Page 28 of Look What You Made Me Do

Jake would rather give up one of his Super Bowl rings than admit he had zero game plan right now. “I’ve got to cut fifty to twenty something.”

“And is there some sort of criteria for that?”

“Run their asses off for an hour and keep the ones still standing at the end of each day.”

She blinked. “Is this strategy from the hungover school of coaching? Don’t you need kids with specific skills?”

“Skills can be taught, practiced. Stamina is paramount.”

“But aren’t?—”

“Ella.” Jake cursed under his breath as he massaged his temples. “Please shut up.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault you’re hungover. I’m just trying to help?—”

“Ella,” he interrupted again with a wince. “If you want to help you’ll go find me something, anything, to ease the sledgehammer pounding in my brain.”

“I thought jocks could hold their booze?”

“It’s been a lot of years since I mainlined tequila.”

“What on earth possessed you?” She shook her head. “Did coming here today scare you that much?”

Jake gritted his teeth at her insight. He’d deliberately gone out last night to get wrecked enough to forget about this hare-brained scheme. Sure, it had been under the guise of a poker game but deep down he hadn’t wanted to be alone in his apartment with nothing but thoughts of today.

“Yes.”

He didn’t know why it did, it just did. Whether it was Ella or returning to football or the ghosts of two years ago or even further back to Trently – he didn’t know. But at least it was enough to halt Ella’s relentless questions.

“Fine,” she muttered. “I’ll go find some Tylenol.”

Jake watched her walk away, her hips swaying in her long brown skirt, that ponytail of hers swinging. She was wearing a cream shirt of thin cotton that sat wide on her shoulders and through which he suddenly realized he could see her bra strap.

Goddamn! He must be hungover to the point of near death to have missed that when she was closer and facing him.

He returned his attention to the field in time to see a couple of boys run into each other as they checked out their hottie principal rather than watching where they were going and he smiled for the first time since waking up with a splitting headache in a strange woman’s bed.

Maybe this day wasn’t all bad.

Minutes later, Ella was back, Tylenol in hand, exceptionally conscious of Jake tracking her progress across the field despite the dark tint of his aviators. He was looking better than any man – let alone a hungover one – had a right to in tight blue jeans, tight black T-shirt and a growth of overnight stubble that’d surely leave one hell of a beard burn.

Which was definitely not an appropriate thought to be having in the middle of a high school. Especially about a guy who’d shown up late and hungover.

She’d been torn between kissing him for showing up and throwing the stupid football at his stupid head when he’d finally arrived. This morning at assembly the student body had greeted her announcement with the kind of skepticism only those who had been let down by life could perfect and she’d spent all day assuring her students that yes, they were fielding a team in the comp and yes, The Prince was going to be the coach.

The weight of utter depression as each minute had slipped by without Jake’s presence had been hard to bear.

Hell, did he think he was the only one who was scared? Being around him scared her, too. Jake who knew her. Who knew all about her. Her mother, the smears, the humiliations, her loneliness, her isolation.

Not even Rosie knew her as well as Jake.

And here she was betting all her chips on him. The one person from Trently – from her past – who knew all her dirty little secrets.

“Nice blouse,” he commented, his voice heavy with appreciation as Ella reached him and wordlessly passed him the pills and a bottle of water.

She looked at him for a long moment, hating that she couldn’t see his eyes behind the tint of his glasses, itching to remove them from his face. The fact he could see her but she couldn’t see him made her feel even more vulnerable.

“Thought you were hungover,” she said, drily.

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