Kid Owner (10 page)

Coach Cowan sat at his desk, watching game film on his computer.

I looked at Hamhock, remembering that this was the coach he'd just told me I should fire. I wanted to give the GM a nasty look, but even though I was feeling bigger than I'd ever felt before in my life, I guess my mom's influence still had a hold on my behavior. I couldn't just scowl at a grown-up.

Beside the coach sat a smallish young man I nearly overlooked. He wore an army T-shirt and had a crew cut that made him look like a recruit from nearby Fort Hood. When Coach Cowan saw us, he jumped up. By the look on his face, I guessed he probably knew Hamhock wanted him fired. His glance went from Hamhock to John Torres before falling on me. It was like he'd eaten a pickle but was trying to hide it.

The coach stood just under six feet tall. His dark hair was
parted on the side and he had the sharp nose of a hunting bird with dark, probing eyes. I knew he'd been a quarterback at Harvard, but only a backup, and he looked like a Harvard guy to me, despite the sweat suit. He looked smart, a cut above. I could certainly see that his demeanor didn't match the rough-and-tumble, backslapping ways of the GM.

“Uh, hello.” He extended a stiff hand and I shook it. “I'm Coach Cowan. Welcome. I see you've . . .”

Coach Cowan scowled at Hamhock and clenched his teeth.

The GM only smiled back and let out a little huff of laughter before resting his hand on my shoulder. “Since Ryan owns the team, I thought, why not take John out to meet him? Who doesn't love John Torres?”

Torres looked at his feet. Coach Cowan became even more irritated. He opened his mouth to speak but checked himself and cleared his throat.

“I was just going over some film from Sunday's game with Kellen.” Coach Cowan turned to the young man, who stood red-faced, looking around at the rest of us. I'd never heard of him, and obviously he wasn't important enough to be introduced.

The head coach then looked at John Torres with what I thought was more displeasure than John Torres was probably used to. “John, we've got to get you looking at that second and third wide receiver.”

Coach Cowan's voice changed when he talked about football. There was no hesitation. It made me think of a hooked fish being released back into the water.

John Torres looked at Hamhock and I realized that while
Coach Cowan and the quarterback and the GM were all Dallas Cowboys, they were clearly on different sides, and if it was a secret, it was a poor one.

Hamhock snorted and called the head coach by his first name. “Cody, you've got to let John throw the rock, stretch the field. That's what he does, not dink and dunk it all afternoon. He's got a rocket. You gotta use it, Coach. You want the Cowboys to see the play-offs this year? Launch the rocket.”

The GM and the head coach stared at each other for a few awkward minutes. I looked over at Izzy and Jackson, who looked uncomfortable, and just shrugged. Finally, my mom spoke up. “I'm sure Ryan will be relying a lot on Mr. Dietrich, so I don't think anyone has to worry about changes.”

That got their attention, and mine, too. I wanted to ask her what she thought she was doing, but owning the Cowboys hadn't made me
that
bold. She forced a smile at them. “Where
is
Mr. Dietrich?”

Hamhock coughed. “I understood from Mr. Dietrich that he really plans to defer to Ryan on running the team. No offense to Mr. Peebles, your ex-husband, ma'am, but a lot of people think your son here might be just what we need. A fresh perspective.”

Hamhock sent me a winning grin and a wink, like we were in this together. I couldn't help but like the man. Who didn't like a guy who toted John Torres around with him?

“Because even a twelve-year-old boy could run a team better than my ex-husband?” My mother frowned, but I couldn't tell if she was really mad.

No one else seemed to be able to tell either, but finally
Hamhock did something between a cough and a laugh and said, “We better let the coach get back to his film.” The look Coach Cowan gave me was intelligent, serious, and doubtful. I was the owner, so I stared blankly back, doing my best not to look too confused, and gave him a nod.

On our way down the hallway, Hamhock lowered his voice and leaned my way. “I just figured we should get that out of the way. He's nothing to be scared of, just a man, like you and me. Before you break a bronco, you look it in the eye.”

My mom huffed. “Mr. Hamhock, let's not get carried away, please.”

“Ma'am?” He gave her a dumb look.

“He's twelve.”

