by Erin Hayes
But where would you find another coach?
The tiny voice inside me that insisted on logic over fantasy was especially annoying right now. Because the truth was, I had no idea where one found another coach. I didn’t think they had coach schools.
Or maybe they did. Hell if I knew.
“Sounds good,” I said weakly, giving a little wave as Andre jogged off. I couldn’t help but stare after him for a long moment, though, my head tilted as I watched the smooth glide of muscles under those stretchy capri pants.
They probably call them something other than capri pants. For that matter, I didn’t think they called them “football outfits” either—I just couldn’t think of the right word. I sighed. I needed to look at the football idiots book again.
As I stepped off the elevator onto the office floor, I was hit by the chilly breeze of the air conditioner. It raised goose pimples along my arms, and my nipples hardened instantly at the touch of the cold. I was glad I had my suit jacket put on over the silk shell I was wearing.
I had known Alabama in the summer was hot. But no one had warned me how steamy it was.
Or maybe that was because I’d broken out in a sweat when I realized I’d had sex with one of my team members.
If only I could remember it.
It seems like if you do something really stupid, the kind of thing that might impact your entire world forevermore, you ought to at least be able to remember more than just bits and pieces of it.
I entertained myself in my office by carefully not touching anything Coach Mackenzie might’ve spat on. That didn’t really leave me a whole lot to do, so eventually I took a tissue out of the box on one of the bookshelves and used it to begin opening desk drawers.
Nothing interesting grabbed my immediate attention, though I supposed I’d have to go through all this stuff eventually. The bottom right drawer was locked—I needed to track down the key to that. The rest of it seemed to be handwritten notes with various money-making ideas, some of them harder to read than others.
Uncle Dusty always had some harebrained scheme running in his head.
I might not know much—or anything—about football, but I knew a little bit about running a business. It looked like no one was planning to loop me in on anything if they could help it. Well, I’d had plenty of experience with men trying to shut me out of business decisions, too. An image of Jacob popped into my mind, and I dismissed it.
Not again.
Rummaging through the desk again, I pulled out a small notebook and began making a list of the various reports I’d need to have delivered to me.
I’d start with Stephen the accountant. He’d been the most welcoming person yet.
Time to shake some things up.
I was deep in my note-making when, almost exactly fifteen minutes later, Andre leaned around the doorjamb and popped his head into my office. “I thought maybe I could take you to lunch.” He waved his finger in a circle, encompassing the entire stadium. “Away from all this. There are some pretty good restaurants nearby—some place we can talk without everyone hearing us.”
“Anyplace that serves chicken wings?” I asked.
“Almost everywhere.”
“Then let’s skip those, okay?”
He laughed. “How about a steakhouse?”
“Sounds good.” I kept my voice light, but I was beginning to get pissed. Had he known who I was all along? Was he trying to play me somehow? What could he hope to get out of me? What does a football player get from the team owner if he’s sleeping with her?
I didn’t like any of the possible answers to those questions that occurred to me as I stood and gathered my jacket off the back of the chair where I had looped it when I came in.
I was going to have to try to get answers at lunch.
At the restaurant, the staff treated Andre a bit like a cross between a minor celebrity and royalty. I was beginning to think that not everyone in the city was immune to the charm of having their own football team when a teenaged busboy walked by and whispered in a too-loud voice that war cry about another football team. Guess he didn’t like the Yellowhammers all that much.
That reminded me. “Hey, kid,” I said. “Can you tell the bartender to send a bloody Mary out to me?”
He nodded and scuttled off.
“So many Tide Pod lovers,” I muttered when the kid left again.
Andre just shook his head with a grin.
I rolled my eyes. “Seriously. We need to get these people to start appreciating having their own football team. Go Hammers!” I said the last loudly enough that several people turned to look at me.
“All these people still associate me with my college team,” Andre said. “I went to school here after growing up in Philadelphia. Still live there. I stay at the hotel during the season.”
Ah. That explained all the hero-worship-and-Tide-Podding going on.
“Well, they’re idiots, then.”
We ordered food, and Andre leaned back in his chair. I hadn’t fully appreciated his bulk before. I hadn’t really been in any shape to, of course, but… damn. He was solid, rippling muscle.
“You realize this is probably the Hammers’ last season, right?” he said suddenly.
I blinked in what felt like a sudden change in conversation. “The last season? Why?”
“The team is falling apart financially. We all know it—some of the guys are talking to their agents about how to cancel their contracts after this year because they’re certain the Hammers will fold, especially now that there’s a woman owner.”
Several seconds ticked by before I remembered to shut my mouth. “You’re fucking kidding me,” I finally said, all my outrage at their sexism packed into the statement.
Never mind the fact that they were quite possibly right. Or that I didn't know the first thing about football—just like their stereotypes tell them, my annoying inner voice reminded me. Someday I was going to figure out how to shut that bitch up.
