Love Game

by Maggie Wells

  Danny ran a tired hand over his face. His teeth and jaw ached from clenching. He pressed two fingers to the joint and rubbed at the tension, reminding himself that this was part of his penance. He should be used to receiving unsolicited advice and lectures from people who hardly knew him. They were the price he paid for fucking up in a spectacularly public way. But that didn’t mean he had to like them. “Oh yeah, Mack has opinions.”

  Another one of Kate’s fire-starter laughs drew him out of his pity party. He looked up just as she switched on the office light.

  “I guess he’s been on his soapbox already?” she asked.

  She shot him a look so heavy with sympathy, it should have pissed him off. But it didn’t. If anything, it stirred him up on a bunch of different levels. Sure, there was a physical attraction, but Danny felt the tug of something more. She was giving him a glimpse of the woman behind the game face and big talk. The superstar who knew exactly how it felt to be condescended to on a daily basis but still held her ground with grace and dignity.

  Swallowing a cold lump of pride, he craned his neck to peer into her office, uncertain if sympathy was enough to get him across the threshold. He didn’t chance it. No point in giving her cause to wipe that sweet little smile off her face.

  “I know I should listen to him. Logically, I know that.”

  “But it’s hard to take advice from a guy who’s never even been near the top of the heap,” she concluded.

  Stunned by her quick and highly inaccurate analysis, he took that dangerous step over the threshold. “That’s not it at all—” He jerked to a stop just inside the spacious office and looked up in shock. “Whoa.”

  One wall of her office was dedicated to mounted wire racks holding dozens of pairs of shoes. Everything from the newest in the Jordan line to those pointy-toed white sneakers cheerleaders used to wear. Sneakers in every color and style. Some were leftovers from another era, and others looked like they’d never been worn.

  “You were saying?” she prompted tersely.

  “Do you wear all these?”

  “When the mood suits me.”

  He tore his gaze from the wall of shoes, but she kept her eyes averted as she rifled through the papers in her inbox. “The mood?” Nodding to the feminine canvas sneakers, he asked, “What mood are those?”

  She jerked a sheaf of papers from the stack and stuffed them into her oversized shoulder bag. “Those are for when I’m feeling a little ‘no one invited you in here.’”

  Pleased to have put her on defense for once, he stroked the acid-green laces on a pair of gunmetal-gray running shoes. “I bet these are your ‘I feel pretty’ shoes.”

  She stepped out from behind her desk and nodded to the door. “Right now, I’m wearing my ‘the lead anchor from the biggest sports network in the country is waiting for me’ shoes.”

  Danny glanced down and for the first time noticed that she was wearing sandals. They were flat and black, but they had those super-long laces that wound around her ankle a half dozen times. Like a gladiator. She’d tied the ends in a neat bow front and center. Her toenails were polished fire-engine red, and she wore black capris that clung to every single inch of never-ending legs.

  He wanted to unlace those sandals with his teeth, peel that pretty sweater over her head, and drag those snug pants down her legs. Visions of Audrey Hepburn and Mary Tyler Moore danced in his head. Obscene visions in which he did unspeakable things to Dick Van Dyke’s TV wife. The blood rushed from his head, and his dick grew hard. He might have seen a few other kinds of stars too, but Kate grabbed his arm and propelled him toward the door.

  “You’re wrong,” he croaked.

  She pushed him into the hall and whirled to pull the door closed behind her. “Wrong about what?”

  A creak in her voice gave him courage. Then again, it might have been his hard-on talking. Either way, for the first time since he’d stepped foot on campus, he felt emboldened.

  “I’m not having a hard time listening to Mack because he doesn’t have a winning record. It’s because he’s right, and I have no idea how to change my game plan.”

  “Oh.”

  She looked up at him, her face a picture of confused annoyance, and he smiled. It was a slow, cocky smile. The kind he hadn’t been able to muster for quite some time. But pointed at the very fair Kate Snyder, it seemed as natural as breathing. A pretty pink blush rose in her cheeks when she realized she still had a grip on his arm. She let go as if she’d been singed, but it was too late. He’d seen stars in her eyes too.

