Caught Running (3 page)

Brandon pulled back a little at the resounding shout, but he had to smile as he followed Jake back to his office. He remembered that bellow from the football field—Jake had been the star quarterback, of course. “You don't sound much different, you know that?” he said before thinking about it.

"Different?” Jake asked in confusion as he went to the free-standing aluminum locker in the corner of his tiny cinderblock office. “Different than what?"

"You used to yell like that on the football field. I remember. I could even hear you from the far end of the bleachers,” Brandon said, hands in his pockets as he watched Jake rifle through the locker.

Jake looked over his shoulder as he pulled out a spare pair of pristine white baseball pants. “Oh,” he responded with a slight blush. “I didn't know you ever went to any games,” he went on uncomfortably, uncertain of how else to respond.

"A few,” Brandon admitted. “Wanted to see what all the hubbub was about when you won regionals,” he said. He still didn't know much about football, but it had been an experience.

"Did you?” Jake asked curiously. He remembered the ‘hubbub.’ The crowd roaring in excitement, the marching band blaring music from the stands, the crunch of pads and the grunts of tackles, the cold, the bright lights and the smells of sweat and grass and perfect fall nights. God, he had loved it. Lived for it.

"Yeah,” Brandon said quietly. “It was a world I didn't have any part in. It was exciting to watch.” He saw the faraway look in Jake's eyes, so he just stayed quiet until the other man was done reminiscing. He wished he had memories like that. The best he had was the blank calm he'd get when running miles and miles cross country, over flowing fields and through leafy forests. He knew he'd been in the zone then.

Jake looked at the man strangely and nodded. Brandon was an unusual one in that he'd always had the physique to be an athlete, but Jake had never seen him play anything. They'd not even been in freshman gym together because Brandon didn't get to Parkview until their sophomore year. Even back then, Brandon had been one of the larger kids, nearly as tall as Jake himself and filled out through the shoulders, though lanky. He had just never had the desire to use it, losing himself in his intellectual side instead, Jake supposed.

"Well,” Jake huffed. “These should fit you,” he said as he handed over pants, a shiny blue long-sleeved Under Armour shirt, and a loose-fitting jersey of the same color. “What size shoe are you?” he asked as he lifted his own foot and looked down at his trainers with a distracted frown. “Eh, first day you'll be fine with tennis shoes,” he amended. “Hey, thanks for running interference earlier, by the way."

Brandon stuck the clothes under one arm, confused until he remembered Rhonda. “Ah, yeah. No problem. I've seen Rhonda when she's really fixated on something. Granted, it's always been projects or grants or something. But she was getting this scary look in her eyes.” He paused. “And size 12."

"You can borrow my spares,” Jake nodded. “They're twelve and a half cause I have to wear this lift thing in one of them for my ankle,” he rambled as he picked up one of the cleats and poked inside it. It was battered and scuffed, but had a well-loved look to it as he held it in his big hands. “The lift is still in here, actually,” he muttered, poking at the thick pad. “They've got stickers on them, I never try to pull them out,” he muttered distractedly, “and I sort of walk on the outsides of my feet so the soles wear down funny, but they should do you okay if you don't want to buy a new pair. They run about fifty bucks, I think."

"Thanks, I'll see how they fit,” Brandon said. “I'll just change. The locker room's across the hall, right?"

"Yeah, but,” Jake cleared his throat and flushed a little. With a little huff and a smile he bit the bullet and asked, “Boxers or briefs, man?"

Brandon held up the pants, looking at them appraisingly before looking back to Jake. “You're not telling me I'm supposed to wear something under these, are you?” His voice reflected his real amusement. There was
no way
he'd be able to get these pants on with underwear.

"You're supposed to wear sliding pants under them, but since we're not playing you'd look a little funny. White briefs are best,” Jake answered as seriously as possible. He'd gotten a sudden image of the man standing before him going commando, and he'd rather liked the idea quite a bit.

