Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.
—Nettie’s secret thoughts
Nettie
Boone went to the first part of practice with me because he wanted to make sure that I was being truthful about light working out only.
Beau met him at the gates to the facility and stopped him before he could enter.
“Sorry, man, but we’re going to have to stop you here.
You can’t come in. I’m showing her the locker room and all that fun stuff today.
You can watch from the stadium, since I know you want to make sure I was serious about keeping it light for her.
We’re timing our mile today.” He looked at me. “You’re running, right?”
I nodded.
“We don’t expect you to make the mile time.
” He laughed. “Nor do we expect you to do anything more than you’re comfortable with.
Everyone knows you’re pregnant and not coming on in a full-time capacity until you’re ready.
” He narrowed his eyes at me. “I have to warn you about the shit going down, though.”
Boone crossed his arms over his chest. “Will she be safe?”
While they were talking, I thought about my old team.
About how none of those words would’ve come out of the old team manager’s mouth.
They would’ve rather sued me—though at this point they very well might still do that since I’d broken my contract with them—than let me have maternity leave from the team.
And they certainly wouldn’t have said “It’s okay not to make time.”
I’d seen them fine several women who’d had the bad luck to get pregnant in the years that I’d been on that team.
They certainly hadn’t made it a safe environment for pregnancy.
“Very,” Beau promised. “It’s not danger. It’s just petty female behavior that has digressed into all-out verbal warfare. I was hoping with a veteran on the team of Nettie’s caliber, that we might get this figured out.”
Even fighting like cats and dogs, I knew that this team would have a better atmosphere than the one I’d just left. It all started with a good boss. You had to start at the top and work your way down.
I really should tell Boone about what was going on with Miami FC.
“What’s going on?” I asked, not really relishing the thought of entering into a team that had problems.
“We had a couple of females on the team that have been traded,” he started.
“But they caused a lot of drama. Instilled a lot of distrust among the entire team. No one trusts anyone. Not on the field, and certainly not off of it. I’m hoping with you here that you can kill two birds with one stone.
One, you’ll be able to be entered onto the roster since you’re practicing with us.
And two, you can help me figure out how to make my team a team again. ”
“What about the coach?” I asked. “Is she good? Did she help with the discontent among the players?”
“About that,” he said. “I offered another coach the job as head coach.”
“The old one wasn’t any good?” I wondered.
“The old one was okay, but she was very set in her ways and was very against me figuring out an alternate solution to the anger and resentment on the team. She was of the mind that it would all iron itself out eventually. But we don’t have eventually.
” He scrubbed his hands through his hair.
“My sister will get control of the team if I can’t turn this shit around.
I have two seasons. And last season was practically wasted with the girls. ”
I wrinkled my nose at him.
Seraphina, Beau’s sister, was a douchebag of the nth degree.
She was callous, petty, and just about the worst person that could ever run a women’s soccer team. Or a women’s team of any sort.
For women’s sports, you wanted to instill power and will, but also wanted the team to like each other. You didn’t want to go in there and instill the kind of hate that Seraphina would.
I remembered playing soccer with her in high school.
She’d been a ball hog, thought she was better than everyone else because she got lessons from a professional, and literally made everyone hate each other because she started rumors that weren’t true.
“Your sister was the one to start all the shit on your team, wasn’t she?” I asked.
“There’s no proof, but I would imagine so,” he grumbled.
I tapped him on the shoulder. “We’ll figure it out. Who’s the coach?”
“I am!”
I looked behind me at that familiar voice and blinked.
“What…how?” I asked, turning to my sister. “But the high school!”
“I’m going to do that, too,” she said. “The seasons only overlap very little. Plus, I will have great assistant coaches at both places.”
Excitement started to build inside of me.
But one thing remained…
“I want to bring my baby to work.”
Beau glanced at Boone, who’d shifted from foot to foot.
Not interrupting, but I could tell he had the same questions.
“There’s a state-of-the-art daycare facility here with a teacher-to-student ratio of one to two.
You can bring her any time you want. The games, however, are going to be a little bit trickier.
