Alleyway BxB

VIII (Gym Session)

MONDAY, 1 OCTOBER
NATHAN COVINGTON

No one other than Marcello Lovera wandered into the locker room—eyes squinted and cast down to the paper in his hands. However, when he did look up, he immediately groaned. "They put me in the football class. Brilliant."

Almost immediately, Ryder raised his eyebrows at me with a teasing expression. If Marcello hadn't turned his head to look at me, I would have stuck out a finger.

"What are you doing here?"

I knew he and Marcella were being assigned to observe random 'interesting' classes outside of the performing arts faculty, but the football team in the middle of a season?

Really?

"Not following you, if that's what you're thinking, Nathan." Marcello flashed his schedule to us before he shoved it into his pocket. "I thought I'd be somewhere less... intimidating."

"There you are." Coach Bennet appeared from around the corner. If it was him that lured Marcello into the class for the day, he probably was trying to kill him, trying see what he was made of. "I was beginning to think that you were too scared to show up."

"I wasn't until I walked in here."

"Aren't you an MMA fighter?"

On top of his acting and music career, Marcello had way too many hobbies to be normal. I used to watch all his sparring videos. You'd think he had already run out of free time in a day but here he is mentoring drama in a high school.

"I wouldn't say fighter, but yeah." Marcello answered hesitantly.

He had knocked out a few guys bigger than him in more than just a few videos. There was absolutely no reason to be humble about it. Professional or not.

"Then I expect a lot from you this period. Just be glad you don't have to stay behind like the rest of them." He looked to us-the team. "Gym in five minutes. Get moving." With that, he left and almost immediately, everyone began to change.

"You could have just walked with me from the cafeteria," Cameron told him.

"This was a last minute switch. I'm supposed to be in art right now."

I grabbed my own bag and began to strip down. I had better things to focus on than him, like the next game on Friday.

It was my third game against Stockton and couldn't afford to slack off. They won the last game by a mere few points but I knew we could do better.

I stayed in the corner while my friends struck up conversation with Marcello. Not interested enough to join in or even wait, I made a head start to the gym.

They should have let him join the class later on in the school year. The team should be focused on pushing our bodies through training and preparing for the annual game against Beaumont, yet they stuck the school's worst distraction in here and called it cool... To be fair, maybe he wasn't. Marcella would have been an even worse choice. Just because Isaiah had her tight under his wing, it wouldn't have stopped the team from gawking at her.

Warm up went by quickly and Marcello tended to keep to himself or pair up with Cameron. I could almost forget he was there; there were no complaints so far and I barely even heard a word come out of his mouth.

Like usual, we went our own way around the school gym. I eyed the pull-up bars and even considered getting the squats out the way, but before I could make the decision, my name was called out.

"Covington." Coach Bennet waved me over with a quick hand. Marcello was stood next to him by the bench. "Spot him, will you? Look over him for the session or something. I won't hear the end of it if he drops it on himself."