Chapter Two Barrett
Chapter Two
Barrett
During the regular season, my entire life boiled down to fifteen-minute increments. It didn’t sound like much, but with a hundred and sixty-eight hours in every week, that gave me six hundred and seventy-two chunks of time to manage my life.
Fifteen minutes to debrief with my assistant, Bridget, every weekday morning at six thirty.
Bridget knew every minute detail about my life, down to the way I liked my eggs at breakfast, that I was allergic to cashews, and wanted extra starch on the collars of my dress shirts when I had occasion to wear them.
If I thought about it too hard, she also probably knew I hadn’t gotten laid since the last time I’d touched my ex-wife, which was why she gave me sad eyes when she thought I wasn’t looking.
My assistant coach, as well as my offensive and defensive coordinators, received daily meetings as well, something that wasn’t typical for most NFL coaches, but mine carried a slightly heavier load than most after my divorce had put me firmly in the single-dad club.
The team’s general manager got two of those chunks every Monday, once I’d finished breakfast with my team captains.
Pearl, the octogenarian owner of the team, received another two. Sometimes more, if she was feeling particularly chatty. And the last few weeks, I couldn’t blame her. When the new head coach and the new quarterback were butting heads, I’d have a few extra words in my daily allotment too.
Archer, the quarterback in question, avoided getting on my schedule as much as possible, which was part of the problem.
Sorry, Coach, can’t make it today, he’d said earlier, his phone tucked up to his ear and a smirk on his face as he tapped a fist with the guys who passed us in the hallway. Promised I’d do a polar bear plunge with a local sorority for charity.
When all I did was raise my eyebrow, he laughed under his breath. Don’t worry, I still know how to throw the ball. We’ll be fine this weekend.
Then he walked away, hands tucked into his pockets, whistling as he did, and I tried to decide how long I wanted to let this slide before I benched him.
It was moments like that, I wondered why the hell I wanted to be a coach in the first place.
Most of the time, it was amazing. Rewarding and fulfilling, and it kept my feet planted in a world that I loved.
But when you’re watching the retreating back of the guy leading your team so he can go swimming with a sorority, knowing he had a guaranteed thirty million from a four-year rookie contract that I still wasn’t sure he deserved, it left me asking myself a lot of questions.
Questions that, unfortunately, didn’t have many answers. Or not yet, at least. Just like anything worthwhile, building up the right foundation for this team would take time, and I hadn’t had much of it yet.
It was one of a million things weighing on my shoulders, and no matter how many deep breaths I took, that weight never dissipated.
A text from Bridget lit up my phone.
Bridget: Do we want to comment on this?
Included was a link to an article with the headline: Buffalo’s Power Struggle: Can Coach King Wrangle the Talent?
And then below: Based on this season, and what we’re hearing from the locker room, we’re not so sure.
Reading anything else would simply ruin my already tenuous mood, so I clicked away, a familiar sensation churning in my gut.
Failure didn’t sit well with anyone in this industry.
Competition was in the driver’s seat at all times, the thing that drove every single person who walked through the doors: from the owner to the front office staff to the staff who painted the lines on the field every week. We all wanted to win.
But when I felt like I was failing—at anything—it was like a bug was stuck in my ear, buzzing and buzzing and buzzing until I was halfway to crazy before I could tear it out. And lately, those failures just kept piling up, recycled into catchy headlines meant to garner clicks.
Me: I say no, but send it to PR and get their take.
Before she could respond, I set my phone down and tried to refocus.
The clock on the wall of my office ticked more loudly than usual, grating on my already exhausted nerves as I tried to pay attention to the screen in front of me.
Other than the time I took to sleep—and yes, I had to schedule that too—it was reviewing film that took the single biggest amount of time. Outside of that, it was meeting upon meeting upon meeting.
But of all the things I scheduled into my day, there was one fifteen-minute slot that was my favorite. It always went by too fast, and when it was done, I’d give myself another minute to fight the guilt of how much I was forced to leave them alone.
At 3:30 p.m., my phone would ring with a video call, and the two faces I loved most would fill the screen.
Bryce was almost twelve, Maggie almost eleven, and they were old enough now to remember to call as soon as they got off the bus.