But these guys didn’t have the first clue about me. They had no idea what I was capable of, the kinds of talent I could bring to bear on building the team up…
Suddenly I deflated. The only reason I was planning to build the team up was to sell it. What did that say about my own loyalty to the team?
I rubbed my hand over my eyes.
Andre had been watching the play of emotions across my face and picked up his sweet tea to take a sip, choosing his next words carefully. “The thing is, I think the Hammers could do better. Much better.”
Now I was the one who leaned back in my chair and watched him. “Yeah?”
“Your uncle was a great guy, don’t get me wrong. But he didn’t understand football. Didn’t have a sense of what it would take for us to be a great team.”
“What’s that?”
“Money.” His voice was flat. “That’ll get us some better players next year, some talented rookies to build up.” He paused, took another drink, and held my gaze firmly. “Right now, we’re barely better than a minor league team, and that’s not what any of us signed on for.”
“You think we could turn the Hammers into a real major league team?”
“I do.”
Something about the way he said those words with such an intense expression sent chills down my back. To hide my reaction, I sat up and leaned my elbows on the table. “Did you know who I was when you saw me last night?” I asked, searching Andre’s face for any sign of deception as he answered.
I needn’t have bothered. “Not at first—not in the airport. But by the time I came to talk to you in the bar? Yeah.”
“How?”
“I looked you up on social media as soon as we found out who’d inherited the team.”
“So you seduced me on purpose to get me to help you.” It came out hard and flat, an accusation rather than the question I had meant it to be.
He had the grace to look abashed, at least for a few seconds. Then the corner of his mouth quirked up in a grin. “It wasn’t in the
original plan. I didn’t expect you to be at the hotel bar last night. But once you were there, I wasn’t going to waste the chance to talk to you alone.” He glanced up at me from under long, dark lashes. “But we never got around to discussing the team, did we?”
Warmth settled into my stomach and slid down toward my thighs at the tone of his voice.
Don’t get distracted, Madison.
“Figuring out how to save the team from financial ruin isn’t usually the quarterback’s job, is it?” Ha! Maybe I had learned something from the idiot football book, after all!
“No. But it’s something I feel called to do.”
When he looked at me like that, I felt called to do it, too—or anything else he might ask me to do.
Or maybe I was just called to do him.
Ultimately, having Andre’s help as I worked to put this team back together could only help. He didn't have to know that I planned to sell the team to anyone I could the very instant it was profitable. In the end, regardless of what happened, it helped him as well.
In any case, we shook on it. We were going to work together to turn the team around.
I just hoped I hadn’t done something very stupid.
Six
“You did what with Andre Williamson, the quarterback of the Yellowhammers, and all-around heartthrob?” my roommate Ashley thundered into my phone.
I winced inwardly as I paced around my hotel room, gathering things that I thought I’d need for my night out. What does one wear when they go to a hot wing place—yes, goddamn chicken wings again—to formally meet all the football players?
It was Andre’s great idea at lunch, not mine. And I wasn’t about to get drunk and sleep with him again. Or any of the other football players for that matter.
Even if they were gorgeous.
“He said he was a pilot,” I muttered into the phone. “Technically, he said ‘captain,’ but in my defense, Ash, you know that I can’t turn down a good pilot.”
Ash was laughing so hard, I doubt she heard me. Instead, she clicked her tongue in mock-disapproval, although I could tell that she really, really approved of my extracurricular activities last night.
“You don’t get any for six months, and you end up sleeping with Andre, the ‘Heart Attack’ Williamson your first night in Birmingham, Madison. Maybe I should make it out there.”
I rolled my eyes, although the thought of having a friend out here with me didn’t sound too bad. “Why is he called the ‘Heart Attack’?”
Ashley snickered. “Because he gives all the women—and some guys—heart attacks because he’s so pretty.”
I remembered the way a bead of sweat dripped down his bare chest as he played for the no-shirts on the field, and I felt my cheeks warm up at the mental image. Yep, definitely heart-attack material, if my higher heart rate was any indication.
“So…?” Ash drawled, clearly enjoying this way too much.
“So, what?”
“How was he in bed? I heard he was hung like a horse.”
That would explain why I was so wonderfully sore today. “I don’t remember.”
“Oh, come on, Madison.” Ashley’s voice was almost a whine. “You can tell me. I tell you everything.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, getting a headache. “I don’t remember.”
There was stunned silence on Ashley’s end. “You don’t...remember?”
“I was so drunk, and—”
“You slept with one of the hottest guys in the universe, and you can’t remember any of it?” She actually sounded offended.
Trust me, Ashley. I’m offended too.
“Well, I remember some pieces of it,” I said, embarrassed. Such as the way his strong hands held my hips as I writhed over him. Or the cool, wet tiles against my back as he pounded into me.
Oh yeah, we had sex in the shower last night, too. I just remembered that now, and I felt the flush all the way to that space between my legs, which he paid so much attention to in that shower.
“But I don’t remember all of it,” I said, managing to not sound strangled. “Or how we even ended up in my hotel room.”
“It happened in your hotel room?”
