Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
HUGO
The door at the far end of the long hallway swings open, letting in a shaft of sunlight and the woman living under the delusion that she has my job.
“Say hi to Freda and the grandkids for me,” she calls over her shoulder to the security guard who must be way beyond retirement.
“Whoa-ho, Wilcox.” I point at the cart she’s dragging behind her that’s overflowing with stuff. “That’s a bit presumptuous, isn’t it?”
“Might as well bring my things,” she says over the rumble of wheels on the uneven tiles, “since the job is obviously mine.”
Her ponytail swishes from side to side as she approaches me along the corridor. The rough concrete walls are painted the team colors—the bottom third orange, the rest sky blue. All scuffed, scratched and chipped, of course.
Wilcox and her cart come to a stop in front of me outside the locker room door, which I’ve just discovered is locked.
I was about to try the one next to it, which is white and bears the word coach in orange paint. It looks like it was stenciled about thirty years ago by a two-year-old with zero art skills.
Come to think of it, that means it could have been done by Wilcox.
I did some research on her last night. Found some interviews where she hinted she grew up more at this ground than at her house. And also some photos that revealed she looks remarkably good in an evening dress with her hair falling around her shoulders. Not that today’s blue leggings are unflattering. And I definitely didn’t think anyone could look that shapely in a boxy orange Boston Commoners sweatshirt.
“Think if you constantly wear team colors it might swing things in your favor?” I ask.
“I always wear club colors to work. It helps foster a sense of team spirit.” She pulls back her shoulders, which pushes her chest out a little farther.
“I can’t exactly feel morale rumbling through these hallways.” I peel off a bit of flaking paint and flick it to the floor. “Bit ironic this place is called Spirit Field.”
“It was named after the insurance company that sponsored the stadium when it was built.” That chin jut says she’s delighted to educate me. “The company went out of business years ago, but the name stuck. And yes, before you ask, because of the Commoners spirit.”
She yanks her little cart forward to park it next to the office door. A pencil case with a black-and-white football pattern slides off the pile of stuff nearest me and lands on the floor with a clatter .
Instead of kicking it back toward her—my first instinct—I bend to pick it up and drop it onto her pile of books, the top one titled Soccer: The Mind Game .
The whole trolley is stuffed to bursting with colorful folders, a pile of more sky blue and orange items of clothing, a bunch of clear plastic baggies containing a variety of office supplies sorted by color and, teetering on top, there’s a plant that looks like an eccentric professor’s hair on a stick.
There’s also a weird pink bulbous thing with an electrical cord. I nod at it. “Do you always bring your sex toys to work?”
She tilts her head and sighs like she’s already extremely tired of me. “It’s a diffuser. For essential oils. Helps create the right atmosphere and state of mind. And given the stench in the locker room yesterday, it will have bonus odor elimination benefits.”
Oh, Jesus. She’s into the woo-woo shit.
I fold my arms and lean against the door frame to my soon-to-be office. “Well, all I can tell you, Wilcox, is that you don’t coach your way to victory with stationery and essential oils. You coach with this .” I thump my chest right over my heart.
“Maybe I should set up the diffuser right here. Get some sage going. It’s good for stress. And you seem a little… edgy .”
“Edgy? Pft .”
Okay, my pulse rate is a bit higher than normal. But that’s just down to this ridiculous situation.
While I’m sure the job is mine, the odd stray thought of doubt did waft across my mind last night as I lay in my rented penthouse—that I’m paying for myself because the place the club was going to lease for me looked like it hadn’t been updated since about 1963.
I mean, in all fairness, it does seem like Wilcox was already on the payroll before me. And she does have a coaching record, which I don’t.
But I soon snapped myself out of that bullshit. Everyone in football—and a lot who aren’t—know me. She’s known by literally no one outside of the women’s game and the staff who’ve been at this stadium since she was a kid.
And the new owners are obviously after star power and name recognition as well as someone who knows how to kick both arse and a football. And that would be me. Not Miss Essential Oil Diffuser here.
So, yes, once the guys arrive and confirm the job’s mine, this tension at the base of my skull will be gone and I’ll be totally back to normal.
Wilcox looks at her watch. “Five to nine.”
“This is going to be an awkward few minutes.”
“For you,” she snaps.
“Why would this be awkward for me? I’m not the one who’ll have to trundle a cart full of all my worldly goods back along the hallway with my tail between my legs.”
She sighs, then looks past me and waves. “Morning, Wally.”
“Heeey, Drewsky!” he calls back with the affection of an old soldier greeting a comrade he hasn’t seen since the war. “Heard you were around.”
“It’s been too long,” she says. “I’ll find you after my meeting. I’m sure you have some crazy new bowling league stories for me.”
“ Drewsky ?” I can’t help but chuckle .
She presses her lips into a tight line before responding. “I’ve known him since I was nine. He used to give me rides on his cart, whizzing up and down the hallways.”
“Do you know everyone in this building?” It’s not going to do my case any favors if she’s been little Miss Popular here for more than twenty years.
“Just the people who were here when I was a kid. And Amelia, my dad’s assistant—well, the Fab Four’s assistant now—we were friends in high school. Oh, and I’ve met a couple of the players briefly when I’ve been able to get to the occasional game. Which hasn’t been that often these last…” She thinks for a moment and looks surprised by what she comes up with. “Well, ten years, I guess. So I don’t know them any better than you do, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Oh, I’m worried about absolutely nothing,” I say with complete confidence.
She locks my eyes with hers and stares right into them, like she’s not sure there’s a single brain cell behind them. “Are you really not going to mention?—”
“Morning, guys.” A beaming Chase Cooper leads the other three toward us from the far end of the corridor.
In fact, they all look very pleased with themselves.
