Cameron expelled a puff of air, and in three long strides, he was by my side, freeing María with one hand while the other held the two drinks.
I rolled my eyes at how easy he made it look.
“Thanks,” María muttered.
Cameron dropped the cone to the ground and turned to me. “So. Are you going to explain what this mayhem is now?”
Nope. I really wasn’t. “How was your day, Cameron?” Now that he was closer, I could notice the traces of dried sweat on his temples and the way his skin was a little red from the sun. “Do anything exciting today? A hike maybe?”
His eyes turned to two thin slits. “You mean besides finding you right in the middle of another grim yet somehow unsurprising situation?”
Some of the girls gasped.
“Do you always have to be so unpleasant?” I retorted.
The girls oooh-ed.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Do you plan on bringing anything but trouble into town?”
The girls aaah-ed.
I bent my lips upward. Not only had I no interest in this man’s passive-aggressive babbling, but I couldn’t forget I was a woman on a mission. “So, Coach—”
He barked out a humorless laugh. “Absolutely not.”
My mouth cracked open with a complaint but suddenly Josie’s head was popping over one of the metallic doors.
“Oh my God.” Josie panted, leaning on the frame and bringing a hand to her forehead. “Thank goodness I found you.” She was as out of breath as I’d been a few minutes ago. She was also wearing an apron with JOSIE’S JOINT in big green bold letters. “There’s a code yellow.”
We all blinked at her. Even the girls.
“Code yellow?” I ventured.
“The parents,” she explained, her eyes going wide and panicky. “They’re pissed.” She looked at Cameron. “Why are you still holding that? Please me tell you are not drinking it. I told you the second Josephino was for her!”
Cameron’s lips pressed into a flat line. “Believe me, I heard you.”
Had Josie made one for me? I shot Cameron a furtive glance, but he didn’t hand me the drink so—
Josie shifted at the door. “What in the world happened here? Never mind, we don’t have time for that.” She whirled her head, checking something over her shoulder before facing us back. “Hey, girls, how about we move this back onto the field? You can play whatever you want until practice wraps up. Yay!”
The girls cheered and immediately obeyed, streaming out.
“We’re right behind you!” Josie called, sending us an urgent glance and ushering us out of the shed.
She stopped us somewhere along the sidelines, and I made sure to face the field so I’d get a clear view of the team.
Voices—adult voices that had nothing to do with the ruckus the children were producing from the grass—reached my ears. I tried to look around Josie, but she snagged my face with both hands.
“Adalyn,” she said, bringing my head right in front of hers. “I need you to focus, we don’t have time. Or a game plan. And we seriously, seriously, need one. This is a code yellow, probably even black.” Josie’s eyes landed on Cameron, and she huffed. “Jesus, Cam, why are you still holding the Josephino?” She released me, snatching the cup from a still scowling Cameron and shoving it in my chest. “Here. You’ll need this.”
I accepted the cup, making myself ignore the weight of Cameron’s eyes on my profile. “Okay,” I told Josie with a nod. “What’s wrong with the parents?”
“The parents are what’s wrong,” Josie rushed out. “We were all at the café and it was all fine until they started talking about coming back here and interrupting practice. They have a plan. They’re sending two representatives. They were saying they didn’t want to”—she gestured for air quotes—“make a scene. But that’s impossible when Diane is involved.”
Cameron let out a grunt I didn’t understand.
I kept my focus on Josie. “Make a scene about what?”
The voices grew closer, and this time, I spotted two adults, a man and a woman, over Josie’s shoulder.
Josie swallowed. “They know, Adalyn. They’ve seen it.”
CHAPTER TEN
Cameron
I shouldn’t be here.
I should have left around the time the word coach had left Adalyn’s lips for the first time. Way before Josie and these two other people showed up and started babbling about rules and parent associations and the well-being of the kids and a dozen other things I didn’t care about.