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I brought the bottle of water to my lips and drank. “What do you mean? What kind of job?”
“A buddy of mine happens to be the new head of the athletic department at Oregon University, your alma mater. The head coach over there retired at the end of last season, and they’ve been on the hunt for his replacement ever since with no luck. I mentioned I might have someone to fit that bill. When I said your name, he just about lost his mind. I think it’d be nice for you to get back to where it all started for you.”
It felt like a ton of information to take in all at once. Too much for me to try and wrap my head around while I was on my feet at least. I’d had enough booze to knock most people on their asses. I collapsed onto a stool tucked beneath the island and rubbed at the tick that had developed in my left eye rightaround the time my publicist shoved that bullshit hearts and flowers speech at me to read in front of the cameras. “Wait. You want me to coach college football? What the hell do I know about coaching?”
“Probably nothing. At least not yet. But you can learn, and you have all the skills you need to teach those boys to be good men and good goddamn football players. I believe in you.”
Well, that made one of us. “Why haven’t you taken this job, Sam? Between you and me, you’re the one most qualified.”
He scoffed through the line. “You know it’s not for me. Besides, I’m happy right where I am.”
Sam coached, sure, but he coached high school football, had been since he retired from the pros and moved to my hometown of Whitecap, a small coastal town in Oregon. He said he preferred to teach them before they were old enough to form shitty habits and attitudes. He liked to claim that helping me made him realize his second calling. He said he lived out his first calling as a professional NFL player, and when he couldn’t do that anymore, he was lucky enough to discover a second one coaching kids who dreamed of going down that same road. Or, hell, who just wanted to have a good time on that field with their buddies.
I’d been one of those kids once.
“I get that you need to think about it, son. I’m sure your agent’s throwing shit your way left, right, and center.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. He’d been throwing around words like guest commentator and broadcaster. The truth was, I had zero interest in being in front of the camera like that. I loved football for thegamenot the celebrity. Just thinking about going down that path created an anxious knot in my gut.
Out of all the options I’d been given, the easiest one to stomach was coaching. There was just one key thing stopping me from pulling the trigger.
“Man, I don’t know. I’d have to go back, and I just don’t know if I’m ready for that. You know how badly I wanted to get the hell out of there.”
“I do. But that was a long time ago, Beau. You aren’t a kid anymore. Don’t let your bastard of a father dictate your life. You’re stronger than he is, and I don’t just mean physically, and you know it.”
Logically, I did. But the thought of living in the same place as that man again threatened to give me a skull-splitting headache.
“I’m not asking for an answer now, son, only that you consider it. You have options, Beau, but if it’s any consolation, I really think you could be good for those kids. Make a difference, you know? Besides, it would be nice to see you back in that Wolverine blue and white,” he continued as I sucked back the last of my water. I tossed the empty bottle across the kitchen toward the recycling bin and winced at the fire that shot through my shoulder, reminding me why I was where I was in the first goddamn place.
“I’ll think about it,” I promised him. It was the least I could do for him, after all.
“Appreciate it.” And in the next breath, he shifted gears. “If you take it, maybe that means you’ll be home in time for the reunion. Something to think about.”
The reunion.
At the reminder of my upcoming fifteen-year high school reunion, I looked at the invitation that had come in the mail a few weeks ago. I hadn’t given it much thought at the time. To be honest, I’d intended to throw the thing away but hadn’t gotten around to it before my housekeeper had stuck it up on my refrigerator. It had stayed there simply because I didn’t cook, so I wasn’t in my kitchen all that often. Out of sight, out of mind and all that.
On that reminder of the reunion, my mind traveled back to the past. Or more to the point, to one specific person.
“Yeah,” I said, speaking my thoughts out loud as I pulled the image of her up in my mind. “Definitely something to think about.”
Chapter Two
PRESLEY
Late mornings weremy favorite time at Dropped Anchor, Whitecap’s local watering hole. My last few calm moments before the kitchen came to life as my waitstaff finished preparing for the lunch rush to start.
I had an office in the back where I did most of the administrative tasks that came with managing a bar, but at this time of day I preferred to do what I could at the bar, sitting in the middle of the place that had come to feel like a second home to me. I started working here when I was just eighteen and desperately in need of money to help pay my way through college. If it wasn’t for this place, I would have had to drop out before earning my degree.
I’d started waiting tables, then worked my way back behind the bar where tips were even better, and now, all these years later, I was the manager. The current owner, Diane, had started talking recently about selling the old place so she and her wife could tour the country in their RV before they got too old to enjoy it. I couldn’t imagine someone else coming in and taking this place over. With new ownership came changes—not always good ones. The last thing I wanted was for this place to lose allits charm and history by being turned into something trendy. Whitecap was a tourist town, and that meant there was no shortage of city folks coming in and trying to change shit up that had worked perfectly well for years.
I couldn’t let that happen here, so I was determined to be the one who bought it from Diane when the time finally came. The problem was, I didn’t have the money on hand to do it, and banks didn’t consider a college degree in business and a can-do attitude as proof enough that a person was worthy of a loan.
Assholes.
But I wasn’t giving up. This place and the people who worked here meant something to me. I was determined to get that loan. I just wasn’t sure how. At least not yet.
Before I could travel down the road of how the hell I was going to manage to secure my future and the future of all my employees and friends, the door to the bar burst open and my best friend came flying through like a tornado.
