by Lucy Snow
I smiled. “I know, Coach, and I feel your pain. But the team has some obligations to the community, and this was the only time we could fit it in. I kept it as short as I could, the players only have to be there for an hour. 90 minutes tops. Cool?”
Coach Armstrong shook his head. “We most certainly are not cool, Mack, cutting into my practice and preparation time like this. These guys shouldn’t be doing anything else till mid February.”
“I know, I know. It’s the only one on the schedule, I promise. You show up, say a few words, shake some hands, take some pictures, and you’re out of there and back to film study before you know what happened.”
Coach Armstrong’s eyes darkened. “If only it were that easy.”
“It won’t happen again, Coach, I promise.”
“See that it doesn’t.” He turned and walked off, presumably to find someone else to bother about the Xs and Os of football.
“I’ll see you in a few hours, Coach,” I said to his retreating back.
“Maybe you will,” I heard him mutter, and I smiled. Coach Armstrong was a gruff ogre at times, but I also knew that there were literally only two things that mattered in his life - coaching football and taking care of his players. He might have the world’s worst sense of propriety at times, but he made up for it by his fierce dedication to the game and to his team.
Getting him to come coach the Patriots a couple years ago had been one of my father’s most successful moves as the owner. Now the only thing left was to win a championship. This was as good a chance as any, especially with Lance Parker and Drake Rollins leading the offense to record scoring, and Hudson Asher running a stalwart defense that had kept us in the games when Lance wasn’t able to play earlier in the season.
Hudson Asher. By now he’d stopped dancing and had picked up the football and was walking my way. My breath caught in my throat as I noticed him coming toward me - The man had a way of making me weak in the knees, something I simply wasn’t used to with men.
He stopped in front of me, still cradling the intercepted football like a baby in his huge arms, the veins popping out in stark relief against the muscles they criss-crossed over. “Mack!” He shouted at me in a low rumble that could cause tremors if he didn’t modulate it carefully.
“Hey, Hud, nice practice today,” I said, lamely, once again shocked at how much this man could reduce me to sheer idiocy just by his presence. How did he do it?
“You watched us?” He furrowed his brow, looking back toward the main complex, toward the offices. I followed his gaze with my own, shivering in the cold, and I noticed his eyes stopped right at my window. “Yeah, I guess you have a pretty good view, then.”
“Yeah, it’s not bad.” I just couldn’t find the right words to say around this guy, and it bothered me to no end. I wondered if he had any idea how much he affected me. “You gonna be ready for Sunday?”
“Yeah, Coach Armstrong’s been running us hard these last couple days, but I know we’ll be up to it. The Chiefs are good, but they’re no match for us.”
I giggled like a schoolgirl. “Don’t let Coach Armstrong hear you say that or you’ll be running wind sprints till it gets dark.”
Hud looked around for Coach Armstrong like he was suddenly afraid of getting caught. “You think he heard?” He whispered to me. It made me chuckle inwardly, how scared a giant of a man could get over whether his football coach had heard him say something out of turn.
The relationship men had with their sports coaches had never ceased to amaze me, and I’d been around it all my life, ever since my father had begun taking me to sporting events when I was a little girl. Looking back I wasn’t sure if he knew he was setting me up for a career in sports, but it wouldn’t have surprised me, knowing what a keen eye for talent my father had.
I leaned in, almost overpowered by his manly scent. Sometimes I didn’t know my men even bothered to wear cologne - the smell of a man after all that exercise made me swoon. I had to focus on staying upright and not collapsing into Hud’s arms.
Not because I didn’t want to, because I totally did, but because it wouldn’t look right. “I think you’ll be safe, but just in case, I’ll keep your secret.” Hud smiled and I wanted to turn to dust, it made me feel so good. “But bear in mind, my silence doesn’t come cheap.”
Hud groaned, but the smile was still in his eyes. “This is gonna cost me, isn’t it?”
“So much more than you can possibly imagine,” I said, finally finding the words and confidence I normally had around people. Why had it taken this long? He was just another football player!
Except, of course, Hudson Asher wasn’t just another football player. I had seen hundreds of those come through the Patriots facility’s door, and very few of them had what it took to stick around in this league and make a career for themselves. Even fewer could live up to the strict standards of the New England Patriots.
Hudson Asher had spent his entire illustrious career as a member of this team, almost a decade long now. As professional football players went he was practically a dinosaur, even at the ripe old age of 32.
