I stared at my hands clasped between my knees and tried not to shit myself.
The house had been cleared, the team told enthusiastically by Coach to go out and celebrate. I knew without him having to say it that he meant everyone but me.
He’d held his smile, his composure, until the last teammate was out the door. Then, he’d told Julep to go home without so much as looking at her.
Clearly, he had intentions of dealing with me first.
Now, it was just the two of us in the living room, trash and food left everywhere from the team. The TV was still on, the analysts going on about their bowl predictions. Coach found the remote and muted it before he stood on the opposite side of the room from where I sat, his arms folded, jaw clenched shut.
I didn’t know if he wanted me to speak first or wait to be spoken to. The latter seemed more probable, so I waited, trying to come up with a game plan. There was no use in lying, in trying to make excuses. He’d caught us red-handed.
At this point, the only thing I could do was apologize, ask for forgiveness, and explain the truth.
When another few minutes passed without him saying a word, I cleared my throat. “Sir, I—”
He held up a hand to silence me.
I swallowed, and another minute passed before he let out a long breath and finally looked at me. “I wish I could say I’m surprised.”
He let the weight of those words settle over us, his glare severe. He meant it as an insult and wanted to make sure it landed before he moved on.
“I had one rule,” Coach said. “One. I didn’t care if the team partied. I didn’t care if grades slipped a little, if we needed to pull some strings to keep the guys on the starting lineup. I knew coming in as a new coach that the team would be stressed out enough as it was, so I did everything I could to make the environment one where everyone could let loose a little, where they could focus on the task at hand. One rule,” he said again. “That was all I asked for.”
I knew better than to try to speak again, but I didn’t waver where I held his gaze. I fought the temptation to look back down at my hands.
Coach shook his head like I disgusted him.
“I don’t want to be in this house with you any longer than necessary,” he finally said. “So let me just tell you what’s going to happen next so we can both move on. You are going to leave Julep alone. You are going to call whatever this thing is off. And you’re going to do it today.”
“I can’t do that.”
His eyes widened, like he was shocked I had the balls to say even that much. “Oh, you can, and you will. My daughter has been through more shit than you could ever fully comprehend.”
I wanted to argue that, too, but I let him continue.
“She’s finally living on her own, making friends, holding good grades, staying out of trouble. She’s finally doing okay. And I don’t need some hot shot athlete leaving for the NFL to come in, break her heart, and fuck all that up.”
“Did you ever stop to think that maybe I’m part of the reason she’s doing so good?”
He laughed. Not a subtle or amused laugh, but one that bellowed out of him loud and full of disdain. “The only thing you’re responsible for is putting her on edge, for putting temptation too close. I know about this place,” he said, gesturing to the house around us. “I know about the parties, the drugs. I know exactly what kind of influence you are,” he added, taking a step toward me with his finger pointed at my chest. “And how you think you’re better than everyone else, that you’re smarter than even your coaches, that you don’t need to follow directions or listen to anyone above you. You think you call your own shots, and that’s fine, but I’m here to knock you down a peg or two and remind you that you don’t know everything.”
“I never claimed to.”
“You’re as blind as you are stubborn.”
“Me? I’m the stubborn one?” I stood then, trying to keep my voice calm even as the level of it raised. “Coach, with all due respect, you have been on my ass all season long, ever since you showed up. It’s like you made up your mind about me before you even knew who I was.”
“I knew well enough after one practice.”
“You haven’t even given me a chance to—”
“What do you call this?” he interrupted, thrusting his hand toward me. “I gave you a chance to prove me wrong, Moore, and you didn’t. You proved I knew exactly who you were and that I had every reason to be wary of you — not only as a quarterback and a captain, but as someone with too much time around my daughter. I should have never let her watch over your recovery.”
I blew out a frustrated breath. “Look, I know I disobeyed your orders. But—”
“No, there shouldn’t be a but after that sentence.”
I ground my teeth, pissed off that he wouldn’t even let me finish a goddamn sentence.
