Chapter 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
HUGO
I have to enter this locker room in the Orlando stadium in a minute and give the guys the rousing, inspirational speech of my life.
But how the hell am I supposed to do that without Wilcox by my side? I haven’t made a single coach’s speech without her next to me. And without her, all my coaching powers are deserting me. I’m like Samson with his hair cut off. Except I’m Hugo and my Wilcox has been cut off.
It doesn’t help that I hardly slept last night—a cardinal sin for any athlete. The one thing you need before any big match day is rest. And it seems I’ve been completely unable to take the advice I give to everyone else to put all personal problems in a box until after the game.
Trouble is, Wilcox is my game.
She’s my every-fucking-thing, for God’s sake.
But she’s going to Portland. And that’s that.
She obviously hates me as much now as she did the first day she walked into the locker room and found me already standing there with her job.
I guess the part in between—the part where she loved me—was the anomaly. But that part felt the most real.
It made me understand why people want to build a life with someone. And made me realize how they know who’s the best person for them and that there’s no point looking any further—because you just know.
Turns out, that part wasn’t real at all.
I should have known better.
I check my phone again on the off chance she might have texted even just a simple good luck.
Nothing.
I flick back to my middle-of-the-night conversation with Tom and his last message.
TOM
Just put her out of your head until the final whistle. After that you have your whole life to sort it out.
He’s right. It’s like he’s my coach.
I have to pull myself together. The team buzzing with life and chatter in the room behind me have come so unbelievably far in such a short time and are depending on me to lead them to victory in our most crucial match of the season so far.
Resorting to tried and tested old tricks, I jump up and down on the spot, ripple my lips in a series of horse-breaths, shake my head from side to side, roll my shoulders, and generally try to turn myself from pining lovesick teenager to inspirational leader.
This is as good as I’m going to get. But I’ve been too distracted to prepare a single thing to say. I’ll just have to hope that I’ll open this door, open my mouth, and pearls of wisdom will spontaneously spew forth.
“Hey, Coach!” Ramon gets to his feet and claps as I enter the locker room. The other players follow suit.
People talk about things that humble them. And I’ve never understood that. Because doesn’t someone telling you you’re great give you a big head rather than make you feel humble?
But in this moment I realize exactly what they mean.
I am unworthy of this reception. I’m unworthy of their cheers. And, in many ways, I am unworthy of their respect.
I’ve just fumbled my way along in this job, teaching the guys the things that worked for me, and adapting them if I thought something might work a better way for them.
Wilcox, however, would deserve a reception like this.
Her thought, her care, her belief, and her absolute undying love for this club that lives in the core of her being deserve it.
And yet she’s not here for the biggest moment in its history.
It would be like me being in the England team and breaking my leg the night before our World Cup Final—incomprehensibly horrific.
“Coach Wilcox still sick?” Bakari asks, looking over my shoulder to see if she’s followed me in.
When I boarded the team bus yesterday, I told them she wasn’t feeling well enough to travel and that she would try to fly down this morning.
In truth, I’d hoped she would. Hoped that after she’d slept on it, she wouldn’t be able to bear the thought of not being here and would hop on a plane. If not to be by my side, at least to be in the stands .
“’Fraid so, guys.”
A groan rolls around the room.
“But she texted me to say she’ll be watching,” I lie. “And she wants to see you win like true champions, true sportsmen, who are a credit to the game.”
I’m absolutely certain that’s what she would have said—if she were talking to me.
“Call her,” shouts Schumann. “Do a quick video chat so we can all say get well soon.”
“And so she can tell us not to play like a bunch of asses,” Hammond says.
The rest of them agree that’s a great idea.
Shit. Not that I’d underestimated how much they’ve grown to love her, but I didn’t expect a widespread call for me to video chat her into the pregame speech.
“Sorry, guys. But I’m sure she’s not up to it. It might be food poisoning. And she might be watching the game from the bathroom.”
There’s a general murmur of ew .
I seem to have gotten away with that.
“Okay, right.” I slap my hands together. “Now let’s get to business.”
The room falls silent, and every eye is on me. What a long way we’ve come in the eight short weeks since Miller introduced me and most of them couldn’t bear to look at me.
Ordinarily I’d be delighted by their rapt attention, but in this particular moment it feels like a heavy responsibility.
“You all know what you have to do today. You know how those guys play. You know how they work. Lord knows you’ve seen all the videos.”
There’s a groan, because Wilcox made them watch her montage of clips over and over. She slowed down the parts that highlighted each Orlando player’s skills and habits and played them again and again, until they’d penetrated our guys’ heads so deeply it would be like they were born knowing exactly how every member of the opposition would act in any situation.
