Jamar stood on the sideline with his arms crossed over his chest as he observed the running backs conducting their drills. The crunch of shoulder pads crashing into each other played like Mozart in his ears, the rank smell of sweat like perfume to his nose. He’d missed this so much more than he’d been willing to admit.
The Longhorns’ running back coach, Mark Green, had been instrumental in preparing Jamar for the NFL, so when he’d asked if Jamar could attend today’s practice and give his running backs a pep talk after their hard loss on Saturday against a huge conference rival, it wasn’t a question as to whether he would be here.
He knew what these guys were going through. He also knew that if they didn’t put the mistakes from Saturday out of their heads, it could mess up their entire season.
“Do you see those bands over there?” he asked Taylor, pointing to the wide receivers working out on the far side of the field house. Three guys had harnesses wrapped around their feet, the ends of the thick leather bands secured into the wall. “Those are for helping to build speed. I have some, but haven’t had them installed in the gym at home.”
“Oh, I’ll bet running against that resistance builds up core muscles too.” She bumped him with her elbow. “You need to get those babies installed. I can come up with all kinds of ways to torture you with something like that.” She looked over at him, a note of apology in her pained expression. “I totally didn’t intend for that to sound like some kind of kinky S and M come-on.”
Shockingly, his mind hadn’t gone there. But now that she’d brought it up, he would have to work extra hard to expunge those thoughts from his head. He added them to the dozens of other inappropriate thoughts about his new fitness instructor that had invaded his brain over these past couple of days.
Jamar shut his eyes and tilted his head from side to side, working out the tension in his neck. This was frustrating as hell. Yet, he only had to consider her words from yesterday to understand why Taylor could never be anything other than his trainer. If word got out that they were hooking up, no one would take his endorsement of her business seriously. The last thing he wanted was to stifle her success.
Coach Green walked over to them, his hand outstretched. “Thanks for coming, Diesel.”
“You know you can call on me whenever you need me,” Jamar told him. “This is Taylor. I hope you don’t mind me bringing her along. She’s a huge fan of the game, especially the Longhorns.”
“Hook ’em, Horns,” Coach said, extending his index and pinky fingers to resemble the horns of a steer.
Taylor’s eyes widened. “Umm . . . go team?” she replied, holding her fingers in a gesture that looked more like the Hawaiian shaka sign than the UT hand signal.
Coach Green’s forehead creased in a puzzled frown.
“Why don’t you bring us over to the running backs?” Jamar quickly suggested.
The moment Coach turned, Taylor caught Jamar by the hem of his shirt and pinched the shit out of his bicep.
“I’m a big Longhorns fan?” she hissed.
“Ouch,” he whispered, rubbing his arm. “It was a joke.”
“What did I tell you about your jokes?”
He chanced another pinch on the arm by leaning over and whispering, “You have to admit it was a little funny.”
She rolled her eyes, but he could tell she was trying hard to contain her grin. She was cute even when she was pissed off.
Coach called for his players to huddle up and then introduced Jamar, even though many already knew him. Some of the seniors on the team had been redshirt freshmen back when he was still playing for the Longhorns.
When had this happened? When had he become the sage, older player young running backs turned to for advice?
Silas was somewhere up in heaven laughing his ass off right now.
Jamar stood before the players and quietly prayed that he could give them the pep talk he knew Coach was hoping for.
“I know how you guys are feeling right now,” he started. “I know what it’s like to eat, sleep, and breathe football, to put in so much time and effort on the practice field, only to walk away with another game in the L column.”
He walked over to Carson Wallace, the backup running back who’d fumbled twice in last Saturday’s game.
“My freshman year as a Longhorn, I had four games with back-to-back fumbles. I thought my season was done. But that guy”—he pointed to Coach Green—“he refused to give up on me, and he wouldn’t let me give up on myself either. Put those fumbles out of your head. They’re in the past. Your focus is on the next game, and then the next, and then the next.”
