Page 27 of Coached By the Grumpy Gargoyle

He has just seen us arrive together. The moment he suspects there's more between us, he can make this about the assistant coach and the guidance counselor sleeping together, backing each other up against the star quarterback. I can almost hear him saying it. He wouldn't need to convince everyone. Just enough people to make Rory's complaint sound questionable and mine sound like I signed it for her.

He wouldn't have to prove a syllable of it. He'd only have to say it, in the right rooms, with all the authority his years here have given him. Then Rory would be defending herself as well as Eli, with her contract coming up for renewal and Gene waiting for her to make a mistake. She could lose the job she loves. Eli could lose the person he trusts enough to ask for help.

I let my breath out slowly and keep my face still. Gene doesn't get to see what she means to me. I won't give him that. My report is already with Patricia, and that's where I'll take this next. I can tell her exactly what he said about Rory's contract. Make sure Gene doesn't get to decide what happens to either of them alone.

I hold on to that while Rory turns toward me. It has only been a few seconds, but she has spent them standing beside me, waiting for me to speak.

Her eyes come up to mine, and she waits. I know what she wants to hear. But Gene is watching us, and I'm still trying to get my anger under control. I keep my hands at my sides and my expression still.

Rory searches my face. She has seen enough of me now to know there's more than this, and I can see her waiting for it. I want to tell her that I haven't changed my mind, that I'm going to take care of this. Instead, I stand beside Gene's photo wall in what must look like comfortable silence with the man who just threatened her. I've been quiet for most of my life. Right now, I need her to know it doesn't mean I agree with him, but I can’t tell her that.

Her chin stays up. Her eyes move over my face one last time, then she stops looking for an answer. Her hands come to rest at her sides. They were moving with every word a moment ago. Now they hang still, and I dread what she's going to say.

"Okay," she says. Very quiet. Just to me.

Then, still to me, steady in a way I will be hearing for the rest of my life: “I’m done. I want nothing to do with you."

She turns to Gene, and her voice doesn't waver. “My complaint stays filed with the principal. Every word of it. I'm not withdrawing anything, and I'm not asking a terrified boy to face his bully to make it convenient for you. Threaten my job all you like."

She opens the door and leaves, closing it gently behind her. Her heels go down the corridor at a perfectly level click, no hurry in it, a sound I could pick out of a full stadium, getting smaller.

Her distress surges through the bond. I don't need to guess why she's hurting. And the warmth in my body goes with her. It always goes with her. It fades out of my chest and down both wings, wingtips last. I stand in the same place while the cold returns, wanting to call her back and knowing she won't want to hear me.

She's just ended things with me, and she still won't withdraw the complaint. Her job is at risk, and she hasn't backed down at all. That's my mate. My courageous, stubborn, generous mate.

The woman who just told me she wants nothing to do with me.

Gene exhales through his tusks and picks his whistle up off the desk.

"Talk to her." He starts toward the door. "Roster posts at three tomorrow. Get the paper pulled by then and this all shrinks down to a bad week. It's for the kids, Bram. All of it. One day you'll sit at this desk and you'll understand."

He leaves his door standing open, the way it always stands. Somewhere up the main corridor the first bell buzzes its harsh half second. Kids start moving toward their classrooms, voices rising outside the office. I barely hear them. I keep listening for Rory's heels, even though she's too far away for me to hear them now.

I stand in his office and let the grief hit me. I don't know what else to do with it. A few minutes ago, I was thinking about all the ways I could make her happy this weekend. Now I don't know if she'll ever talk to me again.

Gargoyles mate once. I will feel her for the rest of my life. She can be across a room or across town, and I'll know she's there. I'll want to go to her, and she won't want me anywhere near her. The band presses the inside of my glove. I press my thumb against it and remember her fingertip moving over the raised stone last night. I can't seem to stop touching it.

She thinks I've betrayed her. I was trying to keep Gene from using our relationship to hurt her. I don't know how to explain that without making it sound like an excuse for leaving her to face him alone. She couldn't hear what I was thinking. All she had was my silence, and words have never come easily when I most need them.

I lift my head and look toward the open door. I'm still furious with Gene, still sick over Rory, but I know what I have to do next.

Gene Thackery has used his position to threaten the woman protecting a sixteen-year-old who is too afraid to come forward, and he called it protecting kids. He taught me this trade. He told me to look after every kid on the team, not just the best players. I believed he meant it. I wanted to be the kind of coach I thought he was.

I look at the plaques on his wall and wonder when I stopped knowing the man who earned them. Or whether I ever knew him as well as I thought.

I can't fix what she read in my silence. Maybe nothing fixes it. But I can still do what I meant to do when I kept my mouth shut.

Gene threatened her contract in front of a witness. Patricia needs to hear about it, and she needs to know that I'm standing by my report. Eli's safety doesn't get to depend on how badly this town wants a championship. Rory's job doesn't get to depend on whether she'll help Gene win one.

If it costs me the whistle, my place here, everything I've spent eight years working toward, so be it.

This does not stand.

Chapter 11

Rory

Order is what I do instead of screaming. It's cheaper than therapy and quieter than arson.