AmericasDarlings Read Online Free Page B

hand moved to my butt.
    My insides lurched.
    I liked Coach Debbie. I liked her a lot.
    She was ten years older than me, maybe more. I loved the graceful way she took me under her wing at times like this. She’d volunteered to walk with Benson and me to the broadcast center so we wouldn’t have to find it on our own. Or maybe—I bit my lip—I was being managed again. Coach Debbie was a relatively new addition to the team, having moved to Denver nine months earlier. I’d only practiced with her twice, several weeks ago, and she’d left me wanting more. Much more.
    I would have loved to couple with her again.
    I smiled back. “Thanks. But I don’t know about gold. Those Russians…”
    “Those Russians can’t do what you and Benson do! Not even close. They don’t drive everyone crazy just from watching.” She frowned, thinking. “They don’t become their routine, like you do. You’re good , Leah.”
    “Thanks,” I said again.
    “Just don’t break eye contact.”
    I sucked in my breath. “You saw that?”
    “I did. So did Bob. Automatic deduction.” One side of her mouth lifted in a wry smile. “Just don’t do it tomorrow.”
    “No. I won’t.”
    She pointed to the bag slung over my shoulder. “What’s that?”
    “Something for my nephew.”
    “Your sister had her baby? When?”
    “Last week! His name is Luke.” I slid the bag from my arm and pulled out knitting needles and a shapeless blue-and-green wad. “It’s a baby sweater. I mean, it will be, eventually. This is the back.”
    “Cute.” She patted the piece of knitting then measured it with her outstretched hand. Her hand was bigger. “Who taught you to knit?”
    “My mom. When I was just a kid.”
    Coach Debbie fingered the knitting then picked up the green ball of fuzzy yarn and held it in her palm. “My mother wasn’t exactly the knitting type. I never learned. I wouldn’t have the patience for it anyway.”
    I folded the tiny, soft square and tucked it back in the bag. “I do it to calm myself. To relax. Know what I mean?”
    She nodded. “That’s good. We all need something like that. I read books.”
    We stared out at the Olympic Village. There were more people on the pathways than there had been ten minutes ago.
    “Don’t worry about the interview,” Coach Debbie said after a minute.
    “I’m not.” It was almost true. Kind of.
    “We’ve given Ryan Markham a press release. He knows what he can and can’t get into. You’ll do fine.”
    Then it was time.
    Coach Debbie took my knitting bag. She gave us a thumbs-up. “Do me proud!”
    Benson and I followed the studio manager—according to his badge, his name was Ricardo Garcia Lopez —into the recording studio. Ricardo led us into a well-lit room and told us where to sit. He stood back and looked at us and then at the camera then he tugged my seat a smidgeon to the right. He asked Benson to take off his baseball cap. He asked me to unzip my windbreaker. Then he spritzed both of us with water.
    “ Perfecto ,” he said, nodding, “like you just performed sex.”
    I blinked tiny droplets from my eyelids.
    Ricardo laughed. “Sex! My abuelita —my grandmother—she would turn in her grave. Public sex in Mexico! Dios mio! ” He pretended to fan himself and swoon.
    A bell chimed.
    Ricardo’s eyebrows shot up. “One minute! You are good?”
    Benson took my hand, nodded.
    I squirmed. Maybe I didn’t want to do this after all.
    Ricardo looked us over. “Ryan Markham, he has surprise for you. So you know.”
    A surprise? What surprise?
    Ryan Markham entered in a rush from a door I hadn’t noticed. A bathroom? He plunked himself down in his chair, which was set very precisely at an angle to our own, then messed with his shirt. He looked flushed. “Sorry,” he said, “ate something bad for lunch. Mexico!” He laughed. “ Ouch. ”
    Benson groaned in commiseration. Who wasn’t worried about bad water? You’d think that in this day and age we’d have our