Johnny Deeper: A Sports Romance (23 page)

“Sorry, sir!” I laugh, giving him a hard squeeze. The steel band of his championship ring presses into my skin.

“That’s much better! Maybe the tales of your legendary arm are true after all.”

He pats my shoulder and I feel like a little kid. He’s so much taller than I thought he was. I’m 6’2” myself, making him nearly 6’6” by my estimation and close to two-hundred and fifty pounds. He’s a damn truck.

“Well, I don’t know about that—”

“Never tone down your strengths, Junior,” he says, leaning in. “Even if you have to fake it.”

“Yes, sir.”

He shakes his head. “None of that
sir
stuff. Coach is fine.”

I beam like a damn jester in the presence of the king. “Thanks, Coach.”

“Come on out back,” he says. “We’ve got a lot to go over tonight.”

Ty and I follow him through the foyer towards the back, passing through a huge kitchen before stepping out onto the lawn. The air is thick with the scent of barbecue and burning charcoal. A perfectly landscaped garden rests in the center, along with a large pool and a pool house on the other side of it.

Our teammates linger around with sodas and plates stacked with burgers and chips. Ty instantly darts over to grab his own plate while I stand back, taking in the moment.

I’m in Cary Pierce’s backyard.

“Hey, Junior.”

A light hand brushes my shoulder and I lock eyes with Bob, our assistant coach. He’s been around the university for nearly as long as Duncan was. “Hey,” I greet him.

He chuckles at my expression. “Bit of a shock, eh?”

“More than a bit!” I laugh. “I thought for sure you’d be our new coach.”

Bob waves his hand. “With this old mug? Nah… I mean, I did, too, but when the school board called me about
this
… I didn’t argue with it. It’s what’s right for you boys.”

I nod. It hasn’t sunk in at all yet. Cary Pierce is our new coach.

“Hey, guys!” Pierce’s voice booms across the lawn, instantly grabbing our attention. He claps his hands together and scans the crowd, making sure to make eye contact with each one of us. “I can tell by the looks on your faces that I don’t have to introduce myself or list off my qualifications. But who I am isn’t important — you are. It’s an honor to meet you all. I look forward to getting some one-on-one time with each of you and, hopefully, being the coach you deserve.”

Ty nudges my ribs, practically giggling to himself with a full plate of fried food. I have no idea how any of them can eat right now. I can hardly even breathe.

“I’m coming in a little late here,” Pierce goes on. “The semester has already started and your first game is this Saturday. It was unfortunate to hear about your old coach. From what I’ve been told, he was a good man but from every tragedy comes opportunity. You know, when I told people I was moving here to be your coach, they looked at me and asked —
Why
? You’re Cary Pierce. You can coach anywhere you want. Why go to
that
school? They’re just a bunch of losers.”

I glance around, feeling the air shift and team’s morale plummets. We won one game last season and even less than that the year before. The term
loser
is more spot-on than we’d care to admit.

“No talent, no wins,” Pierce says. “You know what I said? I said they were right. You
are
a bunch of losers…” He glances around again, letting it all sink in on us. “But so was I. When I played college ball, I was nothing. We were nothing. We had stats not so different than yours right now. Then one day, a new coach came to town and changed everything. He trained us harder than we’d ever thought possible. He motivated us to not only change our minds about how we saw ourselves but to change everyone else’s mind as well. I want you to let me be that coach for you.”

I feel a boost of confidence, one I haven’t felt before in my entire life. The rest of the team stands a little taller, too.

“We went all the way to the top that season and the next one and the next one and
this
season, I’m going to do the same for you. My old coach died two years ago. Before that happened, I made a promise to change a few lives just like he did. I want to start with yours. How does that sound?”

The team erupts with shouts and applause, myself clapping louder than anyone.

Cary Pierce, our new coach. It’s a dream come true, an absolute fairy tale made a reality.

“All right!” he shouts, clapping with us. “I like the enthusiasm!”

I expected this semester to be awful in many ways. My classes aren’t great and I wasn’t planning on the team doing much better than last season, but
now
, with Cary freakin’ Pierce leading the charge…

We might end this year as gods.

Movement draws my eye towards the house, along with a sudden flash of light as the kitchen fluorescents flick on. A shape passes by the windows, short and petite with feminine curves. She rounds the island counter towards the refrigerator and my breath catches in my throat.

I step towards the house, my gaze locked on her body. She wears tight yoga pants and a baggy sweater that hangs off one shoulder. Her bare feet glide along the floor with bright, pink-colored toes. Long, brown hair sits on top of her head in a sloppy bun.

Complete, casual elegance.

I slide the outer door open to walk into the kitchen and she spins around with two bottles of water in her hands. I gulp my saliva down as her stunning, blue eyes flash at me.

“Hey—” I choke.

“Hi,” she says, kicking the fridge door closed.

“Who are you?”

She raises a brow. “Excuse me?”

“I mean…” I step closer to the counter. “I’m Junior.”

“Junior of what?”

“Just Junior,” I answer.

“Your parents named you
second best
?” she asks, giving a short smirk.

“My big sister used to say that,” I chuckle. “I proved them wrong.”

Her eyes jut up and down with skepticism.
“Have you?”

“Junior!” I spin around as Cary Pierce walks inside. “I see you’ve met my daughter, Eliza.”

Eliza.

“You interrupted the introductions, actually,” she quips. Her eyes move from his to mine. “I’m Eliza.”

She holds out her hand but his thick palm slaps my shoulder again.

“How about we head on back outside, Junior?” he says, not really asking. “I’ve got a few more motivational speeches in me and I’d hate for you to miss them.”

