As I walk away from the press conference, my heart aches a bit for Hawk, and for my own son. I see the hurt in Hawk’s eyes and know there is nothing anyone can do to repair or replace the love he should have had from his father. No wonder he’s been moody, if he moved to a city where he knows his father is living, unaware he even has another son.
In twenty years, will Wyatt have this sort of chip on his shoulder? If Nick produces more children, will Wyatt mourn the loss of knowing them? I know it doesn’t make sense, but I feel like, somehow, if I can be there for Hawk as he navigates this pain, I’ll feel more in control. I pause in my office, gathering my notes and my whistle, and decide there’s nothing I can do about Wyatt’s future anger at his father. I’m angry at Nick, too. I think back to Erika’s insistence that I speak to someone professionally, so that my anger doesn’t simmer and pressurize. I think today’s press conference gave me a preview of what might happen if I don’t prioritize her advice.
I look at the sheet of counselors Erika gave me, but it all seems like too much, all those names. The idea of calling them all, waiting for calls back, disrupting my day again and again just to get set up. I shake my head. I’m not ready for that right now. I have work to do here, to secure my place so I have hope of someday soon having the capacity to deal with my own shit.
I walk out to the field, where Todd has the men warming up by running laps. I groan. I had a whole plan in place to warm up with hip openers and plyometric exercises to loosen the players’ knee joints. I blow my whistle. “All right, Forge, stop where you are and walk to me, please.”
Todd’s eyes widen in confusion as he looks at me, but I tap my clipboard, which he has a copy of because I set it on his desk before I left yesterday. I call the team back in and lead them through the exercises I had planned, gently stretching them while they’re in motion, reducing the risk of them injuring their muscles and tendons. Once I feel like they’re sufficiently limber, I pat Todd on the shoulder. “They’re all yours,” I say.
He just stares at me again, but then eventually nods and splits them into groups based on their positions. I take my usual stance by the fence, observing. And then I smile because as I watch, Reggie’s acceleration seems to have improved. I can do this, I think. When I assert myself here confidently, like when I took back over the training session, I’m making good things happen. I’m getting results.
For years, since I found out I was pregnant, I’ve felt like a person things happen to. I don’t want to be like that anymore. I want to be a person who makes things happen.
Starting with this job. I want to make them beg me to stay here.
A few minutes later, I see Hawk emerge from the locker room, his jaw clenched. I realize how touched I am that he confided in me in the swirl of that press conference. My instinct is to go over and put an arm around him, tell him to take the day off and process what just happened to him. But the fact that he’s out here seems to mean he wants a sense of normalcy right now. Or maybe to process his feelings through motion. He runs over to where Todd has the guys divided into teams to scrimmage and I observe as he’s placed in the left midfield position.
I try to watch all of the players, making notes on my chart to assess their progress in different metrics. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t more focused on Hawk, though. I wish I could go touch his arm again, check in with him. He’s playing furiously, sprinting all out to every ball, whipping every pass just a little too hard so it ricochets off the recipient’s foot or thigh.
Each time he makes an error, Hawk seems unable to let it slide off him, instead growling and clenching his fists. I’m sure all the guys have heard about the press conference by now, whether from Coach Todd or from Jacques, the captain. Nobody says a word to Hawk about his playing. After about an hour, Todd turns things over to me to move the men through weight training.
We reconvene in the weight room and I pass out the worksheets for their individual training plans. “We’re just going to do baseline testing today,” I explain. “We need to find out what your max weight is on each of the main Olympic lifts so I can figure out what percentage of that weight you should be using for each exercise.”
The men look at me like I’m speaking a foreign language. Which, I suppose for a lot of them who’ve come here from other countries, I am. I sigh and point to Reggie. “Okay, so, Reggie is going to deadlift until he can’t lift any more weight. What do you usually lift, Reg?”
He grins and tells me 200 pounds. I sigh and stick a 45-pound plate on each side of the bar. “Let’s start here and work up.” They all watch me as I set up different stations to work them through dead lifts, squats and power cleans. It takes ages to correct their form. The absence of a strength and conditioning coach seems to have them all phoning it in with these exercises. All of them apart from Hawk, who has taken a seat on the rowing machine and begun to churn out a blistering pace.
I let him work through his feelings while I get the rest of the team situated and then I reach for the handle, stopping him. “You’re not going to get an accurate baseline test if your muscles are fatigued like this.” I raise a brow at him.
He shrugs. “I missed warmups. It’s fair compared to what they already did.”
I laugh. “You think I worked them this hard before the scrimmage?” I glance at the dash on the rowing machine. “You’re working through a lot of big feelings there, champ.”
“You mispronounced my name, Lucy.” His eyes flash at me with something…not anger. Is he about to flirt with me? He nods toward my clipboard. “You ever going to tell me what’s on my to-do list for improvement?”
I squat down so I’m level with him and I put a hand on his. “Look, Hawk, what happened at the press conference was upsetting. Do you have someone to talk with?”
He frowns. “You were pretty upset there yourself, Lucy. Want to tell me why you’re so afraid of the limelight?”
I bite my lip. “That’s none of your business.”
His eyes flash again, colder this time. “Yeah, well my daddy drama is none of yours. Now give me a workout or I’m going to keep making up my own.”
Him shutting me out stings. We stare at each other for a few beats before I rip a piece of paper from my pad. I scribble “Row to hell.” I slap the paper onto his knee and return my focus to the members of the team who are ready to listen to my advice.