He nodded. “Okay. We’ll go out there and run through some passes. Figure out what we can do, alright?”
I hated to disappoint him, but I wasn’t quite as optimistic as he was. Instead of trying to temper his expectation, I simply agreed and followed him into Coach’s office.
When I stepped into the room, I immediately looked in the direction I always did. There, on the bookcase to the right, were framed photos of the Vining family. There was a shot from Eddie in his orange-and-white Vols uniform, a photo of Jake in his Bengals uniform grinning wildly at a playoff win a few years ago, one of Wally in cap and gown at his Clemson graduation with his arm around his coach’s shoulders, and one of Richie in his A&M wrestling singlet holding a medal of some kind.
The only photo of Mikey was a family group photo taken at Eddie and Ashlynn’s wedding several years ago. In fact, with the exception of the Bengals playoff shot, all the photos on display had been around longer than I’d played for the Riggers. I wondered why he didn’t have a picture of Mikey’s graduation from Texas A&M. I knew Mikey had walked in his graduation because he had photos from it in a collage on his bedroom wall.
When Coach came in and closed the door behind him, I had to bite my tongue against the desire to ask him why he didn’t seem as proud of his youngest son as he was of the other four. Was it because Mikey wasn’t into sports? Was it because Coach had simply overlooked his youngest or lost interest when Mikey came along? Or was there something else there, the seemingly shorter attention span for a son who didn’t seem to have much in common with his dad?
The thought made me feel unexpected rage.
He started off talking to Mopellei. “Derek, I want you to get in some practice with Brent regardless of what happens with Raine. You have more than one wide receiver, and I’d like you to get to a point where you don’t play fucking favorites when you’re under pressure in the pocket. When you’ve got that shit squared away, you can watch Raine’s practice and give me your thoughts on where we are.”
Mopellei shifted in his seat. “Yes, sir.”
Coach V. flapped his hand. “Get out of here. Brent is already warming up. If he asks you about Raine, tell him to mind his own damned business.”
Mopellei shot me a wink on his way out. I could tell he thought everything was going to be A-okay now that I was back. I didn’t want to disappoint him. Derek and I had been a smooth, successful team for several years now. It wasn’t easy creating that kind of comfort level with someone new.
Coach faced me. “I want you to see Krystal and Ben when we’re done here. They’re going to do an assessment, then get you warmed up for some light practice.” Coach took a seat behind his desk and tossed his phone down on the cluttered surface. “How are you feeling?”
I opened my mouth to respond, but he kept talking. “Because I gotta tell you, we need you out there against Chicago. You know as well as I do, we can’t win with the running game, and Brent isn’t quite there yet, especially in the slot. It’s getting in Maple Leaf’s head. I need someone who can do both. If we can’t pull out a win this week, there’ll be a lot of disappointed fans—not to mention management—looking for someone to blame.”
Had his low-key threat been a little more obviously directed at me, I might have said something defensive, something like a team loss can’t come down to missing a single player. But I simply nodded instead. “Yes, sir. I’ll do my best.”
Honestly, I didn’t know how I was feeling. I wouldn’t truly know how it felt until I tried catching some passes. I was willing to suit up and give it a try to find out.
“Good,” he said, nodding firmly. “How’s Moose? How’s Jill?”
Coach had always been extremely welcoming to my family. Ever since he met them at the draft, he’d made them feel like part of the team. The only thing that kept my father from fangirling all over Coach Vining was the fear of losing access to his bragging rights.
“They’re good. We had a big meal together yesterday to celebrate Christmas. My sister and her family came, too.”
He sat back in his chair. “Good, that’s good. Thank god it falls on a Tuesday this year. My wife has rented a big house on the water in Galveston for the week, and I’m hoping to sneak out there for at least the night. She has some crazy notion of a beachside Christmas. I don’t know. I just do what she says.”
“That sounds nice. Mikey didn’t mention it.”
His forehead creased. “Not sure he knows about it, now that you mention it. He told us he was visiting a friend in Colorado.” He lifted an accusatory eyebrow at me that I chose to ignore.
Even if Mikey was supposed to spend the holidays in Colorado, I still knew he’d feel left out when he found out they’d made plans without him. It annoyed me. Now that I saw more clearly how Mikey was treated like the black sheep in his family, it pissed me the hell off.
“Don’t you think he’d like to have the choice? Maybe if he knew you were all going to be together, he would have wanted to join you.”
I knew right away, I’d crossed a line.
“Maybe you need to stop worrying about family issues involving your employee,” he said carefully, emphasizing the last word as a stark reminder of the warnings he hadn’t needed to give me early on.
Because every jackass these days knew not to fuck their employee.
I mumbled an apology and stood up, trying not to remind him he’d been asking about his own employee’s family not three minutes earlier. “Yes, sir. I’d better get to work.”
His icy glare met mine. “Damned right.”
When I hauled my exhausted and disappointed ass out to the parking lot at the end of the day, I remembered I didn’t have a car. Thankfully, my agent was leaning against a rental parked right up front. He lifted his head up from scrolling through his phone when I called his name.
“There he is,” Markus said with a big smile. “Good to see you, man. Please tell me you’re in the mood for steak because I’m starving.”
Nothing sounded better to me than a tender filet and a loaded baked potato, but I knew it wouldn’t make me feel good for long. “Let’s head to Taste of Texas. They have steak and a huge salad bar.”
We hopped in the car, and I pulled my phone out to text Mikey.
Me: Headed to ToT. Want anything? It’ll be a while, but I can bring takeout.
I didn’t get a response right away, so I slipped my phone back in my pocket.
“How’re things going?” I asked as he made his way out of the parking lot.
“Excellent. I signed the point guard at UNC, and everyone wants him. Oh, and thanks for sending me the info about that kid in Indiana. I sent someone to watch one of his games, and he’s got an incredible arm. I’m headed out there Friday to check him out.”
“Good. I couldn’t believe it when I saw him throwing practice passes at that Colts game. He’s a water boy or something, I guess. Goes to a no-name school, right?”
He laughed. “You could say that. He’s a Hoosier.”
It felt good to laugh. Markus went immediately into a discussion about Indiana’s poor football history and what they needed to do to fix things. That led to a discussion about the Riggers and what we needed to do to fix things. As I followed him into the restaurant, I knew the questions were coming. Thankfully, we were stopped by fans several times on the way to our table. When we finally sat down, he pinned me with a look.