Hamhock bit his lip and nodded. “I have to say this, though. His dad kinda always got things the way he wanted. Anyone didn't do things the way he wanted? That dog just didn't hunt. So, if Mr. Peebles wanted Ryan here calling the shots? Ma'am, my bet is Ryan here is gonna be calling the shots. Now, that's just me.”

I wanted to hug the man.

But my mom wasn't about to let that be the last word on the subject.

“Funny,” she said, “my experience with Thomas was entirely different.”

“Mom,” I whispered. “Please.”

My mom shook her head as Bert Hamhock led us into an office twice the size of the head coach's, with leather furniture and a big desk topped by a huge slab of polished green marble. One wall was all glass and it looked out over the grass practice
fields as well as one corner of the indoor stadium. The other walls boasted heads of animals, most of which I couldn't name. The skin of a zebra lay stretched and flat beneath a glass-topped coffee table between two couches.

Jackson seemed drawn to an animal with curly horns, and he walked over and reached out to touch one while Izzy frowned.

“Well?” Hamhock opened his arms, signaling that all this was mine. “Impressive, isn't it? These are your digs.”

“What?! Really?
My
office?”

My mother clucked her tongue.

We heard laughter from behind a door that I hadn't even noticed in the bookcases behind the desk. The sound of voices, muffled by the door, leaked into the owner's office. More high-pitched laughing followed.

The lock clicked. The handle turned. The door was flung open.

I turned and saw the faces, and I thought I might throw up.

Dillon Peebles, my dead father's other son, looked just as sick as me. Maybe there was a flash of fear in his eyes, too, like I might be some kind of rabid dog. He looked to his mother for guidance.

Jasmine's lip curled right up off her teeth and she froze. “What are
these people
doing here? Take your hands off that.”

Jackson's hand dropped from the face of the strange animal he'd been poking.

My father's second wife held her chin high and directed her anger at Hamhock.

Even the all-bluff-and-bluster GM didn't seem able to hold up under her hard stare. His sunburned neck went from red to purple and he blinked, but he didn't look away.

“Uh, well . . . ma'am.” He scratched his purple neck. “We were just showing Ryan and his mom around a bit. He
is
gonna
be running the show, ma'am. All due respect.”

Dillon recovered his wits and he too now stared at me with the kind of hatred you saved for someone who kicked a puppy.

His mom let out a harsh
harrumph
, like she knew something we didn't, before looking back over her shoulder through the open door.

Mr. Dietrich entered the room and seemed surprised to see me.

“Ahh . . . hello.” He walked toward us but pulled up short of a possible handshake with anyone. He wore the kind of Popsicle-red pants you'd see old men golf in, with a lime-green and blue-plaid shirt that showed off his tan. He wore loafers with no socks and a white tennis sweater draped over his shoulders and tied around his neck.

“Actually,” Jasmine sneered, “I'm glad we're all here. I've been busy with my lawyers and . . . Well, needless to say, my husband does not get to tweak my nose from beyond the grave.” She looked directly at me. “And you do
not
hold a majority interest in this team. Or you won't when all the paperwork goes through.”

John Torres said what I was thinking. “Huh?”

Jasmine Peebles seemed to rise up taller than anyone in the room. “Ryan Zinna is
not
the owner of the Dallas Cowboys. I am. I hope you enjoyed it while it lasted, though.”

She smirked.

I looked at Mr. Dietrich, and by the way he bit his lip and inclined his head, I knew what she said had to be true.

I didn't own the Dallas Cowboys.

“All right,” Mr. Dietrich said. “Jasmine, Dillon, I think it's time for you to leave. Ryan and I have some things to discuss.”

After a few minutes—which included Jasmine's protests—my mom, my friends, and I were finally alone with Mr. Dietrich. He explained that there was a lot of uncertainty.

“What Jasmine is doing is, quite frankly, pretty smart.” Mr. Dietrich had clasped his hands and laid them out on the table in front of him. “Texas is a community property state, so she owns half of everything they acquired during their marriage.”

“She signed a prenuptial agreement!” My mom's eyes were burning and she rose up out of her seat.

I looked at her in surprise, realizing that she knew a lot more about my dad and his life than she had pretended to.

