Playing at Love (20 page)

After her words seemed to sink in, Tess saw nods and murmurs of accord around the group. Over the years, she’d tried to instill in her students kindness and compassion, and she felt even prouder as her team applauded for Walnut High when that school took the stage as regional champions.

“Well,” Penny said, still clapping, “at least we can still keep singing, even without the school. But the football team, they kind of need it.”

Again, Tess felt in awe of her student—who had just taught Tess a very valuable lesson, without even knowing it. Tess smiled and put an arm around Penny. “You’re so very wise,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

Tess looked past Penny at Mac, who had little tears in the corners of her eyes.

After all the hugs and high-fives and handshakes, Tess felt exhausted and was ready to head home and straight into a bubble bath. She spotted her parents at the back of the room and waved to them, gesturing that she would see them later.

“So,” Mac said, sliding an arm around her shoulders, “now all we have to do is wait.”

“Wait for what?” Tess asked, gathering up her things.

Mac eyed her. “I assumed you’d be aware of a little football game going on at this very moment.” She lifted her eyebrows. “A game that you personally have a lot riding on.”

“I’m sure it’s over by now,” Tess said, checking her watch.

“They had a weather delay,” Mac said. “Lightning. Haven’t you heard the thunder for the past two hours?” She displayed her cell phone. “I have, uh…” She cleared her throat. “A
contact
at the game who’s been sending me texts.”

“Rick?”

Mac shrugged coyly.

“Are you ever going to tell me what went on between you two?” Tess shoved her shoulder. “I can’t believe I wasn’t kept up to speed.”

Mac arched an eyebrow. “Do you tell
me
everything?” she asked.

Tess thought for a moment, and then shut her mouth.

After waving a hand in the air, Mac said, “You know I’ll tell you all about that later, and
you’ll
tell me, right?”

“Tell you what?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Mac straightened her glasses. “Maybe you’ll tell me why you freaked out on Jack all because you got scared.” She lifted a hand to stop Tess from butting in. “And because of something that happened years ago. Honey, Jack is not Sam, he’s not Ben or any of those other morons who didn’t know what an amazing thing they had when they were with you. He’s different. You
know
that.”

Tess’s mind was spinning at a million miles an hour.

“But we don’t have time to get into that now,” Mac said. “At last word, Franklin was down by six at the end of the second quarter.”

Tess blinked, waking up. “You mean the game is still going on?”

“You better leave now if you want to be there at the end.”

Tess bit her lip, gazing toward her choir in the corner, chatting and getting ready to celebrate. “I can’t; I have to stay with my team.”

“No, you don’t,” Mac said, handing Tess her bag. “I’ll stay and there’re twenty parents here. It’ll be fine.
You
need to get to that game. Now.”

Tess thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, I do,” she said, looking straight ahead. “I need to be there to witness firsthand what my fate will be. The fate of all of us.”

“So stop
gabbing
and
go
!” Mac said, shoving her shoulder.

Tess didn’t turn back once as she ran in her heels toward the exit.

It was still pouring down rain but the lightning had stopped by the time Tess pulled onto the gravel parking lot. She saw the stadium lights and could hear the announcer and the roar of the crowd as she climbed out of her car. From that, she knew the game was back in play.

She grabbed an emergency Windbreaker from the trunk and hopped over puddles, dashing toward the stadium.

…

“Williams! Pro-right, twenty-eight shuffle!”

Jack was sure to make direct eye contact with his quarterback before motioning him back to the huddle with the new play. The rain was making communication difficult. And with the score tied and only a little more than a minute left, emotions were running high.

When his quarterback didn’t move from the side of the field, Jack waved a hand in front of his face. “Hey! Did you hear me? Take out the play.”

“Not shuffle, Coach!” the kid called out to him.

“Yeah!” Jack called back. “Get out there!” He clapped his hands and looked out at the field. But the kid still didn’t move. “What is it?”

“I know I can throw the touchdown,” Williams said, nodding toward the end zone. “Dylan’s been open all night.”

