First and Ten: A Contemporary Reverse Harem (A Team of Her Own Book 1)

by Erin Hayes

“Don’t want to buy any Tide Pods anyway,” the man snarled. “Roll Tide!”

  The line died. I glanced at my phone in disbelief that he hung up on me. How fucking rude. I did have to smile, though, that he said “Tide Pods” and “Roll Tide” in the same breath. I wasn’t the only one who got them confused.

  I took a steadying breath and dialed the last James Clayton. Please work, please work.

  The call was answered on the second ring. “Hello?” said a pleasant male voice on the other end. He had the accent of a man who’d lived in Alabama his whole life.

  Maybe this was the right one?

  I pinched the bridge of my nose, fighting to keep the desperation out of my voice. “Hi there. May I please speak to James Clayton?”

  “That’s me.”

  So far so good. “I’m looking for the owner of the Alabama Proud Laundry Detergent company?”

  “That’s me as well.” I put a hand over my mouth to keep my gasp from hitting the phone. Success! “May I ask who’s speaking?”

  I closed my eyes. Here goes nothing.

  “Hi, Mr. Clayton,” I said, using the back of my office chair as a brace, because my knees threatened to buckle. “My name is Madison Harte, and I’m the owner of the Birmingham Yellowhammers. We’re a professional football team.”

  “Ah, yes,” Mr. Clayton said, “the Hammers? We’re watching them right now. You guys are actually ahead.”

  We were? I blinked, and suddenly the weight of this hit me hard. If my team could perform and win, surely I could do the same thing.

  “I hope it’s a trend we continue,” I said honestly. “We’re proud of Alabama and want to do your state proud, sir.” When did I get so polite?

  “That’s why we’re called Alabama Proud,” he said. “I’m proud of Alabama, too.”

  I nodded, even though he couldn’t see. “But to keep winning, I was hoping we could have your help.”

  There was a long pause on the other end, so long I thought he had hung up. Finally, he said, somewhat dubiously, “What kind of help?”

  I’d learned long time ago that cold calling and asking for money was a tall order. The good part about it, though, was that if I could get to this point with a potential investor, I could really seal the deal.

  So I told him and laid out everything for him. Well, not everything, because I left out the parts around me sleeping with Andre and having feelings for Rodney and Clancy, but he didn’t need to know that for a business transaction.

  But we were both trying to make all Alabamians proud, and that’s what I was trying to appeal to in my phone call with Mr. Clayton.

  “So let me get this straight,” he said when I finished. He hadn’t hung up by this point and had asked questions during my pitch, so he had at least been invested in it up to a point. “You’re seeking sponsors for the Yellowhammers? And these sponsors will help you win?”

  “I believe so,” I said. “I really, truly, honestly believe so. Team morale is down, because they believe that no one cares how they do. I think showing them that they matter and showing a little bit of pride will go a long way.”

  “But why Alabama Proud? Why not someone like Tide? Or a more...conventional sponsor?”

  “You want the truth?” I asked with a laugh.

  “Well, of course.”

  “It’s because your company gave me the idea. I saw you in the gas station and pulled the pump out and…” I realized that I was rambling. “Your company is called Alabama Proud, Mr. Clayton. And I thought you’d want to be the first to put your stamp on the Yellowhammers and make them the team we know they can be.”

  Another long pause. “Okay, Miz Harte, you have piqued my interest,” Mr. Clayton said. “How about I come down to Birmingham next week and we discuss this further? I have some business down there anyway, so we can meet and discuss how this will work.”

  I held my breath. “That sounds great, Mr. Clayton. So you’re interested in a sponsorship?”

  “Well, I will have to talk about it with the executive board—otherwise known as my wife—but it does sound like something that’s right up my alley.”

  I thrust my fist in the air. “Thank you so very much, Mr. Clayton, you have no idea—”

  “Please, if we’re going to be business partners, called me Jimmy.”

