CHAPTER 13 LINCOLN

Jack gave me the warning, but it was a mere five minutes ahead of time.

Five minutes to prepare for a moment nearly twenty years in the making.

I figured our paths would cross at some point. I didn't think it would be moments before I walked into my first interview as head coach.

And when I first spotted her in the conference room for this interview, it was like time stopped.

I was transported back in time to when things were good…better than good for us.

She was my forever. At seventeen, I knew that. I might've been young and dumb, but I suppose an argument could be made that now I'm old and dumb.

I'm thirty-six, and I've been unable to replicate what I had when I was seventeen…over half my life ago. I haven't been able to find someone who understood me the way Jolene did. Someone who loved me the way she did.

But all that passion was what led to a fiery end for us, and it's best kept in the past.

Especially now. Especially as I'm starting this new position. The last thing I need is the media making a field day out of my personal life.

But, Jesus, time has been good to her. She's even more beautiful now than she was back then. The gold flecks in her eyes glitter and glow at me even from a safe distance of ten or so feet apart.

I can't get closer.

If I get too close, if I smell her, if I feel her soft skin, if her heat radiates toward me and pulls me back into her orbit…it'll be too hard to come back from that.

Jack sits at the conference table, clearly intent on sitting in on this interview. "We've got a press conference in two hours to prepare for, so if you could get this rolling that would be great," he says.

The camera guy hands me a mic pack, and I clip the tiny microphone onto my suit jacket and slide the box into my pocket.

I take a seat in the chair clearly set up for me in here, and Jolene sits across from me.

Getting over what happened between us was the hardest thing I've ever done.

I can't subject myself to that again.

But in all honesty, as I look at her sitting across from me, all professional in a black dress with a belt across the middle and black heels that would look nice perched up on my shoulders as I grind into her, one gorgeous leg crossed over the other as she draws in a breath to start the interview, I'm not totally sure I ever did fully get over what happened between us.

She clears her throat. "Congratulations again on your new position as head coach of the Vegas Aces," she begins, and it's clear she's pulled on her professional hat as tightly over her head as she possibly can. "How do you plan to lead the team to victory this season?"

I've done plenty of interviews before. I can get through this.

I just have to pretend she's someone else. This isn't Jolene Bailey, the love of my life who got away and now our families hate one another in a feud as fiery and angry as that of Montagues and the Capulets. This is a local sports correspondent interviewing me and allowing me to get my message out to the fans.

Even though a huge part of me wants to just cut to the chase and get this over with, I know I can't. I need to capitalize on this opportunity, and Jolene is my vehicle to do it. This is the first impression I'll be making on this town and on this fan base, and I need to tread carefully while showcasing my strengths and the reason Jack believed in me enough to give me the job over everyone else.

I lean back in the chair, casual and confident as I consider her question. "I've been gifted a team with a lot of talent here, and I will capitalize on those strengths and the winning culture we already have in this building while instilling my own style of coaching."

"And what is that style?" she presses.

"I'm tough but fair. I'm not the kind of guy who just stands on the sidelines barking orders. I'm out on that field showing them how to lead and how to take calculated risks, finding ways to get my players to trust me with a strong team culture so we can work together to win games. Each player is valued and their contributions matter. I will push them to be the best they can be both on the field and off." It's a generic answer, but it's also the truth.

"What about younger players?" she asks. "Do you have any strategies for working with rookies and players new to the team?" She's scribbling notes as I talk even though the camera guy is recording me, and I imagine it's so she doesn't have to look at me. I wonder if she's as affected by me as I am by her.

"I believe in hard work and respect, and that goes for young players and veterans alike. I treat everyone like a starter because you never know if they will be. My job is to make sure every player on this team knows they're valued and might be called upon at any time." I feel like I'm going to be saying the same damn thing over and over and over at these interviews.

She glances up at me, but her eyes immediately return to her notebook. She seems…flustered. "What do you think sets this team apart?"

"This team has a whole lot of heart," I say slowly as I think back to why I took the interview with the Aces in the first place. "There's so much natural talent here, and these guys play because they love the game. I want to cultivate that passion and dedication this season as we take on a new era of Vegas Aces football, and most importantly, I think the fans here in Vegas set this team apart. They're passionate and dedicated, too, and they're exactly what we need to win games."

