Chapter 8
8
Jake turned to the shaggy-haired, inexperienced crew before him and wondered how the hell he was ever going to pull this off. Sure, there was some good raw talent, but he had to create in one season what other teams in the comp would have built up over years and years of playing and competing – unity, synergy, trust.
He glanced at Ella and then at Miranda, so like Trish, who was waving at him from the sidelines. He’d offered to pay for her to go to Fernbridge or St Erasmus or any of the uppity girls’ schools in Inverboro but, no – Trish had wanted her daughter to stay grounded.
So now he not only had to do this for Ella but there was no way he could sit back and let anyone shut down Miranda’s school.
“Okay, listen up,” he called above the back slapping and high-fiving that was going on among the successful students. “There are a few ground rules before we begin. You want to be on the team, there are three non-negotiables.”
He watched as smiles faded a little. “Pete?”
Pete dug around in his backpack and came out with a pair of hair clippers. He held them up and switched them on. They buzzed low and sure.
“No more mullets. Number twos for you all. Here, now, this afternoon.” There was a collective groan. “You don’t want to? No problem. I have a reserve list and I’m not afraid to use it.”
He didn’t but he could make one.
“Training is every day,” he continued. “ Every day. Three o’clock sharp. Rain, hail, snow or shine. We have three weeks until the first game and a lot of ground to cover.”
None of the boys were smiling now. Good. He finally had their complete attention.
“Lastly, one day off school, just one ” – Jake held up a finger – “without a medical certificate… cut class just onc e and you’re off the team. No exceptions.”
Silence greeted him and he glanced at Ella. Even she looked slightly aghast. But Jake knew boys like this, like Cameron. He’d been one himself – disenfranchised. If it hadn’t been for his Aunty Thelma getting him into football and setting impossibly high standards, God knew where he’d be today.
It was time to pay it forward.
“Those of you still keen, come join me.”
The newly minted team members looked at each other. Then they looked from Jake to Pete, still holding the clippers, and back to Jake.
Cameron was the first to move and the rest followed.
Jake nodded. “Alright then. Go with Pete.” The scruffy rabble shuffled off. “Cameron,” Jake called. “Not you.”
Cam frowned as he fell back. Ella approached, looking at them uncertainly. “Everything alright?”
“All good,” Jake dismissed.
She glanced at a nervous Cam and opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by an out-of-breath Trish lugging a large shoulder bag. “I just got your text,” she said. “You want me to do what?”
Jake tipped his head to where Pete was standing with the new recruits. “Shave some heads.”
The petite blonde eyed the boys in the distance and then glanced at Ella. Ella shrugged and Trish smiled. “It’d be my pleasure.”
Jake laughed as Trish practically levitated her away across the oval. He turned back to Ella. “Why don’t you join Trish?”
For a moment Jake thought she was going to stand her ground and demand to know what he wanted with her brother but she acquiesced with a nod. He and Cameron tracked her progress as she caught up with Trish.
“Did you want something, sir?”
Jake looked at the kid who could almost meet him eye to eye. He was big, stocky, and probably one of the few guys on the team with real talent.
But Cameron Lucas needed a damn good kick in the ass. And he was just the man to do it. Cam was going to be sorry he ever wanted on the team.
“I’m not your father, Cameron, nor am I a teacher. You can call me Jake or Coach.”
Cameron swallowed. “Yes, Coach.”
Jake regarded him seriously. “I understand you. Probably better than you understand yourself. I know Trently gave you a tough time. I know you probably spent your life with your fists up defending someone you didn’t like very much in a shithole you didn’t give a damn about.”
Cameron remained silent but his jaw was set and hostility blazed in his eyes.
“Unfortunately for you, the next few months, your ass belongs to me and if you want on this team, then you’ve got to prove it to me – more than the others. Do you understand?”
Cameron nodded. “Yes, Coach.”
“I don’t know if you know this or not but I was at your place one night a few weeks ago when you told your sister to fuck off. If you ever talk to Ella like that again – ever – you’re out. Got it?”
Cameron ground his teeth together so hard Jake thought he was going to break some. “But?—”
“No buts, Cam. Men just don’t talk to women like that. That’s the number one rule, right there. Are you a man or a boy? This is where you decide.”
