Page 2 of The Perfect Pass
“Right. Yes, of course. Dean.” Jackson nodded. He was terrible with names. Yet another reason why he shouldn’t be coaching a team of forty high schoolers. “I need to make a quick call.”
“But the parade is scheduled to start in—” Principal Dean checked his watch “—six minutes.”
“It won’t even take half that long,” Jackson said.
How long could it possibly take to tell his agent to get him out of this and booked on the next flight back to Chicago? He’d be done in a matter of seconds.
“I’m just going to head over there for some privacy.” He pulled his cell phone from the back pocket of his jeans and waved it toward the shaded area behind them that led to the field house containing the locker room and the office that Jackson was expected to occupy with the rest of his coaching staff.
Jackson’s flight had been delayed, so he was more than two hours late to campus. He’d yet to meet the other coaches or basically anyone, besides Principal Dean. The parade took precedence over anything and everything else.
It was just as well. For all his faults, Jackson hated disappointing people. He liked to be liked. The fewer people he met face-to-face before he hotfooted it back to the airport, the better. He’d send the school a box of signed jerseys and footballs once he got back home. Enough for everyone on the team and then some. It was all going to be fine. Maybe he’d even send a case of Benadryl for poor Bishop.
The important thing was to pull the plug and get out now, while he still could. Dan… Don… Dean…whoever…had mentioned that a press conference was scheduled directly after the parade. Jackson obviously couldn’t participate and then bail on this job right afterward. The optics would be terrible—the exact opposite of the schmaltzy, do-gooder reputation he was supposed to be trying to cultivate.
There had to be an easier way to rehab his image. He wasn’t Ted Lasso, for crying out loud. He never would’ve agreed to this if he hadn’t been bored out of his mind from being cooped up postsurgery. The procedure had been six weeks ago, and while his knee still wasn’t sufficiently healed to get him back on the roster, he was mobile enough for the stir-craziness to set in. First he’d gotten rid of the crutches, and then the cane. All that was left now was a brace he used during workouts and what little remained of his sanity. Clearly the latter was in short supply if he’d thought he could survive here until he was ready to play.
“Jackson, tell me you’re calling from Texas.” Harper Alden, senior agent at Elite Sports Group in Manhattan, answered on the first ring.
“Of course I’m calling from Texas.” Jackson squinted against a beam of white-hot sunshine reflecting off the metal bleachers. That was another thing—this place was warmer than the surface of the sun. His shirt collar was soaked through already. The pumpkins in the autumnal displays he’d seen lining the sidewalks downtown had to be artificial. Actual produce wouldn’t stand a chance outside in this heat. “Where else would I be?”
“I can think of a lot of places.” Harper’s voice had an edge that Jackson didn’t much care for. “Vegas, for one.”
Jackson glanced down at Bishop, panting at the end of his leash. “She’s never going to let me live that down.”
No one was, apparently.
“Who are you talking to?” Harper demanded. “You arenotto date anyone down there, remember? The sole purpose of your tenure is to reinvent yourself. No fast cars, no fast women. No trail of broken hearts in your wake. Period.”
“I assure you, there are no datable women here. Not a single one.” His experience in the town was still limited, but he’d seen enough to make a fair appraisal. Besides, he truly wasn’t in the mood for romance. Not with his knee a mess and his future up in the air. “I’m talking to a dog—a wheezing, snorting hot mess of a dog who these people expect to be my new roommate.”
“Oh, that’s right. I’d forgotten about the mascot clause in your contract.” The sudden amusement in her voice set Jackson’s teeth on edge.
His jaw clenched. “You knew about that?”
“Of course I did. So would you, if you’d read the contract.” She cleared her throat as if to punctuate her point. “I’m liking the dog thing, though.”
Funny. He would’ve pegged Harper as more of a cat person. Not that it mattered since Jackson was about to put this entire town, dogs and cats included, squarely in his rearview mirror.
His agent went on, oblivious. “Dogs are incredibly endearing. People love them. Try and get some photos of you two together, the sooner the better.”
The principal glanced at Jackson from the sidelines and made a big show of gesturing at his wristwatch. He needed to get to the point of this call.
“No can do.” Jackson turned his back on the field and the principal’s now-flailing arms. “I need you to get me out of this.”
Bishop peered up at him with red-rimmed eyes, and a tiny prick of something that felt an awful lot like guilt tugged at Jackson’s stone-cold heart.
Ridiculous. He didn’t even know this dog. Or this school. Or these people.
After a beat of silence that stretched on long enough for Jackson to wonder if his call had been dropped, Harper finally spoke. “No.”
He felt his head draw back like she’d just splashed a glass of ice water in his face. “Excuse me?”
That wasn’t how their relationship worked. Jackson was the client. Sure, Harper liked to throw her weight around on occasion, but it was always in his best interest, and Jackson trusted Harper with his life. When push came to shove, though, he made the final call on all decisions.
“I said no. I realize that word might be foreign to you, so you might want to look it up,” she said tersely.
He truly couldn’t believe his ears. “Harper, I—”
