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“Yeah right, Coach.”
“He’ll never be as cool as Coach K.”
“Who’s going to talk to us about aliens now?” Forrest demanded, far louder than anyone else.
The field dissolved into louder laughter, and even Rhodes’ face broke into a grin as he shook his head. The sadness didn’t disappear entirely, but for a few seconds it loosened its grip enough for all of us to breathe a little easier.
And honestly, Forrest’s question was valid. There was no way this Peterson guy would entertain the ridiculous questions about aliens like Rhodes had.
“You have my email, and I might be convinced to give you my phone number,” Rhodes replied.
“Absolutely not,” Jude interrupted. When Rhodes frowned at him, he added, “Rodney will call you every time he forgets how to do his laundry.”
“I called you one time!” Rodney protested.
“You microwaved a sock.”
“It was wet!”
Rhodes laughed at their chaotic back-and-forth. He let Jude and Rodney go back and forth with what was a very good example of why Rhodes shouldn’t give out his phone number, but I had a feeling he would anyway.
“And I know Peterson is getting my office,” Rhodes continued when the conversation finally died. “But all of you know where I live. It’s just a different door to knock on. This job was always temporary, but you guys weren’t.”
The team fell completely silent, all the humor vanishing.
“I didn’t expect to care about this team as much as I do,” he admitted. “Or to be this proud of you either. You’ve worked your asses off this season, and whatever happens after I step away won’t change that. But more than that, I’m proud of the progress you’ve made off the field. I know it’s only been a short time, but you’ve all come a long way. I may not be in Everdale when all of this is said and done, but if you need me, I’m still here. Football, school, careers… whatever you need, I’m still here for it. Distance doesn’t change a damn thing.”
Judging by the silence, no one seemed to know what to do with that. These were guys who could turn almost anything into a joke, but none of them did. It hit me how Rhodes had somehow become so much more than a coach to all of us—and it wasn’t because I was dating him. It was how he so fiercely invested in every one of them outside of football.
And judging by the look on everyone’s faces, I wasn’t the only one realizing it.
“All right!” Rhodes clapped his hands once. “Enough feelings for one morning. Get your asses up.”
The guys groaned but started climbing to their feet.
“Warm-ups in ten,” he said. “And if any of you use this announcement as an excuse to half-ass practice, I’ll make Peterson’s first lesson on how to work your asses into the ground.”
“And there’s the jackass,” Jude muttered beside me, making me laugh.
A few guys lingered near Rhodes instead of heading straight for the sidelines. Sam clapped him on the shoulder, Max said something I couldn’t hear that made Rhodes laugh, and Rodney hovered awkwardly for several seconds before apparently deciding on a fist bump.
And as the minutes passed, no one did what they were supposed to. Instead, everyone gathered around Rhodes. He didn’t rush them along, check his watch, or remind us that warm-ups should’ve already started. He just stood there in the middle of the field and let the moment happen.
CHAPTER 93
Rhodes
The building was mostly empty by the time I finally made it back to my office. Practice had run longer than planned as the guys kept stopping to ask questions, and most of them hung around afterward to shoot the shit. I let them because I knew they needed it. Shortly after the team dispersed, Peterson texted and wanted to sit with me to talk about practice. Apparently, he’d watched from high up in the bleachers and had a few dozen questions. I sat with him for almost three hours, going through film notes, schedules, player tendencies, and the hundred other tiny things nobody bothered to put in an official handbook.
By the time he left, we had a long list of everything else he wanted to go over, which would probably grow with every meeting. I had to hand it to him, though. He was open and receptive to learning about the team as a whole, developing personal relationships with them, and becoming part of my team rather than creating his own. Without a doubt, he was the right fit for the team.
Which just left me with the task of packing up my office. There wasn’t much that belonged to me—a few books, the mug Jude gave me that said World’s Okayest Coach, and the framed photo of me, Mom, and Jude that Mom had insisted I take when I first accepted the position. I had my own files and such, but most of the room belonged to Harbor Tech. I didn’t need more than a box or two to move out.
I set the mug carefully in a smaller box before I started pulling books from the shelf. I was halfway through neatly stacking them in the other box when my door flew open.
“Okay, listen here,” Theo said as he shut the door behind him. Fresh from the showers with his hair still damp, he looked tired in that end-of-practice kind of way. Underneath that was his frantic nature fueled by his anxiety.
That part was my fault. I’d done nothing to ease his building worry from our conversation, and I’d made myself deliberately harder to reach because I hadn’t been ready to deal with my own feelings. And before I could make a plan to talk to Theo, Wirtz had thrown me into the deep end with the new coach situation.
