11. Diego
My fingers tappedthe steering wheel. Nerves. Nothing new but for a new reason. I had plenty of nerves on game day as I watched the coin flip. Nerves when my team was down at the half. Nerves when I lobbed a ball into the end zone and prayed my receiver caught it.
Nerves for a barbecue? Definitely new.
I dropped my hands from the steering wheel and shook them out, fidgeting with the angle of my seat and then the radio. I’d offered to come pick Cassandra up at her door, but she texted that the elevator died, and she didn’t want to be responsible for me hiking up fourteen floors. Fourteen floors would have been preferable to waiting in the car.
The front door to the lobby opened up and Cassandra strode out. She wore a pale floral dress with a white chunky cardigan, hair piled on her head in a messy bun and a faded brown purse slung over her shoulder. Skipping out of the building, she stopped on the sidewalk, scanning for my car. I beeped the horn to get her attention.
“Hey, stranger,” she said warmly, sliding into the passenger seat. “Long time, no see.”
She reached back for the seatbelt, shifting in her seat so her dress rode up over her tanned thighs. I cleared my throat and pulled my eyes away. “How is Norwalk’s favorite ghost tour guide this afternoon?”
“I’m forcing someone else to run a ghost tour just so the title means something,” she said with a grin. “I’m having a great day. The weather is beautiful, I had a blast on the walking tour, and my fake boyfriend is taking me out for barbecue. How could this get better?”
I started the car, glancing over at Cassandra. She had a content smile on her face, and she swayed with the music playing on the radio. Even with a phone call to Becca looming, she only focused on the positive: a nice day, a thankful customer, a free meal. And just being around Cassandra, that deep ease seemed to sink into my skin. I sighed, letting the nerves from earlier drift away.
“So, who’s going to be at this thing?” she asked, drumming her fingers against the car door with the tempo of an upbeat song playing over the radio.
“Well, everyone. All the guys you met last night.”
“Noa?”
“Yeah, Noa. And his fiancée, Lena.”
“Of course he’s got a fiancée. It’s always the good ones.” She shook her head sadly. “What about Trent?”
“You know he doesn’t count as one of the good guys, right?” With my focus on the road, I had a harder time deciding if she was joking. An uneasy prickle of jealousy coursed through me. One that I had no right to feel but sparked, anyway.
“Well, that’s your story. For all I know, Trent will tell me you’re the one who dragged him out to the club and got him in trouble.”
Teasing. Definitely teasing. Probably. “All the coaches and their families will be there too. Most of the support staff: trainers, nutrition, pretty much everyone who’s at the stadium on a daily basis.”
“So, not a little get together?”
I laughed. “No. There’ll be a couple hundred people.”
“Wow, that’s a big party. Your head coach must really love entertaining.”
“Not even a little.” I shook my head. “I mean, the invitation says Coach Simmons, but his mentor throws it, really. Lionel Mack. He’s old school. The man’s a legend. He’s on the team as a consultant, but he mostly keeps Simmons in line.”
She raised an eyebrow and leaned closer. “He keeps the head coach in line? That sounds interesting.”
“Your sister didn’t tell you any of this?”
“You think Becca tells me NFL gossip? Not a chance. She doesn’t even talk about work after she dropped that some player got a hamstring injury before the Thanksgiving game and my uncle called his bookie. Give me all the gossip.” She bit her lower lip expectantly, eyes aflame.
“It’s not gossip. It’s known information.”
“You’re making me less excited about this.”
“Alright, Coach Simmons was kind of a football savant. Not a player, but an x’s and o’s guy. Coach Mack recognized this talent when Simmons was in high school and helped him learn to coach. He rose through the ranks pretty quick, becoming the youngest D1 coach and then the youngest NFL coach.”
“The Breakers?”
I shook my head. “Nope. That was years ago. Another team. He got fired mid-season. No one would ever confirm anything. The press release was pretty dry: Coach Simmons has parted ways with the program. We’re going in a new direction, blah blah blah.”
“But why mid-season? That seems sketchy.”
I laughed. “I heard from some players on that team that he was an asshole. He blamed everything on the players, would show up late to player meetings, treated them like servants and not professionals.”
“Isn’t that, like, half the guys on the field? What made him special?”
“Off the field,” I paused for dramatic effect. “There was a rumor he hooked up with a player’s girlfriend. The player found out, took a swing at Simmons, and Simmons booted him from the team without talking to the general manager. The player was a key player and also, allegedly, not in the wrong.”
Cassandra’s mouth dropped, eyes wide. “Oh, that’s spicy.”
“All rumors,” I reiterated.
“Good rumors, though. It’s got a real satisfying villain arc.”
“Yeah, the player was asked back, won MVP, and Simmons got shown the door.”
“But how’d he come back?”
“He disappeared for a year, went underground or traveled to Asia or hid out in a cave. No one’s really sure, but at the end of the year, he re-emerged with Coach Mack by his side. I’m not sure what strings his old mentor pulled, but he got a head coaching position at a JUCO — a junior college. Normally, it’s the players trying to earn their way into college ball, but Coach Simmons did the same thing. He spent a season coaching there, went back to D1, and when the expansion went through and Norwalk got an NFL team, he scooped up the head coach job.”
“And now?”
“Not sleeping with any player’s girlfriends. That’s for sure.”
“I’ll try to maintain that streak for him.”
I rolled my eyes. “Thanks for that. I don’t think he’s your type, anyway. He’s pretty cold and distant.”
Cassandra grinned. “Oh, a challenge?”