He returned his attention to the entire group again.
“Losing is an unfortunate part of the game, guys. It doesn’t matter if it’s high school, college, or the pros, you’re going to lose and it’s going to suck. I know how that feels,” he reiterated. “But I also know how it feels to fight your way out of a losing stretch. And that’s all this is. You know how to win. And you’re going to win. You just have to believe in your ability to do it.”
Their expressions changed in real time, their heads lifting higher, their chests sticking out just a bit more. It gave him the confidence to keep going.
As he digested the look on each player’s face, Jamar saw so much of himself. He’d experienced how an inspiring talk, delivered at just the right moment, could give him the boost he needed to make it through the next game.
He tried not to scrutinize the current starting running back, but it was hard not to pay particular attention to the guy who was only two hundred yards away from passing him up in the team’s record books. The irony wasn’t lost on Jamar that he’d been asked to speak words of encouragement to someone he would likely have to battle for a job in the not-so-distant future.
He ended his speech with an invitation for any of the guys to call him if they ever needed help, then accepted the handshake and pat on the shoulder from his old coach.
“I can’t thank you enough for doing this, Jamar. Those kids needed to hear from someone like you, someone who’s been on the field recently and not twenty years ago like me.” Coach Green squeezed his shoulder. “Not everybody can reach players the way you just did. You’ve got something special there.”
“Um . . . thanks,” Jamar said, the words striking a chord he had been unprepared for. He’d come here to help out his former coach, with no expectation of getting anything in return. But he couldn’t deny how incredible it felt to look into those players’ faces and realize that he was making a difference.
Coach Green gave him another firm pat on the shoulder. “Shoot me a text if you can make it to next Saturday’s game. I’ll have sideline passes for both of you at will call.”
As they walked away from the group of players, Taylor leaned over and whispered, “I was ready to pick up a helmet and run out on the field myself after listening to you.”
Jamar chuckled. “I can see that. Powerhouse Powell, kicking ass and taking names across the Big Twelve Conference.”
“Powerhouse. I like it.” She tipped her head in the direction of Coach Green. “He was right, you know. You’re pretty good at giving pep talks.”
“I’ve listened to my share,” Jamar said.
“So I guess I’ll have to learn to like football if I want to build a clientele of football players,” she said.
“I’ll bet by the end of these two months you’re going to wonder how you ever lived without football,” Jamar said.
“You care to place money on that?”
He laughed at her flat tone, but his amusement swiftly dissipated at the sight of Alec Mooney approaching. His blog and podcast were lauded as the gold standard in college football. Jamar appreciated him because he was fair and didn’t rely on sensationalism to get his point across. He also liked that Alec always carried around a slim notebook, as if he were single-handedly trying to bring back old-school reporting.
Still, Jamar’s relationship with the media had been a bumpy one. They’d treated him as the darling of Texas football since high school, a kid who had it all: brains, brawn, and the type of easygoing personality that made reporters gravitate toward him. As a straitlaced kid from a two-parent, middle-income suburban household, he defied the stereotype that the NFL was comprised of young black men who used football as their only way out of inner-city poverty.
The media adored him, but they’d typecast Silas the moment it was revealed that his birth mother was serving time in a Texas state prison. Silas had taken it in stride. Jamar wasn’t so forgiving. It didn’t matter how decent and equitable Alec Mooney appeared on the outside; the fact that he was a member of the media placed him squarely in Jamar’s Do Not Trust category.
“Hey, Diesel. Long time no see,” Alec said as he approached. “You’ve been MIA lately. I figured I’d see you on the sideline of at least a couple of Longhorn games this season.”
Jamar shrugged. “I haven’t been able to make any games yet, but when Coach Green calls, he knows I’m here for him.”
Alec nodded. “How is the knee holding up? Is Dr. Hoffman the orthopedic wizard everyone claims he is?”
