The North Boston University locker room was completely silent on the first day of spring training.
My teammates sat in front of their lockers or leaned against training equipment, eyes on the floor as we waited. The silence roared like the hum of an airplane engine, vibrating through every chest in the building.
I wanted to take charge, to pump my team up, to have some grand speech that would soothe all their worry. I longed for sage advice like the kind my uncles gave me in times of stress, for the right words to make everyone breathe easier.
But the truth was, I was worried, too.
Despite how I’d somehow managed to redirect my team’s energy after our bowl game loss, I knew as much as everyone else in this room how much a new coach would change things.
A new coach meant new drills, new ways of doing things, new plays and tactics and — possibly — new starters.
That was what scared everyone in this room the most.
And even if we did all get to keep our spots, we were in unfamiliar territory now. Nothing would be the same this season.
All eyes snapped to the doorway that led into the hall when Coach Dawson, our defensive end coordinator, swung through it. On his heels was our special teams coach, our offensive coordinator, and our trainer staff.
And then, at the very end of the line, Coach Carson Lee.
Coach Lee shared a few similarities with our last coach. He was brutal in his training camps when he worked down south, he had a zero-tolerance attitude when it came to any of his players stepping out of line, and he expected greatness.
But he was different from Coach Sanders in many ways, too.
For starters, he was twenty years his senior, which somehow made me respect him even more just because he’d been coaching ball before I was even born. He also had a bit more of a radical approach, one that got him headlines for doing things like making his team run half the length of the Florida Panhandle one weekend after a loss to a team they were expected to beat easily.
We all stood when he entered, like soldiers coming to attention for their sergeant.
He swept into the room with purpose, his salt and pepper gray hair styled in a neat wave and parted to the side. He was tall, at least as tall as our tight end and number one pain in my ass — Kyle Robbins — and built like a train. There were rumors that he ran a lot of drills alongside his players, as if to show them that if a fifty-something-year-old could do it, it was embarrassing if they couldn’t.
One look at him told me the rumors were likely true.
He was tan, evidence of working hard in the sun day in and day out, and his dark eyes held no kindness as they swept over the room. He bent toward the man to his right, talking in a hushed voice to our new assistant coach whom he’d brought with him. I watched the two of them conversing as they moved toward the center of the locker room.
That was, until she walked in.
I almost thought it was Riley Novo, our kicker, at first — because she and our Public Relations Coordinator, Giana Jones, were the only girls we ever really saw in the locker room. But the girl who swung through the door behind Coach was no one I’d ever seen before.
Her long, leather-brown hair flowed over her shoulders like chocolate waves — and that was the only thing soft about her. Every inch of her face was etched into severe precision, her jaw set, bow-shaped lips flattened into a tight line. In a red crop tank top and black track pants, I could tell she was fit, her toned, golden stomach peeking through the gap between the two. She was slight, narrow hips and lean arms, which made her ample bust stand out even more.
In every possible way, she was a complete knockout.
But it wasn’t her body that held me captive.
It wasn’t her hair, or the graceful line of her neck, or the arrogant indifference with which she strode into the room.
It was her eyes.
Warm, endlessly deep brown, framed by thick lashes that swept across her cheeks with every blink.
And haunted.
Just like mine.
“At ease, gentlemen,” Coach Lee said with a smirk that looked almost unnatural, like he hardly smiled at all. He held out his hands and signaled for us to sit once he was in the center of the room. “And lady,” he added with a pointed look at Riley.
The rest of the coaches lined the wall behind him, giving him our full attention.
“I know I’ve already met a few of you during my tours here, but I’m excited to finally get real time with each and every one of you. I won’t pretend like I’m blind to how uncomfortable and uneasy this all must be for you. I’m not just a new player, I’m a new coach — and I know how that can shake things up more than anything else.”
I swallowed.
“But I want you to know, I’m not here to change everything. Obviously, a lot of what you have going here has been working. It’s an honor to be walking onto this team.” He paused, hanging his hands on his hips. “It’ll be even more of an honor to give you the last push to the finish line, to be there when they crown us champs at the end of the season.”
That made several players exchange looks of determination and delight, that fire that I’d stoked at the end of last season just one good poke away from roaring again. We’d played in bowl games the last two seasons, pulling NBU back from an embarrassing ten years of lackluster performance. But while we’d won two years ago, we’d lost our most recent one — costing us our shot at the Championship Title.
And this was my last year to get there, to win it all, to seal my spot as a first-round draft pick into the NFL.
“It’s the first day of spring training,” Coach said. “And I don’t want to use this precious time babbling on about myself. We’ll get to know each other as the season progresses. For now, I want to introduce you to Coach Hoover,” he said, gesturing for the man who’d walked in next to him to come up. “Hoover is my right-hand man and will probably become your favorite person in the world because if anyone can talk me out of making a team run laps, it’s him.”
Coach Hoover smirked as Coach Lee clapped him on the back.
“And this,” he said, waving a hand behind him. “Is my daughter — Julep.”
A knot formed in my throat, too thick to swallow past as all eyes shot to the dark-haired, dark-eyed girl.
Hesitantly, she stepped up to his side, though she didn’t smile or show any ounce of emotion other than a slight raise of two fingers from where she’d folded her arms across her chest.
“Julep is rounding out her junior year, and for some reason, loves me enough to transfer from our last university and finish out her degree here. She’s majoring in sports medicine, and she’ll be interning under the training staff on the team.”
My heart rate spiked at the thought of her being around all the time, at the mere inference that she might be the one to stretch or massage me before a game.
Coach paused, something more severe washing over his expression as his jaw hardened, eyes narrowing.
“And let me be extremely clear,” he said, scanning the room. “If any of you even so much as thinks about flirting with Julep, let alone having the balls to ask her on a date, you will have me to answer to. She’s not here for you to ogle over. She’s here to work — just like you. I imagine since you have Riley Novo as a teammate, I don’t need to lecture any further than this about respecting females in the athletic industry.”
Riley smiled a little at that, obviously impressed, and Julep rolled her eyes like she hated that this was a conversation that even needed to happen at all.
All the while, I was burning from the inside out.
Because all my life, football had been my one and only focus. It was all I cared about. It was my reason for waking up in the morning, and the only thought that consumed me when I laid my head down at night. It was my lifeline, my muse, the center of my attention.
But in one fatal moment, that focus shifted.
Julep Lee was the coach’s daughter. She was completely off limits.
And yet, I knew right then and there that I had to have her.
