Love Game

by Maggie Wells

  “Exactly.” At that, Danny took a knee too. “Listen, fellas, we all know we play in the toughest conference in the nation. We all know we haven’t had a winning season in longer than anyone wants to think about, right?” That scored him a few sullen nods. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t win. Now, I can go all Al Pacino and give you the Any Given Sunday speech…”

  “The what?” Landry whispered to Kilgorn.

  “It’s a movie. Look it up,” Danny said impatiently. “The point is, we have to learn to fight again. As a team. I need you guys to be the pillars of that team. I need you guys to learn to fight for each other, count on each other. Then I need you to be the guys all the other players can count on.”

  Groaning as he unfolded, he pulled himself up to his full height and waggled his fingers at Kilgorn, signaling for the ball. Pigskin snug in his hand again, he searched the upturned faces in front of him. “Can you do that for me? Will you?”

  A moment passed when there was nothing but the sound of spring wind and birds chirping. Then Oswalt lumbered to his feet. “I will, Coach.”

  “Me too,” Anderson said, surging up next to him.

  He got an “I’m in” from Kilgorn and an “I’m willing to go all in” from Marcus Landry, who obviously needed to stop watching poker tournaments on late-night television.

  Danny felt his chest fill with pride as one by one, his players rose to the challenge. Half-afraid he’d say something sappy, he turned to Mack. “You’ll work with Coach Jenkins? I want each position to have an individualized training plan for the summer.” Turning back to his players, he pressed the ball between both hands. “I expect you guys, as this team’s leaders, to be in tip-top shape when you come back for two-a-days. You get me?”

  “Yes, Coach.” They answered almost in unison. And not one man looked away.

  Gripping the ball, Danny forced himself to meet each player’s eyes. “I’m not promising we can win big,” he said gruffly. “But I’m pretty damn sure we can grab at least one conference game if we play hard. Play smart. Play this game to win. But play because you love it. Otherwise, this is a job, not a game.”

  Tucking the ball under his arm, he stuck out his hand palm down. “Who’s a Warrior?” he asked, using the school’s pregame mantra for the first time.

  One by one, his players added a hand. On a silent count of three, they broke the huddle with their battle cry: “We are Warriors!”

  Danny hung back as Mack and the players made their way back toward campus. Tossing the ball he’d used from hand to hand, he paced the red zone as he replayed the quasi-practice in his head. By the end, he’d forgotten to be the coach. Laughing to himself, he gave his head a shake as he tried to recall the last time that happened. “Years,” he mused aloud.

  “Talking to yourself already? I thought it would take longer for them to break you.”

  Whirling, Danny spotted a spectator standing atop the rise at the edge of the practice field. For one heart-stopping moment, he thought the backlit figure might belong to Kate Snyder, but then he realized the shadow was too long and too broad. He shielded his eyes against the glare of the sun and squinted as he started up the incline. Tyrell Ransom smiled as he approached. They’d been introduced in passing but had yet to exchange more than cursory greetings.

  “Hey, how’s it going?” Danny asked, tucking the ball into the crook of his left arm and offering his hand.

  “Good. I just saw some of your guys heading back. From the smiles, I’m guessing they weren’t running wind sprints,” Ty said, giving Danny’s hand a firm shake.

  Gripping the football by one end, Danny held it aloft. “Just horsing around a bit. Trying to break the ice, you know?”

  Ty nodded. “Oh, I know. The first week I was here, half the team refused to look directly at me.”

  “Hard to coach someone else’s recruits.”

  “And hard to step into shoes worn by the same guy for decades,” Ty added. “But it looks like you’ve got Mack on your side, so that helps.”

  Unsure whether the comment was innocent or a dig, Danny responded with generic man compliment number one. “He’s a good guy.”

  “Oh yeah. A really good guy,” Ty concurred. He glanced toward campus, then hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Well, I should get going. We’ll catch a beer at Calhoun’s sometime, okay?”

  Surprised and pleased by the possibility, Danny nodded. “Sounds great.”

