This wasn’t it.
The music reached a crescendo and struck the last note just as she struck her final pose—one hand to her chest and the other to the ceiling, her head thrown back in a flourish of brilliance. She held it briefly before coming directly to me with a smile on her face.
“Well?” she prompted on gloat, knowing she’d been on point, that her execution had been what I’d been demanding of her the whole time.
After weeks of criticism she wanted to feel my praise rain down over her to the point that she could roll around in it like a pig in mud.
“You were peacocking,” I accused, catching her off guard.
“Peacocking?” she questioned, pulling the band of her ponytail looser, adjusting the fit with a shake, and then pulling it tight again.
“Yep,” I confirmed with a wag of my brows and a chuckle. “Showing off your feathers in an illustrious display of dominance and seduction. Reeling me in with your beauty with each turn and presentation.”
She thought about it for two beats before laughing. “Well, damn. That sounds like exactly what I was doing.” She shrugged and stretched the line of her face with acceptance. “Did it work?”
I shook my head in false denial and gave her my most meaningful eyes. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”
She wiped a hand down each arm and followed it up with a shove to my shoulder. “Well, feel free to stroke my feathers and call me Peacock, baby.”
A loud bark of laughter burst from my mouth unexpectedly and pulled the attention of several surrounding girls. I saw it as the perfect opportunity to move Callie’s social issues in the right direction.
I didn’t want to change her. But she wanted the change herself. It was in the way she talked about her place in the gym, the loneliness she felt in her isolation.
Callie was a warm, kind-hearted, often funny woman all on her own. I just had to give her the opportunity to realize I wasn’t the only one who saw it.
“Hey, girls!” I greeted with a lift of my hand.
“Hey, Coach Nik!” they yelled back enthusiastically.
Callie’s mouth moved in a silent mock. “Coach Nik?”
“Yep, that’s right,” I confirmed before instructing, “Say hi.”
“Say hi?”
“To the girls. Come on, do it before it’s weird,” I urged in a whisper.
Confused, she turned back toward the girls stiffly but followed direction. “Hi, girls,” she greeted with a wave.
All of them immediately fluttered and tittered with excitement.
“She said hi!”
“Oh my God!”
“Calia Nickleson knows who we are!”
All at once and on top of one another they giggled and spewed their excitement through harsh whispers.
Finally, they got it together, reciting, “Hi, Calia!” in enthusiastic unison.
Callie turned back to me with wide-eyed shock.
I couldn’t help but gloat a little. “Enlightening, huh?”
She agreed, but admitting that to me just wasn’t her style. “Proud of yourself, are you?”
“You bet your sweet ass,” I agreed with a wink and a smile.
She rolled her eyes as I plotted my next strategic move in our game of verbal chess.
“You have to admit that I’m good. I mean, come on. Before I got here, those girls hated you, right? Resented you for your successes and everything that meant about you?”
She narrowed her eyes in suspicion.
“You told me that yourself.” I pointed at her and then brought the palm of my hand flat against my chest. “So, yeah, I’m proud of myself for turning it around.”
“You are not responsible for turning it around,” she argued just because she could. Her ponytail whipped in denial. “What did you do? Hang out in the locker room and talk me up?”
“No.” I chewed softly at the bottom half of my lips to keep my grin from growing out of control.
“Exactly.”
“Exactly what?”
Exasperated, she snapped, “You didn’t fix it!”
“Right you are,” I agreed, momentarily throwing her off and making her chest heave back slightly. “Because there was never anything to fix but your crusty exterior. You said hi and those girls practically threw up all over themselves to say it back.”
One corner of her mouth curled up in aggravated astonishment.
“Though,” I said with a lift of one finger, “I am the one who’s helped revive you from your grumpy ways. And forced you to say hello. So, really, I did fix it.”
She shook her head and scrunched her nose with ill-concealed humor. “Just shut up and follow me to Vault.”
I crossed my arms and hid a smile behind the cup of one hand. She turned in a huff, whipping the tail her long, tied back hair over her shoulder as she did.
“Yes, ma’am,” I called to her back, inconspicuously watching her butt sway side to side as she walked in front of me.
“Ew.” Her head jerked around to look at me. “Don’t call me ma’am. That’s creepy.”
“How about I call you Peacock?” I offered magnanimously.
“Um, no.” She squinted further in disgust. “Pea, maybe. You can keep the cock for yourself.”
“I have the cock. I am the cock. I do not want to keep it to myself.”
“What is it that’s happened that all of a sudden makes me feel like you might be a sex offender?”
“Stop!” I choked out through a laugh, looking around cautiously since she hadn’t bothered to manage her volume.
“Just do that whole coaching thing you’re supposed to be doing.”
“I can’t coach you until you actually do something,” I pointed out, leaning against the wall next to the vault and gesturing to the end of the runway.
“Always me having to do all the stuff,” she grumbled good-naturedly as she retightened the lion’s paws around her wrists.
“I tell you what,” I offered with a gallant bow as I shoved away from the wall. “I’ll set up your spring board for you.”
She stuck out her tongue. “That’s your job.”
I nodded again, smiling as I did and wagging my brows. “And gymnastics is yours.”
Her face was alight and alive, and I soaked it in, letting it feed my mind and body.
With one last shake, she turned and retreated, heading for the end of the runway and trusting me to set everything up to her liking.
We joked and jested like that for the rest of the day, and if I was honest, I hadn’t even considered the fact that people were watching us and taking notice. That our normally aggressive banter had toned way down in aggression, and the way we looked at each other may as well have been a beacon for anyone looking to find an example of flirtation and affection.
I’d made certain not to touch her with my hands unless she legitimately needed a spot, but I didn’t really have to.
The way I touched her with my eyes already said it all.
“You only wear purple. Why?” I asked as I sat across from her on the end of the rod floor, wrapping my ankles in layer after layer of tape in order to tumble.
“Ha,” she mock-laughed looking down to the offending material and then away toward the other side of the empty gym. “I guess I’m just wearing my bruises on the outside.”
“That’s not it,” I denied as I looked at the back of her head. She was lying, and she wasn’t doing it well.
With a slow but unyielding turn, her eyes met mine. “How can you tell?”
“Because then you’d be in red,” I said simply. Her face turned questioning, but she didn’t say anything. By now, she knew I’d explain. I always did.
“You’re insides are bloodied, not bruised.”