  I laughed. “Okay, Jimmy. Thank you so much for your faith in the team.”

  We spent a few more minutes penciling in a time and a place to meet. But when I hung up, we had a tentative verbal agreement and plans for what this sponsorship could include. It meant possibly putting Andre and the guys in a TV commercial, but I knew they would do just fine on television.

  I hung up the phone and sat back in my office chair, shocked that it had worked as well as it did. “I did it, guys,” I murmured softly. “I scored us a sponsor.”

  I headed directly to the field to tell the guys the news. There was a different kind of buzzing in the air, completely different from the last game. Excitement. Disbelief. People tried to stop me, but I was so hopped up on my own thoughts, I barely heard them.

  When I got to the field, I could see why. We’d been ahead when I first called Jimmy. And we had only gotten further and further ahead as the game continued. Apparently, that was the first time that had happened to the Hammers in two years.

  There were ten minutes left in the fourth quarter. We had such a huge lead over the other team, it was almost guaranteed that we would win the game.

  With Coach Mack gone, the atmosphere on the sidelines felt completely different. I didn’t have anyone glaring at me like I wasn’t supposed to be there. In fact, some people came up to me and asked if I could believe what was happening.

  I answered that I could. Because they were my team. I would do right by them and they would do right by me.

  Standing on the sidelines, watching the team run around with the ball, I almost glowed with happiness. Andre was in fine form today, and Rodney and Clancy—once I managed to spot them—were playing harmoniously now. The fractured team from the other day was gone, replaced by this well-oiled machine that could win some games.

  Maybe not the best team in the league—not yet, and it was possible that they would never be the best—but they were holding their own out there. And I couldn’t be prouder.

  I held my hands clasped in front of me as I watched. I wasn’t the praying type, but hell, I was praying for my team out there on the field.

  And they didn’t even wait for the countdown to go all the way to zero. The Hammers had such a lead, that with twenty seconds to go, Andre threw the ball nearly all the way down the field as the refs blew their whistle, gesturing wildly with their arms.

  And the entire stadium erupted into deafening cheers.

  Everyone from the bench got up on their feet, and the crowd started streaming out onto the field—onto the field!—and I was running out there with the Hammers to meet all the players. The swell of the crowd was almost too much, and I lost sight of my guys.

  “Madison!” Rodney shouted somewhere to my left, and I altered my course to meet his voice. I ran toward him, and there they were. Andre, Clancy, and Rodney standing together, their helmets off and grinning widely. Andre noticed me running over there and held his arms out for me.

  “We did it, Madison!” he shouted. “We won!”

  I rushed into them, and he wrapped his arms around me in a hug, squeezing me tight and lifting me off the ground. Fuck, I was crying. When the hell did I get so emotional about football?

  Someone ruffled my hair and I looked up to see Clancy affectionately messing with my hair. He grinned kindly at me, and I felt a squeeze on my shoulder. Rodney was also getting into it.

  It wasn’t just them on the team. I was a part of it, too.

  This was their first win in two years. And it was a preseason game, which I realized didn’t mean diddly squat in the long run.

  But it felt like success.

  It felt like we were finally on the right track.

 
; “Madison Harte!”

  I looked up at the new voice, and seeing a camera and a microphone, I thought it was that reporter that I told to fuck off. Thankfully, it wasn’t, and I could breathe easily. Not only that, I found that it was much easier to face the reporters when we had won.

  “Madison Harte,” said the reporter, “how do you feel about the Yellowhammers winning their first game?”

  I grinned as Andre set me on the ground, and I straightened out my shirt. Time to make Sydney proud. “Great!” I exclaimed. “The team played well, and it was a long time coming.”

  I answered her questions as best as I could, but there was one question that set me laughing.

  “Do you know what happened to Coach Mack?”

  I realized then that I should probably tell Sydney about that bit of news, so she wasn’t caught off guard and had a plan for how to tackle it. There would probably be some fallout from it, and I wasn’t in the mood to discuss it right now.