“That’s not?—”
Jake held up his hand. “Ella’s not the enemy. Maybe you should cut her some slack?”
“She’s my sister,” he muttered sullenly. “She was supposed to look out for me.”
“No.” Jake shook his head. “That was Rachel’s job.”
Cameron dropped his gaze to the ground, clearly wanting to tell Jake to also fuck off but not wanting to jeopardize his chances with the team.
“Got it?” Jake repeated.
Cameron’s lifted his gaze, his jaw tight. “Got it.”
He stalked away then and Jake re-joined Ella who was watching a sullen Cameron make his way to the team on the bleachers.
“Everything okay?” she asked, searching his face.
“Yep. Everything’s fine.”
He could tell she was curious about the conversation he’d had with her brother but she didn’t go there. “Not that I don’t appreciate it,” she said, instead, “but what’s the purpose of the haircuts?”
“Ahh, grasshopper.” Jake smiled. “You have much to learn. The reasons are threefold.”
Ella rolled her eyes. “Oh, this ought to be good.”
He laughed. “Firstly, it’s a test. I needed to know their level of commitment.”
“Good test. Trust me, no one’s more committed to the mullet than a teenage boy.”
“Secondly, they can see the ball better when they don’t have hair in their eyes.”
“Excellent point.”
“Lastly, it makes them look badass. And bluff is just as important in football as it is in any sport.”
“They do look pretty mean,” she admitted.
And they did. On these burly boys, caught halfway between adolescence and manhood, it looked mean as hell. Even the floral capes didn’t detract from the don’t-mess-with-us vibe.
Trish bounded over, grinning wildly, which made Jake laugh. She was obviously taking great pleasure in her work.
“They look hardcore, don’t they?” she enthused.
“Amazing,” Ella agreed. “I don’t suppose you’re free to do the rest of the school tomorrow?”
Trish eyed off the other boys who hadn’t made the team. “It’s tempting, isn’t it?” she admitted.
“We need a photo to record this for posterity,” Ella said with a grin. “Oh, actually…”
She paused and Jake could practically hear the gears in her brain kicking over. Which gave him a very bad feeling.
Snapping her fingers, she looked at them with a gleam in her eyes. Clearly, she had a plan . “We need the press in on this. Get ourselves a bit of a media profile which should hopefully spotlight the battle for the school and might get us some broader community support.” She glanced at Jake. “Can I invite some local media to a practice session?”
Before Jake could say over my dead body , Ella continued. “Maybe we could re-create this scene? I mean, the kids might hate it, but these old bleachers turned into an impromptu hair salon would be an awesome photo.” Ella turned speculative eyes on Trish. “Would you come back one day for a re-creation?”
Jake sensed Trish go very still beside him and he slid his hand into hers and gave it a squeeze. “No press,” he intoned.
A small frown knitted Ella’s brows together as she looked from him to Trish then back to him again. “Oh come on.” She smiled. “A big hot-shot jock from the Founders isn’t afraid of the Deluca Daily photographer, surely?”
Jake knew that the news of him coaching a high school football team would break soon enough. Everyone had a phone and a TikTok account these days. And he’d deal with that when it arose but he wouldn’t go looking for trouble.
“No. Press.”
“But…” She frowned. “It could be good for the school.”
Jake locked his gaze on hers. “If there’s so much as an organized photo op or I see a quote about the team attributed to you or anyone official from Deluca on any official news site, I’m out of here, Ella.”
He couldn’t control social media or snap-happy paparazzi but he could stop any official pandering to the media.
“That’s number four and it’s not negotiable. No. Press.”
Then he walked away.
The setting sun was leaving behind tangerine clouds on the last Friday night in August but Ella didn’t notice. Sitting in the bleachers with the small gathering of Deluca supporters, she was so nervous she couldn’t decide whether she was going to throw up or have a full-blown panic attack.
The team were as ready as they could be after only three weeks but that didn’t say much.
From her vantage point behind them, she watched Jake and Pete talking, or rather strategizing, if their hand gestures were remotely indicative. Jake wore a baseball cap tugged low on his forehead and a pair of dark sunglasses but still she could see people nudging and pointing at him, their phones out.
