Chapter 3 Chelsea #4
Daisy: No offense, babe, but what are the odds he’d even recognize you out of context after all this time? That was many, many years and women ago for Luca. And as memorable and fabulous as you are, I can’t imagine he’d remember you from a few hours of making out that didn’t even lead to sex.
Me: Excellent points! Plus, for most of the time we made out, it was dark in the room and his eyes were closed!
Daisy: Exactly! Girl, I’ve had mediocre sex with a couple guys I seriously couldn’t pick out in a lineup if my life depended on it, especially if you put them next to other guys with similar features.
Me: Oh my God, I can feel my heart rate coming down. THANK YOU! Even if he vaguely remembers my face from somewhere he can’t place, why would he ever think the head coach’s daughter at an NFL team in PA is some random nobody mathlete he made out with years ago in Indiana? Phew.
Daisy: All you have to do is pretend not to know him when you see him again, and he’ll never in a million years suspect your paths have crossed before.
Just as I’m tapping out a reply that says, “I don’t plan to cross paths with Luca at all during the short time he’s here,” my father halts the movement of my fingers by calling out my name from across the large conference room.
My cheeks flushing, I jerk my head up from my laptop to meet his blue gaze.
“Did you get a chance to look at that email I sent you last night?” he asks. And by the way he’s saying it, I’m pretty sure he’s repeating his question.
“Uh …” Email, email, email. Oh! “Yes. I’ve already made the spreadsheet you requested and attached it to the meeting agenda at Tab D.”
Dad and everyone else at the table reacts with murmurs and facial expressions that make it clear they’re all impressed with my quick turnaround.
As they should be. Dad’s email came in just before midnight, right as I was about to shut my eyes for the night, and what I whipped up in record speed in response included even more data and analysis than he’d requested of me.
“Great work, Chelsea,” Dad says with a wink. “Let’s take a look.”
As everyone at the table starts looking at the information I’ve supplied, I press send on my text to Daisy.
But before she replies to me, the glass door to the conference room opens, and a staffer in a black-and-blue Mastodons polo shirt steps into the room, trailed by the team’s new owner, Ginny Williams.
“Hey, Coach Parker,” the staffer says. “Most of the players are here and checked in. We’re waiting on a few stragglers, but we’re basically ready for you.”
“Perfect timing. We’re just wrapping up here.” Dad smiles at the elegant, white-haired woman who hired him. “Good morning, Ginny. Happy Training Camp Day.”
“Happy Training Camp Day to you,” she replies, her excitement evident.
The kickoff to a new season is always an exciting day for any team, for its fans, players, and personnel alike.
But in the case of a longtime, beat-up loser like the Mastodons—let’s just say it’s fitting their team colors are those of a bruise—today is an especially exciting occasion.
To put it mildly, everyone’s got high hopes for this new era under legendary Coach Parker.
After exchanging warm greetings with everyone at the table, Ginny says to my father, “Some reporters are assembled in the media room for a quick presser before you head out to the practice field. Do you have time to pop down there and give them a few sound bites?”
“Of course. Anything for you, Ginny. Always.”
“Before you get started, tell them not to ask any questions about Jacob Moriarty’s holdout,” Bellamy interjects. “We’ve got no comment on that.”
“The reporters can ask Coach Parker whatever they’d like, Walker,” Ginny says calmly. “I’m sure he’s fully capable of saying ‘no comment’ whenever the mood strikes him.”
I lock eyes with Dad, and we share the tiniest of smirks. When Dad described Ginny to me initially, he called her a “tough cookie” and an “iron fist inside a velvet glove.” If you ask me, the way she so subtly, but deftly, shut down her nephew proved my father’s impression in spades.
With an exhale, Dad rises from the conference table and begins following his boss’s boss out the door, so everyone else takes that as their cue to grab their stuff and follow suit.
As people start filing out, I realize it’s the perfect opportunity for me to pull Bellamy aside and remind him about the presentation I sent him last week.
He still hasn’t said a word about it, so I’m assuming he hasn’t gotten around to looking at it yet, and I think an in-person “poke” always lands better than an easy-to-misinterpret email.
“Excuse me, Mr. Bellamy,” I call out to him before he makes it to the door of the conference room. “Do you have a quick minute to chat?”
As everyone files past him, Bellamy stops and looks at me like I’m a fly buzzing around a pile of cow dung. But to his credit, he quickly plasters a polite smile on his face and says, “Sure, Chelsea. What’s on your mind?”
“My future. My job prospects, that is.” And certainly not a certain edge rusher who’s now officially prohibited from entering my brain for the rest of training camp.