—
Marian pressed two fingers to her forehead. Her head was throbbing. Tyler had scared the living daylights out of her. She was still recovering from that and she was pissed, mostly at herself for letting something so stupid scare her so much. She’d thought she was over that stupid shit; over letting someone’s innocent actions cause a panic attack. And now Cass was going after Danny again. God, she wanted to tell him about Danny. But she wasn’t going to. There was so much more to it than what Danny had done for her. Implications that could sink Danny, despite the fact she owed him everything.
Cass didn’t even know she knew him, for Christ’s sake.
“Just leave Danny Smith to us,” she snapped. “You learn the damn playbook and play some fucking football and worry about your own ass.” Her outburst was met with stunned silence in the locker room and Cass’s burning, angry glare. Before anyone said a word to her, she turned and stalked off.
She didn’t get far. A hand grabbed her arm and spun her around and she came out swinging. Cass put a hand up and her fist met his palm. He promptly closed his hand around hers, effectively holding her captive.
“What the hell was that about?” he demanded angrily. “That wasn’t just about Danny Smith.”
“Yeah, maybe it was,” she countered. “Maybe I’m sick of my offensive captain trash-talking our newest player acquisition and second-guessing the head office. You’re tanking this team with your attitude, and you know it.”
Cass looked like he’d been sucker punched and Marian felt a stab of regret. She was taking her own guilt out on Cass. She should speak up. She should tell him, and Mike and the rest of the team that she and Danny went way back, back to a time they were both trying to forget. If Cass picked up her phone and scrolled through her contacts he’d find Danny’s name under Favorites. Danny had saved her that awful night and suffered the consequences for it. He’d blamed himself for some stupid reason, and he’d taken on the role of her protector. He always made sure she had all his numbers, texted her if he was going to be out of reach, and generally made a nuisance of himself. She hadn’t actually seen him in six years, though, and he didn’t know she was in Birmingham. He would have warned her against the job. If he knew she was here, she had no doubt he’d be on the next plane. But she didn’t want to take advantage of his misplaced guilt and protective feelings. She had the power to bring him here, and she wasn’t using it for her own selfish reasons, trying to put off the inevitable. She was the one tanking this team, not Cass.
“Look,” she said, starting to apologize, “I’m sorry.”
“No,” Cass interrupted. “I’m sorry.” He released her hand and stepped back. “You’re right. If Smith shows and plays up to his potential, he’s a franchise player. He can make or break us. But if I pit the team against him before he even shows, then that’s on me.” He shook his head, a look of disgust on his face. “I should know better. But I’m too impatient. I know this team has what it takes to make it, and I know Danny Smith can help us get there. I want him here yesterday because I want to start right now. I want to start at the finish. I’ve always been too much like that. Too impatient.”
“Oh, Cass,” she said, putting her hand on his arm. “That’s not true. Well, okay, it is. You are impatient. But I get that. I get that you’re anxious to see this team finally come together and play the way we know they can. But you have to trust me. And Mike. Let us deal with Danny Smith.” She felt sick about her lies, and yanked her hand away from his arm. She felt dirty. The feeling made her grit her teeth and she clenched her fist at her side. She hadn’t felt that way in a very long time and she’d sworn she wouldn’t let herself believe it again. But this was different. This time she was the one in the wrong. And she just couldn’t bring herself to tell him.
“Why are you afraid to come in the locker room?” Cass asked quietly.
She was blindsided by his question and stumbled back a step or two. “What? What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about,” Cass said with quiet intensity. “Tell me, Marian. What’s going on?”
“I’m having a bad day and it’s getting worse,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Do you think we’re not working on the Danny Smith issue? That your thoughtless accusations aren’t making it worse? That we don’t have the corporation on our backs?”