To be fair, most of them were women. And not just any women, but mothers. Ella had seen enough of them over the years to recognize that if any one group of women could use a bit of gratuitous eye candy from time to time, it was mothers.
And Jake certainly didn’t disappoint.
He was like the Hershey’s bar of eye candy. The Snickers. The Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Ella could practically feel the fat cells on her ass multiplying as her mouth watered.
“Checking out the coach?” Rosie said, nudging Ella’s arm.
Clearing her throat, Ella shook her head. “Absolutely not,” she replied. Although she absolutely was.
Rose laughed. “Okay, sure. No one would blame you, you know? He’s pretty damn fine and you are but a human woman.”
Trying to deflect Rosie’s attention, Ella tipped her chin at Simon who was walking toward them from the other side of the field. “Simon’s looking very nice tonight, too.”
He’d ditched the corporate look for chinos and a polo shirt which was about as casual as she suspected Simon could get.
“That he is,” Rosie murmured, checking him out lasciviously.
“Things are going well with you two.”
“Yeah.” Rosie smiled, her eyes glued to Simon’s progress. “I really like him.”
Ella entwined her fingers with Rosie’s. “He’s good for you.” Rosie was herself around Simon, which could not be said for many of her past relationships. And he was clearly smitten.
A shout from the field snagged Ella’s attention to the boys warming up and she searched for Cameron. He was standing on one leg, stretching the other up behind, staring at the ground in fierce concentration.
The panic sensation returned. Yes, they needed this win for the school but Cameron needed it more.
“Don’t the boys look amazing?”
Ella nodded. They did. They really did. In fact, she and Rosie were really going to have to stop thinking of them as boys. Today they looked exactly as Jake had hoped, in the red-and-black jersey he’d bought for them with Demons emblazoned on the front and their padded shoulders. They looked mature. A force to be reckoned with.
They were every inch the Deluca Demons.
Thanks to Jake the entire team had been kitted out in all the essentials – jerseys, helmets, cleats, pads, mouth guards. Ella had protested his generosity. She had no idea how much it had all cost but none of it had been bought at Walmart and she didn’t want to be that indebted to him.
She was in deep enough.
But Jake had insisted that becoming a team involved projecting an identity. Ella had been dubious but damn if those boys – young men – weren’t all standing a foot higher. They certainly looked the part next to the opposing team.
The Cats had been in the competition for twenty years and were looking at the Demons like they were mere bugs on the footpath. Their football field was immaculate, decked out in yellow-and-blue flags, making Deluca’s oval look like a mosh pit the morning after a rock concert by comparison.
Simon joined them as Jake called the Demons together and Ella kept her eyes glued to him as they formed an eager huddle. He’d definitely made up for his tardy start. He only had to say jump now and the boys wanted to know how high.
“This is your cue,” Simon said, interrupting her thoughts. “Go down and give your team a pep talk.”
Say what now? “They’re not my team,” Ella demurred as Jake continued to gee them up. What could she possibly offer?
Rosie grabbed Ella’s hand and looked her straight in the eye. “Of course they are,” she said. “You’re their principal. Without them, Deluca’s going to be closed. They’re the only team you’ve got, babe.”
Ella searched Rosie’s face then glanced at Simon. He nodded and gave her an encouraging smile. “What do I say?”
What did a bunch of high school students revved up on nerves and testosterone expect her to say to them? She’d spent the last two years with Cameron trying to figure out teenage boy speak to no avail.
Simon shrugged. “Tell them they’ll get detention for a week if they don’t win.”
Rosie dug him in the ribs. “Not helping, Simon.”
Simon half-laughed as he rubbed at his side. “Tell them to listen to Jake.”
Ella nodded. That sounded like good advice. She stood and made her way down through the almost empty stand, ignoring the stab of disappointment she felt at the lack of Deluca supporters. Especially compared to the packed bleachers on the other side.
Sure, Deluca wasn’t known for its community spirit and this was an away game, but she had hoped . So much was riding on today and home support could make a difference.
Ella caught the odd word of Jake’s speech as she approached. She didn’t understand any of it, but Jake seemed to know what he was doing and Pete and the team were nodding. She stood quietly, waiting for him to finish, feeling every inch the nerdy math teacher intruding on a male bonding ritual.
