Jade

Chapter 12

Jade Chapter 12, a romance fiction |

"Hey, 'Coach'" Jade called and Byron turned around to face her.

He smiled at her, forgetting where exactly he was standing. Lately she did that to him, make him forget things, like exactly who she was. "Hey, I had no idea I was your coach too." He joked walking toward her from the court and ignoring those perturbing thoughts.

"Sounds better than 'Hey Byron'" she joked back, getting a chuckle out of him.

"So what brings you on the court today?" He asked. They were taking a break and most of his teammates had gone inside the locker room to refresh. The others were scattered around drinking from water bottles. He was on his way toward the locker rooms when she called his name "The last time you were here was when..."Byron let the sentence hang once he realized what he exactly was about to say to her. He scolded himself.

"When I was still with Mark?" She asked, finishing his question.

He studied her face, trying to read her mood but she didn't appear to be mad or upset. She looked surprisingly...unabashed.

"Yeah," he said lamely hoping her expression wouldn't change. It didn't. She only shrugged.

"Well, guess I have another reason to come to your after school practice." She stated.

Byron raised an eyebrow, wondering if she meant what he thought she did or it he was reading too much into it.

"Anyways" she continued before his thoughts could run wild or he could ask what her revived interest was. "I just got out of student council meeting and I remembered that Joyce wanted me to ask you something. "

"Oh yeah?" He said with a hint of disappointment in his tone. Not that he minded talking about Joyce but he just wished she could pick up on some of the obvious hints he's been throwing for the past several weeks. Maybe he wasn't being conspicuous enough.

"She wanted to know if you were going to make it to her next game this weekend?" Jade relayed the question.

"Saturday?" He asked.

Jade nodded. "If you don't have plans already. It's in the early afternoon."

Byron had no objections to that. He had no plans in the early afternoon of that Saturday and he owed his little fireball his presence. He'd ready missed three of her other games because of his individual basketball schedule and Joyce had been nothing but understanding. She even brought her team with her to one of his games the past week. The look of admiration on their faces was compelling to see as they watched the high school varsity team play. No wonder they had bombarded him with questions after the game. His teammates hadn't stopped teasing him since then about how many fifth graders had a little crush on him.

"Yeah. I'll definitely be there." Guess he could return the favor as well. Besides, he loved seeing the lit up expression on Joyce's face every time he was in attendance. It didn't hurt that her older sister held a similar expression in his presence as well.

"Great." There it was, the expression. "I will let her know. The team too." She added with a smirk.

Although Jade hadn't been there, she heard about what happened at the last game. Apparently Byron had caught the hearts of those little girls.

He shook his head with a chuckle. "I'm sure they'll be ecstatic."

"Yes, they will. According to Joyce, you're their hero. Those tips you gave them have come in handy. You didn't hear this from me, but they might ask you to be their assistant coach."

Byron raised his eyebrow in surprise. He enjoyed coaching but he doubted he would have time to coach a full team of little girls. "Well, we'll see." He said.