” He shrugged. “Those we can play out by ear. You’ll be the first one to have a child on the team, but if I have my way, that won’t be the case for long.
I’m looking into another veteran player who has a toddler. ”
“Please, please, please tell me it’s Magnolia Baker.”
Magnolia Baker was the best damn veteran in the world and has played well her whole career. If she came, this team would be gold.
“It is,” he confirmed. “Plus, I have to give her an incentive to come here. If I offer her childcare at the games…”
“Holy shit, this is going to be epic!” I turned to Boone and jumped into his arms. “It’s Magnolia Baker!”
Boone
Why did having her jump into my damn arms feel so good?
I especially liked that she did it in front of everyone.
I only knew who Magnolia Baker was because she played against Nettie several times, and they were always talking about how awesome the matchup would be.
They were right.
A star forward against a star defenseman? The games that the two played against each other were epic.
My particular star forward squeezed my neck so tight my face went hot.
She whispered into my ear as she did. “Sometimes I just want to squeeze you to death.”
I snorted and lifted her higher by her ass, allowing her to get a better grip.
She didn’t disappoint in the choking department.
She couldn’t hold it for long, though, and eventually let me go.
When she got down to her feet, she turned to Beau and declared, “Let’s do this.”
Beau pulled out a set of keys and handed them to me. “These will get you into the field. Just look official and no one will bother you.”
I pocketed the keys and headed toward the fields while Nettie, Eddy, and Beau walked toward a back entrance that led to a locker room.
By the time they’d gotten out to the field, I’d practically cleared my schedule for the day.
The only thing I had left was something Holly would have to take care of, but since she was in surgery at the moment, I couldn’t ask her if she could take it.
It was really nice to have backup.
It was especially nice to be able to clear my schedule and actually have someone to spend that clear schedule with.
I leaned back in the stadium chair and enjoyed the warm sun on my face, as well as the warmer temperatures.
I fucking loved Montana.
I lived, breathed, and would die in the Montana air.
Cold or warm, I loved everything about the state that I lived in.
However, there was just something about a warm summer day that really did it for me.
The sunshine, the almost hot day…they were everything that you craved in the deadest of winter.
Now that it was here, I was definitely excited to embrace the temperature change.
My eyes opened when a whistle sounded, unaware that I’d closed them in the first place.
I shoved my glasses back onto my head and took a good look at the women on the field.
I spotted mine quickly, noting that she was talking to Beau and Eddy, as well as the head athletic trainer by the looks of it.
Another girl was with them, whom I assumed to be the team captain thanks to the C on her right sock.
I noted what Beau was talking about though, with the team camaraderie.
There wasn’t a single woman on the field that was playing with each other.
All of them were practically passing to themselves, which was outright ridiculous.
What was even worse was when the ball would fly toward another woman.
That woman would see the ball and expressly ignore it in favor of paying attention to only what she had going on.
I rubbed at the back of my neck. Clearly, Beau had his work cut out for him.
The captain and Nettie broke off, and the women were called in to stretch.
They all came, but not one of them got close enough to each other to touch.
I scrunched up my face.
“Gonna be a problem,” I mused.
“What is?”
I turned to find a woman there with a toddler on her hip.
I recognized her immediately.
“Magnolia Baker?”
“That’s me.”
I gestured toward the field. “Beau told me before practice started that there was discontent among the masses. I agreed that it was going to be a problem.”
She sat down in the chair two down from me and then placed her toddler onto the chair between us.
I smiled down at the blue-eyed blonde girl, who dismissed me immediately in favor of the small soccer ball she had in her hands.
“Cute kid,” I said.
“Very,” Magnolia said. “I came here to check out the team. He said that there were issues, and I’m not sure that I want to deal with the bullshit.
I’m in my last year, maybe two. I want to play for a team that I like.
This team might be more trouble than it’s worth.
” She looked around. “Plus, I’ve never lived in the north before in my life.
I’m born and bred Tennessee sunshine. This place might very well kill me. ”
She gave an exaggerated shiver.
I blinked at her. “It’s sixty degrees out, ma’am. It doesn’t get much more perfect than that here.”