  I leaned into the microphone and said the two words I knew that reporters hated. “No comment. But did you see that we won?”

  It was hours later that the whole team went to the Clucky Cowboy to celebrate our win. As team owner, I joined in the celebration, buying chicken wings with the white sauce for everyone. I also told the bartender the recipe for the Yellowhammer drink I made up on my first night in Birmingham. Andre helped me, because he remembered that night much better than I did, and the bartender even made some improvements for a drink that went down smoothly.

  I wasn’t going to look forward to the check at the end of the night, but I could take solace in the fact that this was going to be tax deductible. Even though I was team owner, I didn’t have much extra money.

  But I could do this for my guys.

  I sat at the table between Andre and Clancy, with Rodney across from me and a pile of chicken bones in front of me. I had white sauce all over my lips and hands, and I didn’t fucking care. Andre had his arms around my waist, and, for once, it felt like everything was going right.

  “I have to say,” Clancy said, finishing off a Yellowhammer, “that is a damn good drink.” He clunked the empty glass on the table.

  “That’s ours!” I said, giddily. “Tell all your friends, it’s a Yellowhammer!”

  “So what were you so excited about?” Rodney asked.

  I turned my attention to him, still grinning.

  “I got us a sponsor!” I said. I told them about my conversation with Jimmy Clayton and what that could potentially mean for the team. The guys watched me with rapt attention, impressed by the news.

  “It’s almost like we’re a real football team now,” Andre said.

  “We always have been,” Rodney shot back.

  “But this is the start of a new era,” I said. “I promise you.”

  “Should we toast, then?” Clancy asked.

  Andre’s lips quirked. “I think a toast is in order.”

  And even though I had been buying drinks for everyone, I ordered another round of Yellowhammers for the whole team. We all stood together, feeling on top of the world. Because we truly were.

  Andre nodded to me, and I lifted my glass, saying my war cry. “Go Hammers!”

  Everyone else lifted theirs in agreement, liquid sloshing and glasses clinking.

  “Go Hammers!”

  Nineteen

  In the visitor’s team suite the day of the last preseason game in Seattle, I pulled out a stool-style chair from the counter that ran along the inside of the window and hoisted myself onto it, eager to get as close to the action as possible from all the way up here.

  After our first win, Sydney had finally let me go out in public again as team owner. She’d stayed back in Birmingham to take care of her daughter but threatened me within an inch of my life if I said anything untoward again.

  I promised her I would be good.

  Seattle’s stadium was a lot nicer than Birmingham’s, but that’s just because they were more established, and they had won more than one game in the last two years.

  That was going to change.

  “The view is great from up here, isn’t it, Mr. Clayton?” I asked, turning around to look at the guest I’d invited to come along. Jimmy Clayton, owner of Alabama Proud laundry and new sponsor of the Birmingham Yellowhammers, grabbed his own stool and sat next to me.

  “I told you, please call me Jimmy. Otherwise, I’ll have to call you Miz Harte, and then everything will be too dang formal.” He ran a hand over his white hair.

  I laughed. We had, just hours before on the plane ride over here, finished signing the paperwork formalizing our agreement, and I was in a great mood. “Okay, okay. Would you like a drink, Jimmy?”

  “I sure would. How about one of those Yellowhammer drinks you were telling me about?”

  “Let’s make that two,” Ash said from behind me. As the second guest I’d brought with me to Seattle, she was more ready for the game than I was. The Yellowhammers’ new personal trainer was definitely going to enjoy her job as soon as she started with the regular season.

  She didn’t wait for my answer as she went to wave down a waiter and told him the recipe for a Yellowhammer. I hadn’t found us a place in Birmingham yet, as nothing good had popped up, so we were still at the hotel. But we were working on that. In between meetings with potential sponsors, public relations training, and juggling three guys, finding a permanent place to live had taken a back seat.

  We’d figure it out before the regular season started next month.