We talk for a solid forty-five minutes as she asks about my football experience and history, my leadership style, my coaching strengths, how I'll handle the stress of the position, and my goals.

"Who will fill the holes in the roster, specifically the quarterback?" she asks as we're nearing the end of the interview.

I'm a little caught off guard by the question even though I should've expected it. I exercise my right not to answer to get my way out of that one. "We have a lot of work to do to prepare for the season, but it's only March. We have time."

"One more question," Jack says, and frankly I'm surprised he stayed for the entire interview.

Jolene looks up at him as if she's surprised by his intrusive words, and she glances back down at her papers. She clears her throat, flustered again as she tries to figure out which question to ask.

She takes a deep breath and glances up at me, and I spot the hurt in her eyes. "Is your father proud of you?"

Her question has its intended effect.

An ache pierces through my chest and I feel a bit like I've been punched right in the gut.

On the outside, it seems like a simple enough question. The Nash family is an elite part of this league.

But on the inside, there's a lot more depth to it. The night I ended things with her, the last thing she asked me was whether my father purposely hurt her father in some effort to break the two of us up.

I couldn't admit to her that she was right…not when my father was adamant that the private conversation between us where he admitted he took her father out of the game would forever stay between the two of us.

But then she told me I was letting him win if that was what happened, and she left me with a final question: was that what was going to make him proud of me?

That question remained heavy in my mind around the days and weeks following our break-up.

We never spoke again—a difficult feat given the fact that we were next door neighbors and attended the same high school, but the Bailey family moved away, which made it easier to pretend she'd just been some crazy dream.

I put in a hell of a lot of extra hours on the field. I worked hard, stayed late, and made it through to graduation. Workouts started a week later, so I headed off to college to get started on the next segment of my life.

And somehow it's been two decades and the last words spoken between us were whether what I was doing was making my father proud.

I have no idea how to answer her question.

I'm not sure anything will ever be enough for him to respect me and my choices. Maybe he blames me for losing his best friend since he apparently did what he did to protect me…who knows. I know I blame him for losing mine.

It should be ancient history at this point, but there's more to it. It's not that simple.

It wasn't just her dad sustaining a career-ending injury caused by my dad.

They were best friends, and they had a shared dream.

They dreamed of opening a sports bar together. They had a vision that it would be a place for players to hang out in the off-season and for fans to hang out during it. When their vision became a reality, they named it Rivalry.

But when Joseph got hurt, my father wanted to buy him out. Since the Baileys were moving to Arizona for Joseph's rehab and would no longer be around to help with the decision-making, my father felt he had to go. He had a different vision for the place than Joseph did. Joseph wanted to make it into a barbecue joint while my father had visions of making it into a sports bar.

Little did we know that the name of the bar would end up becoming the truth between our families.

Joseph felt like my father even asking him to sell was a betrayal that caused the final rift between our families. Joseph held onto his stake as a way to get back at my father. He dragged his feet on every business decision, making it all the more difficult given his distance from the actual location of the bar.

My father did what he could to keep the place afloat, sinking his life savings into it, but Joseph's stubbornness made it an uphill battle that eventually turned into an ugly legal battle with both sides slinging mud at each other in court. After years of struggling to keep the place running, my dad had no choice but to throw in the towel. The bar was bankrupt, and my father has always looked at it as one of his life's greatest failures.

It's another source of contention between our families. Her father's stubbornness over the bar is what eventually sank it, and it left my father essentially in financial ruin. It was his dream to run that bar after he retired, and I'm the only person in the entire world who knows that it was karma coming back for him after what he did to Joseph.

"That's a question for my father," I finally say with a clipped tone in response to her question. "Thank you for your time today."

Jack stands. "Great interview, Bailey," he says to Jolene. "I can't wait to see what you do to paint our new coach in the best possible light."

"Of course, Mr. Dalton. Thank you again for this opportunity."

Her voice fades away behind me as I walk out of the room.

Most exclusives end with some off the record pleasantries, but I don't have it in me to do that with her right now. Not after the last question she asked.

Not now that I have to prepare for my press conference with her on my mind.