by Erin Hayes
On the field below us, the cheerleaders were prancing onto the field. Halftime had officially started. “I’ll be right back,” I announced. “For the third period.”
Jimmy snickered and shook his head at my continuing ignorance. “Third quarter. Football is played in quarters.”
“Fine. I’ll be back for the next part of the game.”
Without waiting for a reply from Jimmy, I scurried to the elevator that would take me almost straight down to the locker room.
I knew that as the owner, I was pretty much expected to stay up in my box and schmooze with the bigwigs—and we did have a few other potential sponsors hanging around, waiting to see how the team did before making a commitment—but all I could think was that I needed to talk to my team.
They don’t have a coach, and that’s my fault.
At the locker room door, I stopped long enough to compose myself. It wouldn’t do any good to show them all exactly how panicked I was.
I caught my breath, closed my eyes for a five-second meditation, and pushed the door of the locker room open.
I hadn’t realized quite how soundproof the locker room was. I hadn’t heard any of the yelling until I opened the door. Once inside, however, it assaulted my ears.
I was too short to see over all the men gathered in a circle around whatever was going on in the middle. No matter how high I stood on my tiptoes, I certainly couldn’t see over them.
I could hear them, though.
I recognized Andre’s voice first. “Then it’s a damn good thing you’re not in charge of this team!” he shouted.
I winced when I heard Rodney responding. Ah, shit. This is going to be bad.
“And it’s too damn bad that you are in charge, because you are a piss-poor excuse for quarterback and team captain.”
No one else in the room made a sound. It didn’t sound like the two had come to blows yet, but the absolute silence from the other players suggested that it was even more tense than it sounded.
I started pushing at the players who stood between me and the arguing pair. That didn’t work until I gathered all my strength, shoved at the nearest linebacker, and bellowed in the loudest, most carrying voice I could manage, “Team owner, coming through! Get out of my way if you want to keep playing for the Hammers!”
I heard a couple of snickers behind me, but I didn’t care, as long as it got me up to where Rodney and Andre were facing off against each other. Their eyes were narrowed, teeth bared in completely primeval snarls.
They were acting like wild animals.
I didn’t look back, focusing instead on the two men arguing.
“What the fuck are you two doing?” I demanded, only barely restraining the urge to stomp my foot at them.
They both whipped around to stare down at me. My stop outside the locker room to compose myself had been completely wasted. I was breathing hard, my cheeks were hot and burning, so I suspected they were bright red, and in my fight to get to the front of the crowd, my hair had slipped halfway out of the clip I was using to hold it back.
Though both the men towered over me—I was barely 5’3”—when they caught sight of me, they instantly looked down at the floor, like recalcitrant children. I half expected one of them to point to the other and say, “He started it!”
That, I decided, cast me in the role of mother, and that realization pissed me off. I was the team’s owner. I guess that technically made me their boss. But I sure as hell wasn’t their parent—that would be creepy—and I didn’t appreciate having to break up their squabble.
Rodney threw one arm straight out to point at Andre. “We’re losing because we have a crappy quarterback.”
“No. We’re losing because you have half the team convinced they shouldn’t follow my lead.”
“That’s because your leadership skills suck.”
“That’s not your call to make—”
I stepped directly between them and pushed into their chests with my palms. I couldn’t have moved them by brute strength alone, but I think I surprised them both. They each took a half step back.
“No, this is my fault,” I announced. “I should not have left you without a coach. Neither of you should have to be completely in charge of running this team.” They both stared at me, open-mouthed. I held eye contact with each of them for several seconds. “No more shouting,” I instructed. Pulling my hands away from their chests, I turned in a slow circle. “Where are all the assistant coaches?”
When no one answered, I turned to Andre and raised my eyebrows.
He shook his head and turned his hands out in a shrug.
“They took off when the shouting started,” one of the other players offered.
“Aren’t they supposed to be used to shouting?” I muttered. “Fucking hell. And I thought football was supposed to be a tough guys’ game.” I raised my voice loud enough for everyone to hear. “Whoever sees them first, tell the assistant coaches I want to see them in my office after the game.” I cast my gaze around in search of Clancy. He was standing off to one side, arms crossed and eyes narrowed as he watched everything that was happening. When I made eye contact, he gave me an encouraging nod.
I turned back to the rest of the team. “Okay. You guys go do whatever you need to do to figure out how to win this game.”
As the players began filing out of the locker room, Andre started to speak. I held up one hand to stop him. “That includes you, Andre. You have a game to win. We can talk afterwards.”
With a nod, he followed his teammates. Rodney took one look at my expression and fell in behind Andre.
Clancy, however, stuck around silently until they had cleared out. “You don’t have a clue how to find a coach, do you?”
“Nope.” I dropped to a bench and rubbed a hand across my eyes. “Not the slightest.” Especially with the lack of money that I’d be offering them.
“Thought that might be the case.” He patted my back with one hand. “You should go talk to my Aunt Carrie. She’s an assistant coach for the University of Birmingham.”
