Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THREE WEEKS LATER
HUGO
My sneakers squeal on the hallway tiles as I storm from the tunnel to the office, the roars and boos of the crowd behind me barely audible over the blood pounding in my ears.
After three weeks of wins and some lucky-for-us losses by those above us in the table, we’ve risen to a respectable spot near the middle and the Fab Four are delighted.
Of course I know winning streaks never last. But I didn’t expect this one to end quite so humiliatingly.
Tonight, they blew it. Threw away everything I’ve taught them. Flushed the fresh energy from the change in ownership and our new approach to coaching down the toilet.
I yank open the office door to find Wilcox with her back to me, standing motionless and staring at her laptop. Spouting forth from it are Frank Sharpe and Gilbert Rossi.
“Well, we all knew the Commoners wouldn’t be able to hack it among the big boys, didn’t we, Gilbert?” Sharpe says with a smug chuckle. “But I don’t think anyone expected the undignified four-nil pasting we just witnessed. It was more like watching a car crash than a soccer game.”
“A massive pileup would be more accurate,” Rossi adds. “One where vehicle after vehicle smashes into the others, spewing wreckage across the highway in all directions. For ninety minutes.”
“And on home turf too. Couldn’t be more shameful,” Sharpe says. “I imagine Hugo Powers will have something to say to the players about that.”
“Too fucking right he will.”
Wilcox jumps at my words and spins around.
Years of experience have taught me that, for no reason at all, every team member can have a really bad day on the same day. But knowing that can happen doesn’t prevent the disappointment and frustration from rattling around my brain and my chest, battering my skull and ricocheting against my ribs.
“Turn those wankers off,” I snap at Wilcox. “Sharpe hasn’t kicked a ball this century, and Rossi wouldn’t have known how to find the back of the net if it was decked out in flashing lights and a marching band was leading the way. I don’t want the shit they spew tainting the air of this place. I’ve got plenty of words of my own to share.”
I reach for the handle to the locker room door to give the guys the piece of my mind that’s left over from the one I gave them at halftime .
In a swift ninja move, Wilcox slams the laptop shut with one hand and lunges for my arm with the other.
“Don’t.” Her grip around my forearm and the urgency in her eyes say she means it.
I stop dead in my tracks, surprised by the mere fact she’s touching me as much as by the forcefulness of it. The way my body heats reminds me it’s our first physical contact since I accidentally kissed her at the end of the Atlanta game.
I’m still not sure how that happened. It was instinctive. My lips were on hers before I even knew what I was doing. And once they were there, I didn’t know what the hell to do. So I mashed my mouth against hers in a completely unromantic way to try to give the impression it was some sort of joke kiss. Just a lark, no biggie.
When the final whistle blew on our next victory, I grabbed our physio by his bearded cheeks and slapped my mouth on his to try to make out it was just something I always do to the nearest person whenever we win.
Brian wasn’t best pleased and asked me to never do it again.
Oh, no worries about that. How do people enjoy kissing men with beards? It was like sticking my face in a moist bird’s nest.
I abandoned that idea right there. So I have to hope that giving a smacker to one bloke was enough to convince Wilcox there’s no need to worry about our little lip-lock.
I, however, have continued to…yeah, let’s call it worry about it.
I’ve worried about it in bed. In the shower. And one time I had a very urgent worry in the restroom farthest from our office after we’d ordered in lunch and I discovered the way she eats pickles turns Mr. Happy into Mr. About To Fucking Burst.
And the way she’s looking at me now, all green eyes and flushed cheeks, it’s impossible for my attention not to be drawn to her full pink lips as they form the words “Don’t yell.”
Oh yes, our crushing defeat. How did she manage to momentarily distract me from that?
I scoff. “Sharpe and Rossi are right. The guys in there played like a bunch of donkeys who’ve never even seen a ball before, let alone kicked one. But they’re my fucking donkeys. And they need a rocket up their arses. From me.”
“Sleep on it.” Her hold on me doesn’t loosen.
Did she hang on to me like that in Paris? Is it how she’d grip me if she?—
“Remember when you yelled at your goalie in the FA Cup final seven years ago?” she asks.
I furrow my brow, unsure whether I’m more puzzled that she knows I did that or that she bothered to research me in such detail.
