Fathers? Jean thought, but that was so horrifically inappropriate he reached for the door handle.
“Hey,” Jeremy said, startled by the crack of Jean’s knuckles against the door. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” Jean lied as he stared out the window. He tried to bully his thoughts into submission, but they refused to let go and move on to other suggestions. For a moment he considered asking Renee for ideas, but he swiftly rejected the idea. This one was too vulnerable to share; he would have to sort it out on his own. But miles later he’d still come up with nothing else.
Maybe, he thought. After all, they never had to know. And it wasn’t like the word came ingrained with sentimentality. Hervé Moreau had seen to that.
Jean gingerly counted it out again, ending with Fathers.
It still put a nervous twist in his chest, but Jean would learn to live with it.
Familiar streets distracted him from uncomfortable thoughts a minute later, and soon enough Jeremy pulled up behind Laila’s car. Two men in suits were standing at the bottom of the stairs. Jean recognized only one face, but the uniforms were familiar: it was the same company who’d provided Laila with security when the press were showing up at the house.
“Her uncle’s men,” Jean said. “Precaution or reaction?”
Jeremy grimaced an apology at him. “Ingrid was still at the bench when Lucas came running for Coach, so she heard that Zane had gone after you. After Coach White kicked her out of the stadium without an explanation, her colleagues stopped by last night demanding proof of life. They wouldn’t back off until security got here. I think we’ve only got them for three or four days this time, but hopefully that’s enough.”