“I couldn’t have asked for a better surgeon,” Jamar said, bending his knee.
“Hi there,” Alec said, offering Taylor his hand. “Alec Mooney from Central Texas Sports Talk.” Jamar was about to apologize for not making introductions when Alec added, “You were in that viral dating video a few months ago. Weren’t you one of that guy Craig’s girls?”
Jamar saw the way Taylor’s jaw tightened and knew Mooney was in trouble. He crossed his arms over his chest and waited for the show. It promised to be a good one.
“Taylor,” she said in an excessively sweet voice that signaled to any guy with half a brain that his ass was grass. “I much prefer being called by my name than to be called ‘one of Craig’s girls.’ It’s sexist as hell to refer to any woman as someone’s girl.”
Alec had the blank look of someone who’d been put in his place so soundly that he didn’t know how to react.
“Umm . . . yeah, sorry about that,” he said. “That was rude. Please, accept my apology.”
That was a half-decent recovery. Jamar was impressed.
Taylor gave him one of those regal, Queen of England nods. “Apology accepted,” she said, her smile more genuine this time around.
“Uh, so,” Alec continued. “Are you Jamar’s new trainer?”
A surge of shock calcified Jamar’s muscles, rendering him numb. He’d been preparing his we’re just friends story as an answer to what he thought was the most logical presumption people would make upon seeing him and Taylor out in public.
“What do you mean?” Jamar asked, mentally crossing his fingers and hoping that Alec hadn’t made the correct leap.
The reporter pointed at Taylor with his pencil. “She—Taylor—is a fitness trainer, isn’t she?” He looked to her. “I’ve watched some of your YouTube videos.”
Fuuuuuck.
Jamar tried to play off his unease with a laugh. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean she’s my trainer? We’re—”
“C’mon, Jamar.” Alec shot him a sly smile. “There’s been speculation for months that you’re looking to return to the League. It would make sense that you’ve hired a personal trainer to help you get back in playing form.”
Dread raced through his veins. The one thing he’d feared the most was happening, and he had no idea how to stop it.
“I don’t . . . ” he started, but the words caught in his throat.
“Actually, we’re dating,” Taylor said. She grabbed his hand and entwined her fingers with his. A radiant smile stretched across her lips, but when she glanced at him, her eyes were wide with a Holy shit, what did I just say? look.
“It was one of the few positive things to come out of that disastrous viral video,” she continued with a shaky laugh. “I caught Jamar’s eye and he was bold enough to ask me out.”
“I guess there’s a silver lining to every situation,” Alec said. He nodded at Jamar. “If you ever do decide to make a comeback, I’d appreciate a heads-up. You have an open invitation to break the news on Central Texas Sports Talk.”
“You’ll be the first to know.” Jamar managed to smile as he answered the reporter. The moment Mooney was out of earshot, he turned to Taylor. “What was that?”
“I don’t know!” She lifted her hands in hapless frustration. “I panicked! I just said the first thing that came to my mind.” She pressed her palms to her cheeks. “Shit! Shit, shit, shit.”
Jamar sucked in a deliberate breath. It felt as if his ribs were squeezing his chest.
How had things gone so wrong, so fast? Keeping his desire to return to the League a secret should have been an easy task, yet they’d failed it in spectacular fashion. Fucking Mooney. How had he jumped to the right conclusion? How could Alec take one look at Taylor Powell and not assume that hooking up with her would be the first thing on Jamar’s mind?
A knot the size of Texas twisted in his gut, but he knew what he needed to do.
“I’ll catch up with Mooney and tell him the truth,” he said. He started after Alec, but Taylor caught his hand.
“No. Don’t do that. Not yet.” She exhaled an impatient breath. “Look, we’ll figure it out. For now, just . . . go with it.”
“Taylor—”
“We’ll figure it out,” she repeated. “We just have to think this through.”
Jamar stared at her for several moments, trying to figure out what was going on inside her head.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s figure it out.”