by Mel Curtis
“So he’s tired.” Cora pointed to the check. “What about that?”
“That’s insurance,” Amber said cryptically, raising her palm when Cora would have argued further. “Jack hired us. He pays the bills, remember?”
But he didn’t call the shots. And sometimes, neither did Amber.
Chapter 8
Cora had to remind herself Jack didn’t call the shots two hours later when she was summoned to the Flash owner’s office.
Despite his brush-off yesterday – or perhaps because of it – she wondered about the reason for this sudden meeting. Did he want to talk Flash business or…Or wasn’t an option.
Traffic was ugly, making her late, shaking her composure. She was still new enough in her job to have self-doubts, and to worry about her client’s unpredictable intentions.
Cora ran across the parking lot into the Flash practice facility, barreling into Jack’s outer office and stumbling into Trent.
“Good morning, sugar.” Trent’s words were stronger than caffeine laced with Kahlua.
Cora’s body downshifted from nervous energy to pliant need. Going rogue, her hands stroked down his red polo shirt as if he was her pet. That polo and his black basketball shorts were an improvement over the cheap sports jacket.
What the hell? She never lost control around men.
“Sorry.” She recovered, tugged his polo hem and brushed pretend lint from his shoulders. “No harm. No foul.”
Trent’s whiskey eyes narrowed. “Was that contact intentional or incidental?” Like her, he used basketball terms.
“Incidental.” He was strictly off limits.
Jack opened his office door and scowled at them. His cheeks were hollow and his complexion sallow. “Get in here,” he barked before Cora could ask him if he was feeling okay.
Cora preceded Trent into the room and sat in a chair on one side of Jack’s huge black desk.
Trent took the chair next to her, but moved it a few inches farther away from hers flashing a serene smile. The Reverend was in the house.
The Reverend made her want to lick something, just to get a reaction. Salty skin. Salty fingers. Salty –
“It’s come to my attention that there’s a conflict of interest between you two.” Jack looked like he’d been on a weekend bender in Vegas. The circles beneath his eyes seemed more pronounced than they had the night before.
Was he pining after Viv?
“I’m not sure what you mean.” Trent said, looking as innocent as a boy with crumbs on his lips when he told his mother he hadn’t eaten any cookies.
Jack’s eyes bulged. “I saw a photo online that implies you two are…romantically involved.”
Jack had wanted to say fucking. Cora could tell by the way he’d paused. Her eyes narrowed. She was going to have to jump in and take a bullet for what happened to protect Trent. Things were about to get ugly.
“You saw a meme or something?” Trent asked with a good ol’ boy smile, still playing the innocent Reverend card. “The last meme of me was worth a laugh. I had devil horns.”
“This wasn’t a meme!” Jack’s anger bounced off office walls.
Trent had provided the perfect explanation for the very real photo. Cora sat back and began to enjoy herself.
“I don’t do social media,” Trent admitted, causing Jack’s jaw to drop.
“There’s a rumor on a gossip website about us,” she said as if for Trent’s benefit, then turned to Jack, who stared at a point above her shoulder. “Based on a photo taken when we were at that bar with your dad. I was leaning in and shouting above the music.”
Trent’s smile ticked, as if to say he didn’t need her protection.
“Whatever. It makes me rethink involving the Dooley Foundation with this organization.” Jack’s voice rumbled like a semi-truck charging downhill.
“You know this town thrives on rumors. There’s nothing behind this one.” She swiveled toward Trent. “Right, Reverend?”
“Nada,” Trent agreed, not quite looking at Cora either. All this not looking at her was starting to get under her skin. “But I have issue with the Dooley Foundation being involved with my team. This might be as good a time as any to sever ties.”
“I have to agree,” Jack picked up a pen, as if ready to sign the papers terminating the organization’s relationship with the Dooley Foundation.