I pulled up to the gate outside of Coach Simmons’s neighborhood. The security guard dutifully checked my license and my name off a list of visitors, raising the gate to let us enter.
“Wow,” Cassandra breathed as we pulled onto the estate. Giant Tuscan-styled villas peppered the rolling hills, all comically large for the one or two occupants inside.
“It’s obscene, isn’t it?”
“Honestly, I thought you’d live somewhere like this.”
“No. This neighborhood is practically a senior living facility and the houses cost in the tens of millions. It’s a stupid money neighborhood.”
“You make stupid money,” she teased.
“I do. And I spend it on other stupid things, but not a palace. I’m more of a cryptocurrency and wildly expensive meat guy myself.”
Cassandra wrinkled her nose and pulled away. “Ew. Never mind about this dating thing. I can’t do it.”
“Is it the bitcoin or the wagyu beef tartar?”
“It’s the whole vibe. I thought you were a shitty dive bar and dinged up SUV guy.”
“And how does superstar NFL quarterback play into that vibe?” I asked, pulling up to the front entrance where two valets in dark suits waited.
“A secret identity,” she whispered, leaning across the console. “You’re just throwing everyone off the scent of being a basic frat bro.”
Cool air swept through the car as a valet opened the passenger door, holding out a hand for Cassandra to exit. I followed behind, tossing the keys to the other valet and taking the stairs two at a time to catch up with her. A woman in a black dress ushered us through the house and into the backyard. The party was already in full swing; the tables packed with bodies, and kids running through legs on their way to the bounce house and slide set up on the far end of the lawn.
A line of grills flanked one side of the pool, with cooks in white jackets piling food onto platters just as fast as the servers in their white button shirts and black slacks could carry it into the crowd. On the opposite side of the pool, two lines formed in front of full-service bars.
“Wow,” Cassandra breathed, taking my arm and stopping me from making it to the bar. “This is a lot of people. Do you know them all?”
“Almost everyone. There’s probably a couple of office staff people I’ve only met in passing, and family members, obviously.” I eyed her. “Are you nervous?”
She cut her eyes to me. “I tell people ghost stories and sling drinks for a living. Trust me, I’m not afraid of meeting some new people. It’s just a lot to take in.”
I knocked my shoulder into hers, ducking my head. “Let’s start with a drink and then we’ll make the rounds.”
“Are we allowed to drink together here?” Trent slid in between Cassandra and me as we waited in line at the bar.
He smacked my back, eyes drifting to Cassandra in an appreciative way that made me bristle.
“I hadn’t cleared a drink with Coach Simmons,” I ground out tersely. “But I think as long as we’re at his house, we’re good.”
Trent smirked. “Well, bad news, Cas. Diego can’t go with us to the club tonight.”
“You’re going to the club with him?” I hooked a thumb at Trent.
Cassandra’s cheeks turned red. “I said ‘maybe’ and thought you were invited.”
“He and I can’t go out together. It’s just you and me.” Trent wrapped his arm around her waist.
I smacked it away. “Not a chance. The last thing I need is you photographed with Cassandra and starting a love triangle rumor before the season even starts.”
“You used to be fun.”
“That was before your bullshit got me called into the principal’s office. If Cassandra wants to go out, I’ll take her. Besides, isn’t your roommate back in town?”
Frankie Vigil sauntered up behind Trent as if conjured, his skin tanned deep brown from a summer spent on the beach. He’d missed preseason, and I’d felt his absence like a lost limb. My first choice running back, I’d never played a game without Frankie in the NFL, but when his father needed emergency heart surgery just before the preseason started, he’d boarded a plane.
“Hey Vigil,” I held out a hand, shaking his hand and patting his back. “How’s your dad?”
“Good.” He said with a warm smile. “Mom told me to thank you for the flowers and the food. She sent me back with a cooler full of empanadas for you and some pasteles.”
“What’d she send for me?” Trent asked with a frown.
“I don’t remember seeing any flowers from you,” Frankie countered. “And you must be the mysterious Cassandra.”
Frankie turned his attention to Cassandra, greeting her with a hug that lasted a second too long.
Cassandra beamed at him when he pulled away. “I’m not sure if I’d consider myself mysterious, but I hope you only heard good things.”
“My cousin is obsessed with Diego, and she’s been glued to her phone after the nightclub post.”
“Trent,” I muttered.
Frankie laughed. “That’s what you get. I’ve warned you not to let him have your phone.”
“He does that regularly?” Cassandra asked as we shuffled closer to the front of the line.
“He gets at least one person a season. Last year, he swiped Rob’s phone and set up a verified Instagram account before he found out.”
Trent laughed. “Yeah, I posted a bunch of pictures of him at his daughter’s tea party.”
Rob had been practicing with the defense. When he came back into the locker room and found out what the rest of the team already knew, he chased down the receiver in seconds, tackling him to the ground and forcing him to take down the account. But the damage had already been done. Rob’s quick foray into social media blew up online and Trent spent the next three weeks doing shuttle runs while the rest of the team practiced.
“Trent can’t help himself,” Frankie said, shaking his head. “It’s why we love him.”
“We tolerate him because he’s one of the best receivers in the NFL,” I added. “Though I suspect Coach Simmons would trade him if he wasn’t.”
Trent grinned widely at Cassandra. “It’s part of my charm.”
The group of trainers in front of us gathered their drinks and moved away from the bar. I wrapped a protective arm around Cassandra. “Well, keep that charm away from my girlfriend, okay?”