"Okay, you would know,” Brandon said, looking uncertainly at the pants. “I'll be right back.” He left the office and crossed the hall, dropping the clothes on the bench in between the rows of lockers and starting to strip down. Maybe it was fate, he thought wryly. He'd worn white spandex shorts instead of briefs today, planning to go running in the park once he got home. At least he wouldn't look like a total nerd with red or black showing through the white pants.

He pulled on the Under Armour shirt, surprised that it was so stretchy and comfortable. Stepping into the pants, he blinked in surprise when they got really close-fitting, really fast. He had to shimmy several times to pull the damn things up, and for a moment he was sure he wouldn't get them over his hips without baby powder or something. Finally they were on, and he looked in the mirror, almost horrified. Second skin had
nothing
on these pants. He tucked in the shirt (as best he could) and slung the jersey over one arm, walking back out to Jake's office barefooted.

"If you're ordering pants for me, I'm thinking these are maybe a size or two small,” Brandon said as he re-entered the office.

Jake looked up from his book and blinked at the man. He looked him over appraisingly, noticing for perhaps the first time just exactly how fit Brandon really was. The Under Armour stuck to him like wet paper, outlining muscles Jake had never thought to see on a biology teacher, and the pants were in fact a perfect fit; just loose enough to allow for the usual protective gear but not so loose as to impede movement on the field.
Jesus.
“No,” he murmured as he cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. “No, they look perfect to me,” he answered distractedly.

Brandon looked down at himself and then shrugged, combing his hair back behind his ears with his fingers. “If you say so. They're going to take some getting used to,” he commented, sitting in the other chair and pulling on the blue socks Jake had set out.

Jake watched him with a series of stupid blinks before pulling his eyes back down to the Sudoku puzzles on his desk. Another hobby he hid while at school. Slowly he moved his clipboard over to cover them up and then glanced back up at Brandon from under lowered brows. With his stuffy dress shirt and tie replaced by the tight blue shirt and the clean white pants, he actually looked like an athlete. He looked like someone Jake would try to pick up in a bar. Looking away again, Jake slowly reached for his paperback to put it out of sight as well. When you were a P.E. coach in any high school, no one gave you credit for having actual brains. If you were caught doing something that could be considered intelligent, like reading a book, you were prodded at for trying to ‘look smart'. It was more the ‘that one doesn't have illustrations, dimwit’ kind of thing that he usually got, instead of someone asking if it was a good book. He didn't want to hear any jokes from Brandon.

Jake cleared his throat again and nodded. “Trust me, you'll be glad to have them. We practice from 3:30, when the kids get out there, to anywhere from 5:30 to 7 at night. It'll be cold when the sun goes down. It'll be wet sometimes. Only time we don't practice is when there's lightning, and then we're in the weight room.” He picked up a pencil and began to tap it on his desk thoughtfully. “What else...” he murmured to himself as he looked around for guidance. “We do a good bit of traveling, have a few overnight stays, so might want to prepare your girlfriend or wife or whatever,” he went on as he dug out a schedule and glanced over it. “We got some Friday and Saturday games,” he muttered. “We have a tourney in Florida over spring break, and usually during that first week of May we take the kids to Turner Field for a game or two, that's an overnight thing as well,” he went on as he handed the schedule over to Brandon.

"Coaching is a full-time job,” Jake murmured softly. That was one of the things most regular teachers never understood. They had the kids from 7:30 in the morning to 2:30 in the afternoon. Most left it at that. Some sponsored clubs or did tutoring, but then they wiped the school smell from their shoes and headed home. The coaches spent nights, weekends, and summers with their kids. They helped them shop colleges. They fielded phone calls from drunken parties and gave advice on love lives. They kept in touch with kids long after they walked and got their diplomas. When Jake had been in college and come to the realization that he might be bisexual, his football coach from high school had been the first person he had called.