Our conversations were often mundane—discussing homework, telling them to stop arguing with each other, and reminding my daughter that she was not, in fact, allowed to try to access government databases in her spare time.
Prior to that 3:30 phone call, it was rare for me to hear from them, unless someone was sick or—as they’d done time and time again since my ex, Rachel, had moved across the country with her healthy alimony payment—they’d successfully run off another nanny, housekeeper, or tutor.
It was during one of the later fifteen-minute increments, just past 5:00 p.m. on a Wednesday, that my phone began ringing.
It wasn’t either of the kids, and it wasn’t from the house phone, so I silenced the ringer and returned my focus to the front of the conference room.
Wednesday evenings, I tried to sit in on positional meetings; today, I was in the running back’s meeting. Miguel, my running back’s coach, had some film from last week’s game up on the screen, pausing it to show a breakdown in one of our routes, when my phone rang again.
Everyone turned to look at me.
I cleared my throat and silenced the ringtone again, eyeing the same number with a growing sense of unease. When a voicemail came through, I muttered an apology and brought the phone up to my ear.
“Mr. King, it’s Jill. I’m sorry for bothering you again, and I apologize for not giving you my new cell number, but I have no idea where the kids are, and they’re not answering their phones.
Again. This is the fourth time this has happened in the last two weeks, and with all due respect, sir, you do not pay me enough to keep track of them like this. ”
I let out a slow, deep breath, disconnecting the call with a firm tap of my thumb. “My apologies at having to leave early; I have something that needs my attention at home.”
My offensive coordinator, who’d worked with me for the last five years, gave me a curious look. “Everything okay, Coach?”
I managed a tight smile. “My children seem to be missing.”
No one was fazed by this information.
Miguel snickered at the front of the room. Darius, our leading rusher, smothered a smile behind his hand. My OC nodded slowly. “Maggie must’ve been bored again.”
“Looks to be that way,” I said, tone even despite the surge in my blood pressure. “If you’ll excuse me.”
The walk back to my office was blissfully uninterrupted.
Most of the front office staff knew not to stop me unless they’d gone through Bridget to find a fifteen-minute slot.
With only two games left in the regular season, the offices were drenched in Christmas decor—gold and white and silver seemed to be the theme this year, contrasting with the red and white of the Buffalo logo.
In my hand, my cell phone got heavier and heavier the longer I walked, but I would not be having this conversation within earshot of anyone besides Bridget.
I turned the last corner, entering the lobby for my office, as well as the offices for the offensive and defensive coordinators, and my assistant coach.
Anchored in the middle of the space of lush carpets, deep leather chairs, and a silver version of the logo on the wall was Bridget’s command center—a massive desk that dwarfed her petite frame.
At the moment, it was empty. A glance at the clock told me she was likely eating dinner.
She usually did from 5:00 to 5:30 when I was in position meetings.
The moment I cleared my office door, I stopped short. There was a full-size Christmas tree in the corner—half covered with red, silver, and white ornaments—and another smaller one with bare branches. I pinched the bridge of my nose and pulled up Jill’s number.
“Mr. King,” she answered, the irritation bleeding into every individual letter of my name.
“I’m sorry for the delay; I was in a meeting and didn’t recognize the number. Did you find them yet?”
She let out a disgruntled scoff. “Yes. They’re at the neighbors’ house.”
My brow furrowed. “Which ones? Scott and Patty are gone until February, and they’re the only neighbors they know.”
“Well, Scott and Patty have a very friendly house sitter who has a dog, so . . .”
I tipped my head back. “So my kids are playing with the dog.”
She made a tight, uncomfortable sound. “They’ve informed me they’re not coming home. So I’m informing you that I quit.”
My jaw clenched tight, and I let my frustration escape in a tiny, harsh puff of air. “Jill, please just give me through the end of the week.”
“You hired me to be a housekeeper. You also told me your kids would need very little supervision once they were home from school, and that is not the case.” She cleared her throat. “I have no desire to be a babysitter, sir, especially not for your kids, no matter how much you pay me.”
As I took a seat in my leather chair, I glanced at the rest of my carefully constructed schedule and mentally delegated about half of it to my assistant coach, who hopefully would forgive me. “I can be home in an hour. Please . . . just . . . give me an hour.”