“Your aunt is a football coach?” I asked in surprise.
He nodded. “Yeah. Why?”
“Nothing, it’s just...unexpected.” I didn’t know why, I just expected all the coaches to be men. Football was a male-dominated sport, so I was glad to hear that there was a woman coach.
He shrugged. “Well, she’s a hardass. And she knows pretty much every coach in a five-state radius. She’d be able to help you out.”
“That’s not a bad idea. Thanks, Clancy.”
“We can talk about it after the game. I need to go help figure out how to win this game.”
I grinned, thankful for his calm, good humor. “I bet the team would appreciate it. I know I would.”
He gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze before he left.
When he was gone, I rubbed the back of my neck with both hands and stared at the floor.
I was pretty sure that was not how locker room scenes were supposed to go. That wasn’t how it happened in sports movies, anyway. I probably should have given them a rousing speech that inspired them to win.
The problem was, I had no idea how to do that.
I’m going to have to hire someone who does.
But first, I’d have to find that someone.
Chapter 5
Despite the lack of a rousing speech from yours truly, the Yellowhammers did better in the second half than they had in the first, losing the game by only three points, 34 to 31.
As I said goodbye to everyone who had attended the game up in my suite, I could tell several of them were disappointed by the outcome.
On the other hand, I was absolutely delighted. If anyone had asked me as I left the locker room at halftime, I would’ve said the Yellowhammers had an ice cube’s chance in an Alabama summer day of pulling it out and winning. But they had come awfully close to doing just that.
Even without a coach.
If I could find them the kind of coach they deserved�
��someone who was both a better coach and a better person than Coach Mack, the man I’d fired just a few weeks before—they would be a phenomenal team.
As long as Andre and Rodney can keep from tearing each other’s throats out, that is.
After that scene in the locker room earlier, I wasn’t sure how long it would be until that happened.
I texted Andre before I left the suite. Meeting with asst. coaches. Can you tell the team I’m proud of them?
He replied with a simple, You got it—but it was enough to make me smile. I really could count on him.
By the time I made it to my office, there was a line of assistant coaches waiting outside my door.
All ten of them.
My copy of The Football Guide for Idiots had told me that national teams generally had fifteen assistant coaches.
The Hammers had never had that many, as far as I could tell.
I came to a stop outside my office door and stared at them for a long moment.
Then I stepped away from the door without opening it, crossed my arms and spoke to them all at once. “I had originally planned to bring you all up here and talk to you one at a time about what we should do next as a team.”
I narrowed my eyes, paying attention to their facial expressions. Several of them glared at me angrily. Those were probably the ones who were loyal to Mack. I sighed at the thought of having to deal with personnel issues.
Maybe I could leave it for the next coach to handle. I bet they’d listen to him—or her, I realized, thinking about Clancy’s aunt—over me.
“Instead,” I said, suddenly hit by inspiration, “I want each of you to come into my office one at a time and tell me who you think I should hire as head coach—and a couple of reasons why.”
One of the coaches raised his hand in a kind of wave. “Are you going to hire based on our recommendations?”
I shrugged. “Possibly. I want your input, in any case.”
As I unlocked my office door and went inside, I saw several of them whispering to each other frantically.
They were assistant football coaches. Surely, they knew of any good coaches.
I moved around to take a seat at the enormous, scarred wood desk that had been my uncle’s before he had died, and I had inherited the team. I hadn’t used it much yet and still wasn’t sure where he’d kept everything.
“Paper and pen,” I muttered to myself, opening drawers and rifling through them.
I tugged at the single locked drawer, cursing. Eventually I needed to get that opened up and see if there was anything important in it.
It didn’t take me long to find a yellow pad of legal paper and a black pen.
I need my iPad. I guess I needed to start carrying it with me everywhere like I did back when I worked in the tech industry.
When I had the pad centered on the desk in front of me, I called the first assistant coach in.
“Hi,” I said, putting on a bright smile—the same one I’d used to charm investors for my startup in California. “I haven’t had a chance get to know everyone yet—sorry about that. So let’s start with your name and your job.”
“Cody Garland,” he said. “And I’m the offensive line coach.” His tone was pleasant enough, but the expression in his eyes suggested that he was, at best, wary of me.
“Nice to meet you, Cody. I really only have that one question for you. Who do you think I should hire as the Hammers’ next coach?”
A muscle in his jaw twitched as I asked the question. That was my only clue about what was coming next.
“I don’t think you ever should’ve fired Mack.” His tone had gone from nice guy to pissed off in a split second. Elon Musk would love that kind of speed in a Tesla.
I blinked twice before I managed to splutter out, “Well, thanks for the input.”
Cody was a big guy, all muscle. I guessed he probably had been a linebacker at some point, just like Clancy. His continued glare was making me uncomfortable.
