Copyright (C) 2020 Kandi Steiner
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior written consent of the author except where permitted by law.
The characters and events depicted in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Kandi Steiner
Edited by Elaine York/Allusion Graphics, LLC/ Publishing & Book Formatting, www.allusiongraphics.com
Cover Photography by Perrywinkle Photography
Cover Design by Kandi Steiner
Formatting by Elaine York/Allusion Graphics, LLC/Publishing & Book Formatting, www.allusiongraphics.com
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Epilogue
A Note from the Author
The Wrong Game - Prologue
The Wrong Game - Chapter One
Acknowledgements
More from Kandi Steiner
About the Author
To the ones who won’t back down,
who won’t go quietly,
who won’t give up.
To the fighters.
This one’s for you.
Jordan
Ever since I was twenty-three years old, there had been a fire burned into my memory.
I wished it was a metaphorical fire, one that drove me to excel and succeed and filled me up from the inside. I’d even settle for a bonfire that was memorable, one my friends and family had gathered around on an evening when everything felt right in the world. But for me, the fire was a living, breathing monster, seemingly small where I viewed it against a pale blue evening sky as it devoured a corner office in an old whiskey distillery on the edge of town.
A corner office, and nothing else.
A corner office I didn’t know held my father inside it.
I’d been the only one of my family to see the actual fire, to watch the smoke billow and what was left of the flames lick at the roof of the building through the busted windows of that office. I hadn’t thought twice about it, other than to think it was a small annoyance that had traffic backed up heading into town. I was on my way to Mom and Dad’s for dinner.
It was such a small fire, already in control when I drove past it. The fire department had it surrounded, water spewing from their truck, the flames already weakening. I didn’t know much about fires, but even I could tell that it was in no danger of spreading, that it was tamed, and I drove past it wondering if Dad would be called back up to the distillery to fill out paperwork, since he was on the board.
When I had opened the screen door from Mom and Dad’s front porch, all three of my brothers were in the living room, playing video games and talking over each other at a volume that was always too loud for my taste.
None of them looked like me. My skin was darker, an umber brown that was light in the winter months and dark from the sun during the summer. Compared to their olive tan, it stood out, a reminder of our differences that we never really acknowledged. My onyx hair that curled tightly to my scalp was also a contrast to their sandy brown, straight locks.
But, the fact that the blood that ran through my veins was not the same as that which ran through theirs didn’t matter. My adoption didn’t matter. It never had.
We were brothers, an impenetrable force, a team forged in bad times and in good.
Mom had smiled when I arrived, wiping her hands on her apron before she crossed and kissed my cheek.
“Can you help me set the table?” she’d asked, hanging a hand on her hip as she gestured to the rest of my brothers with the other. “As you can see, this motley crew is useless. And your father had to stay late at work, something about exciting news.” She rolled her eyes a little, because we all knew that exciting news to my father could mean anything from a promotion to him finding a washed dollar in his jean pocket.
I’d never forget that smile she wore when she turned back to me, the one that crinkled the edges of her eyes and spread from cheek to cheek. Because less than thirty seconds later, the home phone rang.
And I never saw my mother smile like that again.
I blinked, the memory of that summer night ten years ago fading as my laptop screen came back into focus. A dated software system filled the screen, Latin words on an old word processor file, a journal my father had kept for years before he passed.
A journal my brother had found on a hard drive not meant to be discovered.
A journal I was now trying to decode, as if it would somehow reveal all the answers to every question my family and I had asked since that fateful day in June.
I’d gone through months of entries before I’d discovered that my father had found a Last Will and Testament of the founder of the distillery. That had shocked me, since this entire town was rocked with surprise when Robert J. Scooter died and a Will hadn’t existed.
It turned out one had, at least, according to Dad’s journal.
But he hadn’t mentioned it since that first entry.
I sighed, cursing under my breath when I checked my watch and saw it was almost one in the morning. I wasn’t going to find anything more tonight — especially with so much on my mind. I safely ejected the hard drive and tucked it into my top desk drawer, the screen of my laptop modernizing again before I put it to sleep. I had to do it quickly, before my fingers hit the keys that would open my lesson plans for the week or, even more risky, my practice plans.
Tomorrow was the first day of high school for our small town of Stratford, Tennessee — and I had a team of football players to whip into shape.
I scrubbed my hands over my face, body aching as I lifted it from the chair I’d been living in all evening. It was normal for me to be anxious before the first day of school, the first day of football, but I was even more wired than usual.
Maybe it was the pressure of walking into a new season with two state championships under my belt. This entire town expected our team to keep winning, expected me to keep winning, which was a completely different kind of pressure than when you were the coach taking a team that rarely ever won all the way to state. That had been a driving kind of pressure.