  “And you’re wrong about the shoes,” he added.

  “Shoes?”

  The husky timbre of her voice told him she wasn’t as unaffected as she’d like to be. That knowledge gave him strength. Treating her to the same kind of slow, deliberate once-over she’d given him, he let his gaze travel all the way down to her feet again. Then he leaned in, not quite touching her. “Be careful with those shoes, Coach. I don’t think you know exactly what they’re saying.”

  With that, he turned and walked away. But he felt her eyes on his back as he sauntered toward the no-man’s-land that housed his cracker box of an office. At last, he’d found a place comfortable enough to unpack his collection of ball caps. He just wished he’d thought to ask her where she’d scored those display racks.

  Chapter 5

  Danny’s steps slowed as he crested the hill, a mixture of anticipation and dread pooling in his gut. He’d asked the school grounds crew to do something, anything, about the condition of the practice field, but he hadn’t brought himself to look yet. He’d also asked Mack to arrange for a half dozen of their most promising players to meet him there. Truthfully, he wasn’t exactly certain the boys would show.

  The grass was freshly mown, the field itself cut an inch shorter than the surrounding area. It looked more golf green than gridiron, but someone had taken the trouble to run chalk stripes at precise five-yard intervals and plant neon-orange pylons to mark every ten yards. He caught a gleam of silver and spotted Mack standing in the far end zone. The players Danny had requested milled around the old man.

  The young men jostled and jockeyed, but none of them dared bump into Mack. Their semiscruffy faces wore smiles as they peppered the seasoned, old coach with questions, jokes, and jibes. To Danny’s mind, nothing solidified Mack’s status as a Wolcott staple like the boys’ open, carefree interaction with the assistant coach. These were the cocky jock grins Danny rarely got to see.

  It didn’t take a PhD in psychology to figure it out. With Mack, they were players. The best he had. But next to Danny, with his gameday glory past and a gaudy Super Bowl ring to his name, they felt like they were nothing. He made them feel like nothing.

  Now it was time to fix that.

  Mack looked up as Danny approached. Like a flock of birds rising on an updraft, the boys dispersed, putting space between themselves and Danny. Danny smiled at them all, but only the boldest—Kilgorn, the wide receiver soon-to-be quarterback—had the guts to flash a grin. The others just shuffled their feet and tugged at their practice jerseys.

  Danny turned to Mack, nodding to the field and the mesh equipment bag at the older man’s feet.

  “Thanks for getting all this together.” He reached into the bag and pulled out a single football. “I think this’ll be all we need.” Danny couldn’t help but smile when that pebbled leather settled into his palm and his fingertips found the laces. He curled the ball into his chest, cradling it like it was a damn security blanket, then eyed his players. “You’re welcome to stick around if you want, but we’re going to keep this pretty low-key,” he said to Mack.

  Mack snorted, then nodded to the aluminum-framed lawn chair he’d set out on the sideline. “Whatever the hell this is, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  The old man shambled toward his chair, leaving Danny alone with his handpicked players. He eyed them as closely as they watched him. Jerking his chin toward the center of the field, he said, “Follow me,” and took
off at a jock trot, not daring to look back to see if they actually did. He turned to face them at the fifty-yard line. His players stood assembled a safe five yards away.

  He tossed the ball from hand to hand. Though he knew exactly what he wanted to say to them, he’d be damned if he knew how to get the conversation to kick off. Thankfully, Kilgorn wasn’t afraid to wade into the silence.

  “Are we in trouble for something, Coach?”

  Danny caught the ball and tucked it safely into the crook of his arm. “Trouble? No. Should you be?”

  “How come it’s only us?” a deeper voice asked.

  Danny’s mental roster clicked. Oswalt. Defensive end. Junior. Six four, two seventy. Quick off the blocks. Leading the team in sacks. Which meant he actually broke through one of the massive Mid-American Conference offensive lines last season and caught the quarterback’s ankle. He might lack confidence but certainly not intelligence.

  “I picked you guys because I’m looking to you to be team leaders next year.”

  “We’re not all seniors,” Kilgorn was quick to point out.