“Again, you are the quarterback. You are the captain. I shouldn’t have to say anything more than those two facts for you to understand that out of all the players on the team, it’s you I expect the most from. It’s you who I don’t blink at before demanding greatness. It’s you I should be able to trust. And it’s not you who I should have to worry about going against my orders — on or off the field.”
I scrubbed a hand over my jaw, shaking my head and biting my tongue. Clearly, it was useless to even attempt to argue.
Coach stared at me a long moment, and then said, “You’re on probation.”
Fear sliced through me like an ice pick. “What does that mean?”
“It means leave her alone, or I play Russo in the playoffs and call every scout still interested in your sorry ass and tell them your shoulder injury flared up again.”
“You can’t be fucking serious.” I gaped at him, incredulous, unable to believe what I was hearing. “If you would just let me talk—”
“I don’t have to let you do anything, including play,” he roared, his face beet red. “Try me, Moore. I dare you. I dare you to call my bluff. If I so much as see you look at my daughter, your ass will be on that bench come bowl day.”
My nose flared, and I tongued the inside of my cheek as I shook my head in disbelief.
“Let. Her. Go,” Coach finished, swiping his jacket off the back of the couch. He shrugged one arm on and then the other as he headed for the door. “Or kiss your career goodbye.”
Julep
I was living my own worst nightmare.
Mary watched me like I was a wild animal as I paced the living room, hands tearing at my hair, thumbnails chewed to the nub, eyes constantly skating to the house across the street where I knew my father was ripping Holden a new asshole.
I wished with everything that I was that he would have talked to me first.
I wished I could explain. I wished I could take the heat, take the blame for everything and spare whatever discipline he was dishing out to his quarterback right now. Because I knew it would be severe. I knew this wasn’t a crime that would go unpunished.
For either of us.
“Would you please just… sit down?” Mary pleaded. I’d put her on edge since I’d barged through the door. “Here, hit the bowl.”
She offered the glass pipe packed with marijuana to me, but I shook my head and looked across the street again. “Bad idea. Especially right now.”
“It would take the edge off.”
“It’s that edge that’ll keep me alive when he comes over here ready to fight,” I told her. Then I cursed and shook my head. “God, how could we be so stupid? We knew better. We knew he was inside. Why did we think we were so fucking sneaky that he wouldn’t see us both walk out?”
“That boy has fried your brain,” Mary mused, sparking her lighter and hitting the bowl. Smoke rolled out of her lips as she added, “I tried to tell you to stay away from that house.”
“Not helping,” I told her.
She shrugged. “I’m not trying to help. Maybe it’s a good thing this happened.”
“What the hell, Mary?”
“Look — that whole team is trouble. What did you honestly think was going to happen? Holden Moore is about to be drafted into the NFL. He’s going to have pussy coming at him from every direction.”
“He doesn’t care about that.”
“Like hell he doesn’t. He’s a man.” She laughed. “And I hate to break this to you, but before you showed up? Holden Moore had plenty of tail. He had a new girl in his bed every other week. I’m not denying that you two had fun while he was here, but did you ever stop to think that maybe you were a conquest for him?”
I stopped pacing.
“He couldn’t have you. He was told from the start that he couldn’t. But he went after you anyway, relentlessly. Who’s to say that come the end of the year, he wouldn’t just mark you off his to-do list and move on to the next in the league?”
“You don’t know anything about him if you think that is even a remote possibility.” I shook my head, even as my anxiety latched onto what she said like a life raft. Holden and I hadn’t talked about what comes next — mostly because we’d been too focused on keeping whatever we did have going on a secret. “Why do you hate them all so much, anyway? What happened with Leo?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She waved me off, and then sighed. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I don’t know Holden, and maybe I am judging him too harshly. But I also think you have been floating on a cloud and ignoring any and all risk ever since you two stopped playing games and gave into each other. You dropped your guard completely.”