“Yeah. And in the shower, I think?”
“You lucky bitch,” she muttered under her breath. “So what are you going to do?”
“What am I going to do?” I repeated with a haughty laugh. “Nothing. I think I’d be skinned alive by the coach for the team if he ever found out that I slept with Andre.” I could just imagine Coach Mack glaring at me with those beady eyes of his and all the derisive comments about my gender that I could take.
No, he could never find out. No one could find out. I trusted Ashley with everything, including my dog. She’d never betray that trust, especially after some of her stories in San Francisco.
Then again, I bet she never slept with a football player on her team.
At the thought of Winston, my heart thudded to a halt. I’d left him with her while I got stuff sorted out in Birmingham. If this was going to be a longer sort of endeavor than I thought it would be, I’d have to make other arrangements.
“How’s my puppy?”
“He’s definitely not a puppy, but he misses you,” she said without missing a beat. She knew full well where my priorities were, so she didn’t beat around the bush when it came to my basset hound. “He’s curled up in his bed waiting for you to come home.”
A sudden wave of homesickness for my bay city came to me, and I swallowed thickly. “I miss him, too.”
“When are you coming back home?”
“I…” My voice trailed off as I remembered the deal I made with Andre at the steakhouse earlier today. “I don’t know,” I admitted honestly. “I’m going to get the Hammers to a good point to sell them, and then...”
I honestly had no idea how long that would take.
Weeks? Months? Years? There was no way in hell I could be separated from my dog even longer than a few weeks at a time.
“If it takes longer than a few weeks, I’ll come get him,” I amended.
“Fuck, if it takes longer than a few weeks, I’ll come to you,” Ash said. “Apparently your football team is open for new groupies, and I’ll be ready for any of them. I don’t have to worry about it being okay or not.”
She was totally right, and it made me grumpy to think that way. So I yanked out a pair of high heels from my suitcase. I misjudged how hard I pulled, and the momentum made me tumble backward onto the bed.
“What just happened?” Ashley asked with a barely-disguised laugh.
“I fell on my ass trying to get my shoes,” I grunted as I bent over to strap them on my feet.
Without my blazer, the shoes turned my business suit from formal to something more casual. For my chicken-wing date with the football team, I didn’t want to look like I was trying too hard. Earlier, I pulled up some pictures of other football team owners to see how they dressed and acted, especially with Coach Mack’s scrutiny. Most of them, though, were old white men with billions of dollars.
There was honestly nothing for a twenty-something-year-old who inherited a team from her dead uncle.
“Oh, where are you going?” Ashley purred.
“Don’t get your hopes up. I’m having chicken wings.”
“Like a sports bar?”
“No, I mean chicken wings,” I grumbled, although it could have been a sports bar, but I didn’t have high hopes for The Clucky Cowboy. “I swear, every restaurant here serves chicken wings. Andre said it was the best place to meet the team.”
“You’re meeting the team?” Ashley’s shriek was so loud, I had to pull the phone away from my ear. “Can you give them my number?”
Despite myself, I grinned at her eagerness. “If any are looking, I’ll pass it on. Okay?”
“Okay. Damn, you’re one lucky bitch.”
“Don’t jinx me,” I said. “I’m already having bad luck as it is.” A quick glance at the digital alarm clock told me that I was a
lready running late. And I had no idea where The Clucky Cowboy was in relation to my hotel. Andre had offered to pick me up, but I wanted to keep that line drawn between us.
Nope, this is not a date. You’re not going on a date with him or your football team.
That being said, while I had a rental car, I was going to take a taxi to The Clucky Cowboy, just in case I did drink for social lubrication. I knew that I would need it to feel comfortable talking to all the gorgeous players. I also knew that I was a lightweight and wasn’t going to risk driving home.
“I’ll talk to you later,” I sighed.
“Let me know how it goes!” she shouted as I hung up.
I caught a glance of myself in the mirror and fought a grimace.
Andre “The Heart Attack” slept with me last night? How drunk was he?
I pushed a stray strand of hair behind my ear, touched up my makeup, and made my way downstairs.
It was time to introduce myself to the team. And to not puke from my nerves.
Seven
So, The Clucky Cowboy was totally a sports bar, and I stood at the neon-glowing entrance as my taxi pulled away. I watched the patrons inside as they sat at high tables with pitchers of beer. There were huge 70-inch TVs mounted high on all the walls, throwing the dark restaurant into flickering lights.
How many sport games were on at the same time? It felt like overkill.
I could hear the noise from inside even from the curb. A whole football team was sitting inside, drinking, having a fun time.
They were my football team.
I was expected to lead them to a better season.
I was expected to know what the hell I was doing.
I huffed, rooted to my spot in fear. There was no way I could pull this off. Coach Mack already saw through me, and while Andre didn’t seem to think my naivete would be a problem, it would be.
I can’t do this. I can’t do this at all.
Maybe I should turn around, go back to my shitty life in San Francisco, and cuddle my dog. Because I was so not cut out for this.