When he was done with his pep talk he turned away, practically running into Ella, his hands grabbing her arms to prevent a collision. “Oh,” he said, clearly surprised to see her. “Everything okay?”
Up this close he was even sexier and his touch, no matter how impersonal, spread tendrils of warmth everywhere . “I was… wondering… hoping I could talk to the team?”
He hesitated and, for a moment, she thought he was going to tell her no. But then he nodded, his hands still firm on her arms as he leaned in a little.
“They’re nervous,” he murmured. “Keep it light.”
Ella shivered as the low timbre of his voice slid into all her good places. She gave a small nod and his hands dropped away as he stepped aside. Clearing her throat, Ella took his place, super conscious of him hovering behind.
“Well, guys, this is not something I know a lot about but I just wanted to say that I’m proud of you.” She caught Cameron’s gaze and held it. “ Ver y proud.”
He looked nervous and, for a second, she cursed Rachel for keeping them apart for thirteen years. She wished she’d known him as a baby, bonded with him.
Surely things would be easier now?
“So, um… that’s it I guess.” She turned to Jake. “Do you say break a leg or something?”
Pete slapped his forehead in the background as Jake briefly shut his eyes. “No, Ella. Not under any circumstances.”
The whistle blew and she was grateful for the interruption to her completely botched debut pep talk as the starters stomped past her in a cloud of testosterone. Pete and Jake took up position on the sidelines with the rest of the team all kitted up and ready to go.
She noticed Cerberus sitting by a long low bench seat set back a little from the sideline and she wandered over. Rosie, Simon, Daisy and Iris had turned up with the dog half an hour ago which had apparently been Simon’s idea.
A football team needed a mascot according to him. A symbol of their potency. A representation of their strength. Something to strike fear into the hearts of their opponents.
Simon had been amazingly encouraging and supportive of the team but quite how a small, old, stray dog with an abandonment complex fit the bill, she wasn’t sure.
He was hardly a spritely specimen of canine virility.
But Simon had just smiled and said, “He’s Cerberus, the hound from hell. They’re the Deluca Demons. It’s symbolic.”
Cerberus, hound of hell, whimpered in ecstasy as she sat and stroked his soft ears.
A few minutes after play started, Jake joined her on the bench. “I’m sorry,” she said. “About the breaking a leg thing.”
“It’s fine,” he dismissed, his gaze intent on the game.
Except it didn’t seem fine. “I just wanted to be… succinct but I’m not au fait with football stuff.”
Of course, it was hard not to have some knowledge of the game growing up in America. And with Cam the last two years, there’d been more football in her life than she cared for. But she’d never been sports inclined. Any sports. The sports segment on the news each night was her only regular consumption.
“Uh huh.”
“But I want them to know I’m rooting for them and not just because of the school but for their individual growth, too. They’ve all been so committed so the least I can do is?—”
“Ella.” Jake’s interruption cut her short as he dragged his gaze off the field. “ Must you talk?”
Sick to her stomach with nerves, Jake’s testiness was like nails down a chalkboard. Annoyed at his tone , Ella felt testy herself. “What?” she faux cooed. “Can’t do two things at once?”
His eyebrow lifted. “I think we both know that’s not true.”
Ella blushed. Okay, yeah, she’d so picked the wrong man for that quip. He’d multi-tasked his ass off two years ago. “Sex doesn’t count.”
He snorted. “Sex always counts.”
They stared at each other for a moment. “Don’t you have a game to be watching?”
“Are you going to let me?”
She held his gaze for as long as she could, wondering if he was thinking about sex now too? Given the impatience bubbling in his eyes, probably not. “I won’t say another word.”
For the rest of the game, Ella sat on the edge of her seat. Rosie and Simon had joined her and she clung to Rosie’s hand like the lifeline it had always been. Occasionally Jake would sit and explain things but more often than not he was wearing a path up the sideline, yelling encouragement and direction.
Pete also trekked endlessly up and down, video camera in hand. Jake explained that he’d use it to review the team’s performance during the week. Cerberus shadowed Pete’s every move, barking when things got exciting, whining when Jake’s encouragement got particularly animated, and taking shameless advantage of spectators who threw the mangy-looking hellhound their hot dog leftovers.