“You’d do that? Over a rumor?” Cora gripped the seams of her skirt. There was more riding on this than she wanted to admit. Her inheritance. Amber’s respect. Her pride. She wasn’t one to back away from a fight. Jack wanted to play hard ball? Fine. She’d swing for the fences. “I think we both know that some rumors are based on speculation, while other relationships never get picked up by the rumor mill.” Cora glared at Jack. Let him wonder if she’d leak something about them having sex.
Jack’s dark eyes finally landed on her face squarely. They narrowed, as if calculating the harm Cora might cause.
Lots.
Finally, the Flash owner said, “We’ll let things stand the way they are for now.”
Trent raised his eyebrows, but wisely said nothing.
Jack returned his attention to his computer screen.
Recognizing a dismissal, Cora stood. Walking and texting was as easy as breathing for her. She sent Amber a text message: We may need to cash in Viv’s insurance policy sooner than you think.
Cora didn’t kid herself. Jack wasn’t one to submit to blackmail for long. If Jack was paying for Vivian’s Dooley Foundation programs, Vivian could pay for Jack’s with that check of hers. In order to protect their Flash billings, they needed Jack to be happy and grateful to the Foundation. The best way to do that was to make sure the man was happy and that Viv was happy. Cupid, in the form of Cora, was about to strike the Gordons.
She was halfway to the exit when Trent caught up to her.
“Hey.” He blocked her escape. “No hard feelings, but I don’t need any more bad press. This is goodbye.”
She latched onto his offered hand as if they were about to arm wrestle. “Seeing as how I’m still going to be involved with the team, let’s just agree to keep clear of each other as we go about our business, Reverend.” With one last shake of his hand, she released him.
The unhappy set of Trent’s mouth told her he didn’t accept her terms. He’d be looking for any opening to get rid of her.
~*~
“If you want your responsibilities to increase, Gemma, you’ll have to move into life coaching.” Amber sat behind her desk. Outside her window was a killer view of the Santa Monica Promenade.
Gemma wished she and her boots were walking the Promenade in search of coffee. “I’d like to apply for the position.”
“It means you’ll have to be nice to people,” Amber said gently. She was nice. She’d taken over after her father died and moved into his office. Amber hadn’t taken down Dooley’s Lego castle or put away the pipe cleaner flowers in his pencil cup.
“I’m nice to people.” Gemma’s insides twisted like her mother’s macramé knots. “I’m nice to you. And Maddy.” Blue’s fiancée.
Amber’s raised brows indicated that wasn’t enough.
“You said the Foundation needs help,” Gemma reminded her. “We’re growing too fast.”
The Foundation’s CEO sighed wearily. “I don’t have the time to train you right now. I’d have to assign you to – ”
Don’t say Cora.
“ – Cora.”
“But she’s a – ”
“Bitch. Yes, we all know that. Even Cora.” Amber sighed, looking like she could use a vacation.
“I mean, she’s gotten better.” Normally, Gemma didn’t soften her opinions. But times were changing.
Her godfather, Dooley Rule, had given her a college fund when she turned eighteen, along with a part-time contract with a generous salary if she worked at the Foundation. All she had to do was stay in school, get good grades, and wear army boots every day.
The boots she’d gotten u
sed to, but she was graduating from UCLA this semester. The Foundation’s lawyer had put her on notice. Soon, her contract would expire and Amber could adjust her salary downward or fire her. So far, Gemma’s resume hadn’t landed her any job interviews. It was either find a comparable wage or move to Oregon and live with her mother.
“Cora can be intimidating,” Amber allowed.
What Cora could be was a fashion whore, with a whore-drobe and the objectifying attitude that men were good for one thing. Cora didn’t intimidate Gemma. She annoyed her. Cora had no respect for Gemma, and seemed to have little for herself.
“But Cora’s a good person, deep down,” Amber was saying. “Are you sure you want to be a life coach?”
“I’d rather be the Dooley Foundation’s Chief Financial Officer.” Dooley had told her the position was hers if she graduated.
