Perhaps what really made him crazy was that he only charged what the person could afford for his services. If you were elderly, poor, or just going through a rough time, you could pay him in hugs and a fresh batch of snickerdoodle cookies, and he’d still fix your toilet.
He was a man with gumption, and I happened to like him very much.
I first met him when I played on this very field in high school. It was hard for me not to notice him, especially since there were very few black residents in our small town. I knew, because I was one of them, and especially as a child, I’d noticed the difference in my appearance compared to the other kids I played with in town.
And compared to the kids I watched on television.
And compared to pretty much every source of my cultural exposure.
I didn’t know my exact genetic makeup, didn’t know who my parents were or why my skin was caught somewhere between being as black as Eli’s and as white as my adopted father’s, but I knew I was different.
For a long time, I felt caught in the middle of something I couldn’t quite put a name to.
I stopped trying to figure it out somewhere in my late twenties, deciding instead to just be me and let others put labels on me if they felt it was necessary.
I didn’t need labels.
And I wouldn’t live within the confines of them, either.
The point was that since the day I first saw him there, Eli had stood out in a sea of white in those bleachers. He was a little like me in a way that most other residents in that town weren’t.
Ever since I’d been head coach, he’d been at every home game, and some of the away games, too. He was one of our biggest fans, and he was never shy to tell me what he thought of the team — or of my coaching.
The way our stadium was set up, there was a fence separating the track and field from the stands. Eli stood behind it, elevated just above me.
A few of my players’ mothers interrupted me and Eli before he could say anything else, offering me words of good luck and inviting me to their house for a party after the game. I politely declined, and rolled my eyes at Eli’s knowing smirk before turning back to my players.
We were the Stratford High Wild Cats, and Eli always called the moms who blatantly hit on me The Stratford High Cougars.
“Lost quite a few seniors last year,” Eli said when we were alone again, his eyes on the field now. “You think you got boys who can step up and take their spots?”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” I murmured, leaning against the gate that separated the bleachers from the field.
He hung his arms over the top railing. “You got a lot of eyes on you this year.”
I nodded, and to anyone who looked at me, I imagined I appeared calm and collected.
Inside, I was a tornado.
“Hope you did a better job working with the offensive line in this first week of practice,” he said. “Even I could have sacked Rodgers in that first game last season.”
I smirked, because this was always Eli’s game. He’d play nice, give a few compliments or offer up a few generalized statements, and then he’d tell me what he was really thinking.
“Well, I tell you what. If Rodgers gets sacked tonight, consider yourself welcome to practice Monday morning to whip that O-line into shape.”
“Famous last words, Coach.”
I smiled over my shoulder at him, tapping the top of the fence twice before I made my way toward the water table. Sydney stood beside it with her thumbnail between her teeth, a giant bag of athletic training supplies on the ground at her feet. Her eyes were like cars on the highway, speeding back and forth, watching the players on the field like she was ready to grab that bag at her feet and sprint onto the green at a moment’s notice.
She’d worked hard over the past week and a half, especially when one of our linebackers had a pretty severe turf toe injury. And, blessedly and most importantly, she’d stayed out of my way. Sydney showed up, did her job, worked with the guys who needed her and handled the ones who gave her a hard time without needing help from me.
I knew the twins on our defense — Bradley and Boone — would give her hell. They were by far the most girl crazy and tended to feed off each other as the team clowns. But, to her credit, Sydney was unfazed by them, and in just ten days she had a reputation with the team.
She was knowledgeable. They could trust her with their injuries.
What’s more, they respected her — and they knew she took no shit.
I still felt a little guilty for the way I’d welcomed her onto the team, but it seemed to be all but forgotten between us. We didn’t necessarily apologize or forgive, but we’d had civil conversation, and we’d done our jobs in the vicinity of each other for a week and a half now.
We were finding a rhythm, even if it was a little off tune to start.
“Nervous?” I asked, grabbing one of the plastic cups on the table and filling it with Gatorade.
“No,” she answered quickly. “Just alert.”
Her eyes never left the field, and I smiled, leaning against the table beside her as I took a drink. “I’m a little nervous.”
Sydney snapped her attention to me, all but breaking her neck in the process. “You? Really?”
I nodded. “If you tell anyone, I’ll deny it and fire your ass.”
“You can’t fire me,” she shot back, but a small smile bloomed on her lips. “But I won’t tell.”
“Thanks,” I said, watching our players on the field. “Two state championships… it’s a lot to live up to. I mean, look around us,” I said, but my eyes stayed put. “The entire town is here, and it’s only the first game and already scouts are showing up, too.”
Sydney glanced at the bleachers behind us. “It is a lot,” she admitted. “The energy is palpable.”
“Just wait until kick off.”
Sydney looked at me, and my eyes found hers, and for a moment, it felt like an olive branch had been extended between us. In the lights from the stadium, her soft brown eyes were aglow, and I let them suck me in for the briefest second.
The corner of her mouth curled, and mine did, too.
“GIVE ‘EM HELL, COACH!”
