“Red thirty-two, red thirty-two. Set, hit!”
Marshawn Walker was a beast of a block poised in front of me before he snapped the ball, tossing it back through his legs and into my hands. Then, he immediately shoved against the defensive player doing his best to get through and sack me.
I was grateful for players like Walker and the two men next to him, just a few who kept me safe and allowed me the chance to scan the field for my receiver.
Everything slowed — time, noise, my heart rate in my ears — as I searched for the play. Our tight end, Kyle Robbins, was covered, unable to shake our safety, Clay Johnson, as he juked with every step. I found Braden Lock next, a transfer who had been key in our winning streak last year. He was just out of reach of the defender chasing him, and when he cut toward the middle of the field, his eyes jetting to me as his hands splayed open for the catch, I launched the ball.
It sailed over where our men were scrapping in the middle, and Lock caught it easily, running another ten yards before he was wrapped up in a tackle and brought down.
I clapped my hands, smiling at the victory.
Until Coach Lee blew his whistle, and one look at the scowl on his face told me he wasn’t happy.
“Moore!”
“Yes, sir,” I answered, already jogging over to line up at attention. The rest of the team followed my lead.
“Did you read your install packet?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And did you retain any of that information, or did it just empty out the other side of your big head?”
I gritted my teeth against the insult, knowing well enough from working with other coaches who had a similar training style that it wasn’t a question he wanted me to answer. I’d forgotten what it was like to work with a coach like him. Coach Sanders had been softer in his approach — firm, but trusting in me and my leadership abilities.
Coach Lee had watched me ever since spring training like I was an in-law camping in his basement who he couldn’t wait to be rid of.
“I called a slant,” he said.
This time, he arched a brow, which told me he wanted a response.
“Defense shuffled, sir, and the new formation made the slant impossible. I called out the coverage and—”
“Impossible?” Coach Lee cut me off, stepping right up into my chest. I kept my gaze fixed on the players running a drill down the field behind him as he peered up at me. “Is that what you’re going to say when you pull that shit in a game and cost us a first down?”
I frowned. “Sir, Lock caught—”
“I don’t give a flying horse’s ass what Lock did, he wasn’t supposed to have action in that play at all.”
“Coach, with all due respect, we got the first. We got the first and more.”
Coach Lee shook his head, watching me like he was slowly figuring me out.
Like he didn’t like what he saw when he did.
“I understand you’ve been operating as a leader on this team for years, Moore, and I like that. It’s important.” He got even closer, his coffee breath finding my nose as he continued. “But you’re the Captain, and I’m the General. You report to me. You obey my orders. Understood?”
I swallowed down my annoyance, my longing for Coach Sanders and the way he ran things. Maybe I’d just gotten too comfortable. Maybe I was spoiled with a coach who I also felt like was a friend.
Or maybe Coach Lee was just a class A sonofabitch.
“Yes, sir,” I answered.
“Good.” Coach Lee nodded, stepping back with his eyes on his clipboard. “Burpees. All of you.”
There was a stifled, collective groan before someone yelled out, “How many?”
“You stop when I say stop,” was all Coach answered, and then he was in conversation with our Defensive End Coordinator.
My jaw tightened as I yanked off my helmet and dropped down for my first burpee, not giving in to the temptation to look at the other players who I knew were watching my every move. They waited for me to give them the look that I was annoyed, that I thought Coach Lee was being harsher than necessary and calling bullshit punishment drills just to be a dick.
But I kept my gaze either on the turf where I dropped or across the field when I jumped, getting my reps in without a hint of emotion. I had to set the tone, and the last thing our team needed was any rift between us and our new coach. He was just trying to assert dominance, to garner the respect he felt he needed to run the team.
It wouldn’t be like this for long.
That’s what I told myself each time my hands hit the ground, even as my chest burned and my legs ached and Coach Lee looked on like he forgot we were doing burpees at all. But eventually, all the pain numbed, my head cleared, and I fell into a rhythm.