“Correct.” Mr. Dietrich thumped his hands on the table. “She's challenging that, though, and I have to say that from
what I've seen, I think she's got a good chance to prevail. Those agreements are always shaky and under her claim, she'd actually get
less
money.”

“Then why is she doing it?” My mother burst out.

Mr. Dietrich raised his eyebrows. “Why? The team. She wants it.”

“You mean, she doesn't want my son to have it.” My mother went from angry to bitter.

“Be that as it may, she's in a very good position and we have to prepare for it. I'm your trustee. I'm committed to seeing your father's will carried out, so it's my job to defend your claim like it was my own.” Mr. Dietrich stared at me like he was waiting for something. “You see, I don't have a family of my own. My business is my family, and your father was my brother in business.”

I shifted in my chair and looked at my friends. They stared at me, too, waiting. I looked back at Mr. Dietrich. “So what happens now?”

“If she does win, then I'll have the swing vote.” He cleared his throat and looked at me hard. “She'll only have half of your father's shares. You'll have the other half, forty percent each. Neither of you can control the team without the minority owner . . . me. I own twenty percent. Whoever I put my shares behind will run the team.”

“You're supposed to be Ryan's
trustee
,” my mom said, a disgusted look on her face, like she'd just stepped in dog doo. “Thomas
trusted
you to look out for him, and, as crazy as it sounds, he wanted
Ryan
to run the team. How could you even think about her?”

“Jasmine knows the organization. She's an adult—not one I'm overly fond of, but it would keep the organization more stable, and that's good for the value of the team and me.” The room seemed to get suddenly colder and Mr. Dietrich's eyes glinted from behind his glasses. “Before you get too upset, I'm not saying Ryan
won't
prevail here, I'm just saying that nothing is certain, and if it does go Jasmine's way, I will have another duty to carry out.”

“Duty?” My mother's eyes narrowed.

Mr. Dietrich smiled. “Well, you know Thomas. Very smart. An amazing chess player. I could rarely win a game. In a separate document, he gave me instructions for what to do in the event that this happened.”

“Instructions? What instructions?” My mom's face hardened even more.

Mr. Dietrich brightened. “I'm not at liberty to explain it in detail, but let's just say it'll be an interesting contest.”

“A contest?” I asked. “Between me and Jasmine?”

Mr. Dietrich laughed. “Oh, no. Not her. A contest between you and Dillon.”

“Easy come, easy go.” That's what my mother said as we drove home half an hour later.

I just stared silently out the window as Izzy and Jackson sat in the backseat.

It wasn't as cut-and-dried as all that. It might have been easy come, but it wasn't going to be easy go. Not if I had my way.

We were halfway back to my house before anyone said anything.

“What do you think he meant by a contest?” Izzy asked.

It annoyed me because I didn't know the answer even though I'd been thinking about it.

“Good grades?” Jackson suggested, hopefully. “You got that covered.”

Izzy bit her lip. “He said he and your father played chess.
Would you have to play Dillon in chess to win the team?”

“That's pretty crazy,” Jackson said.

“The whole thing is crazy,” I replied.

“I think we should just forget all about this.” My mom gripped the wheel and glared at the road as we cruised against the flow of the rush-hour traffic back toward the heart of Dallas. “You don't need to
own a team
. You're too young. I've said that all along.”

I couldn't have disagreed more and couldn't help saying so. “You didn't seem so hot for her to take it away from me back there.”

“That woman is a sack of snakes. I'm instinctively against whatever she wants.” My mom seemed to forget the three of us kids were even there, and she glanced in the mirror at my friends in the backseat before putting the radio on and turning up the volume when she recognized “Colder Weather” by the Zac Brown Band. We listened to my mom sing along, one song after another, with the volume holding back any chance for conversation.

When we pulled into the circular driveway, my mom shut off the truck and chirped like a happy bird. “How about a cookout?”

“I'm definitely in.” Jackson swung the door open but stayed seated.

“I can ask,” Izzy said.

“You do that and let me know. Chicken and ribs. Why don't you all take a swim while I help Teresa put things together?” My mom was already on her way up the front steps, happy to be back in her own base camp and fully in charge.

I looked at my friends. Jackson licked his lips, but Izzy returned my questioning eyes with a sympathetic tilt of her head.

“Come on,” I said, hopping down. “Let's go out back.”