“Thanks for coming back,” Miller says.
“Yeah, we are very excited,” Prince Oliver adds as they stop beside us.
There’s some embarrassed laughter as the two of us try to shake hands with the four of them and everyone keeps crossing arms with everyone else.
“All right, let’s get to business,” Leo says.
Wilcox’s chest heaves with a deep breath.
I’ve never been second choice when it comes to football skills. And I’m absolutely fucking certain that’s not going to change now.
“Miller. You want to do the honors?” Leo asks.
“Sure.” Miller pulls a set of keys from his pocket and holds them in the air.
He dangles them there for a second and looks at Wilcox.
Okay, enough with this shuddering feeling in my gut. I can’t believe I want the job of coaching this terrible team so very bloody badly. But apparently I do. So please, for the love of the beautiful game, do not give those keys to her.
Miller shifts his gaze to me.
Is this a weird power trip and he’s now going to look back at her and hand them over? Like the dramatic pause in the finale of a reality show before they announce the winner?
Get the fuck on with it.
The tremor in my chest must be visible, and that is not good for the image.
“Welcome,” Miller says, passing the keys to me.
“Oh, thank fuck.” A hot wave of something washes through me from top to toe. Christ, I really thought I might not be picked. What the hell’s wrong with me? I must never, ever, let my confidence take a momentary hike like that ever again. “I mean, thank you. Thank you very much. You won’t regret it.”
I glance at Wilcox, who’s staring at the keys in my hand. Her face is pink, as is her neck and the bit of collarbone visible above her orange club sweatshirt. I bet it’s pink a fair way under there too.
“Sorry,” I tell her. Even though I’m not. But she does look upset, and that’s not great. “But for every winner there has to be a loser.”
I turn to the door marked coach and stick the key in the lock.
“Not in this case there doesn’t,” Chase says.
Of course it would be him who’d try to soften the blow for Wilcox. He is virtually a saint after all—one voted Sexiest Man on Earth countless times. And so talented he can switch from playing a wisecracking superhero in a two-hundred-million-dollar movie to Shakespeare in Stratford while single-handedly saving endangered species from extinction across several continents.
Well, he was in a TV advert for elephants once. Saving them, that is. Not selling them.
The key makes the most satisfying click as I turn it in the lock. Who’d have thought that after all the titles and England caps I’ve won, opening a grimy door inside a third-rate stadium at the club with the worst record in the history of the league would give me so much satisfaction?
I swing it open, but turn at the sound of more key-jingling behind me.
Chase is holding up another set and flashing his dazzling white Hollywood smile at Wilcox.
Her mouth drops open in slow motion as her eyes flick from Chase to the other three guys in turn. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly.” Chase tosses the keys to her, and she catches them with one hand.
“Yup,” Leo says. “You were right about your contract. And since Hugo’s agent had also driven a hard bargain, it would cost us more to get rid of one of you than it would to keep you both till the end of the season. ”
Am I hearing things? Am I understanding correctly? Has everyone lost their fucking minds? “I’m sorry, what ?”
Wilcox stares at the keys in her hand as if they are an ancient relic that could crumble to dust any second.
“Two coaches,” Prince Oliver says. “We didn’t need to decide. We get to keep both of you. Two has to be better than one, right?”
You’d think. But not if one of them is her.
It’s like telling a kid they can eat their entire chocolate birthday cake themselves, then, just as they’re about to take their first bite, switching it for a pile of overcooked brussels sprouts.
No fucking way. I’m not staying here under these circumstances.
I yank the key from the lock. “Well, in that case I have to?—”
But I can’t walk.
Where would I go? What would I do?
These guys have been the only ones willing to take a chance on me. This is my one opportunity to get back into football—the only thing I know, the only thing I love, the thing that courses through my veins and beats in my soul.
And my one opportunity to show the world that I can coach as well as I played. And then hopefully an English club will decide to overlook all that off-the-pitch crap and give me a job so I can go home.
I need this. Desperately.
“I have to…” I try to come up with another way to finish that sentence, but my jaw’s so tight I can barely get the words out. “I have to…congratulate Coach Wilcox,” I dredge up from somewhere deep in my dark, disbelieving core.
“So you guys will work together until the end of the season when your contracts run out,” Leo says. “Then we’ll decide who stays on next year.”
Fuck, it really is like a reality show. Coach Idol .
“Thank you.” Wilcox’s voice is soft as she finally lifts her watery gaze from the keys and looks along the line of our four new bosses. “Thank you all for the opportunity.”
“And it’s great PR,” Miller says. “I don’t think any MLS team has ever had co-head coaches before. At least none that my quick search last night could find. So it’s a great story.”
“And one of them is female,” Leo adds. “That’s definitely a first.”
“Yeah.” The prince nudges me. “And a great opportunity to show those arsehole reporters you can be around a woman every day and not sleep with her.”
My eyes instinctively dart to Wilcox and accidentally fix on hers.
There’s that flash of familiarity again. I swear to God, I’ve met her somewhere before yesterday.
“Yeah, you can rein him in for us,” Chase says.
“Tame him,” Leo adds.
She takes a deep breath and sucks on her lips.
I might have spent only a matter of minutes in her presence, but I’m pretty sure she’s trying to stop herself from telling them that I am not her problem.
And I’m not.
But she is most definitely mine.
She tosses her keys in her hand, a smile slowly spreading across her face, plumping up the pink apples of her cheeks. “Anyway, where’s my office?”
“Right there.” Miller points at the door whose handle I am still holding.
“Everything else is taken,” Chase adds .
“And you’ll need to work together constantly anyway, so it makes sense,” Leo says.
So I’m not only sharing the job with her, I’m sharing an office too?
Fucking brilliant.