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Jade’s head whipped over to her so fast, Franny was almost afraid the motion had broken her neck. “You tried to talk him down… for me?”

Franny sighed from deep in her diaphragm, not even bothering to stop her eyes from rolling. “The only thing I did was remind him of what all of us, including him, already know. Which is that there’s nobody better for this job than you.”

“What did he say to that?”

“He didn’t say much, but he knows it’s true,” Franny consoled her. “What did you do anyway?”

With a groan, Jade threw herself even farther back into the furniture. “I snuck into one of West Beaufort’s scrimmages and just… took a few notes.”

“Jade!” Franny’s mouth dropped open.

“I know, I know. I-I wasn’t thinking straight. All I could focus on was getting the upper hand against—” She took a skittish peek over at Franny. “Against you, and I seriously crossed the line. I didn’t take any game tape, I swear. I just… I don’t know. I knew I was toeing a line, I just figured that because I didn’t technically cross it, I could skate by. The worst part is that I didn’t even see that I’d done something wrong until Landry found out and reamed me out for it.”

“That is not at all what I expected.” Franny laughed. “I thought you’d, like, called the man an asshole to his face or got into an argument with a parent or something. Not that your ass was out there doing Espionage: Sports Edition.”

Jade gave another groan. “I literally put on a church-auntie wig and everything. It’s deeply embarrassing to think about in retrospect.”

Franny’s cackle bounced off the wood walls of the tree house.

Jade bumped her shoulder with her own, making Franny snort as she came close to losing her balance.

“I can’t fucking believe I’m about to lose my dream because I decided to play Harriet the Spy for a day.”

“He’s going to give you the position, Jade. You know he is.”

Jade shook her head, suddenly sober. “I don’t know that, and neither do you. Shit, he probably doesn’t either.”

They were looking at each other, gazes locked, faces somber. The air between them smelled like damp wood and fresh earth.

“What will you do if he doesn’t give you the job?”

Jade swallowed. “I don’t know that either.”

19

At Friday-morning practice, she sat in the cab of her truck in the parking lot, watching as the last few stragglers showed up not quite late to the session. The Jade she’d been a week ago would have been on the field for an hour already. Helping to set out the water and snacks, looking over her playbook, greeting the kids as they trickled in. The Jade she was today was terrified to show her face.

Jade was a lot of things. Like everybody else in the world, she was a culmination of good stuff and bad stuff. Fucked-up thoughts and generous actions. Most of the time, she made peace with it all. Largely because one thing she’d always prided herself on was not being a coward. She’d never shied away from confrontation or from the truth, and she’d certainly never been too scared to face the facts of life. But here she was, staring down the barrel of losing everything she’d worked hard as hell to get, and the only thing she wanted to do was tuck tail and run so she could avoid the inevitable.

She could imagine holding her head high, striding across the green, only to be met by stares from her colleagues who knew exactly what she’d done and were judging her for it. And Landry… God, she could see his face now. Reddened from the sun, with his Oakley sunglasses perched on the bill of his cap, looking at her the same way he had in his office. Frustrated, disappointed, tired.

Her stomach revolted just thinking about it, and she had to clench her eyes shut to get the image behind her lids to fade away. Maybe it would be better for her to just drive off and send some bullshit text to Landry about how she was going to miss practice because she wasn’t feeling well.

It wouldn’t be a lie, at least. She felt awful.

“Coach Dunn!”

She cursed inside as soon as she heard the voice. Through the glass of her driver’s-side window, she watched as David Kelly came sprinting toward her car. Slowly, she used the hand crank to lower the window.

“Hey, David.”

“What are you doing out here?” His little blond eyebrows furrowed.

“I, uh…” It was shameful, the way she couldn’t come up with a single adequate answer for him.

“We need to get inside—” His voice broke in the middle of his sentence. “These last few summer practices are important, remember? You told us that.”

She nodded, swallowing even though her mouth had suddenly gone dry. Shehadtold them that. She’d stressed it to the kids, to the parents, and to the other coaches. Over and over, she’d drilled it into their heads. Being a coward was one thing; being a hypocrite was another.