I couldn’t argue that, and before I even had the chance to process what she was saying, our front door flew open, and my father blew in like a storm.
He looked at me, slammed the door behind him, then looked at Mary.
“Nice to see you, Mr. Lee,” she muttered, and then she hopped off the couch. “I’m just gonna…” She pointed at the stairs, then gave me a sympathetic look and bolted up them.
My heart was in my throat when I looked back at my father.
He pointed to the couch, telling me to sit without verbalizing, and then he took my place pacing the living room — though he was slower, his breathing more controlled than mine. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I knew without looking that it was Holden. Everything in me burned to read the text, to see what he said, what had happened between them.
“It’s over, Julep.”
Dad’s words smacked into me. “What is?”
“You and Moore. Whatever has been going on, it stops. Right now.”
“Dad—”
“I have argued enough with him that I don’t have the energy to do it with you, too. You are my daughter. You know better — plain and simple.”
I swallowed.
“And as for Holden, he directly disobeyed me, and he’s paying the price for it.”
“What did you do?”
He looked right at me. “I put him on probation.”
“Probation,” I echoed, heart squeezing painfully in my chest. “Meaning…”
“He knows the terms. I don’t need to explain them to you.”
What he meant by that was that he assumed I was smart enough to already know — and he was right. I had hoped against all reason that my father might listen to him, that he might spare Holden. But of course, he hadn’t.
I didn’t need verbal confirmation to know that he’d threatened to bench Holden during the playoffs if he didn’t break it off with me.
Tears pricked my eyes, but I swallowed them back, held my chin higher. “I understand we went against your wishes, but—”
“You’re on probation, too.”
I scoffed. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that if you don’t end this shit, I will check you into rehab.”
My jaw hit the floor. “Rehab?” I laughed. “Dad—”
“I mean it, Julep. I’m not playing around.”
“I’m sober.”
That made him stop pacing, and his eyes were sad when he said, “Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying. I mean, yeah, I drink every now and then, but it’s a glass of wine. Maybe two.”
“You think I don’t know about that night at the Pit when you made a goddamn fool of yourself?”
My heart rate ticked up a notch, hairs on the back of my neck standing at attention.
“You weren’t just drunk, you were a fucking train wreck. And I know it was more than just booze.”
I swallowed, trying to think fast and cover my tracks. “It was just a little weed.”
“It wasn’t, and you fucking know it! Don’t lie to me. Don’t fucking lie—”
Dad broke then, fists tightening, his eyes wild as he rushed me. I cowered away from him instinctively, and that seemed to break him more.
He collapsed.
He fell into the couch beside me, sitting so hard it slid back against the wall. He folded, his head buried in his hands, shoulders shaking.
I stared at him, blinking, heart hammering in my chest. “Dad?”
It was then I realized he was sobbing.
The last time I’d seen him cry was at Abby’s funeral.
The image, the sound, it all knocked me silent. And emotion strangled my own throat as I reached over and tentatively put a hand on his back. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
He cried harder, shaking his head, rocking back and forth and grunting like he was frustrated that he was crying at all. After a while, he sniffed, swiping the tears from his face like it was them he was angry at before he lifted his head and looked at me.
His eyes were red, face completely broken.
“I have done everything I can to make life okay for you after…” His throat bobbed. “I can’t… I can’t lose you, too.”
My bottom lip quivered. “Dad…”
“Please,” he begged, swiping the fresh tears that crested with the word. “Please, Julep. Listen to me. Trust that I know what’s good for you. You are the only daughter I have left. Just… let me protect you. Please.”
The desperation in his voice erased every other emotion I had, and I wrapped my arms around him. I hugged my dad like he was a little kid, feeling all the pain and stress that he’d endured since my sister died rolling off him like wisps of smoke that choked any arguments I still had left hanging on.
I hugged him and eventually he hugged me back, crushing me to him like I’d disappear before his very eyes if he didn’t save me first.
I’d done this to him.
And the weight of that truth held me as a silent captive of the mess I’d made.