“You can grumble all you like, but Coach Wilcox made sure you now know those guys as well as you know your own dicks.”
“Except for Anderson,” Schumann shouts up. Anderson’s dick usage is a running joke because he has seven kids. And he’s only twenty-nine. There are two sets of twins, but still.
“Now is not the time for Anderson’s super sperm,” I tell them.
“That’s what she said,” two of the guys crack at the same time.
The room erupts in laughter, and my mind shoots back to making a “that’s what she said” joke to Wilcox while we ate hot dogs on Boston Common. She rolled her sparky eyes—then, at the first available opportunity, made one right back at me.
The knife in my chest is back, as is the gnawing in my stomach and the twist in my gut that tell me I’ll never find anyone who fits with me the way she does.
But it’s over. She hates me again. And she’s moving to fucking Portland.
And my emotional angst about it needs to fuck the hell off until after the match. Right now, I have to focus one hundred percent on this team, this game, and us winning.
Be in the moment —isn’t that what Ashanti said in the last group session before today? Yes, I went to it, but only because I knew she was giving an inspirational talk and there’d be none of that throwing the ball around the room and spilling your childhood crap.
“Get your mind on the game,” I tell myself as much as the guys.
But right at that moment my mind ignores its own advice and flashes back to talking to Tom after my Pulacini’s dinner with Drew. While I flailed around in a bunch of confusing feelings, he used my own words back at me. And those same words suddenly seem perfectly fitting for this very moment.
“A wise man once said”—no way will I ever admit that wise man was me—“that you can’t always control the timing of your life. Sometimes you have to just go with it. And it’s true. Today we need to go out there and play our own game, not let them dictate it. But if every now and then they do, we have to just go with it, and beat them at their own game.”
“Coach finally went woo-woo on us.” Bakari’s quip is greeted by chuckles.
“No fucking chance,” I tell them. “Now, look. We’ve come so far. Never in a million years did anyone ever think we’d have a snowball’s chance in hell of qualifying for the playoffs. But there’s still a sliver of hope. So we’ve already beaten everyone else’s expectations of us. And today we have to beat our own.”
I push up my jacket sleeves. It’s getting warm in here. “All the pundits—yes, even Sharpe and Rossi—are saying we’re already winners just for even being in with a chance. But they’re talking bullshit.” I pause for dramatic effect. “What are they talking?”
“Bullshit,” the guys chorus back.
I cup my hand against my ear. “Sorry? What are they talking? ”
“BULLSHIT!” comes the rousing cry.
“Exactly. You’re not a winner unless you win something. So we’re going to go out there, bring the Commoners’ grit to that Orlando turf, and show ’em. We’re going to show every fucker who said we were on the scrap heap, that our heyday was over, that we could never come back from the gutter, that that was bullshit too.”
I’m no psychologist, but it’s obvious even to me that I’m now talking about myself as much as the team. That their story is my story.
“BULLSHIT!” they repeat.
They and I are going to prove to everyone today that we are worthy. That we are winners. That the fire in my belly not only never died but, my God, it’s a raging inferno now.
“We are going to show everyone. We’re going to show every naysayer, every nonbeliever, everyone who mocked, every reporter who talked about our demise.” My finger jabs at the air like it’s developed a mind of its own. “We are going to get out there and we’re going to win, and we’re going to show them fucking all.”
They respond with a rousing, “Yeah.”
“Now, get up.” I throw up my hands, beckoning them to stand.
“And come on.” Bouncing on the balls of my feet, just like I did in the hallway a few minutes ago, I gesture for them to join in.
“We’re going to fight,” I shout. “What are we going to do?”
“FIGHT!” the guys shout back.
“Louder. Believe it. In your hearts and the marrow of your bones. What are we going to do? ”
“FIGHT!” Their voices ring out around the room as we all bounce in unison.
“We’re going to take them down.” I stab my finger at them. “What are we going to do?”
“TAKE THEM DOWN!” comes the reply in rhythm with the sound of our feet hitting the floor. It’s louder this time and accompanied by a scattering of fist pumps.
“And we’re going to win.” I punch the air as I jump up and down. “What are we going to do?”
“WIN!” Their shout vibrates through me as they all punch the air and start clapping.
This is what I live for. What I’ve always lived for—the adrenaline pumping right before we run out, the smell of the turf, the roar of the crowd.
This is life.
And nothing matters except winning.
“Right.” I point to the door. “Now get the fuck out there . ”