Page 37 of Look What You Made Me Do

Jake knew that the news of him coaching a high school football team would break soon enough. Everyone had a phone and a TikTok account these days. And he’d deal with that when it arose but he wouldn’t go looking for trouble.

“No. Press.”

“But…” She frowned. “It could be good for the school.”

Jake locked his gaze on hers. “If there’s so much as an organized photo op or I see a quote about the team attributed to you or anyone official from Deluca on any official news site, I’m out of here, Ella.”

He couldn’t control social media or snap-happy paparazzi but he could stop any official pandering to the media.

“That’s number four and it’s not negotiable. No. Press.”

Then he walked away.

The setting sun was leaving behind tangerine clouds on the last Friday night in August but Ella didn’t notice. Sitting in the bleachers with the small gathering of Deluca supporters, she was so nervous she couldn’t decide whether she was going to throw up or have a full-blown panic attack.

The team were as ready as they could be after only three weeks but that didn’t say much.

From her vantage point behind them, she watched Jake and Pete talking, or rather strategizing, if their hand gestures were remotely indicative. Jake wore a baseball cap tugged low on his forehead and a pair of dark sunglasses but still she could see people nudging and pointing at him, their phones out.

To be fair, most of them were women. And not just any women, but mothers. Ella had seen enough of them over the years to recognize that if any one group of women could use a bit of gratuitous eye candy from time to time, it was mothers.

And Jake certainly didn’t disappoint.

He was like the Hershey’s bar of eye candy. The Snickers. The Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Ella could practically feel the fat cells on her ass multiplying as her mouth watered.

“Checking out the coach?” Rosie said, nudging Ella’s arm.

Clearing her throat, Ella shook her head. “Absolutely not,” she replied. Although she absolutely was.

Rose laughed. “Okay, sure. No one would blame you, you know? He’s pretty damn fine and you are but a human woman.”

Trying to deflect Rosie’s attention, Ella tipped her chin at Simon who was walking toward them from the other side of the field. “Simon’s looking very nice tonight, too.”

He’d ditched the corporate look for chinos and a polo shirt which was about as casual as she suspected Simon could get.

“That he is,” Rosie murmured, checking him out lasciviously.

“Things are going well with you two.”

“Yeah.” Rosie smiled, her eyes glued to Simon’s progress. “I really like him.”

Ella entwined her fingers with Rosie’s. “He’s good for you.” Rosie was herself around Simon, which could not be said for many of her past relationships. And he was clearly smitten.

A shout from the field snagged Ella’s attention to the boys warming up and she searched for Cameron. He was standing on one leg, stretching the other up behind, staring at the ground in fierce concentration.

The panic sensation returned. Yes, they needed this win for the school but Cameron needed it more.

“Don’t the boys look amazing?”

Ella nodded. They did. They really did. In fact, she and Rosie were really going to have to stop thinking of them as boys. Today they looked exactly as Jake had hoped, in the red-and-black jersey he’d bought for them with Demons emblazoned on the front and their padded shoulders. They looked mature. A force to be reckoned with.

They were every inch the Deluca Demons.

Thanks to Jake the entire team had been kitted out in all the essentials – jerseys, helmets, cleats, pads, mouth guards. Ella had protested his generosity. She had no idea how much it had all cost but none of it had been bought at Walmart and she didn’t want to be that indebted to him.

She was in deep enough.

But Jake had insisted that becoming a team involved projecting an identity. Ella had been dubious but damn if those boys – young men – weren’t all standing a foot higher. They certainly looked the part next to the opposing team.

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