Chapter 3 Not According to Plan

Cole's POV

I checked the stadium entrance at six fifty-five.

Then I checked the map again, although I already knew where every station was supposed to go. Passing targets near the end zone. Check-in beside the gate. Track events outside the field.

Five minutes wasn't late.

Sloane came through the entrance carrying a clipboard. She followed my attention back toward the parking lot.

"She said she'd be here."

"I know."

"Good. Since you suggested her, I'd appreciate you two getting through this without making me separate you."

I took the spare map she offered.

Friday, after Riley left the gym, I'd told Dawson she should help with the main event. When he asked who could work with her, I'd said I could.

It hadn't taken much convincing. She knew track. She could handle a room. She wouldn't let us turn the whole thing into another football showcase.

All true.

I hadn't mentioned the summer she'd spent telling me where to stand, when to run, how much faster I needed to be. Or how quickly she'd dismissed it in the hallway.

I wanted her to spend a little time following somebody else's plan.

Dawson had approved the pairing. Yesterday, she'd chosen to stay.

I hadn't been sure she would.

If she'd asked to change partners, I would have let her. I'd meant that part. But she hadn't, and when she'd written her name under mine, I'd spent the rest of the meeting trying not to look at it.

She'd accused me of wanting her there.

I'd corrected her wording instead of answering the question.

Now I had an entire morning to make that distinction hold up.

"Cole."

I looked up.

"No arguments about camp while I'm explaining the layout," Sloane said.

"Fine."

She checked her clipboard. I checked the entrance.

Riley appeared with her folder under one arm, walking fast enough that I could hear her shoes before she reached us. She stopped beside Sloane and pulled out her schedule.

"Seven. Both copies agree."

"It's six fifty-nine," Sloane said.

"Even better." Riley turned to me. "You can't count waiting for me as your contribution."

I folded the map along its existing crease.

"Wasn't going to."

I'd been going to remind her we had to finish before class.

She looked past me at the field. For a moment, she didn't say anything. Then she tucked her schedule away.

"Where do we start?"

---

Sloane walked us through the proposed setup while two staff members rolled a cart along the fence. She pointed out the entrance, the equipment area, and the space between stations.

We didn't need exact measurements yet. We needed to know whether the plan worked.

"I'm checking the signs," she said. "You two finish the walkthrough. Mark anything we need to move."

Riley pulled a pen from her folder.

"I'll take the field stations," I said. "You check the outside markers against the equipment list."

She looked down the page.

The outside list was longer. Not harder, but slower: numbered signs, cone locations, the bins assigned to each activity.

"You can take the field if you'd rather."

"No. This is fine."

She started toward the gate.

I waited for a comment about assigning her the boring part. None came.

She checked the first marker, made a note, and moved to the next. I stayed inside the sideline, checking the passing station. By the time I looked over again, she was standing at the proposed check-in point.

"Mercer."

"What?"

"Stand there."

She pointed to the opening between two cones.

I stayed where I was.

She noticed.

"Please," she added.

I stepped between them.

Riley walked back toward the gate, then stopped.

"Now imagine a line behind you."

"I know how a line works."

"And those people?"

She pointed toward the track. I looked along the route they'd have to take to reach the stations.

They'd have to cut straight through check-in.

"We can leave a gap."

"For every person crossing? You'll be stopping one line to let another through."

I looked down at the map. On paper, there was room. Standing there, I could see how quickly people would crowd the opening.

She waited, her pen against the page.

"Where would you put it?"

The pen stopped.

"Check-in?"

"Yeah."

She came back and pointed to a space farther along the fence.

"Here. Keep the line on this side. People who are already checked in can pass behind it."

I walked the route she meant. She followed, checking the distance to the next station.

"It works," I said.

"Don't sound so surprised."

"I asked."

"You did."

She marked the change. I watched her turn the page, expecting something else—a comment about whose plan we were following now.

She just moved on.

At the next crossing, she used the toe of her shoe to indicate where the queue should stop. Two steps back, a quick glance along the lane, then another adjustment.

I remembered her at ten, placing me in a relay line. Her finger pointing down at my shoes. Me shifting because she kept saying I was in the wrong spot.

I'd hated having the others watch while she corrected me.

I'd also watched her afterward, waiting to see whether I'd done it right.

It was easier to remember the first part. The instructions. The people listening. How badly I'd wanted to get through a morning without her finding something to correct.

The other part was harder to explain: once she had me where she wanted me, I hadn't wanted her to leave. I'd wanted her to stay and see me get it right.

I pressed my thumb against the folded edge of the map.

She wasn't ten anymore. Neither was I. But I'd come here expecting her to behave exactly the way I remembered, right down to the argument I thought she'd start.

She hadn't given me one yet.

"Does that leave enough room?"

Riley was looking at me.

I checked the space. "It should."

"Compelling endorsement."

She wrote it down anyway.

We followed the outside edge toward the storage area. A rack of hurdles stood beside the open gate. Riley had been talking about the station numbers, but she stopped halfway through one of them.

I looked at the rack.

By the time I looked back, she was studying the list.

"We can check these against the sheet," she said, taking the path outside the fence instead.

The route brought us to the same place. I followed.

Friday's video came back to me: her on the track, then her standing in the bleachers, making the principal rewind it.

I hadn't asked her about the fall.

I didn't ask now.

At the storage area, she handed me the list and crouched beside a bin of signs.

"Numbers facing out?"

"That would help."

She turned the first one around. I crouched beside the next bin.

For a few minutes, we worked without talking. She read out numbers. I checked them off. When I found one in the wrong stack, she held out her hand without looking.

I passed it over.

"Six?"

"Under the blue ones."

She found it, set it aside, and kept going.

I stopped waiting for her to complain. Somewhere between the two bins, I'd stopped checking whether she was following my list, too. She knew what she was doing. I could finish my part without watching hers.

Then she read a number I'd already marked.

"That's twice," I said.

"Two signs. Two entrances."

I checked the sheet. She was right.

She reached past me for the second sign.

No comment.

"You're letting that go?"

"Letting what go?"

"The fact that I was wrong."

She settled the sign on the stack. "You want me to keep bringing it up?"

"No."

"Then stop helping."

I put another check on the sheet.

We finished the count. Everything was there, but the cards, cones, and signs still needed separating into their station bins.

"We'll sort these after school," I said. "Before I have to report."

Riley checked the time. "Okay. I might ask a few people to help."

I looked at the three bins, then at her.

"Doing what?"

"Sorting, Cole."

That answer was too straightforward.

Before I could ask again, Sloane came over. Riley handed her the revised map, explained the entrance change, and asked about getting help that afternoon. Sloane agreed, provided we kept everything in the designated area.

Riley slipped her pen into her folder.

"See you after class."

She left before I could find out anything else.

I gathered the count sheets while Sloane went to return the clipboard. Riley's corrections were squeezed between the printed lines on the map. I folded it carefully enough not to crease her notes.

She'd shown up on time. She'd found a problem I'd missed. She'd done the work without giving me the argument I'd been waiting for.

Now she had an idea she wasn't sharing.

I checked the time.

For the first time that morning, I wasn't calculating how long she might keep me waiting.

I was counting the hours until she came back.