“He was so rattled he let in a goal two minutes later and you lost,” she says. “Tearing into people who’ve had a bad day doesn’t make them better. It makes them worse.”
“So you want me to let them get away with it? Would you prefer me to waft around patchouli oil while they soak in a bubble bath and I read them some poetry?”
Her hand is still on my arm, her hold still unwavering. “When was the last time you shouted at someone and it improved things?”
“When I…” No idea how I was planning to end that sentence, but nothing is coming to me. “I actually don’t yell very often. People just think I do. It’s blown out of all proportion. ”
“So never then.” There’s no gloating in her voice, no glee in her eye, no look of victory on her face. She’s as calm as a Zen master. Magnanimous in the face of being right. No scoffing. No celebrating her win. Just happy I’ve got the point.
“Does it count if it makes me feel better?” I ask, unable to cave completely.
“It’s not about you. If they don’t win”—she tips her head toward the locker room—“ we don’t win.”
Ouch. A verbal kick in the wins. She knows exactly where to get me.
“We’ll talk to them tomorrow,” she continues. “Go with me on this one.”
Her other hand reaches for my fingers on the doorknob, and, one by one, she peels them loose. And I let her.
When she lets go of me, it feels all wrong. Like it was right when she was holding on to me. Wrong now she isn’t. Where the hell did this bullshit feely stuff come from?
This is the longest we’ve been alone in a room together since we went to dinner. After that night we settled into a routine of avoidance and civility.
She stays out of my way, and I stay out of hers. I catch a glimpse of her working out in the gym every morning when I’m making my way to the training field—seeing her sweating in shorts and a cropped top isn’t exactly an unpleasant way to start the day.
She has the office in the morning while I’m out on the pitch with the guys, and I have it in the afternoons when she does whatever she’s doing with them—sharing circles, yoga, or whatever.
The only time we have to work side by side is during tactics meetings. We both review videos of the upcoming opposition and choose the clips we want the guys to see. I email her my list, and she puts together a presentation for the team.
I like those meetings. Being around her is kinda fun. She’s good at explaining things, and the guys take more and more notice of her with every session.
And it’s not unhelpful that I get to sit behind her and enjoy her backside when she’s up front talking.
Yup, it’s been a pretty good three weeks for us all to be proud of for lots of reasons. But that’s all come to an unceremonious end this evening.
“Okay. I’ll be nice.” I’m not entirely sure I will be, despite her annoyingly solid arguments.
“At least your face isn’t as red as when you stomped in here.” She rests her hand on the doorknob, protecting it from me. “Maybe that’s an encouraging sign. So…if you promise…”
Her eyes search mine for a moment as if she’s trying to figure out whether she can trust me. Their determined steeliness of the last couple minutes has faded into something a little softer, but still skeptical.
The click of the handle brings me back to reality and reminds me I’m supposed to be really fucking furious.
She sweeps the door open and gestures for me to enter the locker room ahead of her.
I didn’t actually promise anything though. And these guys definitely deserve the bollocking of their lives.
But maybe this is a chance to prove to her that I’m not the arsehole who loses his shit all the time.
When the hell did I start caring what anyone thought of me? Least of all someone I need to beat to get the job I want .
She follows me through the door and steps up by my side.
The sight of a room full of guys with slumped shoulders and faces as droopy as gas station flowers is a sign, clear enough for even me to read, that maybe, just maybe, Wilcox is right.
They’re already gutted by the result. Yelling at them now won’t do any good. It won’t change anything. Well, it might—it might make things worse.
Damn her for being hot. And damn her for being right. Which actually makes her even hotter. So just fucking damn it all.
“Okay, guys.” I try to muster a half-smile. “I know you’re all disappointed. But let’s not dwell on that right now. Get yourselves showered and home. Have a good rest day tomorrow. And we’ll see you here Monday morning.”
They look at me and each other, obviously shocked that I haven’t ripped into them. Another reason Wilcox was right—it keeps them on their toes not knowing what to expect from me.
Before I’ve even turned my head to look at her, I know she’ll be pleased. Indeed, she gazes at me for a second and nods, like a proud parent whose kid has finally gone potty on his own.
“Yup,” she says to the guys. “Sleep in. Call your mothers. Go for a walk in nature. Play video games. Eat a great dinner. Whatever floats your boat. Just clear your heads and try not to think about that field or that ball for a full twenty-four hours.”
