Page 55 of Ready to Score

She was taken aback by the question. Honestly, she’d sooner expect him to tell her to fuck off than ask her something like that.

“Out of… playing poker, you mean?” she asked pathetically.

“Out of playing poker, out of working with the team, out of being here and asking me what you’re asking me.”

“I love football, sir.”

“We all love football, Lim,” he said. “Everybody out on that field every day loves football, probably more than they should, to be honest. But I can think of only two people who would show up on thefield every day and work like you work without the promise of a title, without the respect it affords them, without the stipend they get with their paychecks. One of those people is me, and you know who the other one is.”

She found herself at a loss for words. Her lips opened slightly, then pressed together as she realized she didn’t know what to say. Every answer that popped into her head felt almost comically insufficient. She immediately thought that this was some sort of test or trick question. That maybe Landry was looking for her to say something specific. A response that would make him go to whatever gilded box he kept his whistle in and hand it over to her like a crown of precious jewels.

Franny looked at him—really looked at him—and saw the wrinkles in his weatherworn forehead and the way he seemed to sigh with every breath he took. He did not look like a man who was staring down the barrel of naming a successor. And if Franny were being honest, she knew that. His job had never been hers. Partly because it had always belonged to someone else, and partly because Franny had never actually been gunning for it in the first place.

“I want a place on this team,” she answered finally, keeping her eyes on his. “I want the community and the camaraderie. I want to guide the kids. I want to win. I want to get my bearings and my experience in the hopes that someday I might have what Dunn is about to have.”

With yet another sigh, Landry moved over to the corner of the room where the small bar was. Normally, libations for poker night were dad beers provided by “the house.” Every now and again, someone would bring a bottle of bourbon to sip out of red plastic cups. They’d never been offered anything from the actual bar. The man picked up a decanter of what she assumed to be scotch and poured a few fingers into a crystal-clear glass before he looked up and offered it to her.

She had to bite down the no that rose in her throat. Not because she was against sharing a drink with him but because scotch had always tasted to her like burnt gasoline. She recognized the symbolism of his offer, though. Like something out of a coming-of-age movie, Franny was being silently invited to partake in some kind of rite of passage. So she reached out and took it, immediately knocking a sip back. Pushing down an intense grimace, she forced a small grateful smile and said, “This is a good year.”

“I think I’ve had this bottle longer than you and Dunn have been alive.” He chuckled. “Which is why I’m trying my hardest to give you both a bit of grace, but goddamn do you make it hard.”

Franny’s eyebrows furrowed. “What have we done that needs grace-giving?”

Landry looked at her as if she’d just walked into a glass wall. “Oh, you don’t know?”

She shook her head.

“Maybe we can start with whatever the hell is clearly going on between y’all before we get to anything else.”

Her lips flapped open in surprise. “Coach… nothing is going on between me and Dunn. Like, truly, nothing. I mean, nothing likethatanyway.”

“You believe that just as much as I do,” he said. “Which means not at all. I ain’t saying I understand what it is or why, but all that bickering back and forth isn’t fooling anybody.”

Honestly, Franny hadn’t considered that other people had gotten a whiff of their… dynamic. She sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Either way, I don’t really know what that has to do with”—she swished her hand around—“whatever else is going on.”

“Just an observation, I guess,” Landry said, stalling by deflection. “Look, here’s the truth of it. Season starts in a couple weeks. I’ve got my lead contender running around like a chicken with her head cutoff, making us look bad, I’ve got a bunch of parents breathing down my damn neck, I’ve got all these kids depending on me, and I’ve got a wife who keeps sending me schooners she wants me to buy in Maine. The problem is, I don’t know who I can trust to hand all this over to, and I don’t know shit about sailing.”

“You can trust Jade, Coach.” The words were out before Franny could even consider keeping them in. “You know you can. Nobody else could ever possibly do it like her.”

Not even for a second did Franny regret letting that truth leave her lips. There was no denying it.

“I used to think that. I did.” Landry paused and shook his head. “But now I’m not sure she’s ready for it. She’s young yet… maybe it’s not her time.”

That gave Franny pause. Not ready for it?… Jade? She’d never known the woman to be anything other than a paragon of near perfection when it came to her job. She was almost… above it all in a way. Dunn never seemed to mess up; mistakes were not in the woman’s wheelhouse. What could she possibly have done to make Landry think that? And so suddenly too.

She almost went to ask, to dig deeper and get to the bottom of it. But Franny didn’t want to be outwardly nosy. She didn’t think Landry would tell her anyway. Based solely on the way his expression seemed to be closing off in real time, she knew he was done with the conversation as well.

“Well,” Franny said, deciding to get one last word in. “I can’t think of anyone else who could even get close to doing what you do other than her.” She patted the pockets of her joggers to make sure her things were still tucked away inside. “Maybe whatever extra cooking she needs isn’t going to happen until she’s actually thrown into the pot.”

She grimaced. It was a weird way to put it, but it made Landry’sface shift, so with the words hanging in the air, she made her quiet exit, bound for somewhere that was not her own home.

Smack in the middle of one of Greenbelt’s oldest neighborhoods was a small ice cream stand called Custard Castle. It was a seasonal place, only open during the warmer months, and drew crowds of people from all over the city every day. A few doors down and across the street from Custard Castle was a big, beautiful house made of tan bricks and covered with windows.

Years ago, when Franny had first arrived in Greenbelt, her ex-girlfriend had taken her to the small stand on her welcome tour. As they’d walked back down the street to where they’d parked Franny’s car, they had passed that brick house, and in the yard was a woman watering flowers. She’d had on a pair of tight denim booty shorts and a bikini top, all glistening brown legs and round tits, and Franny had nearly choked on her strawberry shortcake waffle cone at the sight of her.

Months later, after Franny had been left by said girlfriend, she’d recognized that woman as one of her coworkers and had barely been able to utter any type of polite Southern greeting upon their introduction. She’d felt awful about it, but all she could see was that image of Dunn in her head. The splash back of water droplets from the hose on her smooth skin, the way her round ass looked in those shorts.

Even now, as she pulled up to the curb outside the house, she got a flash of it. She’d left Landry’s with something sitting in her heart. A great need to get to the bottom of what was happening with Dunn. To warn her. To check on her. This was the only place she could think of to look for her. It was weird, maybe a little stalkerish, but the need was almost oppressive, and all she could do was follow it.

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