Page 6 of Trapped and Tackled

Dangerous.

Chapter 2

Talon

So that was Leni.

She’s charming in a sweet, innocent way. Like the girl-next-door, she has no idea how beautiful she is.

Damn. I shake my head.

The last woman I need to be thinking about is Coach’s fucking daughter.

I met his other daughter, Lincoln Strauss, after the Super Bowl last year and while I caught a glimpse of Leni when Lincoln pointed her out, it was from a distance. All I saw was her blonde hair and a bit of the blue dress she was wearing.

Lincoln’s gorgeous and she knows it. She brims with confidence. Older, wiser, and smart as hell.

Leni’s softer. Sweeter. Lovelier.

Lovelier? I shake my head.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

Coach adores his girls. It was one of the first things I learned about him, from the first time I entered his office and saw a framed photo of his family. His stunning wife, Vicki, and their two bright-eyed, blonde girls—Lincoln and Leni.

And then, the pieces of them he shared with me during my first year as one of his players.

I pause in the stairwell, gripping the banister to pull in a breath.

I haven’t thought about that year, those stretch of weeks that were so short, yet etched in my brain for eternity, in a long time.

I only had my mother in my life for a handful of years. The first three—which I barely remember save for the sound of smacks and the silhouette of her cowering on the bathroom floor—before Child Protective Services intervened and I ended up in the foster care system. And a five-and-a-half week stretch when I was a rookie for the Coyotes, my mother was dying, and Coach Strauss intervened to help me say goodbye.

Then, he helped me organize her funeral and stood by my side, squeezing my shoulder, as her casket was lowered into the ground.

To my knowledge, he never told anyone. And neither did I.

But the long hours he kept me company at my mother’s bedside, he shared snippets of his personal life. His family life.

I learned about his family’s immigration from Germany to America. Then, the found family he sought in football—not unlike my own experience. The woman who captured his heart—a sweet debutante from a prominent Tennessee family, Victoria, affectionately known as Vicki. And the two little girls who made him a dad—Lincoln and Leni. While he shared stories of both his daughters, the ones about Leni made me laugh.

The way she colored her doll’s faces with markers and pretended it was makeup when she was six. How she continued to host a wedding reception that all her dolls, stuffed animals, and family were forced to attend.

Another story, about when Lincoln dared Leni to slide down the banister at a country club and she ended up with eleven stitches along her hairline.

There was the time she cut bangs at twelve because some punk told her she had a fivehead and she cried herself to sleep, holding the chunk of her cut hair.

The first time she got drunk at a lake house and called Vicki, begging to pick her up. But first made her swear not to rat out any of her friends to their parents.

From the stories Coach shared, I deduced that Leni is trouble adjacent. She never intends to find herself in a sticky situation but because she’s Lincoln’s sister and some girl Marlowe’s best friend, she’s usually along for the ride. She’s loyal and loving.

I enjoyed listening to Coach’s stories about Leni. They were wholesome and sincere. They were so unlike my own childhood, they almost sounded made up.

In fact, if it wasn’t Coach telling them, I would have called bullshit.

But during those confusing weeks when I had to find closure with a mother who never wanted me, grapple for my footing with a team that was my ticket to a future, and perform on the field—the stories about sweet, quirky, sunny Leni made me smile.

They made me believe in a type of goodness I’ve only caught glimpses of over the years.

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