Chapter Five
T he school bell rang just as Jackson and Cade walked through the front door of the building, and of course, Principal Dean was standing in the front lobby with his arms crossed over his Bulldog-green tie and his feet planted wide apart as if braced for impact.
“You’re tardy,” he said, eyes darting briefly toward Cade before settling on Jackson with obvious disdain.
Jackson’s steps slowed. “Am I, though?” He pointed a finger overhead as the blare of the bell came to an abrupt stop. “Sounds like I’m right on time.”
“You have students waiting for you in the weight room. As a member of the faculty, your day begins before the bell rings. Not after.” The principal smoothed down the hideous necktie.
“You’re an educator now, Coach Jackson. Contrary to what you might think, this job isn’t a joke.
Nor is it a walk in the park. There are people counting on you. ”
Jackson nodded. “Noted.”
He wasn’t going to argue with the guy. After what happened yesterday, he deserved the lecture. Arriving early would’ve been a good call, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret the conversation with Calla. Tomorrow, he’d be on time…
Assuming he still had a job here by then. That seemed somewhat up in the air.
“It’s his first day, Dean. He’ll get it figured out.” Cade offered the principal an easy smile and handed him a to-go coffee from Huddle Up. “We got you a coffee.”
“Thank you.” Principal Dean accepted the cup with a sigh and cut another exasperated look at Jackson. “Don’t let it happen again, though. Am I clear?”
“Crystal,” Jackson said.
“Wow.” Cade lifted his baseball cap, ran a hand through his hair and replaced it as the principal stalked toward the front office. “You didn’t waste any time getting on his bad side, did you?”
What else was new? Jackson’s reputation had been preceding him for his entire life.
“I’m here to coach, not win any popularity contests,” Jackson said, although he wasn’t altogether sure his agent would agree with that sentiment.
Cade patted him on the back and guided him toward the athletic offices, where Jackson assumed they’d find the weight room. “That’s good, because you’ve got bigger problems to worry about than Principal Dean and all the recent bad press.”
That sounded ominous, and also par for the course with the way things had been going. “What kind of problems?”
Cade lowered his voice as they passed the opened door to the teacher’s lounge and several heads swiveled in their direction. “You’re going to get a lot of looks today, obviously. Most will just be curious. You’re famous, after all.”
Some might say infamous, especially given recent events, but perhaps it was best not to dwell on the distinction.
“Others might be a bit more hostile,” Cade said. It was the second time he’d used that particular word since showing up this morning on Jackson’s doorstep. Something was up, and whatever it was didn’t sound good. “I’m guessing you haven’t had time to familiarize yourself with the coaching staff ?”
Jackson shook his head. “Not yet.”
He’d been a little busy, what with researching his press conference fail and watching himself get eviscerated on national television.
“We’ve got the athletic director, who you met yesterday,” Cade said.
Right—the guy who’d moderated Jackson’s humiliation in the cafetorium. He nodded.
“He oversees the entire sports program here at the high school. There are six of us on staff specifically for varsity football—head coach, assistant coach, offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach, defensive coordinator, special teams coach and the junior varsity head coach.” Cade lowered his voice.
“It’s Simmons, the assistant coach, you might want to watch out for.
He’s not exactly thrilled to have you on board. ”
“What’s his deal? Is he a Vipers fan?” Jackson asked, name-dropping the Cyclones’ fiercest rivals in the league. Their fan base was intense, to say the least.
Cade shook his head. “Nothing like that. He was actually hoping to get your position for himself. Simmons was the acting head coach over the summer and for the first few weeks of school while your contract was being negotiated.”
How was it that everyone seemed to know more about Jackson’s employment contract than he did?
Cade’s steps slowed as they approached the weight room. The metallic clink of weight plates being loaded onto barbells was punctuated by the occasional thud of a dropped dumbbell. Country music blared from a speaker somewhere, but at least it sounded like the kids were lifting.
“Simmons has been here forever. He’s old-school—not too crazy about newcomers, in general, and especially distrustful of ‘a flashy pro athlete who’s never coached a day in his life’ stealing the top job out from under him.