“The owners are getting involved?” Cass said incredulously. It was a well-known fact that the Rebels had been bought by an obscure megacorporation that very few people had ever heard of, despite the fact it owned everything from gas stations to high-rise hotels, and pulled in a few hundred billion a year. What most people didn’t know was that the company had simply seen the football franchise as another investment opportunity. They treated it like any other business. They put people in charge of the different operations—coach, president, marketing—and they walked away. They’d given the team ten years to turn a profit. They had eight of those years left. Down here in the trenches, they almost never heard from the corporate office except at tax time. Mike had nearly had another heart attack when he’d gotten a call from the president of the board of directors this morning.
Marian knew her time was running out. She’d have to come clean and beg Danny to come to Birmingham. Then people would ask questions. They’d want to know how she knew him, and then the lies would start. She was so tired of lying about what had happened.
“I have to get back to my office,” she said, shaking off Cass’s attempt to stop her again. “I don’t have time for this, or you, right now.” She turned and walked away before he could see how truly upset she was, because she meant what she’d said. She and Cass, and wherever Beau fit into that, or them—she didn’t have time for it. And she definitely didn’t have the nerve to go after it again.
Chapter 7
Cass took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He was pacing in the back of the conference room. They were five minutes away from a conference call with Danny Smith. The coaching staff had had to jump through hoops to get this much out of the asshole. Cass shook his head. Not asshole. Player. He was just a player having issues. Cass ran his hands through his hair and wished he could keep his cowboy hat on inside. He felt damn near naked without it. He rubbed the top of his head. And he might be losing his hair. Too many years in a football helmet. And when had he turned into some vain man-candy kind of guy?
He glanced over at Beau, who was sitting on the couch in the corner flipping through last year’s Sports Illustrated NFL Preview. The Rebels had earned two paragraphs. Two. He took another deep breath. Marian didn’t understand what this meant to him. He had a huge stake in the Rebels’ success. He’d walked away from a nice fat contract with the Raiders to come to Birmingham based on promises of a high-level front-office position when he retired in a few years. He was aiming for general manager eventually. It was on his advice they’d signed Smith. If he didn’t show, Cass’s future with the Rebels was at stake.
He stole a look at the table. Head coach Shannon Ludwig was scrolling through something on his tablet, a frown on his face. Who the hell knew what he’d found on there. Marian was sitting on his left, leafing through a file. God knew what she had in there. Hopefully they’d both found some dirt on Smith to blackmail him into coming.
Marian had been avoiding him since yesterday morning. Beau kept sneaking glances at her over the top of his Sports Illustrated, but she was avoiding him, too. Which was making Beau sad, which made Cass feel even worse for taking his anger at Smith out on Marian. She was probably one of the few people on earth who would yell back at him when he was mad. She looked up and caught him smiling at her and she frowned back before looking away.
Mike Richards hustled in. “Okay, everyone ready? Marian, make the call.”
“I’ll dial. Shannon, you talk,” she said. “I don’t think he wants to speak to assistant coaches.” She stared at the phone while she said it, as if it were a crystal ball and would reveal the future. Cass looked over at B
eau. She was acting very strange.
“Smith here.” Cass rolled his eyes at the way he answered the phone. He even sounded like a dickhead.
“Danny, how are you? Shannon Ludwig from the Rebels here.”
“Shannon.” Smith didn’t say anything else. He just sat there mouth breathing into the phone.
“I’ve got Cass Zielinski here, too, Danny,” Shannon said. “I thought you might like to talk to one of the players, get a feel for the team from him.”
“So talk.”
Cass clenched his hands into fists and took another deep breath before speaking. “Hey, Danny. How are you?”
“Thinking about retirement. And so should you. You’re older than I am, man.”
That did it. “Look, Smith. I’m going to cut to the chase.” Mike was frantically slicing his hand across his throat, and Cass knew he wanted him to play nice. Fuck that. “We both know why you were traded to the Rebels. You might be a future Hall of Fame player, but you’re probably the most hated guy in football. Not just by the fans, but by the players and the coaches. No one wants to play with you. You are notoriously hard to work with. Fights with team members, fines, suspensions. This is your last chance.”
“What the fuck?” Smith yelled into the phone. “Fuck you, man. I don’t need this shit.”