This, however, was more on the crippling side.
Maybe part of my anxiety came from my youngest brother, Michael, moving across the country to New York City with his girlfriend. We’d all flown up to help get him settled, and while I knew he would be okay — mostly because Kylie would make sure of it — I worried about our mother, who was now in the house alone for the first time.
The same house she bought with my father.
The weight of responsibility I’d always felt for my mother pressed heavy on my chest, but I forced a deep breath, going through my nightly routine of brushing my teeth and flossing and lotioning from head to toe. When all that was left to do was crawl into bed, I splayed my large hands on the bathroom counter instead, staring at my reflection.
I didn’t
know the two human beings responsible for making the man who stared back at me.
I didn’t know if I had my mother’s eyes — gray-blue, with a brown burst surrounding the iris — or if I had my father’s nose, the bridge slightly bent, nostrils wide. Was it his scowl that mine mirrored, thick eyebrows forever in a bent state of determination? Was it her freckles that broke through the dark complexion of my cheeks in the summertime?
Which one was black, and which one was white?
How did they find each other, and where were they now?
They were questions I’d asked myself hundreds of times throughout the course of my life, questions I knew I’d never have answers to. But one thing I did know was that I wasn’t anxious about the first day of school because I felt pressure to win, or because my little brother was in New York, or because my mom was sleeping soundly on her own across town.
The truth was my anxiety was rooted in the newest addition to my staff.
A woman.
A very attractive, very distracting to young, hormonal boys, very newly divorced woman.
She would be the first woman on our staff, and the first new blood to come onto our team since I took over as head coach.
Everything I’d worked for, all the synchrony I’d developed over the years, all the trust and rhythm and comfort we’d grown accustomed to was about to be shaken up.
By the police chief’s ex-wife.
Before I could fall into another spiral, I shook my head, pushing off the counter and swiping the bathroom light switch with my palm. I peeled my shirt off, stripped my sweatpants off next, and climbed into my flannel sheets in my boxer briefs, setting an alarm on my phone before I plugged it in and turned it face down on my nightstand.
Then, I laid awake for hours, tossing and turning, pretending that I was still in control and everything would be fine.
By the time I finally fell asleep, the alarm rang.
Stratford, Tennessee, was a small map dot southeast of Nashville. It had a population of two-thousand-one-hundred-and-seventy-two people, according to the most recent census — and almost half of those residents worked at the Scooter Whiskey Distillery on the edge of town. It was where my grandfather had built his career, where my father had worked his entire life, and where two of my brothers worked still.
Noah was a barrel-raiser, with skillfully quick hands and muscles lining every inch of his arms. Logan was a tour guide, the face of our town to the tourists who passed through. And, before he left, Michael had worked in the gift shop.
It was a family tradition.
And though I was the oldest, and perhaps the one Dad most expected to follow in his footsteps, working at a whiskey distillery was the last thing on my mind growing up.
For me, it was all about football.
Mom had always told me that the first time I held a football, I couldn’t even walk yet. Dad had been tossing one in the backyard with a friend of his, and when he missed a catch, it rolled over to where I was sitting on a blanket with Mom. She said I picked it up with both hands, stared at it with both brows bent, and then I looked up at her and smiled.
She said she knew right then that I’d play football.
What she didn’t know was that I wouldn’t just play it, I’d become obsessed with it. From the time I was on my first Little League team, football was my life. I couldn’t wait for practices and games. I watched football whenever I wasn’t playing it. I followed ESPN football stories like it was my job. I collected cards, ran drills on my own when the season was over, and was always looking forward to the next time I’d get on that field.
But where my teammates in high school dreamed of being scouted to a college and drafted into the NFL, my heart drew me to the behind-the-scenes work of it all. I wanted to dissect every play, watch every game, replay every tape, draw up my own plays, and — perhaps more than anything — I wanted to coach.
I never took for granted that my dream had come true, that I was doing what I loved most in the world and somehow managing to get paid for it, too. That’s why a familiar buzz of excitement crawled under my skin as I pushed through the doors of the stadium locker room, eyes on my clipboard, words I would say to the team repeating in my head. It was only an hour until our first practice, and nothing compared to that feeling of starting a new season — not the ten days of summer camp, not the energy that coursed through every kid at tryouts.
Nothing.
It’d been a fast first day of school, my regular day filled with introducing myself to freshmen who were in my physical education class and catching up with the athletes in my weightlifting classes. I enjoyed teaching both for very different reasons. The freshmen were nervous, and I always jumped at the opportunity to make them feel welcome and comfortable in their new atmosphere — mostly by encouraging them to join a sport. And when the students I’d worked with came to me in weightlifting, athletes of all backgrounds with issues ranging from golf swings to softball pitching, the excitement that rang through me was palpable.
