THE FINAL WHISTLE SOUNDS, and I check the scoreboard.
We lost.
We didn’t just lose—we lost to a team that hasn’t won a single game all season.
I rip off my headset and throw it at the concrete wall behind me. I flex my fingers and shake out my hands. My eyes close, and I rub my chest as I take a deep breath, hold it for a count of five, then exhale. I haven’t felt like this in years. The slow and gentle claws of anxiety and panic latch onto my back and crawl up to my shoulders.
Breathe, I tell myself. You’re fine.
I inhale again, and when I exhale, I feel better. I’m more stable and aware of my surroundings.
The roar of the crowd doesn’t help me think—it hasn’t helped me think all game. The half-full stadium of fans has been incessant, screaming at the top of their lungs and slapping the seats to distract us.
And fuck, did they distract us.
We had a chance to tie with ten seconds on the clock, but Jett, our quarterback, didn’t notice the Grizzlies defense shifting. He got sacked—hard—by a four-hundred-pound defensive tackle who drove him into the ground like he was a dog’s chew toy as time expired.
And that was that.
We kissed our undefeated season goodbye.
I hear a whistle. I blink, and I see Dallas taking off from the sidelines. He runs straight for the player who took down his teammate and throws a punch at him. The benches start to clear, and I stare, flabbergasted, as mayhem unfolds. The refs blow their whistles again and try to regain order.
It’s useless. I sprint onto the field and pull my players off the opposing team. I nudge them toward the tunnel and shake my head when they try to defend their actions.
I have to pick up Dallas around his middle to get him off the defensive tackle. He’s never so much as hurt a fly, and now his fists are running rampant, trying to punch anyone wearing a white jersey.
“Hey,” I snap. “Knock it the fuck off.”
“That was an illegal hit,” he exclaims. He thrashes in my arms and tries to break free. He’s barely a hundred and sixty pounds with all his equipment on, a weight I can easily lift with one leg, and it’s funny he thinks he’s going to get very far. “He grabbed Jett’s facemask and probably gave him a concussion.”
“And you think trying to hit someone three times the size of you is going to fix it?” I deposit him on his feet and motion toward the locker room. “Get out of here.”
“But Coach—”
“But Coach nothing. You’re supposed to be my captain, man, and you’re out here acting like an idiot. Get it under control,” I say.
Dallas hangs his head. He nods and pulls off his jersey. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, and he sounds so much like the shy and introverted twenty-two-year-old we drafted four years ago, my heart hurts a little bit.
The walk through the tunnel with my assistants is quiet. My phone buzzes in my pocket, but I ignore it. A headache blooms across my forehead and down my neck, and I try to rub the ache away. When I get to the locker room, I find fifty-three men with towels over their heads and disappointment on their faces.
“Hey,” I say, and they all look up. “Before I get started, I want to say that what happened out there at the end of the game was unacceptable. I don’t care if we get beat by fifty; storming the field and going after their players like that isn’t who we are. I get you’re mad. I get you’re fired up. I get that losing sucks, but trying to be a marauder?” I scan the room and level Dallas with a look. “That shit isn’t going to fly here.”
“Yes, Coach,” Dallas says.
“I should suspend you for instigating a fight,” I say. “If I don’t, the league might.”
“I understand,” he mumbles. “It won’t happen again.”
I know it won’t. His record is pristine, and the anger was a clear spur-of-the-moment thing, caught in a heated battle to protect his teammate. I won’t tell him this, but I’m proud as hell he had the guts to do that.
“Now for the game itself.” I slide my hands into my pockets and rock back on my heels. “It wasn’t our best performance. We got sloppy in the fourth quarter, and the mistakes we made were lazy. Jett.” I glance at our quarterback. He has an ice pack on his head and a purple bruise on his shoulder. “Did you see the defense shifting before the snap?”
“No.” He shakes his head, and he looks a little dazed. “It was too loud. I only noticed when I went to throw. That’s my fault.”
“I’m going to take the blame,” I say, and I turn back to Dallas. “I should’ve listened to you back in the second quarter. We should’ve kicked and held them off on defense for the last thirty seconds leading into halftime. It wouldn’t have given them a chance to run back a touchdown and take a lead we couldn’t recover from. I trust you, and not listening to you was shitty.”
My kicker perks up. “You’re in charge, not me,” he says.
“Yeah, but you—all of you—have the right to stand up to me when you think we should do something different. This is a team sport, and we’re not going to win by only listening to my play calls. It’s a collective effort. Going forward, I’ll be better at getting your opinions. And I want you all to hold me accountable, okay?”
The team nods, and a murmur of positive agreement spreads through the locker room.
“Good. Now let’s talk about the loss. It sucks, doesn’t it? It hurts like hell. It makes you think we’re not good, and everything we’ve worked on this season has been for nothing. It makes you question the lunges we do, the miles we run, and the drills we practice over and over and over again. But do me a favor. Look up. Look around this room. What do you see? Fifty-two other guys who are feeling the same way you are. You’re not carrying this burden of disappointment alone. Yeah, we can be pissed about this for a couple of hours, but tomorrow is a new day. And you know what tomorrow means? Forward. A chance to try again. We got the first loss out of the way—better now than in the postseason, right? We’re going to remember this feeling, and we’re going to carry it with us for the rest of the year. We’re not going to hang on to this specific loss—that doesn’t do us any good. We can’t change the past. What we are going to do is acknowledge that we don’t want to be here again. So, we’re going to forget that there’s a tick mark in our loss column, and we’re going to come back stronger next week. All of us,” I say. “Me included.”
The guys lift their heads and their shoulders relax. Dallas grins at me, and his eyes twinkle.
