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Instead, he roamed the steaming-hot practice field and nitpicked performances while sweat beaded on his forehead. He blew his whistle a lot and made everyone else work their asses off. Fair or not, teams were built through sweat, and he’d played on enough teams himself to know you balanced the good times—the wins—with the challenges. And if the challenges didn’t come on the field on Sunday, a good coach handed them up in practice.
“Again!” he barked at the receivers running long patterns in the heat. Normally, Dempsey focused on the full team as they practiced plays. But today he had taken over the receiver coach’s job.
In a minute, he’d move on to the running backs, since he’d already been through all the defensive positions.
Adelaide had not publicly broken their engagement yet, but she had moved out of his house. Which shouldn’t have surprised him after the epic fail of his proposal. He’d planned for the moment all week. Spent every spare second that he wasn’t with his team figuring out how to make the night special. Yet it had fallen short of the mark for her.
Of course, they hadn’t gotten to half of it. He’d ordered an outdoor dinner set up in the mountains with a perfect view of the sunset. He’d had a classical guitarist in place, for crying out loud, so they could dance under the stars.
And she hadn’t even taken her ring.
Of all the things that had gone wrong that night, that bothered him the most, given how much thought he’d put into the design. Sure, he was to blame for not understanding that he could have scrapped the balloon, the limo and the guitarist to simply say, “I love you.” Except, in all his planning, that had never occurred to him. He’d known what he felt for Addy was big. But was it love? He’d shut down that emotional part of himself long ago, probably on one of the nights his mother had locked him out of the house, claiming some irrational fault on his part, but mostly because she was high.
Love wasn’t part of his vernacular.
That had worked out fine for him in the Reynaud house full of men. Caring was demonstrated through externals. A one-two punch for a greeting like what he and Jean-Pierre still exchanged. Covering up for Henri when his younger brother had broken a priceless antique. His first well-executed corporate raid had won the admiration of Gervais and Leon alike.
Dempsey understood that world. It was his world, and he’d handed it to Adelaide on a silver platter, but it hadn’t been enough.
And now he’d lost her in every way possible. As his friend. His lover. His future wife.
Stalking away from the receivers, he was about to put the running backs to work when his brother Henri jogged over to match his steps.
“Got a second, Coach?” Henri used the deferential speech of a player, a sign of respect Dempsey had never had to ask for, but which had always been freely given even though Henri thought nothing of busting his chops off the field.
“I probably have one.” He kept walking.
Henri kept pace.
“Privately?” he urged in a tone that bordered on less deferential. “Practice was supposed to end an hour ago.”
Surprised, Dempsey checked his watch.
“Shit. Fine.” He blew his whistle loud enough for the whole field to hear. “Thanks for the hard work today. Same time tomorrow.”
A chorus of relieved groans echoed across the field. Dempsey changed course toward the offices. Henri still kept pace.
“You’re killing the guys,” Henri observed, his helmet tucked under one arm, his practice jersey drenched with sweat. “Any particular reason?”
They were back to being brothers now that practice was done and no one would overhear.
“We have a tough game on Sunday and our first two wins have not been as decisive as I would have liked.” He halted his steps and folded his arms, waiting for Henri to spit out whatever was on his mind. “You have a problem with that?”
“I’m all about team building.” Henri planted a cleat on the first row of bleachers. “But you’ve run them long every day this week. Morale is low. The guys are confused in the locker room. I know that’s not what you’re going for.”
“Since when do you snitch on locker-room talk about me?” Dempsey shooed away one of the field personnel who came by to pick up a water cooler. He didn’t need an audience for this talk.
“Only since you started acting like a coach with a chip on his shoulder instead of the supremely capable leader you’ve been the whole rest of my tenure with this team.”