Jump at the top, hands up, hands down, jump back, pushup, hop feet back to hands, right back into the explosion up to my feet and repeat. Over and over, I ran the drill, gaze distant and out of focus.
Until Julep Lee came into view.
Her long, sleek, brown hair was up in a high ponytail, swinging slightly side to side as she followed on the heels of the athletic trainer in front of her. She held fast to her clipboard, making notes as a silent study until the trainer would point to a player and Julep would take over. I watched in-between burpees as she gently maneuvered the knee of one of our rookies, firing off questions that I could recite since I’d been asked them a multitude of times over my career.
Does this hurt? How about this? Scale of one to ten, what’s the pain level? What kind of pain do you feel, sharp, dull, pins and needles? Can you bend it, straighten it, apply pressure?
My eyes kept her as my new focus each time I popped back up, and I strained to find any emotion in those endlessly dark brown eyes. But she was the picture of poised indifference.
Or perhaps she was numb, too.
I’d done my best to avoid her since the first day she walked through the locker room doors in spring training. She was the coach’s daughter, and therefore off limits in every conceivable way. As if I didn’t already know that, Coach had been sure to remind us every chance he had — if he caught someone watching her for too long or overheard a joke in the showers.
It wasn’t difficult to follow his orders — at least, not for me. Football outweighed everything in my life. So, when I came to my senses and realized even flirting with the thought of being friends with her could put my career in danger, I’d boxed up any fantasy I’d had about the dark-haired, dark-eyed girl and shelved them high enough that I couldn’t reach for them in moments of weaknesses.
And seeing her every day in tight athleisure with sweat beading at the small of her back proved I would face many of those moments.
So I stayed focused, stayed centered, and reminded myself of the one and only goal that mattered to me: going pro at the end of this season.
But now, I not only had to fight to keep my eyes off Julep at the stadium, but at home, too.
Because she was also my new neighbor.
Coach Lee blowing his whistle brought me back to the present in a whoosh, and only when I stopped moving did I register how much pain my body was in, how hard I was breathing, how badly my chest ached with the strain I’d put on it. The rest of the boys collapsed onto the field, and I just barely stayed upright with my hands braced on my knees.
The rest of the team circled up around us, gathering from where they’d been running their own version of hellish drills. They didn’t seem envious as they joined us around Coach, and Riley hung an arm off Clay’s shoulders as Zeke came up on my opposite side.
“Aren’t we all having fun?” Riley teased, and Clay managed to flick her off before he nearly vomited.
The three of them felt like family to me. Riley and Zeke, both special teams, were a couple and had been ever since their freshman season — which was my first season as quarterback, thanks to the shoulder injury that had redshirted me.
I’d been worried about Riley when she first showed up. I wondered just like the rest of the team if having a girl on the team was more of a PR stunt than anything else. But she proved to all of us why she was here — because she’s talented. She earned my respect in that first season, and even more last year when she stepped up as a leader I could count on.
As for Zeke, he’d been a top special teams recruit, thanks to the fact that he was hell on wheels and came up with monster returns every time the ball sailed down the field and into his hands. I knew many of our touchdowns were thanks to the positioning he secured for us in that first play.
Clay was the best safety in the nation — period. He was a gargantuan thing with the heart of a puppy dog, and I was convinced there wasn’t a quarterback in this country who was safe from him picking their throw and embarrassing them with a touchdown in the opposite direction. He was one of my closest friends, second only to Leo Hernandez, our star running back and one of my roommates at what the team affectionately called the Snake Pit.
As if I’d conjured him, Leo jogged up to the other side of Zeke, and he arched a brow at where Clay and I were still doubled over in pain.
“Gotta love Fall Camp,” he murmured.
“Alright,” Coach said, calling all our attention to where he stood in the center of the group. “Hit the showers and get some food in you. We start film at one o’clock sharp,” he added, checking the time on his watch. “And leave all phones in the locker room.”