” Cade cleared his throat. “For the record, those are his words, not mine. No offense.”
“None taken,” Jackson said dryly.
Cade grinned. “Try not to worry too much about it. I just thought you should know.”
“I appreciate that.” It was nice to know that at least one person had his back around here. He blew out a breath. “Just what I needed. Another battle on my hands.”
“Don’t let Simmons get to you, and try to forget what happened yesterday.
Once everyone sees that you’re here to do what’s best for the team, this will all sort itself out.
The most important thing is to keep your focus on the kids.
” Cade shrugged. “Just a piece of advice from one educator to another.”
Was that really what he was now—an educator?
Jackson scrubbed his face. If his teenage self could see him now, he would’ve gotten a hearty laugh out of this.
School had never been his thing. Blessed with natural talent on the football field, he’d coasted his way to his diploma, letting the pep rally girls do his homework, knowing the teachers would never fail the school’s star player if he bombed a test or two.
Which he did…often. He’d probably spent more time making out with girls under the bleachers than he had in the actual classroom.
Simmons was right. Jackson wasn’t qualified for this job. Not even close.
He lifted his gaze to the ceiling where a water stain spread over one of the overhead panels.
The boys in the weight room were laughing now, trash talking each other.
It’s a regular team, just like any other, Jackson told himself.
He’d been thrown into this situation, but maybe if he did as Cade said and concentrated on building something with the kids, he could do some good in Bishop Falls.
Sitting beside Calla earlier in the shadow of her brother’s portrait had been a sobering experience.
Jackson didn’t want to just phone this thing in.
If he was stuck here, he wanted to do it right.
Not just for himself, but for the memory of Ethan Dunne.
And maybe, just maybe, for a woman he barely even knew.
He was never this earnest. Maybe this truly was his rock bottom.
Don’t tempt fate, you idiot. Have you learned nothing over the past twenty-four hours?
“All right.” He gritted his teeth. “Let’s see how the first day goes, then.”
“You’ve got this, Coach. I’m here if you need anything.” Cade tipped his head back, finished his coffee and tossed the paper cup into the trash can next to the door as he strode inside the weight room.
Jackson followed, and the heaviness of the task ahead sank into his chest like a three-hundred-pound bench press. He took a deep inhale, gut churning as he muttered under his breath.
“Here goes nothing.”
* * *
Later that afternoon, Calla nearly jumped out of her chair when her boss seemingly appeared out of thin air, head popping up on the other side of her wide-screen computer monitor.
“Stan, you startled me.” She minimized the window on her screen as quickly as she could.
She’d only been reading articles about Jackson for research…
obviously …but something about getting caught with a giant photograph of him on the glowing display made her cheeks burn with a sudden warmth. “What can I do for you?”
She’d been giving her editor a wide berth all day. As happy as he might be with the overnight surge in subscription rates, she’d still gone rogue at that press conference. He had every right to be upset with her.
Calla could handle confrontation, though.
What she couldn’t handle, on the other hand, was Stan’s weird mention last night of leaning into the attention that her showdown with Jackson had garnered.
Other than running her biweekly column on the front page, she wasn’t sure what exactly he’d meant by that offhand comment.
Truthfully, she was afraid to ask. Her job was to cover football, not individual people.
This wasn’t a sports-themed rom-com. It was her career.
“What’s this I hear about you being invited to watch the Bulldogs practice?” Stan barked.
Of course he’d heard. Secrets weren’t a thing in small towns like Bishop Falls, especially not in the newsroom. “How on earth do you know about that?”
She hadn’t breathed a word about Jackson’s invitation to anyone. Not even Bailey. And especially not to her father, who was a card-carrying member of the Victory Club.
“That’s not important.” Stan ran a hand over his salt-and-pepper crew cut.
“Although, if you must know, I got a trim on my lunch break and my barber at Blitz & Buzz told me. Everyone in that place was talking about you and Jackson Knight having coffee this morning at Huddle Up. Someone overheard him inviting you to practice.”
