Chapter 23
JEFF
Losing fucking sucks.
It wasn’t the worst game we’ve had so far this season, but it wasn’t the best either.
Trick comes to the clubhouse to talk to the team after, just briefly. He tells them about his worst season and how he learned to shake off a bad game and show up the next day as if it was the first day of a brand-new season, every time.
“Learned that from Coach,” he barks. “If you haven’t listened to him on that front yet, you’re only hurting yourselves.”
I can’t add anything more to that tonight, so I leave it at a curt “See you in the morning” and head to the coaching offices.
“Are you gonna take some time here?” Trick asks. “I can take the girls out for dinner.”
I don’t want to hand Molly off to him, even though I know the offer comes from a good place, a welcoming place. It means Sinclaire is treating her like family already, and I appreciate that so fucking much.
But at the same time, I want her close.
Fuck.
“Yeah,” I manage to say. “I need to do a bit more work here with the team.”
“Of course.” And then he gives me a look that says he understands more than I want him to. “She knows how important your job is, Jeff. It’ll be fine.”
We’re only ten games into a season that will stretch over the entire summer. A hundred and fifty more to go.
“I probably shouldn’t have fallen in love with her until the season ended,” I joke.
He shrugs. “You can’t help what the heart wants, when it wants it.”
Like he wanted my daughter, the night we won the World Series.
“Get the fuck out of here,” I growl.
He laughs and leaves me alone. The assistant coaches file in, and the video and analytics people follow. We debrief on every element of the game and come up with a good plan for the morning. This was just one game, and we have two more against them in this home stand.
By the time we finish, the stadium is quiet. The equipment team has reset the clubhouse. I walk through the quiet tunnel to the field, where the grounds crew is just finishing prepping for tomorrow.
I send Molly a quick text message that I’m going to fit in a quick workout since I’m not getting my usual morning runs in, and then I’ll see her back at my house.
Instead of going to the gym, I head back to my personal office, where I have a treadmill set up facing the wall that my TV and whiteboard are on.
As I run, I use a remote control to flip through the video again.
Smart TV, iPads, video instantly available. Whiteboards, binders.
There’s no shortage of data on our team. And we have a strong narrative on the social media side, bringing the fans in—thanks to Molly.
But there’s still something missing.
This is my final year of coaching. I want to go out on a high note. I need to figure this puzzle out.
I crank up the speed on the treadmill, running faster now. Ignoring the twinge in my right knee, knowing it’ll ease as my body warms up. The rhythmic slap of my feet against the belt is hypnotic, reliable.
Over the last thirty years, going for a good hard run has never failed me.
Being pushed has never failed me.
Believing in hard work, and doing the hard work—
I stumble over my feet, then jump, skipping to correct myself. I slap the treadmill controls, slowing the speed to a jog, a thought close to forming into a complete concept.
It’s there. It’s so close, I can feel it.
Footsteps outside my door are a brief warning that I’m about to get company. The best company.
“Hello?” Molly steps into view and beams at me. “Oh, you’re in here!”
I don’t stumble this time, even though my heart beats faster at the sight of her in that sundress, with that smile on her face. “I’m almost done.”
“Keep going. I like watching you run.” She slides onto my desk chair, crossing one bare leg over the other.
“I need the team to up their intensity,” I say between huffing breaths. “Like this run. I need them to feel driven. It has to come from inside them, and we’ve lost that motor.”
She nods. “Okay. So how do you find it again?”
I swallow a swig of water and shrug.
She waits.
I increase the speed again, sprinting now. I’m an old man, I can’t do this for long. But the last mile is ticking down, almost done, and she’s right there. I’ll get to pull her into my sweaty embrace in another two hundred yards.
The answer crystallizes in my mind as my feet pound the belt and Molly watches patiently, waiting for me.
Trick flying down from Wyoming just to give his old team a pep talk and his former coach and teammate a shoulder to lean on. That’s what’s missing. That selflessness. That desire to support each other.
The treadmill beeps its completion and automatically slows to a cool-down pace. I grab my towel, wiping my face as I look at Molly. “What were you better at, rugby or volleyball?”
“Neither?” She laughs. “Probably volleyball. Height helped.”
“So why did you play rugby?”
“For my teammates,” she says. Then her eyes light up. “Oh.”
Yeah.
“We don’t have that yet. They’re a talented bunch, if a bit green, but they’re not cohesive.
