Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 121095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 605(@200wpm)___ 484(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 605(@200wpm)___ 484(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Coach Parker sighs from the depths of his soul and leans back in his plush chair. “You threw me for a loop last night, Luca.”
I hang my head. “I know. Sorry.”
“You tossed a wrench into all my big plans, son. I hated to see it.”
So there it is. Confirmation that I’m getting cut. Would the result have been different if only I’d performed last night like I did in my prior two preseason games? It sure sounds like it, based on that comment. It only makes the situation all the more heartbreaking.
“What happened to set you off like that? Explain it to me.”
When I look up, Coach Parker looks deeply sympathetic. Like this moment is as painful for him as for me. Although that can’t be true, obviously. Tomorrow, he’ll continue working at his dream job, while I’ll most likely be out of the league for good and forced to figure out a game plan for the rest of my life at age twenty-six.
“I just let the pressure get to me,” I murmur. “If you give me another chance, I won’t let it happen again.”
To my surprise, Coach Parker doesn’t roll his eyes or scoff at my last-ditch plea. Instead, while maintaining intense eye contact, he clasps his hands on his desk and asks, “What’s the beef between you and Moriarty about?” When I don’t reply, he pushes. “Is it something personal, or just the usual dick-swinging contest that happens when two talented alphas are forced to rub shoulder pads one too many times?”
Weirdly, my first thought is to feel complimented that he’s called me a talented alpha. But almost as fast as my ego inflates at that miniscule victory, my brain remembers the big picture. Despite how people compared us in college, Moriarty is now the biggest star on his team, and I’m a big fat nobody who publicly went after him. If I tell Coach the real reason I did that—if I reveal what his highly paid star said to rile me up to the point of losing control—Coach will probably think I’m fabricating the worst possible offense, one involving Coach’s beloved daughter, as a last-ditch ploy to cast my rival in the worst possible light and save myself.
“It was just a dick-swinging contest,” I croak out. “He talked some playground smack about me, you know, about the Defective Maguire thing, and I lost my cool like a rookie idiot.”
It’s a death blow to Coach. It’s written all over his face. He was hoping for something more understandable. Something he could forgive. But what he got only makes me look like an even bigger loose-cannon idiot than before.
With a sigh, Coach bows his head and keeps it there while speaking his next words. “You’re not defective, Luca. If they taunted you for having pink hair, would you have snapped? No. Because you don’t have pink hair. Reacting like that only proves you believe you’re defective, too. You realize that, right? It was a fucking admission.”
My heart squeezes. “Yes, sir.” When he’s right, he’s right. There’s no point in denying it.
“Goddammit, Luca,” he huffs out. “You acted like a newborn calf out there! I didn’t even recognize you.”
I take a deep breath to stuff down the emotion his pained look is provoking inside me. No matter how out of line Moriarty was, the fact that he could so easily get me off my game like that is the real issue. At the end of the day, no matter what Moriarty said, the only person I’ve got to blame for my actions is myself. And so that’s what I tell Coach Parker, in no uncertain terms, and he agrees with my assessment completely.
“It was the worst fuckup of my career,” I mumble, feeling like my heart is physically cracking against my sternum. “But I promise I won’t do anything like that ever again if you give me another chance, because I never want to feel this kind of shame again. I vow to use this horrible feeling as fuel, Coach, if you give me one more chance to prove myself to you.”
Coach presses his lips together, making it clear that’s not going to happen. “If we’d made our final roster after last week’s game,” he says soberly, “your name would have been on it. But now …” He shakes his head ruefully. “I can’t do it.”
My lungs expel every ounce of air they’ve been holding. “I understand.”
“I could have overlooked you getting duped on the fake-out. It happens. You’re human. But the stunt you pulled with Moriarty is a deal-breaker, because it showed me you’re still a loose cannon without impulse control, every bit as much as you were when you scaled those fucking uprights on day fucking one.”
I shake my head. “That’s not true, Coach.”
“Yes, it is. You’ve managed to bottle up your wild ways for a while, mostly thanks to Chelsea and Raul keeping you in line. But last night made it clear all those same impulses are still alive and well inside you. When you could no longer get the attention and adrenaline rush you needed so much from performing dangerous stunts, you switched to getting those things another way, even if it cost you everything.”