"Not married,” was Brandon's only quiet comment as he considered the practice time, the weekend games and tournament trips. He'd already committed himself, he knew, so there was nothing to do but give his best. He quickly calculated the amount of sleep he'd be getting and inwardly winced though outwardly he looked calm. Long days. Even longer days. He started each weekday at 4:45 a.m., tutored from 6 to 7 and carried a full class load from 7:30 to 2:30 p.m. Now, instead of working on his doctorate research in the late afternoons, he'd have baseball practice and games, and another skim of the schedule convinced him that his personal classwork would have to shift to after 9 p.m.—after daily planning, grading papers, writing up tests—and with several Saturdays gone, his only free day, Sunday, would be taken up as well. Exercise, he had no idea when he'd fir that in. Maybe after the doctorate planning, late. He could run around the lake at home.

"Where do you want me to start?” he asked the coach.

"You look a little green,” Jake observed without answering. “Practice is actually fun after you weed out the whiners,” he said, trying to offer some condolences as he leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on the desk.

Brandon had to chuckle, and he relaxed a little. “Whiners, huh? Whining about what? Taking ground balls in the groin?"

"That's what cups are for,” Jake answered instantly, his standard retort to any complaints about impact pain in that particular area. “And if they get knocked in the nuts it's ‘cause they didn't have their glove down and they deserved it. We don't baby these guys,” he insisted vehemently. “I know you academics think we treat them with kid gloves, but if they don't pull their weight on a report card they're off the team. If they get hurt, they play through it. If they get sick, they show up anyway. I guarantee you my boys are some of your only students with perfect attendance. And I guarantee you any day of the week you have at least one kid in at least one of your classes with taped fingers, ankle brace, knee brace, or some sort of hellacious bruise they're trying to cover up."

He was bristling protectively now. He knew what student athletes went through. They got labeled with the ‘jock’ title, put in the easy classes even if they should have been honors students, and when they did do something spectacular academically it got chalked up to luck. Not to mention the injuries, grueling practice schedules, and heartbreaks that could only come with loving a sport. Jake snorted noisily through his nose to calm himself and rocked back in his chair, rolling his sore neck and closing his eyes.

Brows rising as Jake seriously soap-boxed, Brandon knew he'd hit a sore spot, one possibly dating back to their own time in school. And the more Jake talked, the more he made sense. The biology teacher nodded slowly. The coach was right. As much as the nerds had felt put down and razzed for not being athletic or good looking—the jocks had been razzed about grades and attendance. He thought maybe both groups had gotten the short end of the stick. “I'm sorry,” he said quietly.

Jake stared at the man for a moment and then broke into a disarming smile. It was another thing he was good at, glazing over bursts of emotion and pushing it back until it was quickly forgotten. He was also good at playing up the dumb brute image when he needed to. The everyday game face. “I get carried away,” he offered, his usual wry smirk back in place and his eyes warm brown again. “It usually happens when they don't give me my juice at lunch,” he joked with a sheepish grin, reaching behind himself to rub the back of his neck and roll his head, forcing his spine to crack loudly.

The phone on his desk began to ring demandingly, and Jake glared at it. He held up his hand, indicating for Brandon to wait, and removed his feet from the desk to reach for the speaker button. “This is the Literacy Self Test Hotline,” he drawled in a deep, businesslike voice. “After the tone, leave your name and number and recite a sentence using today's vocabulary word. Today's word is
supercilious
."

"Is there a student sitting with you?” Troy Peterson's voice asked warily over the phone.

"No,” Jake laughed with a wink at Brandon.

"Go fuck yourself then,” Troy muttered. “Did you send in this announcement to be read with the morning report tomorrow?"

"What announcement?” Jake asked in an attempt to sound innocent, barely able to keep his voice from wavering in amusement. Brandon tilted his head and smiled at the change in the other man. How bizarre that he could switch so quickly from one mood to the other.

"I quote,” the speech teacher and fellow coach responded, obviously reading from something,
"At precisely 11:42 this morning, maintenance will be blowing the dust out of the phone lines. All teachers should cover the earpiece of their classroom phones with a bag to catch the dust."