Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Smiling at his words, I put the phone into my pocket, looked up, and declared, “I have a job!”
Both men stopped in their conversation to look at me.
“That’s why Beau was here.” I gestured toward the spray of blood. “To offer me a job with the Cowgirls. I start tomorrow.”
Boone scowled deeper.
“Only light working out and no contact, I promise,” I said. “Which is great because I’m bored as fuck at home.”
Sawyer’s brows rose. “From where I stand, you’ve had a lot of excitement at home.”
I waved away his words. “I’m hungry, can we go to Arby’s?”
Twenty-Two
If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.
—Nettie’s secret thoughts
Nettie
Boone went to the first part of practice with me because he wanted to make sure that I was being truthful about light working out only.
Beau met him at the gates to the facility and stopped him before he could enter. “Sorry, man, but we’re going to have to stop you here. You can’t come in. I’m showing her the locker room and all that fun stuff today. You can watch from the stadium, since I know you want to make sure I was serious about keeping it light for her. We’re timing our mile today.” He looked at me. “You’re running, right?”
I nodded.
“We don’t expect you to make the mile time.” He laughed. “Nor do we expect you to do anything more than you’re comfortable with. Everyone knows you’re pregnant and not coming on in a full-time capacity until you’re ready.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “I have to warn you about the shit going down, though.”
Boone crossed his arms over his chest. “Will she be safe?”
While they were talking, I thought about my old team. About how none of those words would’ve come out of the old team manager’s mouth. They would’ve rather sued me—though at this point they very well might still do that since I’d broken my contract with them—than let me have maternity leave from the team.
And they certainly wouldn’t have said “It’s okay not to make time.”
I’d seen them fine several women who’d had the bad luck to get pregnant in the years that I’d been on that team.
They certainly hadn’t made it a safe environment for pregnancy.
“Very,” Beau promised. “It’s not danger. It’s just petty female behavior that has digressed into all-out verbal warfare. I was hoping with a veteran on the team of Nettie’s caliber, that we might get this figured out.”
Even fighting like cats and dogs, I knew that this team would have a better atmosphere than the one I’d just left. It all started with a good boss. You had to start at the top and work your way down.
I really should tell Boone about what was going on with Miami FC.
“What’s going on?” I asked, not really relishing the thought of entering into a team that had problems.
“We had a couple of females on the team that have been traded,” he started. “But they caused a lot of drama. Instilled a lot of distrust among the entire team. No one trusts anyone. Not on the field, and certainly not off of it. I’m hoping with you here that you can kill two birds with one stone. One, you’ll be able to be entered onto the roster since you’re practicing with us. And two, you can help me figure out how to make my team a team again.”
“What about the coach?” I asked. “Is she good? Did she help with the discontent among the players?”
“About that,” he said. “I offered another coach the job as head coach.”
“The old one wasn’t any good?” I wondered.
“The old one was okay, but she was very set in her ways and was very against me figuring out an alternate solution to the anger and resentment on the team. She was of the mind that it would all iron itself out eventually. But we don’t have eventually.” He scrubbed his hands through his hair. “My sister will get control of the team if I can’t turn this shit around. I have two seasons. And last season was practically wasted with the girls.”
I wrinkled my nose at him.
Seraphina, Beau’s sister, was a douchebag of the nth degree.
She was callous, petty, and just about the worst person that could ever run a women’s soccer team. Or a women’s team of any sort.
For women’s sports, you wanted to instill power and will, but also wanted the team to like each other. You didn’t want to go in there and instill the kind of hate that Seraphina would.
I remembered playing soccer with her in high school.
She’d been a ball hog, thought she was better than everyone else because she got lessons from a professional, and literally made everyone hate each other because she started rumors that weren’t true.
“Your sister was the one to start all the shit on your team, wasn’t she?” I asked.