“When do I have to start paying it off?”
I made a big show of opening my bag and dropping something invisible in it. “I’ll just keep that in here for later and we’ll see what happens, alright?”
“You drive a hard bargain, Mack.”
“I mean, if you’d rather deal with someone else, I could always call Coach Armstrong over here…”
Hud held up his hands, palms out toward me, his huge and calloused fingers stretched. “I give, I give.”
“Glad we could come to an arrangement.”
Hud shifted to his right leg and looked down at me. “Going to the thing tonight?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there. Gotta represent the family, you know how it is.”
Hud looked concerned. “Will your father be there?” He asked, his voice dropping lower. He’d known my father since he’d joined the Patriots, and the admiration and respect Hud had for him was clear every time he spoke about my father. It warmed my heart to hear the richness of his voice at that moment.
“Last I checked, yeah, he’ll be there.”
“He’s…doing OK?” It was a blunt way to ask, but blunt was pretty much the only way Hudson Asher operated. Some people found it a little off-putting, a little hard to deal with, but for someone like me who dealt with people who talked out of both sides of their mouths all day long, it was refreshing to speak to someone so direct.
Maybe that was one of the reasons I had such a huge crush on him? Who could tell? People already thought I was a robot at work and in my personal life, and now I had to be all awkward around a guy who worked for me. Argh, it was infuriating how close to tongue-tied he could get me with just a glance.
“Yeah, some days are better than others. Thank you for asking, I’ll tell him you did, he’ll appreciate that.”
Hud stood back up straight, looking down at the ground. “If there’s anything I can do to help…” He rumbled, trailing off at the end.
I touched Hud’s arm, a gesture of thanks rather than affection. “I know, Hud. And more importantly, my father knows.”
We stood like that for a few seconds, my hand still resting on Hud’s arm, before he brightened. “Are you excited for the party?”
“Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. It’s for a great cause, and I think Steve’ll enjoy it too.” I looked up at Hud’s eyes as soon as it came out.
Hud furrowed his brow. “Steve? Who’s Steve?”
I blushed. “Oh, uh, he’s my date…”
Hud didn’t give away anything with his face, but I thought I saw his shoulders hunch over a little bit, but maybe it was my mind playing tricks on me again. Where Hudson Asher was concerned that tended to happen often. “I didn’t know you were seeing anyone.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s a recent thing.”
“I gotcha.” Hud looked up, and seemingly noticed we were the only people left on the field. “I gotta g
et moving,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Gotta get to the showers and clean all this stuff off.”
“Right, OK, good seeing you, then. I’ll catch up with you tonight?”
Hud started walking back toward the locker room. “Yeah, sounds good,” he called over his shoulder. “If we run into each other.”
I watched him walk away, that massive body, tightly outlined by his jersey, pads in one hand, football and helmet in the other, all of it caked in grass and dirt. I sighed as he disappeared.
That had been awkward. I wondered why Hud’s tone changed so much when he found out I had a date?
A chill wind picked up and I looked around, noticing that now I was the only person left on the field. My watch beeped, and I looked down - shit, I was supposed to be getting home by now. I had to get ready for the party and check in on my father and see if he was up to making an appearance tonight.
I hoped he would be - it would mean so much to the team to see him at this event, but I also knew that these days he wasn’t doing too well.
I went to the parking garage at the a facility, pulling my coat tighter around my shoulders to ward off the wind, and got into my car, shivering at how old the interior cabin was. I flicked on the heater as I left and drove home as as quickly as possible, getting there just in time to avoid the regular afternoon drive time rush home from work - small miracle there.
I stopped at my place only long enough to get my dress, shoes, a few pieces of jewelry, and my makeup bag, and then headed back out to my father’s place. He lived in a much nicer house than I did.
When I got to the gate I pressed the button hanging down from my reflector and the gates silently and quickly opened, and I drove onto my father’s estate. Despite how frequently I’d come here in the last few months, as I drove by the well-manicured lawns and small gardens that marked the driveway leading to the main house, it struck me once again how crazy it was that my family owned something like this.
But then again, we also owned a professional football team, so crazy kinda sorta came with the territory. I parked the car at the center of the roundabout in front of the main house’s entrance and gathered my things before heading inside fast, to escape the colder weather now that the sun was going down.
Inside I set my things down and called out for my father, and only got a reply on the second time. Without realizing it, I sighed, relieved that he’d answered so quickly. I didn’t dare to admit to myself what the other possibility might have been.