“Don’t hang up,” Cass ordered him. “This is your last chance. It’s my last chance. Hell, every guy on this team has one last chance, and it’s here in Birmingham. No one else wants us. This is our last stop before the NFL kicks our asses to the curb. Hell, the whole world knows it. No one wants any of us, Danny. Just the Rebels. This is the last-chance saloon for every damn man on this team. If we don’t make it here, we don’t make it anywhere. And I’m ready to throw that in their faces. Aren’t you? I want to show them we’re not going quietly. We can make something happen here, Danny. We can build this franchise into a contender. You know it and I know it, and goddammit, I want the NFL to know it. I’m not going to lie, Danny. We need you. I need you to help me make this team work.” By the time he was done talking he was leaning on the table talking directly into the speaker like he was whispering in Danny Smith’s ear. “Don’t let me down, man.”
—
Marian listened to Cass’s impassioned speech. When he called the Rebels the last-chance saloon, Beau rolled his eyes and the others grinned, but it rang true for Marian. She knew the team now, knew what each player was going through and why they were here. And Cass was right. For so many of them, this was it, their last chance to live the dream, to play the game they loved. It was her last chance, too. She was irrationally touched by his silly nickname for the team.
“Do you think I give a shit about anyone on that team?” Danny said over the phone with an audible sneer. “You’re a bunch of losers, you said it yourself. Why would I want to tie myself to a Rebels car wreck?” He laughed and it sounded harsh and bitter. Marian flinched. This wasn’t the Danny she knew. Did anyone know that Danny now except her? “Go ahead and fine me. Do what you gotta do,” Danny went on. “I’m not coming there for mini-camp, or the season. I’m cutting my losses and I’m out of here.”
“Don’t think we won’t fine you, Smith,” Shannon said, and Marian had never heard the head coach sound so cold and angry. “You have legal obligations and you’ll either fulfill them or you’ll pay the price. Your call. I’m only going to say this once. Like Cass said, this is your last chance, with me and with this team. We’d like you here. We’d like to play some ball with you. I think you’d be a great addition to this team, a team that has potential, that’s coming together at last. We’re building something great here and you could be an integral part of it. All that’s happened and all that’s been said would be put behind us and we can go forward from here. Think carefully before you answer.”
“I don’t have to think carefully. Every fool knows that Birmingham is the end of the road. You get sent there to die. The end. Career over. Why put myself through that? I can end it right here, without the humiliation of a losing season in the asshole of the NFL.”
“Fuck you,” Cass snarled at the phone. “I tried to play nice, but fuck that. We don’t need you here and we don’t want you. So do us all a favor and stay away. Shit, I’ll pay your fucking fine just to keep you away.”
“Cass,” Marian said, shock forcing his name from her in a knee-jerk reaction. She looked over at Beau, who had tossed aside his Sports Illustrated and was carefully following the conversation. He met her gaze and just shook his head with a frown. What did that mean? He wasn’t going to interfere?
“Who is that?” Danny demanded over the phone. Beau’s gaze drilled into her, and Marian turned away, only to meet a searching look from Cass, and she could tell he knew then. He knew something was up.
“No one,” Cass answered quickly. “Or rather, someone you don’t even need to know because you, asshole, are never going to be down here playing ball.”
“You have no idea how happy that makes me,” Danny said sarcastically. “Building something down there, my ass. You’re building a big fat pile of nothing. Word is you’ve got a limited amount of time to make that franchise work, and you’re sinking fast. Don’t expect me to come down there and pull your sorry asses out of the water. I’m too fucking good to play with a bunch of losers for an unproven, questionable coach on a team that has zero chance of making the play-offs for the foreseeable future.”
Marian was horrified. This whole conversation had gone south so fast she hadn’t even had time to come up with a plan to break it to Danny she was down here. She’d been hoping he’d come around on this phone call and then later, privately, she could call him and tell him. But he was digging himself a hole here with the Rebels that he’d never be able to crawl out of if he kept it up. And she could see the anger and hatred on Cass’s face, and Shannon’s and Mike’s. They didn’t know him, they didn’t know Danny like she did. If they did, they’d never talk to him like this.
