The Assistant

I was sitting with my friends in the middle of the cafeteria when my phone started ringing. The name on the screen read, ‘Lucas Wright’. Why is my cousin calling me? I thought to myself. I pressed the answer button.
"Hello?" I said.
"Julie!" he replied.
"Hey Lucas. What’s up?" I asked.
"I was just wondering if you can come by the rink after school later, I need to talk to you. Do you think you can come?"
"It depends on how long you need to talk because I have hockey practice after school."
"Um, I’m gonna say at least for fifteen to thirty minutes. Is that okay?"
"It’s okay! That just means I’m gonna miss warm-ups, so if I pull a muscle, it’s on you." I warned jokingly.
"Don’t worry, you’re not gonna pull anything. Okay I’ll leave you to eat lunch, I’ll see you later. Bye!"
"Bye Lucas." I said and hung up.
As I put my phone back into the pocket of my jeans, my friend Hailey, asked me what was up.
"My cousin just asked me to meet him at the rink after school, so I’m gonna miss warm-ups today."
"Are you sure you wanna do that? It’s only our second practice of the season and you know how coach is about being on time for practices, especially in the beginning of the season." Hailey asked worriedly.
I played hockey in a city league, that city being Toronto. You would expect the team to be made up of girls from around Toronto, but many of them were from my school and they were also my friends. Weird, huh?
"Yeah, I’m sure. Besides, coach’ll probably think it’s family business or something." I assured.
As the ending lunch bell rang, and we all got up to go to our third period class, I wondered what he was going to talk to me about.

Two Hours Later

"Are you gonna go to your cousin now?" My friend, Camila, asked me as I stuffed my books into my locker and grabbed my hockey duffel.
"Yeah, then I’m gonna head to practice afterwards," I replied.
"Okay."
As I navigated myself through the hallway where my locker was, to the front doors, my duffel bumped into some guy.
"Watch where you put that." The guy said.
"Sorry, dude." I said coolly.
I walked out the door, and headed over to bus stop to the rink. It only took at least 15 minutes to get there. Once it was my stop, I got off and walked towards the building, going through the sliding doors and straight to Lucas’ office door. I knocked before I went in.
"Hey Lucas. You needed to talk to me?" I wondered.
"I do. Here, take a seat," he said and tossed me some Gatorade.
I knew he meant business by the tone of his voice. He coaches a big community hockey team and he’s serious about it.
I caught the bottle with ease and sat down in front of him.
"Okay. So here’s the deal, my assistant coach is leaving due to family matters, and his spot is open."
I stared at him intently. What is he up to? I thought.
Before I could say anything, he continued on."And the person I want to fill that spot in is you."
This time, I looked at him with wide eyes.
"Wha- Really?! You want me to be your assistant coach?" I asked, shocked.
He laughed. “I really do, Jules. You’re the captain of your hockey team and you practically are the captain of your baseball team, even though they don’t have captains, you are one. You’re a great leader, Jules. You also know how to kick people in the butt when they need it, not literally, though. You’d be an amazing coach, well assistant coach alongside me.”
I looked at him even longer.
"Lucas, I-I don’t know what to say." I stammered.
"Just say if you accept or not. If you say don’t, it’s okay, I’ll understand."
"Can I at least think about it? Just give me a week and I’ll have an answer."
"Okay then. Now go, you still have a practice to get to," he smiled.
Later that week, I ended up accepting the position.

What did I get myself into?

Notes

A/N: lots of dialogue in this one! :P