A wink.
The kid has a death wish.
I swear Coach’s brain is working overtime to try to figure a way out of this—not that it seems likely with theownertelling her she has to. Finally, she nods once, and says, “Fine, but what do I get when I make Larsen cry because I’ve beaten him so badly?” The smile that threatens to spill from her lips makes my heart do some unexpected calisthenics.
Sabrina laughs. “That’s the spirit. And a great question.” She clicks to the next slide. “The winning team gets to pick our partner charity for next year. In addition to a visit by the team, the organization will also receive a million dollars from the Yeti Foundation, an amount we anticipate the fans will double over the course of the season. And, obviously, bragging rights. We’ve been working on a little something the champions will be able to display in their lockers, too.”
“Or on their desks,” Coach Blake cuts in with a pointed look at Larsen.
“Or on their desks,” Sabrina agrees before she answers the last few questions from the group. She ends the meeting with a reminder that the first event will take place in two weeks at the culinary school across town.
I take a deep breath. It’s fine. PR is a distraction from the game, but at least this will be on off days. Hopefully that means the social media team will leave me alone before the games since they’ll already have a lot of footage. I wonder if that was the PR team’s plan all along. I know the competition concluding before we move into our final playoffs push had to be strategic.
Larsen starts chirping about their team taking home the W as soon as we walk into the hall. I shove him into the wall, chuckling when he mutters a curse. Unable to be kept down, heimmediately bounces back and starts talking to Li about getting their new chef to train them for the cooking challenge.
“Kane,” Coach Finley calls from behind me. “Do you have a minute?”
“Sure,” I reply, turning to face her fully. “Want to meet in your office?”
She waves the idea off. “I just wanted to let you know I’m not going to be the best teammate in this competition. I mean, I’ll try while we’re there, but I’m either all-in or all-out when it comes to competitions. My focus needs to be on getting this team into the playoffs. I don’t have hours each week to spend training with a chef to win a silly cook-off.”
“Understood,” I say. “I’m not looking to do much more than the minimum that’s required, either. I’ve got a team to lead—I mean a team to be the leader of,” I joke, reminding her of the way she told me she leads the team.
The right corner of her mouth lifts slightly. “Indeed. AndI’vegot a team to lead.”
Chapter 8
Finley
“Oh,hell,no.”Ishake my head. “Certainly not.”
“I didn’t pick them.” Kane slips the apron over his head and ties the strings around his waist.
“Where’s Sabrina?” I ask, looking around the large room set up for the cooking competition.
I’m not sure how the last two weeks passed so quickly, but somehow, the practices and games flew by when all I wanted was for time to stand still, so I never had to do this ridiculous challenge.
On the plus side, our defense isfinallygetting it together. We’ve won eight of our last twelve games, including one against the Chicago team who took Pike out of commission.
Kane shrugs his large shoulders. “Avoiding you, if I had to guess. I don’t think it was an accident that she had someone from her team give me our aprons.”
Fucking Sabrina.
“For the love. I cannot wear this,” I groan taking in the monstrosity they expect me to be filmed in. The apron is designed to look like a yeti body with your head replacing the mascot’s. It’s ridiculous. And worse,it’s an apron.
“We’re all wearing them.” Beckett looks down at his chest, now completely covered by the yeti apron. “It’s not a big deal.”
That is so much easier for him to say. No one is going to see him in that and all of a sudden think his place is in the kitchen. In fact, with his black T-shirt that is tight in just the right places, he looks like a DILF about to go grill some hamburgers at the family picnic.
“I guess these are going to be a fundraising item,” Beckett comments. “Honestly, I think Sabrina and her team are onto something. People are going to love this.”
He looks at my face and holds up his hands. “Woah. No need to blame me. I’m just doing what I’m told.”
“I’m not blaming you,” I say. Unless he means that as a member of the male population, then, I’mtotallyblaming him and, in all fairness, the female half of the population, too. “I’d just prefer not to wear fucking aprons.”
“Coach, are you annoyed about this as well?” Larsen asks, barging into our conversation.
“Obviously, Larsen.”