I lived for this, for discovering a physical limit and making a plan for how to overcome it.
But as much as I enjoyed teaching throughout the day, it was the first day of football practice after the school day let out that my heart really pounded for.
My head was still down when I pushed through the door to my office, using my back to open it. I kicked the door stop under it with my foot to prop it open, still not taking my eyes off the notes on my clipboard. I didn’t realize my office wasn’t empty, even after I sat down in the familiar, worn chair, the old leather splitting under my hamstrings, a soft whoosh of air from the cushion.
It wasn’t until a soft clearing of a throat hit my ears that I looked up from my work and saw her sitting across from me.
Sydney Kelly was not the kind of woman you could pass by without noticing — she never had been.
I hadn’t known her well in high school, but even then, every head would turn when she walked by, regardless of their sex or sexual orientation. She was riddled with unique features, from her jet-black hair — which was pulled into a high and tight ponytail right now — and almond-shaped eyes to the curious complexion of her skin. It was a golden brown, darker than the tans my brothers could achieve in the summer but lighter than my own. She never covered that complexion with anything but sunscreen, not in all the years I’d seen her around town. Makeup seemed to be nonexistent in her universe, which made the dusty pink of her plump lips and the severeness of her high cheek bones and the length of her black lashes that much more mesmerizing.
She was beautiful — dangerously so.
And she had team distraction written all over her.
I mentally cursed Principal Hanley, wondering how he didn’t see this as an issue when he hired Sydney as our new athletic trainer. Of course, I’d voiced my concerns when we were reviewing applicants, but Dustin Hanley was close friends with Sydney’s older sister, Gabriel. Dustin and Gabby had been in the same college when the Clarks first moved to Stratford. Apparently, the bond they’d formed in school had carried through.
What I had to say on the matter didn’t seem to be a factor in the decision at all.
Not that I thought discrimination in any form was okay, but the truth of the matter was that teenage boys with raging hormones were hard enough to wrangle with a staff full of stalky, grumpy men.
With Sydney on the field, it’d be damn near impossible.
I stood abruptly, dropping my clipboard on my desk as I rounded it. “Mrs. Kelly, I apologize. I’m afraid I didn’t see you there,” I said, reaching out my hand for hers as she stood, too. She wore modest black leggings and a loose-fitting polo in our school’s shade of red, but I realized in the moment that she could have been wearing a potato sack and she would still be a complete knockout.
I kept my eyes trained on hers to avoid the length of her toned arms, or the way her hips filled out those leggings, knowing full well that I’d be the only one on this team capable of doing so.
“Coach Becker,” I said with my hand still extended. “Welcome to the team.”
“No need to apologize, Jordan,” she said my name with a smirk that set my nerves at attention, her eyes playful. “I’m glad to see you work just as hard as you did in high school. I don’t think I’d ever seen that kind of focus before my first group project with you our junior year.”
I chuckled as her soft hand slipped into mine, but she shook it firmly.
“And it’s Sydney Clark, now,” she added, her smile faltering before she snapped it back into place.
Clark.
Her maiden name.
Embarrassment flittered through me, along with a recognition. I couldn’t believe I’d let her married name slip, especially after the scandal that was her divorce with Police Chief Randy Kelly. But, they’d dated ever since I’d known them — in high school and beyond. It was difficult to separate one from the other, anymore.
“Of course,” I said, shaking my head as we released our grips. I slid my hands into my pockets, changing the subject away from her recent name change. “I didn’t expect you so early.”
“An hour before practice?” she asked, quirking one eyebrow. “I’d say that’s more punctual than early. I figured you’d want to show me my office, let me get my table and supplies set up.” She tapped the large duffle bag hanging off her shoulder.
“I guess I’m just used to the rest of my staff who like to roll up here ten minutes before the team starts showing up.”
She smiled. “Well, then, let’s just say I’m not like the rest of your staff.”
You can say that again.
I motioned toward the hallway, guiding her out of my office and past the rows of lockers to the athletic training station. Once I flicked on the light, I stood at the entrance with my hands in my pockets. “We got a pretty decent amount of money from the boosters last year,” I explained as Sydney dropped her duffle bag on the examination table, looking around her new space. “So, lucky for you, you’re walking into an upgraded version of the mess that was here before.” I pointed. “New ice bath, new whirlpool, extra storage, nice table for soft tissue work. We even got those fancy boot things.”
Old Fashioned Page 1