Whatever the motivation is, it has to come from inside the team.
They need their own reasons to build the team from the clubhouse out.
To rely on each other and trust each other.
” I scrub my hand over my face. “Which, of course, I know.”
“But sometimes we need a reminder of what we already know?”
I nod between big, restorative breaths. “Sorry for missing dinner, but I needed …”
“I know.”
“I’ve had all these scattered thoughts in my head over the last few weeks.”
“I’ve been a distraction,” she says carefully.
“No. Not at all. Do you mind a sweaty hug?”
“I like it,” she whispers, her eyes sparkling.
“Then come here.”
She laughs and shakes her head, jumping out of my chair to cross to me. “Bring it on, Coach.”
I fold her in against my body. She squeaks a little, but then presses her face into my neck, breathless. She really does like it.
“You aren’t that sweaty,” she mumbles. “And you smell good.”
“That’s gotta be the love talking,” I murmur into her hair.
“Maybe.” She lifts her face, and up close, I can see there’s a little shadow behind her eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
She makes a face. “Nothing.”
“Molly …”
She takes a deep breath. “There’s a small problem.”
My stomach drops. “What kind of problem?”
“Owen Fisker texted me.”
“The little jerk I got fired?”
“Yeah, I didn’t think to block his number, and he didn’t use it until tonight.”
She wriggles in my arms, sliding her phone out of a secret pocket in the folds of her sundress. She turns it so I can see the screen.
Owen
Saw you on the Jumbotron sitting with Coach’s family. Cozy. Does anyone else know you’re fucking him?
You’re way too hot to waste on that old man. When he gets bored with you, hit me up.
White-hot rage courses through my arteries. “That pathetic little motherfucker. I’m going to kill him,” I say flatly. “I’m going to find him right now and—”
“Breathe.” Her voice is calm, steadier than mine. “Honestly? I don’t care what Owen Fisker thinks.”
“I care.” My jaw is so tight it hurts. “He’s harassing you. This is grounds for a restraining order.”
“It is,” she agrees. “And we’ll handle it. But that’s not the real problem.”
I force myself to focus on her face instead of the phone. “Then what is?”
She pulls up something else—a fan-made social media post. It’s a screenshot from the game broadcast, the moment the camera caught me looking up at the family section. The image is cropped to show just me and then a second image: Sinclaire, Molly, Trick, and Silas.
The caption reads, Who’s the mystery woman with Coach Rosehill’s family?
There are already dozens of comments too.
Molly calmly scrolls through them all while my blood pressure shoots up.
She’s pretty! I agree. Way too young for him.
I do not agree. Probably just a family friend.
That person is trying to help, but family friend my fucking ass.
I want to claim Molly publicly, and I don’t want anyone casting doubt on our relationship.
And then the stunned surprise comments … I don’t know how to react to those.
Coach has a girlfriend???
I thought he was a monk.
He has a kid, dumbass.
Yeah, but that was almost thirty years ago.
There was a whole joke about this two months ago, how he married the mascot … doesn’t anyone pay attention?
Do you think the mascot is jealous of this hot side chick?
“If Owen figured it out, others will too,” she says. “We were too naive to think we could hide this for an entire season.”
The words hit me square in the chest. “You want to be more careful?”
If she says she wants a break, I’m going to quit my fucking job.
Her gaze searches my face. “Is that what you want?”
“Fuck no.”
She lets out a little surprised laugh. “Okay.”
“Wait, do you want …” I put my hands on her shoulders and really look at her.
“Molly, what do you want here? Because I want everything. Whatever you want, at your pace … but I want you. I refuse to hide how I feel about you. I can be more subtle, maybe, but you’re going to have to not be so damn beautiful as you play with my grandson. ”
“I don’t want you to be subtle.”
“Once we go public, there’s no taking it back. People are going to have opinions. They’re going to say things—”
“Let them.” Her chin lifts in that stubborn way I love.
“I realized something important today. I’m falling in love with you.
Not just that I love you, because I figured that out immediately—that’s its own special thing.
But I’m also, every day, falling deeper and deeper in love with you.
And I don’t think that’s going to stop all season long, and it would hurt to try to pretend otherwise.
I know that in other circumstances, what we have might be wrong, but—”
“It’s not wrong.”
“Human Resources might say otherwise.”
“We’re married.”
“That is probably going to make this easier, at least with my boss.”
“Do you even have a boss?”