Most Valuable Playboy
His lips twitch. “A man doesn’t look at a woman the way you do without it being real.”
I flash back to the day in his office. To the gift he ordered for his wife. To the way he talks about Emily. This man is still crazy in love with his woman. That must be what he sees in me when I look at Violet, when I talk about Violet.
“It is real. For me, at least. I have no idea if she feels the same. But I needed you to know the full truth. I want to carry this team. But I want to do it as a leader, not as a liar. And if I ever come to your house for dinner, I don’t want to be the guy who sits down at your table with you and your wife unless all my cards are on the table, too.” I spread my hands in front of me, gesturing to the imaginary table. “These are my cards.”
He nods, the wheels in his head turning, it seems. “I appreciate you showing them to me.”
And that’s it. That’s all he says.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to return to the coaches.”
I leave, having no clue if I just blew up my future with the Renegades.
31
“You did what?”
I sink into the chair in Jones’s room. “I told him everything.”
He drags both hands through his dark hair. “What in the actual fuck?”
“I know, right?”
“No, I mean what in the actual fuck are your balls made of?”
I laugh, the first good laugh I’ve had all day.
He gestures to my crotch. “Are they steel? Are they titanium? Are they some new fucking substance cloned from the DNA of the toughest badasses in the world? Special forces guys and paratroopers and bounty hunters?”
“Maybe just pure stupidity.”
Jones shakes his head. “Nope. Not stupidity.” He claps his hand on my shoulder. “You’re a steely-eyed missile-man, and I will follow you into battle.”
I give him a look like he’s crazy. “You can’t be serious, can you?”
“Dude, I have motherfucking chills. Look at me.” He holds out his arms, and yup, the hairs stand on end.
“This is weird. I’m in your hotel room, and you’re showing me the hair on your arms.”
“Because you’re like a Navy SEAL, man. You march in there, you see the commanding officer, you tell him the whole truth, so help you God. And you leave without him telling you what he thinks. You have the biggest cojones I’ve seen.”
“You’ve been checking out my cojones, have you? You peek in the showers, right?”
He gazes heavenward. “Why do I compliment him? Why?”
I smile. “Thanks, Jones. I needed this. I feel a little insane right now. I texted Ford afterward and told him, and his only reply was Go kick Baltimore’s ass tomorrow, you fucking superstar. I have no clue what that means.”
Jones furrows his brow. “Do you want me to play text message interpretation with you?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head.
“I’m going to do it anyway. It means a cigar is just a cigar. It means go kick Baltimore’s ass tomorrow.”
I hold up a fist for bumping. “That sounds like a plan.”
“It’s an excellent plan. It’s precisely what we’re going to do. Because you’re not insane. You’re a field general. You’re the motherfucking quarterback.”
And that’s what I do the next day against the enemy. I lead the team down the field as fifty thousand raving Baltimore Cougars fans boo us like we’re the Ebola virus.
And I don’t care.
I’m all business from the first possession when I take the snap, hand off to Harlan, and we earn a first down.
From there, I do my goddamn job with blinders on, tuning out the crowd, tuning out the noise, listening only to my head and gut. I call an audible when I see their defense switch from man-to-man to zone coverage. My receivers change routes, and several seconds later, I lob a pass to Jones in his smelly socks, who grabs it fluidly, darts around the safety, and takes that prize another twenty yards.
The rest of the drive is clockwork. A short pass to McCormick on second down. A handoff to long-haired Harlan, and then the bastard shows off his quicksilver feet, darting, dodging, and taking the ball right into the end zone.
It’s a beautiful start, and I high-five him.
Our defense holds them to three, but when we get the ball again, their line nearly mows us down, and we barely get into field position. But we manage, and when Einstein spits out his bubblegum, he sends the ball soaring thirty-seven yards between the goalposts.
I bump fists with him when he comes off the field, grab some water, and watch the defense. Greenhaven glances my way and gives me a nod.
I can’t decipher what that means, and I decide to stop trying.
I stop thinking about everything I can’t control. Violet’s feelings. My job situation. Ford’s state of mind. Trent’s potential reaction. Where I’ll be next year. The one thing I can control is what happens on the gridiron, and when we get the ball back, I am in the zone. Namely, the end zone.
Twice.
As the team trots to the locker room at halftime, I’m one of the last guys to head inside. I’m keenly aware that someone’s right behind me, and that gruff-voiced someone determines my future.
“Cooper.”
It’s Greenhaven. He takes two big strides to catch up, and we walk side by side through the tunnel. “Did I ever tell you the story of how I met my wife?”
“No, sir.”
“I met Emily at a barbecue thirty years ago, when I’d first started with Phoenix. I wore a team jersey. As I flipped a burger on the grill, she asked if I was a Phoenix fan.”
I look at him, waiting for him to continue.
“She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Know what I told her?”
“No, sir.”
“I told her I was an assistant coach on the team.”
I furrow my brow. If memory serves, he wasn’t the assistant coach thirty years ago. Assistant coach is a key position, one he worked his way up to. But that wasn’t how he’d started. “You weren’t, though, right?”
He shakes his head as we walk, our footsteps echoing. “Not in the least. Know what my job really was?”
“What was it, sir?”
“I was the assistant to the coach,” he says with a lopsided grin.
I dare to let a smile spread on my face, since there’s a world of difference between an assistant coach and the assistant to the coach. “Is that so?”
“Have I mentioned how pretty she was?”
“I believe you did.”
“But she was more than pretty. She stole my heart. I think that’s why Emily forgave me when I admitted on our second date that I’d fibbed,” he says as we reach the inside corridor of the stadium. He stops and clasps my upper arm. “I appreciate your candor. And I value it, Cooper.”
Then he strides into the locker room, where he gives his halftime speech to keep it up, and that’s exactly what we do.
We’re on fire the rest of the game, scoring a field goal and two more touchdowns. A calm, focused energy fills me with each drive. When the clock ticks to nothing at the end of the fourth quarter, the Renegades erupt with elation because we fucking made it to the playoffs.
Holy shit.
That’s when the emotions explode. That’s when exhilaration overwhelms me. We punch the air. We hug it out. We shout and hoot and holler. There’s still so much more work to be done, but for now, I let myself enjoy this moment, even though I can’t believe we pulled this off. Three years of warming the bench, a terrible start to the season, and here in late December on enemy territory, we’re celebrating a wild-card spot and a kickass record.