“No. Nothing long. We only need to make five yards here. Get us the first down, then we’ll run a shorter pass next. It’s shuffle. Now, get out there and do your job.”

“But Coach—”

Jack lifted a hand to cut him off then waved him closer. “Do we have a
problem
, Mr. Williams?” Jack asked, looking him in the eyes again. Heavy rain was splattering off the top of the kid’s helmet. “You either follow my orders or you take a seat. Do you understand?”

Williams drew back then nodded. “Got it, Coach,” he grumbled, after sliding back in his mouth guard.

“All right, then.” Jack hit the back of his helmet. “Get on out there.”

When he saw Williams set the lineup to run the wrong play, despite Jack’s implicit order only ten second ago, Jack swore under his breath. But the play worked—not for a touchdown but to make it to the five-yard line.

Jack was
not
happy. “Time! Time!” he called, waving his arms over his head.

The officials signaled the time-out—Franklin’s last, Jack feared—and stopped the clock with just over a minute left in the game.

Jack stood with his hands on his hips, feeling cold rain running down the back of his neck, as his quarterback trotted toward the sidelines, fist-bumping teammates along the way. As he approached, Jack could see the white teeth of his grin. The kid was actually
proud
of himself; he’d blatantly disregarded a direct call from his coach and then had the nerve to swagger.

“Williams!”
He grabbed the front of his jersey. “What the hell was that? That was
not
the play I gave you.”

“I told you I could go long,” Williams said, still smiling. “Now we’ve got three downs to put it in.” He shrugged. “And we win!”

Jack dropped his hand and stepped back. Every bone in his body was telling him to bench the arrogant kid—pronto—and probably make him stay out for the next game, too. If there
was
a next game. That would be the right thing to do, from a coaching standpoint.
And
from an ethical standpoint. If he allowed Williams to get away with calling his own plays in the huddle now, Jack might lose the discipline of the entire team, not to mention having to deal with the ego of that kid.

There was a lesson to be taught here. But was now the right time, when they were seconds away from the win they desperately needed?

For a moment, Jack stared up at the scoreboard, different scenarios and different outcomes running through his mind at lightning speed. He wiped a wet hand over his mouth then made his decision.

“Rivers!” he called down the line. “You’re in!”

“
What?
” Williams shrieked in alarm.

Jack turned and pointed at him. “On the bench,” he said. “And if you ever pull a stunt like that again, you are off this team. Do we understand each other?”

Williams swore and kicked a clump of grass, sending mud into the air.

Jack grabbed him again, his face inches from Williams’s face mask. “Hit the showers!” he growled. “I don’t want to see your face the rest of the night!”

Once Jack let go, Williams stumbled back, then stormed off the field. When the stadium speakers made the announcement that Andy Rivers was going in for starting QB, the home crowd’s reaction was not extremely supportive, to say the least. Jack tried to block out that sound; the crowd didn’t know what was really going on down on the field.

He put a hand on Andy’s shoulder. “Blue thirty-eight,” he said. “Easy play. You practiced it all week.”

The kid’s eyes were as wide as saucers as he fastened his chin strap, nodding over and over, trying to build up his confidence.

“You’ll see Pinker break left to the flag.” Jack gestured with his hands. “He’ll pass the cornerback and you hit him there. Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah. I got it, Coach.”

“Good. Now go tell your team.”

Andy nodded once more, then turned on his cleated heel and sprinted toward the huddle.

Jack dropped his clipboard and folded his arms, not bothering to look down the line at his entire coaching staff glaring at him. He knew what they were thinking: Jack might have just cost them all their jobs…as well as the future of Grizzlies football.

…

Tess wasn’t sure what was going on. She couldn’t see much of the playing field because everyone was standing and a line of people blocked the front railing. She tried to wedge between two fans but there wasn’t enough room. She tightened her rain hood and wiped water out of her eyes. Suddenly, she spotted a security gate that led down to the field.

“Hey,” she said to the uniform manning the gate. “I’m a teacher here and I need to get down to the track.”