Amber ignored her cell phone ringing to point it out. “You’re doing the billing and accounting now.”
“That’s why you should hire me full-time. Business is booming.”
“I’m sorry, Gemma, but where we need help is with clients. Your special skills…” Amber’s mouth puckered. “Your special skills with people seem to be unique. You don’t suffer fools. And I have to tell you, we have a lot of fools as clients.”
“I know.” She’d met plenty of them.
“Many clients need their hands held.” Amber’s sympathetic voice paired with the pity in her eyes amplified her summation of Gemma – she was lacking. “It takes tremendous patience, which is something you don’t seem to have a lot of.”
She wanted to tell her boss that it took quite a bit of patience to work at the Dooley Foundation, both before Dooley had died and after. But she didn’t think that was the response Amber was looking for. Instead, she said, “I won’t let you down.”
Amber’s gaze measured Gemma’s assets and liabilities.
Here it comes. Rejection.
Gemma’s insides pulled so tight; they threatened to hunch her shoulders in defeat.
“I hope I don’t regret this.” Amber shook her head. “Spend time shadowing Cora.”
~*~
“Mary Sue Ellen, that woman means nothing to me.” The pleading note in Archie’s voice faded as he shut himself in Trent’s hotel bedroom to try and persuade his fiancée that the picture of him circulating on the internet with Cora Rule didn’t mean he’d been cheating.
Trent sighed and indicated Randy should resume play on the Flash game film they’d been watching. At any moment, he expected a call from Mary Sue Ellen’s parents, demanding the same reassurance Archie was trying to give their daughter.
Trent wanted to immerse himself in season preparations and yet distractions were everywhere – surrounding him physically, crowding his brain for space, unsettling his emotions. The remains of their lunches sat on the coffee table, filling the room with the smell of cold onions and barbecue sauce. A vacuum ran somewhere down the hall. Trent’s cell phone beeped with an unclaimed message. Randy popped his knuckles, then massaged the soft tissue around his knee.
Trent’s gaze drifted toward the window. If he silenced the noise, he could still feel Cora’s firm grip when they’d shaken hands that morning, still feel her soft lips on his jaw last night, still taste tequila and smell vanilla. He let the noise back in.
His life was a three ring circus and he hadn’t officially started coaching yet.
He had to let his dad clean up his own mess. He had to put getting rid of the Dooley Foundation on the back burner, along with his guilt over Randy’s injury.
After Trent’s announcement that he was leaving Holy Southern Cross University for the NBA, Randy had walked into his office. Trouble was, the kid walked with the slow deliberation of someone recovering from ACL surgery, slowed further by an Achilles boot. He didn’t walk like the man they’d expected him to be in July – a rookie NBA player.
Gone was the quick step. Gone was the quick smile. Gone was the glow that made Randy the young man players wanted to follow. “Good luck in the big show, Coach.”
Trent had to swallow twice before he could thank him.
Sure, Trent ran his teams hard and they’d suffered injuries in the past. That was the way his father had raised him. But no one had ever suffered career-ending injuries, like Randy’s. Well, no one as talented as Randy with predictions to go high in the NBA draft.
Trent had been about to tuck his wedding picture into a box. Instead, he threw it and the pearly frame in the trash. “What’re your plans?”
Randy shrugged. “I’m done with insurance-covered rehab in two weeks. I’m not sure where I go from here.” Because of his injury, he’d lost out on the draft.
There’d been a painful silence.
And so, Trent had offered Randy a job as an assistant. Out of guilt. And maybe out of selfishness. He wouldn’t be starting a new job in a new environment alone. He’d have someone to watch his back, as much as the young man was capable of watching his back.
The Flash game they’d been reviewing via Randy’s laptop. Their film sessions were as much about studying their players as they were about helping Randy transition to coaching. The kid had to succeed. And if he didn’t, Trent, not the Reverend, would have to let him go.
“Well?” Trent asked Randy. “Why did they lose?”