From the sound of his voice I could tell he was in his study, so after grabbing myself some water I headed in there to make sure he’d either already gotten ready for the party or he was just getting to it. I had a hunch it was the latter - my father had lost a little bit of his trademark punctuality in the last few months.
The study was small, despite the impressive size of the rest of the house. It was shaped like a cylinder, with short shelves that reached so high some of the books could only be pulled down with an arm on the end of a long wooden pole that stood in one corner. My father took great pleasure in reading the books that were the hardest to get to, like that was an indication of their quality rather than just a quirk of the room and how he’d organized it. “Nothing worth having is easy to get, Mackenzie,” he’d always say when I watched him reaching up high to get one of those books.
In the center of the room were two chairs, each facing the opposite side of the room, so people sitting in them would each turn their heads 90 degrees to see each other. It was an odd setup, but my father had always said the study was for reading, not for conversations.
John Mayfield sat in one of those chairs now, his face buried in a book, the only light the high bulbs that hung almost naked from the celling on long cables. He was most definitely not already dressed for the party.
“Father,” I said, softly, trying to get his attention without disturbing him. I shook my head when he looked up, his eyes focusing on me. “You haven’t gotten ready for the party yet.”
“I know,” he said, his voice creaking, before he looked back down at the book.
I made a big show of looking at my watch. “Well, now’s a good time for it. There’s just enough time for you to get ready so we won’t be late.”
“I’m not going,” he said, his voice muffled by the pages of the book catching.
I sighed. “You’re not going? You organized this charity event months ago? Are you sure?”
My father breathed in deep and closed the book, setting it down on the small circular table made of rich mahogany that stood in the center of the circular room, like its focal point. “No, Mackenzie, I’m not going. I don’t feel up to it.”
I knew I wouldn’t be able to change my father’s mind, and I wasn’t interested in trying. Besides, I had to get ready myself, and I would take a little longer than him. I turned and walked to the doorway, leaning on the wall as I looked back at him. “I know this is a rough time for you, father, but you can’t just renounce the world. You’re an important man and there are things out there,” I waved toward the window behind him, “that won’t wait for you much longer.”
“You didn’t know her like I did, Mackenzie. She was everything.”
“No, I didn’t. She was everything to you, and you’re right, I don’t understand that. But she was also my mother, and that I do understand. And now she’s gone, and every day is tough, but there are things I have to do, and even though I miss her, I get up every morning and do them.”
“I don’t know how you do it.”
“Neither do I.” On impulse, I walked back into the room and leaned over, kissing my father on the forehead. “You have a good night, Father. I’ll tell everyone something about why you’re not there.”
“Thank you, my dear. Have fun.” I would have looked back, but by then I knew he was already ensconced once again in his book.
I went to the room I stayed in when I stayed here and took a quick shower, washing the day off me so I could feel fresh and clean at the party. After putting on my lingerie, I slipped into my dress and put on my jewelry, before going back into the bathroom and applying my makeup.
I understood where my father was coming from. My mother’s death after a long bout with cancer had hit us hard even though it hadn’t been a surprise. Me, I’d lost someone I was terribly close to, but my father had lost his constant companion for the last 35 years. I’d never felt as strongly about anyone as my father loved my mother, so try as I might, I couldn’t see where he was coming from.
But seeing him try and go on without her broke my heart every time I saw it. In a way it was good that he wasn’t going to the party tonight - as much as the players and coaches and staff of the Patriots loved him, I would rather none of them see their owner in such distress.
Steve texted me right then telling me he was just leaving for the place we were supposed to meet for a drink before the event. The two were so close by we could just walk from the restaurant to the party after we were done, just in time to be fashionably late.
I’d never understood just how anyone could be ‘fashionably’ late, but like a lot of things I didn’t quite understand I just went along with them if they didn’t cause me serious moral heartburn.
I texted Steve back, feeling a twinge of regret at doing so. On paper, Steve was everything I should look for in a man. We’d been on a couple dates over the last 3 weeks; he’d gotten my number at another charity event last month. Steve was in finance, as most of the men I’d met in the last few years were. Finance, finance, finance. All their flashy money and nice cars didn’t impress me much.
Steve had managed to keep the finance part of his life in check when he was out with me, and while I wasn’t super excited to be seeing him again, it was nicer than going to an event like this alone.