Finally, I said, “Go ahead and send in the next person in line on your way out, okay?” I wanted to kick myself for adding that okay at the end, like I was asking his permission or something. But it worked as a dismissal, and apparently, I had kept my tone light enough to avoid completely infuriating him.
Maybe I should have waited until there were other people in the building to do this.
The next guy who came in was much more helpful. He had a list of three names for me, although he suggested that the top two coaches he’d like to hire would never come to Birmingham for what we could afford to pay. I didn’t say it aloud, but I was counting on eventually being able to offer a lot more than we could right now. Our team had serious potential. We just had to find a way to bring it out.
Forty-five minutes later, I had four pages of notes and a list of four assistant coaches who were willing to say I had been wrong when I fired Mack. And those were just the ones willing to speak up. I wondered if more than half my coaching team was pissed off at me.
Part of me wanted to jump in and fire all those assistant coaches who sided with Mack—but I finally decided to let the new coach, whoever that might be, deal with it.
When the last of them left my office, it was late, and I was exhausted.
This was the part of the job I knew I could do. In the startup world, I’d been the people person. I’d been able to charm people into investing in us. I’d been able to make sure that the outward-facing portion of our company was excellent. I was still learning how to transfer those skills—one particularly horrific interlude with the media had sent the PR department after me not too long ago—but I was figuring it all out.
With a tired sigh, I leaned back in the leather executive’s chair. Uncle Dusty had a television installed on the wall, and I had seen a remote control on the shelves to my left. I clicked the power button, and the television instantly pulled up a sports channel. Of course. It was a commercial, but when it came back to the regular program, I was stunned to see Coach Mack’s face smiling into the camera.
That son of a bitch was on TV talking about my football team.
I sat up straight in the chair, and my feet landed on the floor with a thud.
“Welcome back to CCSN Sports. Tonight we are talking to former Birmingham Yellowhammers coach, Mark Mackenzie, affectionately known as Coach Mack.” The newscaster turned from the camera to face Mack. “So tell us, what did you see out there on the field tonight?”
The camera zoomed in on that smug fucker’s face. “What I saw tonight was a team in absolute disarray.”
Oh, I wanted to take a hammer—a real one, not my team, although they could do some serious damage—to him. Whereas our sponsor’s Alabama accent sounded kind of soothing, Coach Mack’s made me want to commit violence. I clenched my teeth against my rage and continued to listen.
“The team did almost manage to stage a comeback in the second half.” I liked this newscaster better already. Until he added, “Rumor has it, the new owner, Madison Harte, stopped by to speak to her team.”
Mack smirked in the camera, like he knew I was watching. “I can’t speak to what might have gone on in the locker room”—he could sure make it sound sleazy—“but my guess is that something happened to defuse the tension between Andre Williamson and Rodney Nguyen. It was obvious in the first half of the game.”
“You mentioned that before. But that’s not the kind of tension you usually see on a team, players in two totally different positions both vying for team leadership.”
“Well, that’s not all they’re vying for.” Mack let out a lecherous laugh.
I started muttering under my breath in a steady stream of increasingly loud curses.
“So you still maintain that Madison Harte, that new owner, is in a relationship with at least two of her players?”
“Oh, I’d say more than two.”
“You know,” the newscaster said, “there are those who have suggested that you’ve been spreading rumors because you’re unhappy about losing your posit
ion as head coach of the Yellowhammers. What do you have to say to that?”
“Look, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with what she’s doing. I’m just saying that it doesn’t have any place on a football team. These men need to work together and play as a cohesive unit without their private lives interfering. Miss Harte doesn’t know how to allow that to happen. And admittedly, I may not have been the best choice for coach of the team like that.” Here, he leaned forward, as if taking the newscaster into his confidence. “But I assure you, they’re not going to find anybody any better. Certainly not while that woman is running the team.”
I was seething by the time he finished talking. Bad enough that Mack had tried to tell me what I could and couldn’t do with my own team. Worse when he extended his commentary to my sex life. It was none of his business.
And, no, it was just a relationship with the one player. I hated that he knew I liked more, though. Granted, I had emailed him that myself. By accident, of course.
He certainly shouldn’t have been talking about it on national television. I was shaking with fury as I gathered up my purse and my keys.
He has no right to say anything about me. I should’ve known better than to watch the news.
I was still trembling with anger when the elevator deposited me in the parking garage. My new car, a used Toyota Prius that I had picked up a few days after moving here, was one of the few left, and my heels clacked against the cement as I made my way to it.
Digging into my purse, I pulled out my phone and dialed Clancy’s number, hoping he was still awake.
He answered on the first ring. “Hello, Miz Harte. How can I help you?”
I was still furious—it was difficult not to sound like I was pissed at him.
“Clancy, how do I get in touch with your aunt? The one who’s a coach. What’s her name?”
He chuckled, his warm voice filling up my earpiece. “My Aunt Carrie. Carrie Drew.”
"Carrie Drew?” I frowned. “Why does that sound familiar?"
“Reverse it. Say it aloud.”