  I might have to figure out what to do with my two extra guys by then, too.

  I hadn’t had sex with Rodney or Clancy yet, and other than a few flirty conversations, I was beginning to wonder if I was just a one-guy girl at heart.

  “I love you,” I said when she came back loaded down with not two, but three Yellowhammers, fresh from the bartender. I hope he liked the new drink.

  “You better,” she said, handing one of the drinks to me.

  “Oh, yes, I do,” I said, taking a long drink through the straw.

  “And I,” said Jimmy Clayton as Ashley passed his drink over to him, too, “am a happily married man, so my love is promised elsewhere. But I am delighted to accept your thoughtful offer, ma’am.”

  “Thank you, kind sir,” Ash said in a faux-Southern accent. We all laughed, and she and I took our seats to watch the game.

  Four games in, and I was beginning to understand how it all worked. I didn’t know the finer points, and I probably never would, but at least I could usually tell what was going on.

  Mostly.

  “That sure was a nice win last week,” Jimmy said.

  “I think we can keep the streak going. I’ve got an excellent coach in mind”—well, in Andre’s mind, anyway—“and we’re excited to move forward with Alabama Proud.”

  Jimmy glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “I don’t know. I’d be happy to run some of those ‘Cleaning up after the Yellowhammers lose’ ads you came up with.”

  “I’d rather change the ad than change the team’s winning streak.”

  He hooted in agreement. “Yes, ma’am, indeed.”

  “Well, then,” said Ashley, leaning over me to hold her drink up in a toast, “to winning, and to new partnerships.” She gave me a significant look at that last, and we all clinked glasses.

  Then I settled in to watch my team win.

  They didn’t let me down.

  “I’ll be back in just a few minutes,” I said to Jimmy. “I need to go tell my team how proud I am of them.”

  This time, my three guys came straight to me on the sidelines when the game ended, wrapping their arms around me and lifting me up in the air. I laughed wildly and hit at their padded uniform shoulders until they dropped me back to the ground.

  Three times.

  All around us, cameras flashed, and I heard local sportscasters talking about the possibility of a comeback for the Yellowhammers.

  “You guys are going to have some interviews
to give,” I said. “You should probably get going.”

  But none of us moved.

  I hoped I would be able to find a picture of this moment in the news coverage later, so I could frame it and hang it in my suite. I wanted to hold on to it for as long as possible.

  Things weren’t perfectly settled. I didn’t know if Rodney and Andre could maintain their uneasy truce through the whole season. We didn’t have a coach yet. I hadn’t found any more sponsors yet.

  Nonetheless, I felt like things were changing for the better.

  We were on an upswing.

  And I was happy. Truly happy.

  With tears in my eyes, I found Andre’s hand with mine. Then Rodney’s. And finally, Clancy stepped up to grab me from behind in a tight squeeze.

  We were going to have an amazing season.

  I just knew it.

  Epilogue

  Jacob Reeves swirled his dirty martini in his glass, paying particular attention to how the three ice cubes clinked together. It wasn’t his best-made drink, not by a long shot, which was sad considering that he had spent his college years bartending. He’d made tons of martinis in his time.

  He must have been distracted. Shocking, considering that his company lost another investor because they weren’t meeting timelines. He was going to have to go schmooze with his overseas investors to see if he could squeeze any more money out of them.

  It was either that or he’d have to shut his company doors. And he had no shame when it came to that kind of stuff—openly admitted it, in fact.

  He swirled the drink again, frowning down at it, seeing his reflection in the glass. He looked sad. Even as he was sitting in his fine leather recliner, the top two buttons of his silk shirt undone, and his dark hair mussed from running his fingers through it.

  He should be happy. He had just been interviewed by Wired Magazine about his company, was named one of San Francisco’s most eligible bachelors, and was the president and CEO of his own VR start-up.

  Never mind that it was on shaky ground. Madison had always been better than him with company vision. She was the one who could get the company moving and could rally investors.