  Ty smiled wide as he backed away. “I’ll need to remember to horse around with my guys when I get ’em back this fall. I liked what I saw.”

  “Can’t hurt,” Danny answered with a shrug.

  Ty pointed one long finger at him. “But I feel compelled to remind you that H-O-R-S-E is a baller’s game, Coach.”

  The taunt coaxed a grin out of Danny. “Tell you what, you hang an old tire from a tree, and we’ll see who can throw for letters, Coach.”

  *

  Kate’s first indication that there’d been a shift in the force was the sudden influx of football players wandering the halls of the athletic center. Usually, the big guys went to ground the minute spring scrimmages ended, but not this year. Rumor had it that Coach McMillan not only extended his program’s spring practice schedule into May, but also made it mandatory for returning seniors to participate in at least part of the summer football camps, unless they presented a written request for recusal. Her spies told her that only one player had asked to be excused and then only because his family would be traveling abroad during those weeks.

  The other big change was that the training center was now crammed full of meatheads clanging plates and talking trash about the amount of weight they could lift in a clean and jerk. She’d always had the facilities to herself early in the morning, but now the place crawled with enormous linebackers, tight ends who lived up to their titles, and wideouts whose purpose was God only knows, what with shoulders as broad as a compact car. And for better or worse, they seemed to love having her there. They all wanted to talk training with her, even though their conditioning coach, Scott Jenkins, was standing right there, his ever-present clipboard in hand.

  Kate found herself equally annoyed and amused by their antics. One morning, one of the overfed jockstraps—most likely hopped up on an extra bowl of Wheaties—asked if he could bench-press her. Kate graciously declined his offer, then countered with one of her own—a phone call to his mother. She explained that she wanted to ask how his mom might feel about her son speaking so disrespectfully to a woman. The boy immediately apologized, then made his way to the circuit equipment, where he now retreated each time she came in.

  Still, she liked talking to them. A new hopefulness fueled their determination. Though none of them dared to mention Danny McMillan to her by name, she was pleased to see them coming around. It was heartening to hear big talk coming from players who’d looked like puppies who’d been whipped with the newspaper mere weeks before.

  “Hey, Scott,” she said, drawing up beside the assistant coach as he made an indecipherable mark on the paper trapped in the clipboard. “How are they looking?”

  “Awesome,” he answered without looking up from his notations. A line bisected his sandy brows as he scribbled. “I’ve got the special teams, receivers, and quarterbacks regimens sorted out. Just need to get the O-line, D-line, and backs mapped out, and I’m running away to Tahiti.”

  She started, taken aback by the uncharacteristic hyperbole. Scott was usually as unflappable as they came. It took a lot of intestinal fortitude for a guy who weighed little more than a buck and a half to stand over a three-hundred-pound tackle and demand two more sets of reps. “Wow, he’s really working you all that hard?”

  “How many more, Coach?” the big guy asked, grunting and straining as he pushed the bar off his chest.

  “Seven,” Scott replied without missing a beat. He looked at her at last, blinking as if he were the one with a steady stream of sweat pouring into his eyes. “Who’s working what?”

  “McMill
an. Is he really that much of a hard-ass that you’re willing to run all the way to the South Pacific to get away from him?”

  Scott tilted his head, his confusion etched into every crease in his face. “Huh?”

  “You said you were running away to Tahiti,” she reminded him.

  “Oh! Yeah. For three weeks.” He smiled and tapped his eraser against the clipboard. “Twentieth anniversary. I went big.”

  Just like that, the tips of her ears burst into flames. Thanking God for Scott’s oblivion, she waved a hand in front of her face to ward off a full-on blush and returned his smile. “Wow. You sure did.”

  His gaze shifted to the mountain of muscle stretched out on the weight bench, and he gave an encouraging nod. “Three more, Pinky.” Before Kate had a chance to reconcile the massive young man in front of her with his nickname, Scott turned back to her. “Coach McMillan was cool with it. I’ll be back long before two-a-days start, even with the revised schedule.”