Kyle Robbins audibly groaned at that, and the rest of us smirked and exchanged looks. He was used to getting away with a lot of shit when Coach Sanders was here, and he’d grown a following on social media for giving behind-the-scenes looks at our day to day as a team. But Coach Lee had put a stop to that.
And maybe that was the one call he’d made since his arrival that assured me he had the team’s best interest at heart.
My post-practice routine was brutal.
It had been ever since my shoulder injury — the one that had made me sit out my freshman year of college. Once I was cleared to play again, I took my duty to keep that shoulder in shape and away from any further injury very seriously.
Ice baths, deep tissue work, physical therapy — it was all part of my training. And because of that, the training staff at NBU knew me well.
“How’s it feeling today, Moore?” JB asked when I perched up on the table, fresh from my ice bath.
“Like a million bucks.”
He smirked at the same answer I gave him every time — regardless of whether my shoulder was throbbing or not. JB had taken my rehab as his own personal challenge when I came to North Boston University, and because of how much time we spent with him torturing me through physical therapy and deep tissue work, we’d become good friends.
As good of friends as I could be with the person who had the power to bench me at any moment, anyway.
“Still taking your NSAIDs?”
I nodded. “Every day.”
It was my least favorite part of my morning routine, taking anti-inflammatory medication, but I knew it was non-negotiable during the season. I wanted to avoid corticosteroid injections for as long as I could, and so far, I’d succeeded.
“Well, if you’re not in too much pain today, we’re going to hold off on dry needling or deep tissue and just focus on strength.” He paused, looking at something on his clipboard before he called over his shoulder, “Julep, why don’t you take the lead on this one?”
The training supply closet was open, and out swung Julep at the call of her name, those dark eyes locking on me only briefly before she addressed JB.
“Injury?”
“Rotator cuff. Two years post arthroscopy. Advanced stage rehab,” he told her, handing her the clipboard in my hand that somehow made me feel like he’d just shown her a naked picture of me.
Her eyes scanned the pages as she flipped through them, taking in all the notes JB had made on me over the years. Once, her gaze flicked to mine, and it trailed slowly down the length of my biceps, my abdomen, before sliding back to the pages.
I swore I saw a faint blush on her cheeks.
“Just work through the plyometric and I’ll monitor in-between other players,” JB said. Without another word, he left us, moving his attention to a defensive lineman who just walked through the door.
Julep looked at me, and again, her gaze slipped low for a brief moment before she cleared her throat and swept her hand across the ground in front of her as if it were a red carpet. “Well, what are you waiting for, an invitation? Let’s go.”
My eyebrow shot up at the tone, but I just smirked and hopped off the table, following her lead over to the training area.
“Let’s start with some eccentric stretching,” she said, eyes on her clipboard before she pointed at the ground by the weight bench. “Go ahead and kneel and I’ll grab a dumbbell.”
I shamelessly watched her walk toward the weights as I took a knee, noting even through the leggings she wore how toned her hamstrings and ass were. That was an ass that told me she trained, too.
When she returned, she handed me a ten-pound dumbbell.
“I want you to think about keeping your chest lifted, elbow balanced on that knee as you rotate your shoulder open and closed,” she said, demonstrating with her own arm. “Move nice and slow.”
I bit back the urge to tell her I’d done these exercises so much I could perform them in my sleep — mostly because this was the first time she’d ever talked to me, and if she thought she was bossing me around and showing me something new, I’d let her think it.
“New England in the fall must be a lot different from where you lived down south, huh?”
No response.
“Alabama, right?”
When she didn’t reply, I kept on.
“I grew up in the south, too. Florida. Moved here with my uncles when I was a kid.” I smiled, despite the mixed emotions that went with that move. “I miss the beach, but I don’t miss that heat.”
A flat-lipped blink of acknowledgement was all I got from Julep.
I probably should have shut up then. If it were any other trainer, I likely would have.
But I couldn’t stop myself.
“How’s it been so far?” I asked after a moment. “With the training staff, I mean.”
