I told him all of it, about how we'd accidentally gotten married. The rules of the marriage and how it'd gone so well until now.
"Well, that's stupid," Coach said, dismissive as fuck. "You're a goddamned idiot, but you did something right because she came halfway across the country to figure it out with you."
"I fucked up because it was easy, until I opened my mouth and asked for a new game plan," I said.
"Marriage is easy?" Coach asked. "That's what you thought?"
The question sounded rhetorical, but he said nothing more, and Finn said nothing, so I said?—
"Yes?" It was a kind of statement and a question.
"Kid, marriage is like a football career." Coach narrowed his eyes at me and pointed his finger. "You think a football career that starts easy stays easy?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Fuck no, it doesn't. Work. A person can have all the talent in the world and with that natural ability, they cruise through high school and become a champion. Get a scholarship to college. But then the actual work will have to start, and you know it."
Damn, he was getting worked up and red in the face.
"Did you cruise your way into professional football? Into getting drafted, traded four fucking times, before I brought you here? Or did you have to work for it?" At that point, he was yelling.
He waited, so I guessed it was my turn to talk again. "I worked for it."
Worked my ass off through the grief of losing my family, through broken ribs and sprained ankles.
"Exactly, you worked for it. Nobody handed you this career. Nobody hands you a good marriage. Work for it."
I'd heard Coach compare football to almost everything, but I'd never heard his take on football and marriage before.
"You should listen to him," Finn said. "His wife seems pretty happy."
"Because when she has a rough patch and questions shit—and don't think that's never happened—I try harder. I'm her husband. That's my goddamned job."
"I need to try harder?" I asked, to clarify that I understood exactly what he was going for with this lecture.
"Yes, kid, you need to try harder. You say you love her, but how did you show her? Seems to me she flew all the way here tonight to talk to you—my guess is she's in love with you, too, because if you didn't matter to her, she would've picked up the goddamned phone and kept it simple. Sent you a text. A woman doesn't fly across the country for a thirty-minute conversation unless she's pissed as hell, or she's in love with you." He turned to Finn. "Was she pissed as hell?"
He shook his head. "Not that I saw."
"Well, you'd know. That one's easy to spot," Coach retorted.
"How do you show someone you love them when you're thousands of miles away?" I asked, genuinely curious.
"How the fuck do I know?" Coach asked. "But you're in the big leagues now, kid. That means you've got to come up with an MVP husband performance. Something she'll understand, and something that's from your goddamned heart. A sweeping victory declaration of how you're ready to fight for the two of you."
"I could call a press conference," I said.
Coach shook his head. "Too impersonal."
"I could take out a billboard in the next town she's in." I was grasping at straws but trying to figure this out. "And the next after that."
Coach tilted his head from shoulder to shoulder. "That's better, but does it have any special significance for you and her?"
I shook my head. "No."
Finn was sitting now with a shit-eating grin on his face. He raised his hand like we were in a fifth-grade classroom and not in a professional football locker room.
"Better be good," Coach grumbled.
"You should make a viral dance on social media," Finn said, dropping his hand. "Call it the Slaya."
"It's good that you know how to catch a ball," Coach said, shaking his head.