Every successful throw, kick or pass from the Cats earned a massive roar from their supporters and triggered a peppy routine from their cheer squad. The squad was irritatingly perfect, with short blue skirts and tight yellow tees encasing all their youthful perkiness.
Blonde and bouncy, all twenty of them.
“Jeez, I didn’t realize public high school science budgets ran into the millions,” she murmured to Jake at one stage.
He frowned. “Huh?”
Ella nodded in the direction of the cheer squad. “Some genius at the Cats has managed to clone Barbie.”
“You don’t approve of cheerleaders?”
“Absolutely not.” Ella shot him a disgusted look. “Talk about taking the women’s movement back two hundred years.”
Just then the Cats’ quarterback made a break for the end zone so she was spared his response as he ran up the sideline, calling to his team, strategizing on his feet.
At half-time , the Cats were ahead by twelve and Deluca weren’t even on the board. Ella watched with trepidation as the Demons walked off the field, all red-faced and sweaty, their shoulders slumped. Cameron didn’t even look at her, his dejection arrowing straight through her soul. She sat on the bench, powerless, wanting to build the team up but not having a clue how to go about it.
Luckily Jake seemed to know. He talked non-stop in the fifteen-minute break, reviving their spirits, praising them, encouraging them. Reiterating their goals, focusing them on the next half.
By the time the Demons ran back onto the field they were standing tall again.
And Ella was officially turned on.
Jake had been magnificen t. He’d been articulate and passionate, his belief in his team and his passion for the game blazing from his eyes.
It was a potent combination.
The whistle blew and she dragged her attention away from Jake, forcing herself to concentrate on the game. And what an amazing half it was. The rejuvenated Demons left it all out on the field catching up until, two minutes out they ran one over the end zone, putting them one behind their opponents.
Then ten seconds before the whistle, Cameron kicked the ball toward the post. “He’s going for the field goal,” Simon said.
“How much is that worth?” Ella demanded.
“Three points.”
Oh God . Ella couldn’t bear to watch. If he botched this he might never recover. With her heart thundering in her chest, she buried her face in her hands and crossed her fingers.
Seconds later Rosie was screaming and Simon was yelling, “ He did it! He did it! ”
Amidst a cacophony of clapping, cheering and stomping from Deluca supporters in the bleachers behind, Ella was dragged to her feet by Rosie who hugged her and shouted, “He did it!”
Pulling out of Rosie’s grasp, she turned in time to see Cam being picked up by his teammates and lifted high on their shoulders and Ella thought her heart was going to burst right out of her chest. She’d never seen such excitement and accomplishment on her students’ faces before.
And she’d never seen Cam this… happy.
“We really won?” she shouted to Jake over the hubbub as the Deluca supporters surged onto the field, greeting their conquering heroes.
Miranda and Trish were in the crowd along with Cerberus, yapping excitedly as he ran between people’s legs. Daisy and Iris were still clapping wildly from the bleachers.
Jake grinned. “We really won.”
Hot tears pricked at Ella’s eyes. She’d been waiting for someone to jump out and shout, You’ve been punked . Nothing much had gone right in the last two years – why should this be any different?
Suddenly, a huge weight had been lifted from her chest.
“Thank you,” she mouthed to him as he was dragged into the maelstrom of jubilant, hyped-up teenagers. He touched two fingers to his forehead in a small salute to her before he was swallowed into a mass of sweaty bodies.
Her earlier state of arousal roared to life as she watched him laughing and joking, basking in the celebration.
Rosie sidled up to her. “Cam was awesome.”
Ella stared at Cam who had not stopped smiling, a lump in her throat as big as the football field. “Yes.”
“So was Jake,” she murmured suggestively.
Shifting her gaze back to Jake, Ella watched as he shook hands with his players, clapping each of them on the back, laughing and smiling, making each kid glow .
And hell if that wasn’t wildly sexy.
Rosie leaned in as she nudged Ella with her shoulder. “You want to do him, don’t you?”
“Absolutely not.” Although she absolutely did.
“Oh well.” Rosie shrugged. “I doubt he’ll be short of offers tonight. I’m pretty sure every woman here wants to jump his bones.”
Ella sucked in a breath as the thought dug hot talons in her gut. Over her dead body .