The stunned faces turn back to me for a second, clearly still waiting for me to tear a strip or three off them. When nothing comes, they mutter among themselves and start removing boots and socks.
Wilcox gives me a knowing smile as she moves past me back into the office, her arm brushing mine and sending a shimmy down my side that I could definitely do without.
She closes the blinds over the window into the locker room—blinds she’d had installed at the start of the season. That’s something I was right about. If we’re counting. Which I’m obviously not.
“Thank you,” she says, when I follow her into the office and close the door. “Nicely done.” She sounds genuinely appreciative.
She picks up her laptop and slides it into her bag. “I’ll call Dr. Boateng. Get her in for some one-on-ones. They need to get this disappointment out of their systems before the next game. So it’s not the start of a downward spiral.”
She swings the bag over her shoulder and pauses for a second, her eyes locking with mine. “Don’t take this the wrong way.” Guess she’s still worried I might fly off the handle. “But maybe consider booking a slot for yourself.”
“ Pah .” I can’t help but roll my eyes.
“Figured.” She walks around me, no accidental arm touches this time, toward the door to the hallway.
I find myself suddenly fascinated by where she’s going, what she does with herself outside work, what her life is like, who she really is.
“Where are you off to in such a hurry, anyway?” I ask.
“To my therapy. Otherwise known as a drink with my friends.”
“Friends? You have friends ?” Teasing her is always fun. But right now there’s something inside me that doesn’t want her to walk out that door, and some teasing might keep her here a while longer. “I’ve never heard mention of these friends before.”
She pulls the door open. “That, Hugo freaking Powers, is because you know almost nothing about me.”
She raises her eyebrows at me over her shoulder and disappears into the hallway.
The streets of Boston are alive with late summer Saturday evening revelry.
Tonight’s cab home from the stadium has already taken me past plenty of people eating and drinking on patios outside the city’s bars, restaurants, and cafés.
Even the people in the orange and sky blue shirts, who’re more drowning their sorrows than celebrating tonight, are sharing a smile or two.
Four-nil.
I mean, for fuck’s sake.
Good on Wilcox for going out to let that shiny blond hair down. That’s the first hint of her having an actual life I’ve heard of. Who are these friends? Does she have a boyfriend?
I did more online research the other night to try to find out about her private life, but it seems she keeps a low profile. That, or the media isn’t interested in her.
Even the publicity surrounding our appointment at the Commoners didn’t mention many personal details about her. But, to be fair, that stuff was ninety percent about me—apparently I have more than enough personal details to go around. I only found one article in one women’s magazine where the main angle was the whole first female head coach in the league’s history thing .
How infuriating that must be for her. If all the coverage had focused on her, with me as an afterthought in one sentence tacked on at the end—“and jointly appointed head coach is former English footballer Hugo Powers, who’s won some stuff”—I’d have been mighty pissed off. But she never said a word about it.
That article concentrated almost entirely on her professional achievements, which, to be fair, are pretty damn impressive. There was just a brief bit at the end about her family—her dad starting the Commoners, the club’s slow growth, the sale to the Fab Four, and the fact he’s divorced from her mum whose name wasn’t even mentioned. That was it.
Maybe whatever happened there is what’s made her believe in the sharing circles and therapy.
She was certainly right that the appropriate coping mechanism for tonight’s loss is a drink with pals. It’s exactly what I could do with. All my friends might be thousands of miles away, but the thought of a cold pint in a pub makes my mouth water.
Is there any chance I could slip into one of these bars unrecognized?
Actually, there is one I’ve spotted before that might work.
“Change of plan.” I lean forward to talk to the driver. “Could you take the next left, just a little way along?”
“Certainly, sir,” he says.
On my strolls around the city on my days off, I’ve passed this little side-street Irish pub that reminds me of my local back in London. A place where no one gives a shit who I am.
It’s worth a try.
The driver makes the left turn .
“You can drop me just a little way down here, on the right. Outside that pub.”
“The Blarney Stone?” he asks. “Great old place. My grandpa used to drink there. You won’t find tourists or swanky city types in there. That place has a heart of gold.”
I gaze up at the faded green exterior. “Perfect.”
Yes, this place looks like exactly what I need tonight.