  The cornerback, a wiry kid named Nelson with kamikaze instincts, snorted as he eyed the true freshman wide receiver standing on the other side of the linemen. “Some of us aren’t old enough to be out of our red shirts yet.”

  No, Danny’s bench wasn’t deep, and moving Kilgorn to QB meant he would have to play green in the passing game. But young Marcus Landry refused to rise to his teammate’s bait, proving he was part of the reason Wolcott put up such a high grade point average each year. Before they could start ripping into each other, Danny smacked the ball against his open palm and dropped back a few yards, ending in the passing stance he’d learned in the peewee league. “Spread out.”

  They stared at him blankly.

  He smacked the ball again, then zipped one straight at the freshman’s gut. Landry wasn’t without skill or instinct. He caught the ball right in the breadbasket and cradled it close. When he looked up, his dark eyes were wide with surprise. Danny nodded, confirming that he did indeed just catch a pass from a former Heisman candidate and NFL quarterback.

  Tossing off a shrug, Danny took a few more steps back and clapped his hands, signaling for the return of the ball. “Sorry. That’s gonna leave a mark.”

  To his credit, Landry did his best to wing it back at him, but as soft as his hands were, the kid didn’t have much of an arm. Danny caught the ball one-handed and dropped back again. This time, the players started to back away.

  “Let’s play a game of five hundred,” he challenged.

  “What’s that?” Russell, the leader of the offensive line, asked.

  Danny cocked his head in disbelief, then shook it slowly. “You never played five hundred as a kid?” A couple nodded, but most wagged their shaggy heads. He tsked and pointed the end of the ball downfield. “Get down there around the twenty-five or thirty.”

  The players backed downfield but spread out along the line as if he were about to put them through a series of Mack’s favorite drills.

  He shook his head and waved them in. “No, bunch up together,” he called to them. When they complied, he tucked the ball back under his arm and rubbed his palms together in anticipation and raised his voice. “Okay, here’s how it goes. I throw the ball, you fight to be the guy to catch it. Whoever snags it gets a hundred points. First man to five hundred gets to throw.”

  “We’re supposed to catch it?” his senior defensive tackle called back.

  “Yep.” Danny nodded. “And anything goes. Well, no shots to the sac or eye gouging,” he amended, “but, you know, go for it.”

  “But, Coach, we’re on D,” Oswalt protested.

  Danny stared at the kid, letting his incredulity show. “Are you telling me that you never once dreamed of snagging some hotshot QB’s pass and running it straight down his throat?”

  Oswalt shrugged. “Well, yeah.”

  Grinning, Danny stepped back into his stance and held the ball like he was posing for a goddamn trading card. “Well, here’s your chance, kid. Get ready.”

  “Do we run it?” Landry yelled, glancing from player to player, then back at him.

  “Not for this.” The defensive players’ faces fell so dramatically, he almost laughed out loud. “Unless you’re on D. If one of you guys”—he pointed to the three defensive players in the group—“grab it, you can try to get past me. But if I get two hands on you, you’re down. Deal?”

  The players nodded and shuffled, smiles cracking their wary expressions as Danny lobbed a high, arcing spiral into the air. Youth, exuberance, and uninjured knees were the keys to pulling down that jump ball. Forgetting the fact that he was still fresh meat to his teammates, Landry snagged the ball. His victory dance was inventive and amusing, but his crowing came to an abrupt halt when his wobbly pass back fell five yards short of Danny’s feet.

  Chuckling, Danny trotted forward to retrieve the ball. Palming it easily, he pointed a finger at his youngest player. “Good thing you can catch, because my mama can throw deeper than you.”

  The players hooted and hollered, bumping each other as Danny lobbed another up for grabs. This time, it landed square in Oswalt’s hands. The big guy looked up, more surprised than anyone that he had the ball. Laughing, Danny backed off a few steps and waved the big man toward him. “Come on, muscle man. Wanna make me eat that pass?”

  Oswalt took off, but the man was more of a cannonball than a bullet. He tried to zig, then zag, but his massive body wasn’t meant to juke. Danny let him have another ten yards before tagging him with both hands and plucking the ball from his meaty paws.

