Page 11 of The Perfect Pass
“This team has gone through multiple coaching changes recently. What makes you believe you’re the coach to break that cycle?” Dare she say the quiet part out loud? Why not? If she was going to put the poor guy on the spot, she may as well really go for it. “Or to put it more succinctly, why should we believe you’re the coach who can finally break the curse?”
There were a few gasps from the locals, followed by a beat of silence. All the while, Calla and Jackson seemed to be engaged in some sort of intriguing staring contest. Calla’s heart felt like it might gallop right out of her chest. She’d just opened Pandora’s box, in more ways than one.
Somewhere, a camera clicked. Then another…and another. Jackson was the first to look away as he tried to gather his thoughts, and the second he dropped his gaze to the podium, the room exploded into a cacophony of sound. Reporters shouted over each other, shooting rapid-fire questions.
“How do you plan to connect with this small-town community and earn their trust when you don’t appear to know anything about the football program here?”
“Do you have a plan for making all your players and fellow coaching staff feel supported and valued?”
“Are you here for the long haul, or is this an attempt to improve your reputation within the Cyclones organization?”
The kid gloves had well and truly come off.
Chapter Four
Jackson woke up the next morning in his shoe-box-sized rental house, convinced of a singular, undeniable truth.
“I should’ve left when I had the chance.” He scrubbed his face as he muttered the words out loud.
Bishop responded with one of the snorts Jackson had been subjected to multiple times throughout the night. The dog was relentless. He hadn’t gone anywhere near the green plaid dog bed in the living room, instead pawing at the couch all evening while Jackson sat scrolling through the television channels, watching himself botch a press conference that should’ve been a walk in the park. He’d finally relented and hauled the bulldog onto the sofa, where he’d commenced with snoring so loud that Jackson had been forced to turn the volume on the TV up to an ear-splitting decibel. One pepperoni pizza and three root beers later, Jackson had finally dragged himself toward the lone bedroom and collapsed onto a bed that was significantly smaller than his Wyoming king mattress back in Chicago. His feet fully hung off the end of the bed, which in and of itself wouldn’t have been so bad. But just as he’d been drifting off to sleep, he’d felt something warm and wet slurping at the sole of his left foot.
Bishop, of course.
“For the last time, you’re not getting up here,” Jackson said as he pushed himself up to a sitting position and squinted at the sunshine streaming through the eyelet curtains. “No chance, dog. There’s barely room for me on this bed.”
He was finally beginning to understand the weird mascot clause in his contract. Subjecting a pet to a revolving door of coaches as caretakers had seemed cruel at first, but now he got it. Bishop was a jerk, full stop.
The dog had parked himself at the foot of the bed all night, snorting, snuffling and licking in an effort to wear Jackson down. No chance. He’d pretty much lost control over every facet of his life in recent weeks. This was where he drew the line—no dogs on the bed, period.
Consequently, he was now completely sleep-deprived on the morning of his first full day of work, in addition to feeling like the town villain. Oh, joy.
Heknewthat parade had been a bad idea. Just like he knew he didn’t belong in this place and knew that he had no business whatsoever coaching high school kids. He should’ve stood his ground with Harper yesterday and forced her to see reason. At this point, even she would surely admit that this entire endeavor had been a terrible idea.
Jackson’s cell phone rang and he fished around the bedsheets until he found it. He’d nearly dropped it on his face last night when his eyes closed as he was reading his hate messages on social media. Not an ideal bedtime routine. It might’ve even had more to do with his restless night than Bishop’s woeful antics, although Jackson would never admit as much to the dog.
He glanced at Harper’s name scrolling atop the iPhone’s screen and his gut churned anew.
“Good morning, Harper,” he said, feigning ignorance. Maybe news of his glaring insensitivity hadn’t made its way beyond Texas quite yet.
“Good morning? Seriously?”
Then again, maybe not.
“Look, it started out great, okay? The news outlets are only showing the bad parts.” He threw his legs over the edge of the dollhouse-sized mattress and climbed out of bed, tripping over a lump of bulldog in the process. Sure,nowBishop had decided to sleep.
“The bad parts?” Harper sighed. “This is more than bad, Jackson. It’s a complete disaster. This was supposed to be your redemption tour, and somehow, you’ve managed to screw it up in less than a day.”
“The press is the press. You know how they are. Nothing sells like a negative news cycle. That doesn’t mean the people of Bishop Falls feel the same way.” Although Calla Dunne undoubtedly did. “They threw me a literal parade yesterday.”
“I’m aware. And might I just say that only Jackson Knight could go from having women tossing lingerie at him to being universally despised in the span of an afternoon,” his agent said crisply.
It was never a good thing when she started talking about him in third person.
Jackson jabbed at the ancient Mr. Coffee machine on the kitchen counter. “That hurts, Harp.”
“Good. That was my intention,” she said.
He didn’t bother defending himself. Sometimes it was easier letting people believe the worst about him than tryingto convince them otherwise. Jackson had learned that lesson a long time ago. The entire time he’d been in school, he’d been known as one of the Knight boys—the youngest child of an alcoholic father and a mother who’d walked away without a backward glance when he’d been just a baby. His older brother had all but raised him, and that upbringing hadn’t been pretty. Teachers, school administrators and pretty much every adult he’d come across as a kid expected him to be an undisciplined, disrespectful mess. For the most part, he had been.