A roar of applause erupted behind us, and we both turned to find my brothers, Noah and Logan, banging on the fence and hooting and hollering like they were teenagers instead of grown ass men. They’d fired up the section of fans in the bleachers behind them, too. I smiled, waving to Mom as she passed behind them, shaking her head with flushed cheeks at her outlandish boys.
“I see the Becker brothers haven’t grown up a bit,” Sydney commented.
“We have too big of a reputation to live up to for all that.”
She chuckled. “It does look like they’re settling down, though. Bet that feels kind of weird, huh?”
I followed Sydney’s gaze to where Noah and Logan were leading their significant others up the bleacher steps. Noah held Ruby Grace’s hand — the hand that donned an engagement ring, and in just a few months would have a wedding band on it, too. Logan had his arm around Mallory, holding her at the hip, as if he was afraid she’d tumble backward down the steps if he let her go. I had a feeling it was the growing bump of a belly she had that made him so protective.
And though he wasn’t there that night, I knew my youngest brother, Mikey, was building a new life with Kylie in New York City in that very moment, too.
“Yeah, I guess it is a little,” I admitted, voice soft as I watched them. “But, they’re happy. That’s all that matters to me.”
A longing for something unattainable sent an ache through my chest, and the way Sydney’s eyebrows tugged together where she watched me, I was afraid she’d somehow seen it.
“What about you?” I asked, turning the attention away from me. “You have family here?”
Her eyes shot somewhere behind me, but then she pulled them back to the players on the field. “Yeah.”
It was all she said — no explanation of who or where. But when
I glanced over my shoulder, I didn’t need another word. My eyes connected with our Chief of Police — Randall Kelly — who stood at the far edge of the bottom bleacher.
And their daughter stood next to him, her eyes wide with glee as she watched the field.
Randy didn’t look as pleased. He wore a permanent frown, and his uniform, the black threads over bullet-proof vest and shiny gold badge over his heart giving him an air of arrogance and power. He watched me as if I had somehow offended him, so I offered a nod in acknowledgement.
He didn’t nod back.
My brothers and I had our shares of run-ins with the law in this town — mostly over stupid bar fights or fights between ourselves. We were a rowdy crew, I’d admit that, but I’d never had Randy stare at me like that before.
Behind me, a whistle blew, and the sideline flooded with everyone but our team captain, who was already jogging to the fifty-yard line for the coin toss.
With one last glance at the town that came to watch us, I jogged out, too.
The coin was flipped.
And the game began.
Three minutes before the end of the third quarter and our team down by three, my star running back limped off the field with what looked like a hamstring injury after a long run.
My heart tripled its pace as he hobbled in, and I sent in our backup for the next play. There wasn’t enough time on the clock to assess his damage before the next play would take place. I nodded to Coach Pascucci, my assistant, letting him know to take over as I rushed to where Sydney was already bent over our player.
“Where’d you feel the pull?” she asked as I bent down next to her. She ran her hand along the hamstring of his left leg, which was in a bent position, cleat planted on the grass. “Here?”
He shook his head, swallowing as he reached down with his own hand and brushed the inside of his thigh.
As in, his fucking groin.
“I think it’s more… here,” he said, and his eyes flicked to mine before he laid back again, closing them altogether in a wince of pain.
I narrowed my gaze, standing again with a shake of my head. “Parker, get your ass up and get ready to go back on that field.”
His shoulders deflated as he looked up at me, but before he could speak, Sydney’s head whipped around, her eyes on me like lasers.
“Excuse me?” she hissed. “He will do no such thing, not until I properly assess the injury in the locker room.”
“He’s fine,” I growled, barely glancing at her before I was barking at him again. “Parker. Up. Now.”
“Do not move a muscle,” Sydney said to him through her teeth, then she stood, jutting her chin up to face me. “I’m taking him back to do a full examination. If he’s fine, I’ll—”
“He is fine,” I snapped. “He’s being a smart ass and faking it to get time on your table. And he will pay for it in practice,” I added, glaring down at a shrinking Parker.
“How do you know he’s faking it?” she challenged. “It could be serious. It could be a strain or a stress fracture or—”
“You’re kidding, right?” I folded my arms as I assessed her. “He limped off the field in a way that indicated a hamstring injury, now he’s pointing to his groin.” I blinked. “His groin, Sydney.”
“Groin injuries are common in football,” she pointed out, flatly. “I’m not clearing him to play again until I do a full assessment. So how about I do my job, and you do yours. Game’s not over, in case you didn’t realize.”
I blew out a breath like a dragon, so hot I was surprised little flames didn’t shoot out of my nose, too. But Sydney didn’t allow me to argue further. Instead, she signaled for two of our players on the bench to help her, and as a group, they got Parker off the ground and on his feet, supporting him to the locker room.
I watched them go, grinding the gum in my mouth between my teeth before I let out a growl and snatched my clipboard off the bench in time for the next play.
Everything went downhill from there.