Danny’s anger over the phone shocked her. He never spoke to her like that. His bitterness was practically melting the speaker. Why? This whole business wasn’t like him. He’d changed after he saved her. Her father had silenced him, too, and threatened his career. But Danny’s silence had a heavy price. He’d lost respect for himself and the men he played with. She’d hoped time would heal his wounds, as it mostly had hers, but it obviously hadn’t. Birmingham was his last chance to let go of his hatred and guilt and play the game he loved. Danny didn’t know it yet, but the Rebels were going to heal him. Hating what she heard in his voice, and the anger and resentment toward a man she loved that was growing in her new Rebels family, she swallowed, took a deep breath, and said, “Hello, Danny. It’s Marian.” “Marian?” Smith said, sounding shocked and confused and angry. “What the hell are you doing there?”
Cass jerked his gaze up to Marian but she wouldn’t meet his eyes again. The entire room was suddenly, ominously quiet. What the fuck? How did she know Danny Smith? And why hadn’t she said anything before?
“I’m the new assistant offensive coach for the Rebels,” Marian said matter-of-factly. “I didn’t want to influence your decision, so I didn’t tell you.”
“Bullshit.” Smith sounded good and pissed. But he wasn’t nearly as pissed as Cass. “You didn’t tell me because you knew I wouldn’t let you go.”
Marian looked only mildly annoyed at his proprietary tone. “You couldn’t have stopped me. You know that. This is where I want to be.”
“Damn right, he couldn’t have stopped you,” Cass said angrily. Mike reached over and gripped his arm hard, trying to shut him up. But it was Marian’s next words that did the trick.
“I want to see you, Danny,” she said softly. “Come to Birmingham.”
“I’m on the next plane,” Smith said, and Cass’s heart sank.
Chapter 8
“Care to enlighten us?” Shannon asked Marian. Beau was still reeling from finding out Marian knew Danny Smith. Intimately, it would seem. He was tor
n between demanding answers from Marian and pinning Cass down before he went ballistic.
“Danny and I were close friends in college,” Marian said, a little too casually—as if she’d rehearsed it. “We’ve kept in touch, that’s all. Like I told him, I didn’t want to influence his decision by telling him I was here.” She met the eyes of each man in the room, but when she looked at Beau and Cass she sort of skimmed past them quickly. She looked guilty. “I didn’t want you to try and make me influence him, either.”
“I hope you know that we would never ask you to use your personal associations in any way that would make you uncomfortable,” Shannon told her stiffly. “But a heads-up before the phone conversation would have been nice.”
Marian sighed and sat down next to Shannon. She looked pretty dejected. “I’m sorry, Shannon. I’ve known people in football who have the ethics of an alley cat. I’m sorry I painted you with the same brush. You’re right, I do know better.”
Shannon leaned over and put his hand on her arm. “Hey, it’s forgotten. But now I’m going to use your knowledge of Danny Smith. Based on what you know of him, is he coming down here to play football, or to rescue you from this big, fat pile of nothing?”
Marian barely cracked a smile at the echo of Smith’s words. “A little of both, probably,” she admitted. “He’s coming to my rescue because it’s a knee-jerk reaction. He’s had to do that in the past.” She looked away, off into the corner, and she looked so bleak that Beau was uneasy. What the hell had Danny Smith had to rescue her from? She turned back to Shannon. “But once he gets here, he’ll play football. You guys were right. Getting him to Birmingham was the biggest challenge.”
Shannon nodded and stood up. “All right, then. Judging from the conversation, he’ll be here by tomorrow. So we’ve got some planning to do. Marian, because of your friendship, I’ll put you in charge of finding him someplace to stay. With one of the other players, preferably. The sooner he gets pulled into the Rebels circle the better. Come on, Mike. I want to make a couple of changes to the playbook.”
Broken Play Page 6