Of course the barber shop was named Blitz & Buzz. Heaven forbid the residents of Bishop Falls get their hair cut anyplace else.
Stan nudged his black-framed glasses farther up the bridge of his nose and huffed. “I don’t like being the last to hear about these things, Calla.”
“It’s not the way it sounds. I promise.” Her heartbeat kicked up a notch all the same.
Her mind spun with memories of the way Jackson’s eyes had danced over his giant dollop of whipped cream.
She really needed to stop looking at his photos online.
All that charm and deceptively wholesome appeal was a major distraction.
“We weren’t on a coffee date. We simply bumped into each other. ”
Stan nodded, but Calla didn’t like the way his eyes narrowed.
She had a feeling she was going to like whatever he said next even less.
“Good, because that’s not what I meant when I told you we needed to take advantage of all the attention your exchange at the press conference garnered yesterday.
It would be a conflict of interest for a sports journalist to become romantically involved with the coach of the football team she’s assigned to cover. ”
She wanted to die right then and there. They were in the middle of the bullpen where anyone could overhear. Granted, this was a small-town paper, so she only had a handful of colleagues. But still…
A throat cleared nearby, and Glenda from the lifestyle section aimed a sympathetic glance at Calla as she banged away on her keyboard. Everyone this side of Dallas was going to hear about Stan’s little lecture before she even showed her face at football practice. Awesome.
“You don’t need to remind me what’s ethical and what’s not, Stan.
I’m a professional. And in case you and the rest of this town have suddenly developed a case of selective amnesia, I don’t date football players.
” Everyone who resided in the Bishop Falls town limits knew that about her. Literally everyone.
This policy ruled out a lot of potential suitors, given the town’s football fixation.
Two years ago, Calla had an uneventful relationship with the high school’s baseball coach.
He hadn’t exactly set her world on fire, but as the only male human in a fifty-mile radius who seemingly had no interest whatsoever in football, he’d fit the bill.
Then she’d discovered his dirty little secret.
He belonged to a fantasy football league and only wanted to date her because she knew the game so well.
He’d been not-so-subtly sneaking questions about stats into their conversations for weeks, even while feigning disinterest in what she did for a living.
When his memo pad of hastily scribbled notes fell out of his jacket pocket on their four-month anniversary, all the pieces fell into place.
Calla dumped him right then and there.
“Yes, well. We’re all aware how you feel about that,” Stan said, and his gaze dropped to the ground as he shifted from one foot to the other.
Now that the conversation was venturing dangerously close to forbidden territory—specifically, how losing Ethan had shaped everything about her adult life—he suddenly couldn’t bring himself to look at her.
Calla’s temper flared, and the toe of one of her red cowboy boots tapped a furious rhythm on the newsroom floor. “Then you should know you have nothing to worry about. Coach Jackson invited me to attend practices because he thought it would be good for my column, and I intend to go.”
“I agree.” Stan nodded. His mouth—usually set in a flat, firm line—twitched, as if caught between a grimace and frown. “And since you’ll now have such unprecedented access, I’d like to expand your column from biweekly to daily, Monday through Friday.”
Calla’s foot went instantly still. She blinked. “Are you giving me a promotion? Is that what this conversation has actually been about?”
Unbelievable, but she’d take it. It was just one step closer to getting off the sports page and onto features, where she could write about things that didn’t involve inflatable athletic equipment.
“Yes, and it’s effective immediately. I’ll send you an email about your extra compensation. Have five hundred words on my desk by the end of the day.” He scrubbed his freshly trimmed hair again, hesitating a beat before leaving. “And Calla?”
“Yes?”
He wagged a finger at her. “Don’t make me regret this.”
Of course she wouldn’t. She might be a tad antagonistic from time to time, but she had a good head on her shoulders. She was considerate, responsible and loyal to a fault. She cared.
Way too much sometimes…
Unlike some people, who neglected their responsibilities to catch a private jet to Vegas to do heaven-knows-what in the middle of training camp.
“Don’t worry, sir. I won’t,” she said, and a brief, bittersweet ache tugged at her heart.
Because I’m no Jackson Knight.