  Kate glanced over her shoulder, curiosity gnawing at her insides as she surveyed those closest to them for potential gossips. Each of the young men seemed intent on his task, so she gave her natural inquisitiveness free rein. “Revised schedule?”

  “Yeah, we’re staggering the practice units for fall workout. Bringing some of the squads in earlier, then bringing the team together as a whole later.” He smiled and patted Pinky on his quivering bicep. “Way to go, man.”

  “What’s the point of that?” she asked, following Scott as he moved to another player. “Isn’t he afraid that will erode team cohesiveness?”

  “Not at all.”

  Kate jumped and whirled, meeting Danny McMillan’s eyes but pressing her hand to her throat to keep her heart from popping right out of her big, fat mouth. “No?” she managed to croak.

  “I think it will allow us to focus some time and attention to areas we know need help.” A smirk twisted his handsome features as he crossed his arms over his chest and stared her down. “I appreciate your concern though. It’s nice to know someone’s worrying over us, isn’t it, guys?”

  He boomed the last, the deep baritone of his voice cutting through the clangor and clamor of the crowded weight room. A few born ass-kissers answered with a jaunty, “Yes, Coach.”

  “Thank you, Coach Snyder,” Danny said with an overly solicitous grin. “It means everything to the team to have your support. Doesn’t it, fellas?”

  This time, a few more voices bounced off the walls, but all Kate could hear was the roar of blood in her ears. The son of a bitch was patronizing her. He dared to stand there, in the athletic center built on the success of her program, and smirk at her. Like he’d accomplished something more than requiring a bunch of beefy boys to spend more time in the gym when the only thing he ever did successfully was blow his entire career sky-high.

  It was too galling.

  She wouldn’t let him get to her. She couldn’t say anything. Not here, in front of his players and coaches. Not in her house.

  Squaring her shoulders as if preparing to shoot a free throw, she raised her chin a notch. “Well, I hope it works out for you,” she said coolly. Turning to one of the players, she let her smile warm a few degrees. “I’m counting on you guys to make us Warriors proud.” Focusing her attention back on Danny, she let the smile drop. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m here for a quick workout.”

  Brushing past him, she set her sights on the cardio units lined up at the far end of the training center. She nodded greetings to a couple of players huffing and puffing as they punished the elliptical machines, waved to one of the staffers seated on a recumbent bike, then tossed her towel over the rail of the last empty treadmill.

  Jabbing at buttons until the belt whirred to a walking pace, Kate forced herself to draw deep, even breaths as she unraveled her earbuds and crammed them into her ears. Her player clipped to the hem of her tank, she tossed the wires down her back and upped the pace. By the time she hit a comfortable stride, the young man next to her slowed to a walk. Her machine rocked when he jumped off the belt and landed heavily on the side rails. She caught the apology he mouthed, then returned her gaze to the television mounted on the wall.

  Someone claimed the machine beside her, but she was too absorbed in trying to lipread what Greg Chambers and his cadre of NSN talking heads were gabbing about to pay much attention to her neighbor. The closed captioning had been turned off in favor of being able to see the ticker scroll at the bottom of the screen. Whatever the argument, the mood looked to be intense. She toyed with the idea of plugging directly into the machine to get the audio, but it was baseball season. In her opinion, the only things duller than baseball were watching grass grow or paint dry. Instead, she zoned out on Chambers’s perfectly tousled hair, amped up the speed, and let the Black Eyed Peas tell her what a good night they were destined to have.

  It wasn’t until the song’s driving beat faded into silence that she noticed the heavy footfalls and slightly uneven gait of the runner beside her. She pressed the pause button on her music and listened intently. Weights still clinked and clanked in the background, but the whir of machines had decreased dramatically. The runner beside her huffed, then added a few degrees of incline to his workout. With no more than a glimpse of his hand out of the corner of her eye, she knew who her new neighbor was.

  Suddenly, the silence surrounding them grew more oppressive. She didn’t need to look to know they had an audience. A glance in McMillan’s direction confirmed her suspicions. A flood of unchecked fury rushed through her.

