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“Is that why you shave your head?” Rhodes demanded.

“My head,” Jude told him, “is lucky, and you, Brother Coach, need to rub my head.”

“Please, stop saying that,” he said.

“Rub my head!” he yelled. That was all the invitation I needed.

“Rub his head!” I chimed in, fully deserving the annoyed glare it got me. I didn’t care. I was invested in watching this chaos unfold. “Rub his head! Rub. His. Head.”

The chant caught instantly, and one voice became five. Five quickly became the entire team. Within seconds, we were shouting loud enough that there was no chance Rhodes could overpower us, not even with his coach voice. The ridiculousness spread beyond us too. A few early crowd members close enough to hear caught on and started joining in without even knowing what the hell they were demanding.

Rhodes pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. The defeat on his face made several of us laugh. He had to know by now that resistance only encouraged us.

“C’mon, Brother Coach!” Jude exclaimed. He made an entire production out of dropping to one knee in front of Rhodes, bowing his freshly shaved head and gesturing to it. “C’mon! Rub my head! If you don’t do it and we lose, it’s your fault.”

“This is the dumbest fucking superstition,” he retorted. He looked genuinely offended by the entire concept, which only made it funnier when he finally gave in. Rhodes reached down and placed a single finger against the top of Jude’s head. The team erupted into loud boos. His partial participation didn’t satisfy the superstitious laws governing Jude’s lucky skull. Before Rhodes could pull away, Jude grabbed his wrist and forced his fuzzy head directly into Rhodes’ palm. I lost it. The mixed look of defeat and disgust on his handsome face was comical, and he quickly wrenched his wrist free. “Never again, you weird shit!”

Nobody believed that, not for a second. At least, I certainly didn’t.

“Let’s do this thing!” Jude shouted, riling up the team all over again.

The noise surged around me, and my heart kicked harder, but this time it wasn’t nerves. Or maybe it was. I couldn’t tell anymore. Either way, I sank into that electric feeling that only existed right before a game began.

I stopped thinking and focused on the field waiting for us.

CHAPTER 20

Rhodes

All right, let’s talk about what you did wrong,” McBride began, looking at his clipboard. He tracked every missed block, every bad read, every hesitation, and every moment somebody had been half a step too slow. It was useful, but it wasn’t what they needed right now.

“No,” I interjected, and McBride looked up. The last thing I wanted any of the coaches to do was stand there and dissect every mistake while the team was already beating themselves up over it. They’d won. Barely. It’d been ugly as hell in places. I knew that, they knew that, and nobody needed me pretending otherwise. But there was a difference between acknowledging a bad game and grinding somebody’s face into it five minutes after the clock hit zero. “I’ve got this.”

He seemed none too pleased with my interruption. Too bad. If McBride wanted to be irritated with me, he could join the growing list of people who probably thought I had no business running this program. I could live with that. I turned my back on him and faced the team. That was where my attention belonged anyway.

They looked exhausted with a kind of heaviness I recognized. Their shoulders slumped, and helmets hung loose from their fingers. A few guys stared down at the grass instead of at me. Theo was one of them, which hit harder than I wanted it to. His expression was tight and defeated, like the win hadn’t registered at all because he’d already cataloged every mistake he made getting there. I hated seeing him like that.

“I’m not going to talk about what you did wrong or where you can improve because I know each of you knows it already,” I said. That got a few more eyes on me. It was written all over their faces. They already knew. There would be time for film and time for corrections. But tonight wasn’t that time. “What I will remind you is that you started this season at a disadvantage. Two weeks ago, you lost all your security in this team when all of your coaches were dismissed. But I need you to remember that, despite that disadvantage and the chaos of the last two weeks, you won.”

I let the silence sit because sometimes people needed a second to hear the good part, especially when they were more comfortable expecting criticism. I looked across the group. A few expressions shifted, but most of them still looked like they were waiting for me to get to the but. That told me something. I had a feeling this group wasn’t used to hearing positive feedback unless it came attached to a warning or correction.

I knew that kind of coaching. I’d been on the receiving end of asshole coaches who could take your best game and somehow leave you feeling like you’d barely deserved to step onto the field. I didn’t want that for them, especially not from me.

“All things considered, you did a damn good job tonight,” I reassured them once more. “So, just go home, celebrate, do whatever post-game rituals you do, and come in ready to hit the ground running at your next practice.”

A few shoulders relaxed.

“That’s it?” Jaime demanded.

“That’s it,” I told them with a reassuring smile. “I know you’re expecting a whole lot of crap—and I’m not saying you don’t have room for improvement—but you won. You made a hell of a comeback at the end, and you deserve to celebrate that. Don’t let the bad outweigh the good. Now, hit the showers and get out of here.”

That broke whatever remained of the tension. Groans and complaints followed them as they made their way to the locker room. I watched them go and hoped at least some part of what I’d said made it through because they would screw up again. That was football. Hell, that was life. My job wasn’t to convince them mistakes didn’t matter. It was to make sure they understood mistakes weren’t the only thing that mattered.

“You know, we need to talk to them about how they played tonight,” Hale said as he joined me in watching them leave. “They won’t improve if you baby them.”

My jaw ticked with annoyance.

“What’s that phrase? You catch more flies with honey or some shit like that,” I said. “If you don’t think they know what they did wrong tonight, you’re an idiot. They are their worst critics right now. What they need is someone who will remind them why they deserve to be here. Why they made the team in the first place. That’s more important than breaking down all their fuck ups.”