Surprisingly enough, the guy opened the gate and allowed Tess to squeeze through. She thanked him, then headed down the stairs, gripping the railing so she wouldn’t slip on the wet concrete. Out on the black running track that surrounded the field, Tess stood by a group of cheerleaders.

“What’s going on?” she asked one of them.

“Coach Marshall just benched Zack Williams.”

“What does that mean?”

“The only other quarterback is Andy Rivers. He just went in.”

Tess immediately recognized that name and she turned to look out at the muddy field. Andy was the kid Jack had mentioned, the one he said he would never play unless there was a very good reason.

“Why would Coach do that?” Tess asked.

The cheerleader shrugged. “Um, well, Tiffany said that Billy said that Coach was yelling at Zack because he broke some rule. And I guess he got in trouble for it and Coach won’t let him play.”

“Isn’t the game almost over?”

“Yeah. And Zack just made this, like, really amazing pass.” She jerked her head, her wet ponytail flipping water into the air. “There’s probably no other coach in the whole world who would make a change like that this late in the game. No one knows what’s going on. This might be the last play of the game.”

Tess stared at the cheerleader, wondering why Jack would risk a win—
this
win—if they were so close to a victory.

All of a sudden, as she stood there, shivering in the rain, she knew why.

Even when they were fifteen—before he’d messed up at the end of their summer—she’d known Jack’s heart and the way he thought. He was kind and honorable and fair. He’d told her that one of the reasons he loved coaching was to teach these exact kinds of lessons—“coaching in the moment,” he’d called it. Jack had devoted his career to building future men, men who were on the road to being honest, good, admirable, and most of all, trustworthy. All the qualities that thrived in Jack…

The man she was in love with.

Suddenly, she felt this in her heart, down to the tips of her toes. She knew the kind of man Jack Marshall was. She loved him and couldn’t wait to open her whole heart to him. But if they lost this game, it might be too late.

Tess’s heart started to pound and her eyes filled with tears as she moved forward, scanning the line for him. But she couldn’t make out anything, just shoulder-to-shoulder uniforms.

She jumped when she heard a whistle blow and then the crowd fell eerily silent. She wiped her eyes and strained to focus past the showers of rain toward the field. She saw blue jerseys and white jerseys running this way and that, but she couldn’t tell what was going on. She watched as the football flew through the air but she lost sight of it when it passed before one of the bright stadium lights. After the collective hush, the crowd exploded.

When the lines broke and it seemed as though all the players from both sides were taking the field, an outburst of need exploded in Tess’s heart. She didn’t even know which side had won the game. That didn’t matter! All she knew was that she had to find Jack and tell him—once and for all—how much she loved him. And she had to do it now. So she kicked her shoes under the bleachers and took off running. But she wasn’t the only one. Fans were jumping the railings and pouring onto the field.

After making it to the long bench and water station, Tess stood in place, cupping her hands over her eyes, attempting to shield the rain. People were rushing past her, bumping her shoulders. She still couldn’t find him, so she hitched up her soaked-through skirt and stepped onto the bench, hoping to get a better view. The largest cluster of blue uniforms was off to the far left. She hopped down from the bench and ran that way, her bare feet sinking into the muddy grass.

“Jack!” she called. But the crowd around her was much too loud. She figured he would be somewhere in the middle of the mass, so she elbowed her way in, shoving past uniformed players who were three times her size. “Jack!” she called again.

When she made it out the other side and still hadn’t found him, she suddenly considered that maybe his team had lost. She looked at the scoreboard, but it was flashing all zeros now. When the football went flying, where had the cheering come from? The home section of the stadium or the visitors’ section? Tess had no idea. Maybe Jack was on his way home to pack and head back to Chicago or wherever his coaching career might take him.

Tess whipped around, facing the mob again. Panic gripped her pounding heart. She wouldn’t let him go. She would
not
lose him for a third time.

Just as she was about to descend back into the mass, her breath caught. There he was, standing over by the bench where she had just been. “Jack!” she called, waving her hands in the air. But he didn’t hear. In fact, it looked like he was starting to walk away.