  “I just wanted a goddamn run,” she muttered as she upped the ante and lengthened her stride. She’d gone three steps when she realized, too late, that he wasn’t wearing earbuds.

  “Same goes,” he grumbled.

  “I was here first,” she said through gritted teeth. “In every possible way.”

  He shot her a scowl, then increased his speed to match hers. “I’ll go, but not before I’m done.” Blowing hard, he swiped an arm across his brow. “I try to get at least three miles a day. Don’t worry. I’ll be out of your way before they go to Sports Roundup.”

  Kate glanced at the clock. The daily sports recap started at the bottom of the hour. If what he said held true, that meant old Danny could still run an eight-minute mile. Well, so could she, damn it. Increasing her speed again, she ignored the screeching pain in her bad knee and stretched her stride even farther.

  “Seriously?”

  She didn’t look at him. Didn’t acknowledge his incredulous tone or the edge of accusation undercutting the simple question. “Seriously,” she replied.

  By the time they started mile number two, every machine in the cardio section was full once again, but no one else was in motion. Their audience talked in a low rumble made indecipherable by the pounding of their feet. At the 2.5 mark, they were in perfect unison. She heard the telltale whir-snick of a phone camera but couldn’t be bothered to care what those kids posted. At least, not at that moment. She was winning. She would win. And just to make certain, she bumped up her pace a smidge more.

  As she closed in on three miles, she glanced over at him. “Go for 10K, Coach? Might give you a shot at catching up.”

  He snorted and mopped his face with his towel. “I think I just lapped you.”

  “You wish,” Kate answered, pitching her voice low so only he could hear.

  She heard the sickening screech of his sole scraping the belt, then felt a heavy thunk as the handrails bore the brunt of his weight. She turned in time to see him press into his arms and lift his feet from the belt. His shoes touched the side rails at 2.93 miles. A collective groan went up from the crowd when the pedometer on her machine clicked to 3.00.

  Gripping the handrail, she hopped lightly off the speeding belt. The machine beeped as she downshifted the speed to her normal pace and jumped back on. “So that’s a no on the ten?” she asked, flashing him a winning smile.

  Danny punched the stop button, and his belt slowed to a grinding halt. “I think I’ll
pass, thanks.”

  Kate nodded but didn’t break stride. “I understand. But keep training. You’ll get there.” She flashed him a smile so sweet it tasted like a maraschino cherry.

  Danny leapt from the treadmill without deigning to answer. A little pang of guilt twisted her gut. It turned into full-blown regret when she glanced back to see a couple of his players giving their coach a consoling pat as he passed.

  She pulled the plug on her own cooldown and snatched her towel from the rail. Without acknowledging a single “Way to run, Coach,” she draped the towel around her neck and set her sights on Danny McMillan’s sweat-soaked back.

  She didn’t turn as she called over her shoulder, “I find out any of you posted a picture of my backside anywhere, and I’m coming after you.” The warning was met with a couple of nervous chuckles. So nervous that she felt compelled to shout a reminder to her audience as she hurried to catch up to McMillan. “Remember, you can run, but I can run faster.”

  She drew up short when the man himself whirled, his blue eyes ablaze. “I get it. You won,” he bellowed, flinging his arms out wide. “I stumbled, as usual, and you are the champion.” He all but sang the words as his lips curled into a sneer. “Congratulations, Coach. We’ll have that treadmill plated in gold and put it in one of those display cases.”

  “Hey,” she said, breathless from the exertion of the run and the vehemence in his tone. “Listen, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Done what, exactly?”

  The bite in his tone was enough to take a chunk out of someone with less pride. Unfortunately, she’d just proven she had more than enough for both of them. Swallowing just a little of it, she looked him dead in the eye. “I shouldn’t have let that happen. Especially not in front of your—”

  The whir-snick of a camera shutter stopped her cold. She spun to find the lineman who’d asked to bench-press her grinning at them over the top of his phone. “How about you? You up for running a 10K today?” she snapped.

  Proving he had a few brains to go with his brawn, the player ducked behind the nearest stand of free weights, mumbling something about the nutty PR lady.