“Being the best shouldn’t be comfortable,” he says. He stands up and looks around the room. “Comfortable means we’re not doing it right. I don’t know about y’all, but I don’t want to be comfortable. I want a Super Bowl ring. If that takes losing two or three games to figure out how to get one, then so be it. The people who are successful are the ones who can embrace change. We’ll dust ourselves off, get back home, go back to the drawing board, and start fresh on Tuesday. Hands in, boys. Want to do the honors, Coach?”
I nod, and a huddle forms around me. “Titans on three,” I say. “One, two, three.”
“Titans,” they all bellow with renewed energy, and I can’t help but smile.
“We’ll bounce back. Go shower. Bus for the airport leaves in an hour,” I say.
“Shawn, the media is ready for you,” Darcy says, and I sigh.
“Let’s get this shit show over with,” I mumble.
I follow her down the hallway to the visitor’s press room. Unsurprisingly, it’s packed to the brim and overflowing with reporters and cameras. I check my phone as we walk in, and I see Lacey’s name on my screen. I slide open the message and read it.
LACE FACE
Sorry about the game, pal.
ME
You watched?
LACE FACE
I’m the girlfriend of a football coach now. Of course I watched.
What did the headset you threw do to you? It looked like you had a personal vendetta against it.
I huff out a laugh and bite my bottom lip. My fingers fly across the keyboard and I take a seat at the table.
ME
A lot of things.
Going into media. I’ll text you in a few.
I pocket my phone and glance out at the crowd of people. “Before we get started, I want to acknowledge what happened after the loss. My guys know they shouldn’t have gone onto the field like that, and we’re handling it.” I pause for a breath. “What else do you all have for me?”
A guy in the front row raises his hand. I don’t recognize him, and I gesture for him to go ahead.
“Levi Smith, L.A. Confidential,” he starts. “Shawn, your first loss of the season comes after you’ve confirmed your first public relationship in years. Do you think there’s any correlation between your coaching performance and your personal life?”
I blink, and my mouth droops into a thin line. “Are you implying that because I’m dating someone, the team lost?” I ask. “I want to make sure I’m understanding you correctly.”
“Yes and no. What I mean is, now you have outside influences that might distract you from doing your job. Do you think the decision to run the ball instead of kick in the second quarter might have been because you were busy thinking about something else?” Levi asks. “Or, more particularly, someone else besides your players? Is it safe to assume football isn’t your number one priority anymore?”
I smooth my palms over my thighs. I dig my fingers into my quad muscles, and I let out a breath. “I’m going to be honest with you, Levi. That’s the stupidest fucking question I’ve ever heard,” I say, and his eyes widen. The fine I’m going to get for the profanity will be worth it. “My personal life has no impact on my ability to coach a football team. The woman I’m seeing wasn’t at the game today. She wasn’t sending me messages when I was on the sidelines. You know why we lost? Because I made a bad call. A couple of bad calls. It happens. That’s sports. It’s part of being a coach. I love football more than anything else in my life, and I love my team just as much. I would never do anything to jeopardize their season, and to imply I’m becoming bad at my job just because I have a significant other is illogical. So far-fetched, I’m not even sure what possessed you to ask such an asinine question. Do not drag her into this, because she has no fault in what happened on the field. If you mention her again, you won’t like my next response. Now I’ll take another question, but if anyone else wants to talk down on the person I care about, we’re going to have a problem.”
The rest of the reporters heed my warning.
They ask what we’re looking forward to adjusting for next week, and who I think played the best game from start to finish today. How crowd noise played a factor down the stretch, and when someone asks where Dallas, a southern boy from deep in the heart of Georgia, learned to punch, I burst out laughing.
“I’m going to cut it off here,” I say. “I have a plane to catch. I’ll see some of you next week back in D.C. Get home safe.”
I slip out of the media room. I didn’t realize how tense I was until I let out a breath and my shoulders begin to relax in the hallway.
“Bus is ready to go,” Darcy says.
“Thanks. I’ll meet you out there in a second,” I say.
She nods and waves, disappearing around a corner. I pull my phone back out and my finger hovers over Lacey’s name. I call her before I can think twice.
“Hey,” she answers.
“If you read an article about me going off on a reporter, just know that I was doing it to defend your honor,” I say.
“Really?” There’s a smile behind her question, and I lean against the wall. “Tell me more.”
“This guy tried to get a rise out of me. He insinuated that because I’m dating someone, I don’t care about football anymore. It felt like he blamed the loss on my personal life, as if the two go hand in hand.” I snort and shake my head. “I gave him a piece of my mind.”
“I would’ve liked to see that.” She laughs, and the sound warms me through the phone. “Thank you for sticking up for me. Are you doing okay?”
“Yeah. It’s been a long day, and I’m ready to be home.”
Lacey is quiet for a minute, and I pull the phone away from my ear to make sure the call didn’t drop. “You can stop by my place when you land, if you want. I have beer. Or I can make you some tea if you don’t feel like being alone,” she says softly. “But, after the afternoon you’ve had, you might want to be alone.”
I don’t want to be alone. I want to see her, because I feel like Lacey could be the bright spot on this absolutely shitty day. My empty apartment doesn’t sound nearly as appealing as a warm drink with her where I can shut off my brain and not talk about anything related to football.
I can just… be.
I like that about her.
She lets me be myself.
“I’d love to come over,” I say. “It would be nice to see you. I’d like that a lot.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. I’ll see you soon.”
“It’s going to be late,” I say. “Is that alright?”
“I’m off tomorrow. Just let me know when you’re on your way,” she says.
“Will do. See you soon, Lace Face.”
“Bye, Shawn Yawn.”
We hang up, and I’ve never been so excited to get on a plane and head home.
