“You’ve done enough, don’t you think?”
Ignoring the look of hurt on her face, he walked into the lobby and didn’t look back.
9
“Hi, Dad.”
Pepper jumped clear across the kitchen to grab a mug for her father’s coffee.
“You cooking?”
“Sure am. Making eggs just the way you like them with herbs. Thyme and rosemary.” She placed his coffee down before him. “Have a seat.”
With a noisy sigh, he did as he was told and added half and half to his coffee. Pepper returned to stirring the eggs to make them fluffy. “How did you sleep?”
“Terribly. One of my players is out for weeks, possibly months. News like that is going to keep me up, y’know.”
“Right. I get that. Have you heard anything else? More definitive news?” If he was out for that long, it would be disastrous. She knew her father was banking on Bastian’s participation to put the Rebels back in contention.
“It’s a sprain so not a break, but he’s just come back from surgery and rehabbing that wrist. Over ten months out. And now another few months at least.”
She bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Dad. I screwed up big time. If there’s anything I can do to make it right.”
“You’ve done enough.”
“Right, I get that, but—”
“Enough, Pepper.”
She swallowed back her hurt. So she had no right to feel this way because she was in the wrong, but a part of her felt she shouldn’t even be in this position. She was only on that ice because her father thought she needed to be jolted into getting her act together. According to him, she was wallowing over her life collapse—a collapse she’d brought on herself by breaking off her engagement to Kent.
She wished she could speak to her mom, but she was currently on a round-the-world tour with her new girl crew. Since her parents’ divorce last year, Claire Calhoun had been doing all the things her ex-husband had promised would happen when he retired. When he re-upped for another three years as Rebels coach, her mother called time on their marriage and broke for the hills.
Her father’s phone rang, and he answered it with a gruff bark, which was quickly followed by a string of very salty swearwords. Whoever was on the other end was trying to explain something, but her father was having none of it.
“I’ll talk to him. Jesus Christ, these kids don’t know their asses from their elbows.”
Her father stormed out of the room, which gave her a chance to check the pings she’d been ignoring on her phone all morning. The text thread was twenty messages plus in, so she had to scroll back.
The first message had come in last night from Tommy Toga, the mascot with the New York Spartans.
Did you really just take out Bast Durand? Wicked move!
Trigger with the Nashville Country had responded with:
Give her a break, TT. She can’t have meant that to happen. Uh, did you?
Rowdy Rebel
No, I didn’t. It was a complete accident!
Soon the rest of the gang were weighing in. After she first filled in as Rowdy Rebel nine months ago, she received an invite to a text group called Mascot Mania. When she questioned how they knew to invite her—her identity was supposedly private—she’d been told that all mascots and backups were included in this super secret group where they could ensure the “mascot profession” was respected. Or something.
She’d expected discussions about unionizing, better protections for the mascots, and how to monetize a mascot gig. Instead she got an extreme bitchfest about which players were the biggest assholes. The thread had been quiet for a while, given the off-season, but Pepper’s crash into Bastian Durand had exploded a bomb under it.
The Three Branches (DC)
Did they fire you?
Rowdy Rebel
Not yet, but I can’t see them asking me back.
She almost said this was just a temp gig, but that might be considered insulting to the lofty profession of mascotting.
Howie Hollywood (LA Quake)
It was clearly an accident. Whoever sent you on should be hauled across the coals.
Danny was crushed about what had happened. Last night he’d told the team org that he was at fault, but no one cared. The buck stopped with the awkward rat-bird on the ice, apparently.
Big Cat (Boston Cougars)
They’d rather blame the person in the costume.
So far, no one knew it was her except the mascots on this thread and a select few in the Rebels org. If people found out that the Coach’s daughter had screwed up in such a monumental way and that same woman was once engaged to Kent Gallagher, she would never hear the end of it. She may as well dig a hole in the backyard, crawl into it, and go to sleep until it was over.
Which would probably be Rip Van Winkle lengths of bedrest because it would never be over. She would live on in the annals of sports scandal, a notch below poor Steve Bartman.
While Sammy the Shark from Vancouver debated with Charlie the Bear from Edmonton (those guys had an avid rivalry going on) about which players deserved to be tripped on the ice, her phone rang with a call from Tara Becker.
“Hi, Tara.”
“Hey, girl, what’s up?”
“Other than wishing I could fall asleep for a hundred years, not much. You?”
“Oh, honey! That was not your fault. Have you seen the replay?”
“I’m trying to avoid it.”
Tara chuckled. “That boy was making eyes at some chick in the crowd. That’s what really happened!”
It shouldn’t have surprised her, yet she failed to see how it improved her situation. “No one’s going to care about that. They’ll just remember that the mascot took him down.”
“Maybe, but he needs to take some responsibility. I told Hale that very thing …”
She continued talking while Pepper listened to rumbling from the other room, maybe the sound of something smashing?
“Listen, I’ve got to go.” She’d promised Elle she’d look after Hatch this morning while the busy mom ran errands. “You’ll let me know if you hear anything?”
“Sure, hon. But just know that this is not on you. Flirty eyes are the culprit.”
Like that would get her off the hook.
“Dad?” She ventured tentatively into the living room. Her father was seated on the sofa, and it looked like a lamp hadn’t survived the phone call. “Was that about Bastian?”
“There’s a press conference scheduled so we can explain how the damn mascot set a key player’s recovery back by months and possibly ruined this team’s chances for a good season.”
Pepper wasn’t sure that could be explained in a press conference. Or at all.
“Should I be there?”
Her father narrowed his eyes. “No. What I want is for you to figure out your life. Ten months ago, you came back here after the stuff with Gallagher. I know relationships don’t always work out, but I’m still not sure why it had to turn so nasty.”