“Fine,” she clipped. “Alright, let’s move on to pendulum swings.”
I stood, balancing my left hand on a table for stability before I began swinging my right arm side to side. “Do you feel like you’re learning a lot?”
“Loads.”
“What made you want to go into sports medicine?”
She sighed, clipboard hitting her thigh before she leveled me with a stern look. “This isn’t an interview, Moore. It’s rehab. Focus.”
I smirked. “Could be both, if we tried our hand at multi-tasking.”
Julep ignored me, walking me through the next set of exercises while I watched her curiously and tried to see under the hard exterior she wore so easily. There was nothing even close to a smile on her dusty-colored lips, just sharp concentration on every move I made and the checklist in front of her.
JB came over to check on us, making a few remarks before he was gone again. When he left, I tried poking the bear once more.
“You and your dad must be close, huh?”
Julep stilled, pausing only a second before she pointed at the medicine ball on the ground. I knew without her saying another word that she wanted me to do chest passes against the wall.
“Something like that,” was all she responded with as I launched into the first set.
“Got any tips?”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Your old man seems to have it out for me,” I answered.
I thought I saw the corner of her lips lift, and it was stupid how much encouragement that slight movement gave me.
“He doesn’t like anyone who questions his authority.”
“So, I should just bend over and take whatever he wants to give me, eh?”
“Your words, not mine,” she remarked, and for the first time since I’d met her, her eyes danced with a bit of amusement.
I smiled, which seemed to pull her back to the moment, because with a clearing of her throat, her eyes were on the clipboard again.
“I saw you gardening,” she said after a moment.
“And I saw you,” I replied. “Stalking me.”
The most unattractive snort of a laugh left her then, and she accented that noise with a roll of her eyes before she gave me the signal to stop with the medicine ball. I hung it between my forearm and hip, arching a brow at her.
“Don’t act like you weren’t.”
“I was unpacking and happened to look out my window,” she countered. “Not my fault you were shirtless playing in the dirt.”
“I was pulling weeds,” I corrected. “Sorry if my abs were distracting.”
Another roll of those beautiful eyes.
“Should I wear a shirt from now on?”
“Do whatever you want,” she said, and then she checked the time on her watch and pointed to the ball for me to start again.
“I don’t know if anyone’s told you about the Snake Pit,” I said as I tossed the ball. “But we’re kind of an open house. If you ever need a night out or anything.”
Julep gave me a look that told me I was a fool for even suggesting.
I shrugged. “Everyone needs to cut loose sometimes.”
“Did you not heed my dad’s warning?”
Her question struck any humor in our conversation down like a lightning strike, and I caught the medicine ball before turning to face her.
“I’m off limits.”
“I’m just talking to you. I’m not allowed to talk to you?”
“You’re flirting with me. There’s a difference.”
“Someone’s full of themself.”
Her little mouth popped open, brows furrowing as she took a step into my space. That one step narrowed all my attention to her slight frame, her bust, her lips as she pursed them and folded her arms over her chest.
“It’s never going to happen, QB.”
“Hey, I’m just as off limits as you are,” I quipped back, testing that delicate space between us. “So maybe you should take a step back and avoid looking out your window if me being shirtless is a temptation.”
As if she just realized how close she was to me, her gaze dropped to my bare chest.
I flexed my pec, and she scoffed, taking a giant step backward.
“You really think you’re something, don’t you?”
I shrugged. “Quarterback syndrome. Seems like you might have some of that in you, too.”
“Trust me — you and I are nothing alike.”
“Oh, I have a feeling you might be wrong about that, Julep Lee.”
Her full name shot out of me in an attempt to be cute, or maybe in an attempt to rile her up even more now that I knew how fun it was to ruffle her feathers. But instead, it was like a bucket of ice water on a fire, dousing her flame and sobering her expression.
“You’re free to go,” she said without emotion, and then she turned on her heels and left me standing there wondering who the hell I’d just stepped out of the ring with.
