Page 27 of Teasing

“Iswear to fucking God, man. That woman is either going to be the death of me or?—”

“Or what?” Jamie interrupts. “She’s your nanny, dude. She’s there to help with Rosie. So let her fucking help.”

When I don’t say anything, the asshole laughs. “What? You want them to stay cooped up inside all summer? So what?” he pushes. “Let her have adventures. Let her have fun. Maybe you should try to have a little fun too. You can trust her, you know. Not everyone has shitty motives.”

Can I?

There are so few people I trust with my daughter that trusting this virtual stranger should feel wrong. And what’s worse is that it actually doesn’t feel wrong. I want it to, but it doesn’t—because for some fucked up reason, I do trust her or I wouldn’t have left Rosie with her. I’m screwed, and I know it, even if I can’t put my finger on why.

“All right, men.” Coach Declan Sinclair takes the microphone behind the podium at the front of the room. “If you’re all donegossiping like a bunch of little girls, it’s time to get to work,” Coach calls out into the largest of the theater-style seating classrooms the team has at our practice facility.

Still feels weird to have Declan standing there as head coach after having played for his dad for so many years. Cancer is a bitch, and Dec stepped in when his dad was diagnosed last year.

But the Kings are a family. We protect our own. And with or without Joe Sinclair on the sidelines, he’s always got a place here with us.

“We’re going to break you down into groups. We’ve got conditioning testing up first. Make sure to give it your all, men. I want to see who’s been putting the work in and who’s spent their summer fat, drunk, and happy.” He slowly looks around the room, examining the rows of hopeful players filling the seats. Most of them I know. A few I don’t. There’s a face or two I wasn’t expecting, but that’s not surprising. That’s just another sign of a new season. Ninety guys fill these seats today. Fifty-three will fill the roster by late August.

“A lot of people counted this team out when I stepped in to this position halfway through last season. And a lot of people were wrong. They assumed we weren’t ready. That I wasn’t ready. That you weren’t ready. They thought we’d crumble. Well, they were all wrong because they didn’t know how hungry we were, and hungry dogs fight harder. Now, you better be ready to fight even harder this season than last because, if you thought switching up coaches put a target on your back, you’re about to see just how big that target gets with a Superbowl ring on your finger and a Lombardi trophy in your case.”

Jamie elbows me and lifts his chin toward Coach with a smile. “Still so fucking weird, seeing him up there.”

“Shut the hell up,” I whisper.

He’s not wrong. Declan Sinclair is my godfather off the field. He and my father spent their careers playing side by side on thisteam. I grew up at his house, and my dad saved Declan’s wife, Annabelle, a lifetime ago. But the minute we step inside this building or onto that field, all that’s forgotten, and he’s Coach.

Yeah, it was weird during my first season when he was the quarterback coach, but now Lilah’s dad has taken over that position... Now, this is the new normal. Now, it’s just like any other day.

“Today is day one, gentlemen. If you want to see day two, forget about last season. Forget about whatever team you played for and whatever accolades you had. You want a position on this team? My team? You’ve got to earn it. And that starts today. No one cares what you’ve done for me in the past. It’s what you do for me today and in the coming weeks that decides who goes on that roster at the start of the season. You want a position? Show me you put in the work. You want a position on my team? Fucking earn it.”

My smile is slow and brutal. I never stop working. I work as hard in my offseason as I do during the season. Nobody likes camp. We’re weeks away from a game. Weeks away from walking into a stadium on Sunday, feeling like fucking gods. This is the paying your dues part. It sucks, but I love it—because nobody’s taking my fucking position.

Let them come.

Let them try.

Watch them fail.

EMMIE

Going for a walk because I want to stay healthy.

Bringing a bag of Twizzlers because—let’s be real here...

—Emmie’s Secret Thoughts

“What now, Emmie?” Rosie asks from the step stool she’s standing on in the kitchen, her brown hair dusted with remnants of the coconut flour we used to make the cherry pie I just slid into the oven and a small smear of gooey red cherries at the corners of her mouth.

I wet a paper towel and wipe her face. “Now, little rose, we get cleaned up while our pie bakes.”

She bites down on her tongue as she scrunches up her nose. “How long does it gotta bake for?”

I lift her from the step stool and place her on the floor, then untie the apron we decorated earlier and slide it over her head.Rosie’s hands go to her hips while she waits patiently for her answer. This kid is too cute. “About an hour.”

She sways from side to side, and I already know that means she’s got something up her sleeve. I’m learning quickly she’s always got something percolating in her little head and more energy than any baby ballerina I’ve ever taught.What’s nextis a phrase I’ve heard a ton today. “Can we pick flowers?”

I look at the clock. We’ve got forty minutes before our pie is ready. “Sure. Go grab your shoes and we’ll pick some pretty flowers for your room. How does that sound?”

“Great,” she yells back at me, since she took off the second I saidsure.

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