“Not sure I can pull off that lie, but we’ll see. Where should I meet you?”
“Why don’t I just pick you up? We can drive over together,” he offered.
“I’ll text you my address.” She winked, smiling the smile of someone who’d just gotten her way. She picked up her duffel and hauled the strap over her shoulder. “See you tomorrow.”
CHAPTER NINE
Jamar stood on the sideline with his arms crossed over his chest as he observed the running backs conducting their drills. The crunch of shoulder pads crashing into each other played like Mozart in his ears, the rank smell of sweat like perfume to his nose. He’d missed this so much more than he’d been willing to admit.
The Longhorns’ running back coach, Mark Green, had been instrumental in preparing Jamar for the NFL, so when he’d asked if Jamar could attend today’s practice and give his running backs a pep talk after their hard loss on Saturday against a huge conference rival, it wasn’t a question as to whether he would be here.
He knew what these guys were going through. He also knew that if they didn’t put the mistakes from Saturday out of their heads, it could mess up their entire season.
“Do you see those bands over there?” he asked Taylor, pointing to the wide receivers working out on the far side of the field house. Three guys had harnesses wrapped around their feet, the ends of the thick leather bands secured into the wall. “Those are for helping to build speed. I have some, but haven’t had them installed in the gym at home.”
“Oh, I’ll bet running against that resistance builds up core muscles too.” She bumped him with her elbow. “You need to get those babies installed. I can come up with all kinds of ways to torture you with something like that.” She looked over at him, a note of apology in her pained expression. “I totally didn’t intend for that to sound like some kind of kinky S and M come-on.”
Shockingly, his mindhadn’tgone there. But now that she’d brought it up, he would have to work extra hard to expunge those thoughts from his head. He added them to the dozens of other inappropriate thoughts about his new fitness instructor that had invaded his brain over these past couple of days.
Jamar shut his eyes and tilted his head from side to side, working out the tension in his neck. This was frustrating as hell. Yet, he only had to consider her words from yesterday to understand why Taylor could never be anything other than his trainer. If word got out that they were hooking up, no one would take his endorsement of her business seriously. The last thing he wanted was to stifle her success.
Coach Green walked over to them, his hand outstretched. “Thanks for coming, Diesel.”
“You know you can call on me whenever you need me,” Jamar told him. “This is Taylor. I hope you don’t mind me bringing her along. She’s a huge fan of the game, especially the Longhorns.”
“Hook ’em, Horns,” Coach said, extending his index and pinky fingers to resemble the horns of a steer.
Taylor’s eyes widened. “Umm . . . go team?” she replied, holding her fingers in a gesture that looked more like the Hawaiian shaka sign than the UT hand signal.
Coach Green’s forehead creased in a puzzled frown.
“Why don’t you bring us over to the running backs?” Jamar quickly suggested.
The moment Coach turned, Taylor caught Jamar by the hem of his shirt and pinched the shit out of his bicep.
“I’m a big Longhorns fan?” she hissed.
“Ouch,” he whispered, rubbing his arm. “It was a joke.”
“What did I tell you about your jokes?”
He chanced another pinch on the arm by leaning over and whispering, “You have to admit it was a little funny.”
She rolled her eyes, but he could tell she was trying hard to contain her grin. She was cute even when she was pissed off.
Coach called for his players to huddle up and then introduced Jamar, even though many already knew him. Some of the seniors on the team had been redshirt freshmen back when he was still playing for the Longhorns.
When had this happened? When had he become the sage, older player young running backs turned to for advice?
Silas was somewhere up in heaven laughing his ass off right now.
Jamar stood before the players and quietly prayed that he could give them the pep talk he knew Coach was hoping for.
“I know how you guys are feeling right now,” he started. “I know what it’s like to eat, sleep, and breathe football, to put in so much time and effort on the practice field, only to walk away with another game in the L column.”
He walked over to Carson Wallace, the backup running back who’d fumbled twice in last Saturday’s game.
“My freshman year as a Longhorn, I had four games with back-to-back fumbles. I thought my season was done. But that guy”—he pointed to Coach Green—“he refused to give up on me, and he wouldn’t let me give up on myself either. Put those fumbles out of your head. They’re in the past.Yourfocus is on the next game, and then the next, and then the next.”