We were down by three when Parker limped off the field, and it was as if our offense couldn’t get their shit together once he was gone. He was a natural leader, a key player, and without him, we suffered.
It didn’t matter how hard the defense worked to keep the Raptors’ score from climbing higher, our offense couldn’t score. Hell, they couldn’t even get us close enough for our kicker to get us into overtime with a field goal. I watched the clock run down on the last minute in the fourth quarter without Parker or Sydney returning to the field, and when the final whistle blew, I saw red.
We’d lost our first game.
At home, nonetheless.
It took every ounce of willpower I had to make it through shaking hands with the Raptors’s coach and each of the players on their team before I was sprinting toward the locker room, ignoring the calls of my name and unsolicited advice from the bleachers. The team was still gathering their equipment off the sideline to limp their sorry, losing asses into the locker room when I pushed through the doors, full steam ahead until I was standing inside Sydney’s office.
“We lost,” I said, waiting until she brought her gaze to mine before I continued. “So, tell me. What’s his big injury?”
Sydney blinked like she was bored, checking something off the clipboard in her hand. It was a bad time for me to realize that the red of our team polo blazed against her dark skin, or that the leggings she’d paired with it hugged her in all the right places, but I realized it.
And clearly, I wasn’t the only one.
“He’s fine,” she said, checking something off on the clipboard before she set it on her desk. “I did my full assessment and had him work through a few exercises to make sure. He should be good to go for practice Monday.”
“Well, isn’t that great? He couldn’t get back to finish out the game and get us a W, but at least he’ll be okay for practice!”
I was blowing my top.
I was being irrational.
I knew it, but I couldn’t stop it.
I was the calm one in my family, the sensible one out of all my brothers, no matter what was going on.
But when it came to football, my fuse was as short as my fingernails.
“Coach, this is my fault, not Sydney’s,” Parker said, raising his hand like he was in class. “I… you were right, I faked it. A few of the guys on the team dared me to. I waited until close to the end of the game because… well, I know we were down but... I guess I still thought we were going to win. I didn’t think… I’m sorry.”
Sydney’s mouth popped open, and I couldn’t help the smug smile that bloomed on my face.
Parker hung his head, staring at his hands in his lap as I stared a hole into his head. I would find out who made the stupid bet with him, and all parties would pay.
For now, I had a bigger fish to fry.
“Get out, Parker,” I said simply, calmly — which should have scared him more than if I had yelled.
He glanced at Sydney apologetically, then back at me.
“Out,” I hissed through my teeth. “And you better enjoy your weekend, because this field is going to be your own personal hell on Monday.”
I didn’t have to look at him to put the fear of God in him. He tucked his tail between his legs and hobbled out of the training room, as if he really were injured, and all the while, I kept my smug gaze on Sydney.
She inhaled a stiff breath, closing her mouth like she’d just realized it’d been hanging open this entire time. When her eyes met mine, there wasn’t an ounce of apology in them.
“Got anything to say for yourself?”
Her head popped back like I’d slapped her. “Um… you’re welcome for doing my job?”
“Your job.” I snorted. “I told you he was faking it.”
“And I told you that until I did a full assessment, I wasn’t able to say whether that was true or not.”
“We lost, Sydney,” I reminded her, taking a full step into her space. Her chest puffed, but I puf
fed mine right back. “Because of you babying one of our star players.”
“This is not my issue,” she shot back. “Do not blame your loss on me because your so-called star player thought winning a bet with his buddies was more important than playing tonight. I did my job, and I will not apologize for it.”
I didn’t realize she’d been walking toward me until our chests brushed, the heat of her breath hitting my nose as she glared up at me. Anger rang in my ears, my fists clenching at my sides as I glared back. Our chests heaved, neither of us backing down, both of us sure in our stances.
Sydney’s dark hair was pulled into a sleek ponytail, leaving nothing to distract me from the depth of her dark eyes. Time stretched between us in an immeasurable way as I fell into those pools. Her breathing softened a little, and without warning, my gaze fell to her lips.
They were nude, and smooth, and even when they were flattened into a frown, they were still somehow plump and full. I let my eyes focus on those lips for longer than I meant to, longer than was appropriate, and when they parted slightly, a hot breath slipping between them to assault my senses, I ripped my gaze back to her eyes.
Her dark eyes watched me in a completely different way now.
The step back that I took next came too late, and with it, each of us drew in a long breath. The air in that training office felt heavy and wet, like it was liquid instead of oxygen, and suddenly, I felt I’d drown if I stayed even one minute longer.
I glanced at Sydney once more before I turned, storming out of her office with anger still rolling off me in plumes. It took me ten steps to clear the hallway and step into the locker room — where a team of thirty boys and three coaches watched me with weary eyes and their heads hung, waiting to hear what I had to say.
And oh, were they in for a mouthful.
Jordan
My throat was sore, voice hoarse by the time I got to my mom’s house. And when I slammed the door to my truck, still fuming as I made my way up the drive to Mom’s front door, I was shocked to see Mary Scooter walking out of it.
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