Free Homecoming (A Boys of Fall Novel) by Shannon Stacey

past, he’d reached for her again.
You make me forget everything.
    “I’m not some kind of comfort object you can reach for when you’re feeling crappy.”
    “What? I didn’t mean . . .” He scowled, taking a small step back. “Is that what you think is going on?”
    “I don’t know. I know it seems like when you’re feeling low emotionally, we end up with our hands on each other.”
    “Or,” he said, arching his eyebrow, “maybe when I’m feeling emotionally low is the only time you soften up enough to forget I’m not your type.”
    “That’s not . . . soften up? What the hell does that mean?”
    “I . . . hell, I don’t know.” He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “I don’t know what’s happening. What I
do
know is that we could win the football championship and I could have the trophy in one hand and the keys to a new Corvette they want to give me for being Coach of the Year in the other, and then they could interrupt me to tell me I won the lottery, and if I saw you in the crowd, I would
still
want my hands on you.”
    She took a second to sort through that in her head and then smiled. “That sounds like quite a daydream you’ve got going on.”
    “I’m just saying, even if I was on an emotional high, I would still want you. And when I said you make me forget everything, I meant the fact we’re in the middle of a high school hallway, so this comfort object theory of yours is bullshit.”
    “Okay, let’s say it’s bullshit. You still have a lot going on.”
    For a few seconds, she thought he might argue with her. But he sighed and put a little more space between them. “You’re right, I guess.”
    There was something in his eyes that made her want to explain more—to try to make him understand why she was keeping him at arm’s length. She wasn’t totally sure she understood it herself, so trying to verbalize it would probably end in disaster.
    Before she could try, they heard the squeak of sneakers on the waxed floor and moved apart. It was Ronnie, and he looked frustrated.
    “Hey, Coach. My car won’t start and everybody’s gone. They let me in the office door because your truck’s still out there so you must still be in here.”
    “I am,” he said.
    “I should go,” Jen said quickly, and Sam gave her an inscrutable look. “I’m not good at cars not starting, so good luck.”
    She practically ran to the exit and across the parkinglot.

06
    C arrying two bags and a few boxes up a flight of stairs wasn’t so bad, but it made Sam keenly aware that he was going to spend at least the next few weeks, if not a couple of months, with very few possessions to call his own.
    But the one-bedroom apartment over the insurance office had been available for immediate move-in and it met all of his requirements for a residence—no long-term commitment, a bathroom, and an outlet for the coffee machine. And the previous tenant had abandoned the couch—for good reason—so he had something to sit on.
    The primary reason he’d jumped at it, though, was that he’d wanted to get out of the McDonnell house as quickly as possible.
    He didn’t think there was another woman in the world who could make a person feel as welcome and comfortablein her home as Mrs. McDonnell. But with that came a need to fuss over her guest and Sam knew she had enough on her plate with Coach’s health. No matter how much Sam told her he could cook for himself and do his share of cleaning up, she wouldn’t hear of it.
    He wanted her to worry about two people—Coach and herself.
    Then there was the fact he’d lived alone since he left Stewart Mills after high school, and he wasn’t very good at living his life on somebody else’s schedule or remembering to put on pants before coffee in the morning.
    When he went down for the last box, he left the apartment door propped open. Unlike most of the apartments over downtown businesses, he didn’t have an interior staircase with a second door at street level. There