I nod. “All right.”

He tilts his head at Eliza. “I thought we agreed that you would stay upstairs tonight…”

She gives a quick smile. “Relax, Dad. I’m just getting us some water.”

“You have a sink upstairs.”

I glance up at him, jarred but the sudden hardness in his tone but it doesn’t seem to faze her at all.

“Whoops.
My bad
,” she says, spinning on her pointed toes. “It was nice to meet you,
just
Junior
.”

“You, too,” I add, feeling another tight squeeze on my shoulder.

As she leaves, the coach guides me away from the counter towards the back door. I crane my neck until it hurts just to watch her leave, aching to see more of that tight body but it disappears into the shadowed hall before I can memorize another detail of her.

“Junior…” He clears his throat. “I’m going to expect three very specific, yet
simple
, things from you guys this season.” He holds up a hand and counts on his fingers as he talks. “Hit the gym hard five times a week. Don’t fuel your body with crap. And…” He shifts around to stand in front of me and drops his hands from my shoulders. “Stay away from my daughter.”

I blink. “Excuse me?”

His eyes keep a hard edge. “Does that sound simple enough?”

I glance over my shoulder into the kitchen again, stunned and confused. “I’m sorry, Coach. You’ve got the wrong idea. I was just being polite.”

“Good.” His lips curl into a forced, almost menacing, grin. “It’s nothing personal. Don’t think I’m singling you out — it goes for the entire team. I’d rather not have my work life mixing with my family life.”

“I understand completely, Coach.”

“Excellent.”

He turns away and marches back into the yard, leaving me with a very annoying chill racing down my spine. In any other situation, if a person of authority spoke to me like that, I’d be all about getting them back for it but this is Cary Pierce. The term
childhood hero
doesn’t quite cover the admiration I feel for the man. He could have told me to drop and lick his shoes and I’d immediately ask whether he preferred the laces or the soles.

And yet, there’s a magnet on the back of my head, drawing my eyes into the kitchen, hoping for just
one more glance
at Eliza Pierce.

Ty hops out in front of me. “I fucking told you, man!” he shouts, throwing his arm around my shoulders. “This is going to be the best year of our lives.”

I laugh. “Looks like it might be.”

We walk out onto the lawn where Cary Pierce’s booming voice fills the air again. I hang on every word that falls from his mouth, soaking it all up, because Ty is right.

If Coach does what he says he can do and we go all the way to the top then nothing can stop all of our dreams from coming true.

Hairs stick up on my neck and I glance up at the house. Curtains move in a window on the third floor and I catch sight of that feminine shape again.

Eliza Pierce stares down at the lawn, looking right at me from behind the glass, sitting next to…
some guy?

Figures.

I look forward at Cary Pierce and focus on him instead.

Chapter 2

Eliza

“Tell me
everything
.”

I chuckle and kick my bedroom door closed. “Well, I went downstairs, grabbed two bottles of water, and came back.”

Grant narrows his thin eyelids. “You left out the chapter about Junior Morgan walking inside just as you happened to make it to the kitchen.”

I shake my head. Of course, he was watching from the window. “He walked in and introduced himself.”

“And?”

“And then my dad interrupted us and yanked him back outside with the rest of the good dogs.”

Grant sighs, relinquishing his love for decent gossip. “Damn.”

“What do you know about him?”

He pauses, blinking quickly. “Oh, honey. He’s
Junior Morgan.
”

I hold out his bottle of water and he takes it from me. “And?”

“I keep forgetting you’re new around here,” he mutters, leaning back to peek out the window again.

When he heard there would be several dozen young footballers gathered in my backyard tonight, he basically invited himself over to watch. Not that I mind the company. It gets lonely up here on the third floor.

“Junior’s a
player
, in every sense of the word. Throw a rock in the quad and you’ll probably smack a girl he’s hit and quit.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say, collapsing onto my floor cushion and reaching for my script. “We should keep running lines—”

“Shush,”
he snaps, his eyes still focused outside. “Ty Fisher just bent over to tie his shoelaces.”

I push off my cushion to join him by the window. He scoots a bit to the left to give me room and we stare down at the lawn below. My father stands tall above them with a pressed suit; his big, thick hands waving around as he spews out more words to them than he’s ever said to me in my entire life.

“Your dad seems cool,” Grant murmurs.

I shrug. “I suppose.”

My eyes fall on the only familiar face in the crowd other than my old man: Junior Morgan. A player, in every sense of the word. No wonder he practically broke his chain to nip at my heels.

Grant sighs. “Ty is
gorgeous
.”

I laugh. “Something tells me you might not be his type…”

He raises his thin eyebrows at me.
“I beg to differ.”

“Really? How so?”

“A gentleman never kisses and tells…” he jokes, “but I have a friend who does and let’s just say Ty is going through the
experimental
phase of his college social experience.”

I look down at the lawn again, zeroing in on Ty and his perfectly-styled black hair, not unlike Grant’s neatly-trimmed blond locks. “I can see that.”

Grant lets out another sigh and spins away from the window, lost and lovelorn. “All right, let’s do this.”

I shift back down onto my cushion with my script in hand, ready to dive into this scene. Auditions for the fall show are this Friday and I’m eager to make a good impression on the theatre director, Mr. Young. I would never have gotten into the program at all if it weren’t for my father’s influence and Young made it pretty clear that I’d have to impress him right out the gate or he’d boot my ass to the curb.

“Okay…” I clear my throat. “Page twenty-nine. You read Danny, I’ll read Nora.”

Grant puffs out his chest and flips to the page before reading his first line. “Don’t you see what you did, eh?! You made a fool outta me.”