“They couldn’t keep up the pace.” His protégé rubbed a hand through his short brown hair. “I thought Ren Du would have a heart attack. He ran out of gas and let the team down inside.”
The lanky seven-foot center had huffed and puffed through the last five minutes of the game.
“It’s hard to keep up the frenetic pace of Chaos when you’re getting pounded by two men who out-weigh you by sixty pounds,” Trent pointed out.
The team was built to run-and-gun. In a traditional game plan, they lacked an enforcer, someone to wear down their opponents with physical play. Everyone giving him advice offered this as the traditional solution to win a championship.
But Trent had never approached the game traditionally. He’d reviewed the roster and come up with a different wish list. One Jack had approved. A couple of trades, a risky key acquisition and Trent figured he could take this team to the championship by playing schizophrenic – a fast, high scoring squad, a wear-down-the-opposition, bruiser squad, and a hybrid of the two.
Randy checked his clipboard, where he’d been keeping stats. “Twenty turnovers in the second half. You would’ve had a coronary.”
“It looked like their coach nearly did.” Trent tried not to listen to the pleading pitch of his father’s voice in the next room. They’d been watching game film since he’d returned from Jack’s office, and it seemed like Archie’s call wasn’t ending soon. He and Randy needed a break. “Let’s check out the offices at the practice facility before we look at any more games.”
Randy closed his laptop. “Coach?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks for the chance. This will look good on my resume, even if I only last a month.” There was a stubborn set to his jaw.
“You think I’m going to fire you?” Trent wasn’t sure he wouldn’t, which might have explained why he hadn’t told Randy his vision for the team.
Randy shrugged as he tucked his laptop in his backpack. “What NBA player is going to listen to me?”
Late at night, Trent sometimes faced the same gut-clenching fear. The list of college coaches who’d failed in the big show was long. “Have I ever told you how I started coaching?”
Randy shook his head.
“I was the team grunt. I edited film so only the important plays were shown during team meetings. I took stats during games. I organized the playbooks for the coaches. When they talked, I listened. I learned the game inside out. And I defended my coaches. I always had their backs.” Trent paused for that to sink in. “When I sat on the bench, I didn’t speak often, but when I did, it was with authority.” Something his old man had taught him: Speak as if you deserve their respect.
“So I’m
going to be the video guy?” Randy looked as if someone had just told him he wasn’t good enough to play recreational basketball with sixth graders.
Trent resisted the urge to sigh. Having fallen from great heights, Randy had a long way to go up his new career path. “You’re going to chip in wherever I need you. You’re going to listen more than you talk, at least at first. You’ll help at practice. You’re going to sit the bench with me and do the same thing you did during our games. When you see an opportunity or a mismatch, you’re going to speak up. If I’m talking to one player about something, you talk to another about something else. This may morph into your being a position coach or an offensive specialist. But you have to be patient and let your role evolve.”
“I can do that.” Randy shifted his weight off his injured Achilles.
Trent noticed. He gestured toward Randy’s legs. “About Monday’s workout. Maybe – ”
“I’ll be fine. I’m cleared to run.” His chin jutted forward again. “I can’t do any side-to-side work. But I can get on a treadmill or an exercise bike. I can stand and shoot. I can lift weights as long as I don’t put undue stress on my knee or Achilles.” His chin seemed to come out further. “No excuses, Coach. If you’re going to work out with the team, I am, too.”
Trent nodded, the same as he’d nodded in the last seconds of the Final Four when Randy said he wasn’t badly hurt.
Shit.
Chapter 9
“No one’s here.” Cora stood in the Dooley Foundation’s empty lobby, looking like a fashion model displeased with the choice of runway music. “You texted me to stop by before making my rounds.” Unlike doctors, the Dooley Foundation made house calls.
“That’s right.” Gemma grabbed her purse and her courage. If she let her fears show, Cora would drive a five-inch heel into Gemma’s back, and sashay out the door. “Amber wants you to train me for a life coaching position.”