CHAPTER 2 LINCOLN

"Do whatever it takes to get him here," Jack says at our meeting on Monday morning. "We've got huge shoes to fill with Ben Olson's retirement and while I know Austin Graham is solid out there, I've seen what your brother can do. Let's get it done. I just need your assurance you can coach him the same way you coach the rest of your players."

"Of course," I say flippantly, a little insulted he'd even mention that.

"Be prepared to answer that question a thousand times over," he warns me, and he turns to Steve. "Can you get on it?"

Steve nods his agreement. "I'll get in touch with his agent this morning."

"I think we need Ben Olson on our staff for tight ends, too," Jack adds. "Imagine what he'd do with your brother."

"Would he want to coach?" I ask.

Jack shrugs. "I know he wants to focus on his girls and his health clubs for the next year or so, but I don't think it's out of the question for next year, and I imagine he'll work like Luke does—as a consultant with this team's best interests in mind."

Hell of a way to stay connected to the game—to be a consultant who doesn't have to travel to every away game and can work more of a normal schedule than what we put in. But if it means having guys like Luke and Ben and their expertise around, it's well worth it.

"Anything else?" Jack asks.

"I do have one more thing. Potentially." I nearly say this stays between us, but I'm confident that anything spoken inside the walls of this office stays between the three men sitting here.

Both Jack and Steve turn toward me.

"My brother Grayson is toying with retirement. I think he'd be a great fit for our coaching staff."

"Is this the Vegas Aces or the Vegas Nashes?" Steve quips, but he's got a point.

Jack studies me for a beat. "What would make him a great fit? I need this to be a strategic business decision, not the first step in the Nash family taking over Vegas."

"The Daltons have the lock on that," I joke.

He raises his brows pointedly rather than laughing.

"It's not nepotism," I say. "Grayson is all business when it comes to the game, and I think his attitude would be an incredible addition to our coaching staff."

"But you're not sure he wants to retire?" Steve asks.

I shrug. "We had a good talk this weekend and he's not sure he wants to keep playing, but he's also not sure he's ready to let our father down."

"Why would that be letting him down?" Steve asks.

"Everybody retires at some point," Jack points out a bit defensively given the fact that he just retired a couple months ago. "There's only one other way to get taken out of the game, as you're well aware, and if your body's telling you to stop, you stop."

A beat of quiet passes through the room, and then finally Steve says, "I'll defer to you since it's your staff and I trust you'd be placing the best man for the job in each position."

"Thanks, Steve." I shoot him a tight smile. "As you know, I've retained the majority of the staff that was here. I don't want to attempt to fix something that isn't broken, but I also want everyone to know I have a different way of coaching than Mitch did."

Jack nods and glances down at the tablet in front of him. "I agree it's important to set the tone early that this is new leadership. And to that end, Lily and our charitable contributions director, Erin, have been working around the clock behind the scenes to organize a huge kickoff charity event set to take place mid-June, the weekend after mandatory minicamp so everyone is back in town. I'm hoping it'll be an annual event, but this year it'll be a great place to introduce our new staff and players to the community. We'll have performances, speeches, meet and greets, an auction. Things like that. I'd like you to be an honorary chair to help promote the event, and we'll get our news correspondents an inside track to cover it."

News correspondents.

I know he means Jolene, and my chest tightens as I think of our kiss last night.

I push it down. Far, far down. Now is not the time to be thinking about what it felt like to have her body pressed to mine. What it was like to feel her lips moving beneath mine. The sweet orange blossoms twisting their way into my senses and hooking back on like they never let go.

One kiss and I'm already back in the thick of it.

This doesn't happen to me. I don't get attached because of everything I lost when I lost her.

I know I hurt her when I ended things between us all those years ago.

But I was hurt, too, and I'm not sure she looked past the blame far enough to see that. The day I ended things with her because of what my father did to her father, I became somebody else.

And I've never been that kid again. The one that was full of hope for the future. The one that openly shared himself with somebody else. The one who got attached and never wanted to let go.

It's not who I am, and I've been this man now longer than I was that guy. This is who I am now. The guy who played pro football for a few years before he got taken out of the game and had to take the back-up route to coaching.

The past catching up with the present isn't going to change that.

Except…

She knows.

She's been digging.

I can't have her digging.

Nobody ever questioned the story. It happened at a time when there wasn't a crowd full of amateur videographers constantly on their smart phones catching every play on film to study it from every angle.

There were two angles, and when I had to have another surgery done thanks to the infection, it was my out. My dad questioned the doctors, but I was old enough to tell them they couldn't tell my father a damn word.

I gave it to him straight.

The infection's too severe. They're either cutting my leg off or my career off.

It wasn't the first time I lied to my father.

Nor was it the last.

"Does that sound good, Coach?"

I nod as Jack's voice pulls me out of the haze where I find myself. "Sounds great, boss. Thanks."

"Good, because I've got some stuff lined up for this week already to start getting the word out. We'll take early donations, and a few journalists will be stopping by for exclusives talking about the event. I've had Lily put together a packet of information on the event for you, so study it hard because we'll be answering questions starting tomorrow."

"Great," I say, but there's little enthusiasm behind my tone as my fear is that this will only serve as a distraction when I need to be getting the roster and my coaching staff set.

And by this…I definitely mean Jolene.