  “Way to go, big guy,” Danny commended. Patting the kid’s shoulder, he gave him a playful shove back toward the group. “Make sure you tell Coach Jenkins to give you more cardio work. You can’t run it back if you’re winded after twenty yards.”

  “Aw, man. I hate that damn treadmill,” Oswalt complained as he took his position in the group.

  Danny jerked a thumb at Mack. “Would you rather I have Mack run you through wind sprints?”

  “Shit no.”

  “Didn’t think so,” Danny replied mildly. “And watch your language. It may just be a few of you here, but this is practice, not a pickup game.”

  Oswalt grimaced and bobbed a quick nod. “Yes, Coach.”

  By the time he put up four more passes, the scores were fairly even, and the boys’ competitive instincts were beginning to sharpen. Danny’s smile grew wider as their eyes narrowed. He threw short and made them scramble to get under it. He threw long, just to see who had the jets to go after it. He talked a little trash. As expected, they couldn’t stop themselves from trying to give it right back to him. Picking at his age and injury, doing their best to psych him out.

  All the while, Danny laughed. He laughed more than he could remember laughing on any playing field since his high school days. The days before the big schools came recruiting and his love of the game was consumed by stats and the fight for starts.

  When Landry shagged his fifth pass, it was almost a relief. Danny was tired of being the guy standing at the front all the damn time. He wanted to get in there and mix it up. He wanted to play. Just for a little while.

  And he did. Moving as a mob, they came in about ten yards to accommodate for Landry’s puny arm. Danny crunched Anderson’s foot to get one. Jabbed an elbow into Kilgorn’s ribs to nab another. As Landry tossed up his sixth pass, the mass of bodies fighting for the ball looked more like a rugby scrum than anything related to American football. Danny, Oswalt, and Nelson were wrestling for the ball like bridesmaids after a bouquet when the shrill threeeet of a whistle sliced through the commotion. They all looked up to find Mack standing on the sideline, his hands on his hips and a disapproving scowl dragging the corners of his mouth.

  “Are you the head of this program or some kind of head case?”

  Danny sat up, the ball clutched to his chest.

  “What the hell is this supposed to teach them?” Ma
ck demanded.

  “Uh-oh,” Anderson muttered. “Someone’s in trouble.”

  Eyes locked on his assistant, Danny searched his semiscrambled brain for anything resembling a plausible answer. What came out was, “It was fun.”

  Mack started toward the center of the field, wearing his “I mean business” face. Knowing he needed a more substantial response—and fast—Danny tossed the ball up to Kilgorn and rolled to his feet.

  “Take a knee, fellas,” he ordered, running a hand down the front of his grass-stained dry-weave polo. Before Mack had a chance to light into him, he held up a hand to get everyone’s attention. “That was fun, wasn’t it?”

  His players nodded. A few mumbled, “Yes, Coach.” Landry grinned and added, “A blast.”

  “Sometimes we forget football is a game,” Danny said quietly. “I mean, we know it’s a game, but let’s face it. These days it’s more like business, right?”

  The players nodded in unison. When he turned, he saw Mack nodding too, his lips drawn into a tight line of disapproval.

  “But it’s a game. A game we all love playing.” A lump of emotion formed in his chest. Pressing his fist to his sternum to hold it all in, Danny continued. “I’d forgotten how much I love it until just a few minutes ago. I think maybe a few of you had too.”

  “But, Coach, that wasn’t actually football,” Nelson said with a smirk.

  Danny met the kid’s supercilious stare with what he hoped was an expression of benevolence and not the malevolence he felt toward the little snot in that moment. He’d be damned if he let one snide kid steal his fun.

  “We threw the ball, caught the ball, and—in a few cases—ran the ball,” Danny added, nodding to the defensive players. “There were points, and we kept score. We fought the good fight, and we all wanted to win.” Turning to Mack, he asked, “What do you think we learned here today?”

  The old man held his gaze for a moment, then inclined his head in acknowledgment. Turning to the players, he shrugged. “You learned how to play to win.”