They followed me. Izzy called her mom right in front of us, so when she got denied on the barbecue because of a family dinner, I knew it wasn't her just wanting to bail on the brewing storm between me and my mom. We hung out in the back, waiting for Izzy's mom to come get her. Jackson did some stunts off the diving board, winning his own cannonball contest with twelve-foot plumes of splash. To his dismay, Izzy and I would only watch from our thickly padded lounge chairs in the shade.

“He's not very good, you know.” I could tell Izzy was speaking to me, even though her eyes were on the human cannonball.

“Who? Coach Cowan?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No. The general manager. Hamhock. I made a big deal about him picking Mark Fusco because it's maybe the best move he's made since he got here. The other picks? Not so great.”

“Hey . . .” I liked Bert Hamhock, even if he talked like a farmer sometimes and wanted to fire Coach Cowan. My mind raced, searching for just the right argument to quiet Izzy down. “He picked John Torres.”

Izzy made me wait while she cracked open a can of iced tea and leaned forward to take a sip. “Exactly.”

“You
love
John Torres.” I realized the outrage I felt had crept into my words, giving them a nasty flavor.

“John Torres may be the cutest quarterback in the league right now,” she said, “but that won't win games. I can think of
three
backups
in the NFL who'd be better.”

I barked out a laugh. “Like who? Kellen
Smith
?”

“I forgot about him. He makes four.”

“Are you serious? You don't even know who Kellen Smith is,” I said.

“Just because
you
don't know, doesn't mean
I
don't know.” She set her tea can down hard on the little table between us, sat back, and crossed her arms.

“Okay,” I said, “what was his completion percentage?”

She narrowed her eyes at me and smiled. “When? Junior year or senior year?”

I wasn't about to be outgunned on my Cowboys knowledge by a girl, no matter how much I liked her. I mean, I was the owner. Maybe. “Sophomore year.”

Her smile widened into a grin and she let her head fall back like she was ready to take a nap. “He didn't play his sophomore year because of injury, medical redshirt. Dislocated his kneecap and tore the medial collateral ligament. Junior year he completed 73.8 percent and senior year it was a school record—80.1 percent, with thirty-one touchdowns and just eight interceptions. He also ran for seven hundred and twenty-three yards and eleven touchdowns.”

I could tell by the look on her face that she wasn't making it up. “Yeah, I know all that. Not the exact numbers, but . . .”

I was thankful that Jackson finally got out of the pool and stood dripping wet and staring at us under the trellis of cool green vines. “What you guys talking about?”

“Just the Cowboys,” Izzy sang.

“Yeah, so cool that you might own them,” Jackson said. “I
mean, that you do. Kind of. Maybe. Aww, who cares? You're gonna be playing in
our
game this Saturday anyway, which is way better by far.”

I wasn't so sure about that and I wasn't going to leave the field of battle with Izzy so quickly. “She thinks Bert Hamhock's not a good GM. She doesn't like John Torres.”

Jackson looked back and forth between us, then froze. “Oh, no. I'm not getting in the middle of this one.”

“There's no middle,” I complained. “Just tell us what you think.”

“I think . . . I gotta use the bathroom.” He hurried off, struggling to wrap a towel around his waist.

“So . . . ,” I said.

“I'm not gonna argue.” She sipped her tea and squinted at the sun sparkling in the pool water. “It's your team.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“Well,” she said, taking out her phone and sitting back in her chair, “I'm here for you if you need me. That's all.”

“Thanks.” I lay back, too, and took out my own phone, googling Kellen Smith and finding out Izzy knew his numbers exactly. I was impressed, but determined not to show it.

Jackson returned and sat down, too, and ten minutes later, Izzy's mom texted from the front circle that she'd arrived.

Izzy stood. “Well, let me know how it turns out with the team.” She said it like we'd never let up on the conversation. “Either way, hey, you owned the Dallas Cowboys, right?”

I looked up and scowled. “Worst case, I still own part of them.”

It was a bluff. They knew and I knew that a minority
interest got me nothing, except a lot of money
if
the majority owner ever decided to sell them, which might not even happen in my lifetime.

“For sure,” she said. “See you guys tomorrow.”

She hurried off.

Jackson puffed up his cheeks and I knew he had something to say.