Watching Walker and Brady sparring reminded me that Walker was no challenge for Brady, whereas Brady and I were evenly matched. But I also knew better than to get inside the ring. One wrong twist of my foot and I’d be back where I started.
After we finished, we took a breather on the benches by the water station and I studied my brothers.
Walker patted his beard with a towel and then wiped the back of his neck below his man bun. Brady mopped his stubble, which would be gone by the time he donned his suit and tie and entered the Lund Industries corporate offices. He was the only kid who had inherited Dad’s dark hair. Walker, Annika and I were all blond like Mom. So it cracked me up that Walker considered himself the black sheep of the family. That title should’ve gone to Brady just on looks alone.
“Why you studying us like you haven’t seen us in months, bro?”
I met Brady’s curious stare. “Just thinking about hair color and wondering what color Walker’s kid will have. I’m hoping for a fiery-ass red with a temper to match.”
“I don’t care if he’s bald as a cue ball or has orange-colored clown hair, just as long as he’s healthy and my wife isn’t at risk.”
My bottle of water stopped halfway to my mouth. “He? You found out the sex?”
Walker grinned. “Just last week. We’re having a boy.”
“Congrats, man. That is awesome.” I looked at Brady. “You and Lennox catch baby fever yet?”
“No.” He picked at the label on his water bottle. “I mean, yes, we’ve discussed starting our family. I imagine we’ll get closer to that when baby T-Dub makes his appearance.”
“T-Dub? Dude. That’s a lame mash-up name. Wal-Trin is totally better.”
“Wal-Trin?” Brady said with a snort. “That sounds like a discount cold medicine.”
Ignoring him, I said to Walker, “Please promise me Brady won’t get in on the baby-naming pool.”
“Maybe if you and Lennox wait too long, the newlyweds will beat you in the baby race,” Walker teased Brady.
“First of all: Piss off.”
Walker and I grinned at each other and bumped fists. Getting Brady riled up was always entertaining.
“Second, Annika said she’s not ready to share her time with Axl yet.” He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Now as the only singleton in our family, you should be worried that Mom’s started her campaign to marry you off.”
“It’s already under way. Before I left for Florida she tried to set me up with this ‘cute as a muffin’ nurse.”
Brady and Walker exchanged a look. Then Walker said, “Mom doesn’t know about your three dating rules?”
“Seriously? Like I’d give Mom that kind of leverage? Hell no.”
“So we’re the only ones who know that the first thing to keep The Rocket from asking a woman out on a date is if her status is a single mother?” Walker said.
“Bite me,” I ground out.
“The second thing is no cheerleaders,” Brady added.
“And the third no-go . . . no health care professionals,” Walker finished.
“Those rules have served me well,” I argued. “So I’ll stick with them.”
“Until you meet a woman you want to nail who violates one of those rules and the Jensen Lund rule book will go right out the window.”
“Wrong. I made those rules my sophomore year of college. I haven’t broken a rule yet.”
“Never?” Brady said.
“Never.”
Walker raised both eyebrows. “No shit?”
“No shit.”
“Props for sticking with it, but explain to me where these rules came from,” Brady said.
“No single moms became rule number one after I saw what my buddy Bentley went through. He met this chick in class, asked her out, she kept turning him down because she had a kid. He had it bad for her and hounded her until she said yes. Once they got involved, he found out she had an asshole baby daddy and she worked two jobs to stay in school. Then Bentley started missing class to take care of the kid for her. He ended up dropping out. Then she dumped his ass six months later. He went through all that shit for nothing. So I’ll pass.”
“I get that seeing your buddy’s life upended at age twenty would sour you,” Walker said. “But this no-cheerleaders rule . . . What’s that about?”
“In high school and college if I dated a cheerleader and we broke up—which we always did—I still had to see her at every game and team event. Then the rest of the cheerleaders on the squad hated me on her behalf. They were one collective mind in separate bodies. In the pros there are no-fraternization rules between the cheerleaders and the players.”
“That’s archaic,” Walker said. “And probably illegal. I’d get my ass sued if I tried to tell my office manager Betsy who she could date outside working hours.”
“It is what it is and it makes things easier for me.”
“I agree with Dubbya, which is why Lund Industries doesn’t have that kind of asinine rule in the employee handbook,” Brady added. “It doesn’t make sense. But your no-health-care-professionals edict doesn’t really make sense either.”
I scrubbed my hands over my face. “Look, I’m a football player. My body takes a beating on a regular basis. Nurses, massage therapists, fitness trainers, even yoga instructors, try to diagnose me if I mention an ache or pain. Like I should listen to her over what the team’s medical staff is telling me? Then I take a blast of shit when I don’t follow through with her advice. It leads to drama, and I don’t do drama. And I definitely don’t go against my professional trainers’ recommendations. So I avoid the hassle by just saying no to that entire profession.”
They both stared at me.
“For chrissake, what now?”
“That is actually a smart list, Jens.”
I tried—and failed—not to take that as a backhanded compliment. “Surprised that I use my brain for more than memorizing plays and random chicks’ phone numbers?”
Brady held up his hands. “Whoa. Defensive much?”
“Maybe I am.” I squirted water in my mouth. “I’m sure the ‘where do we hide Jensen in the family business’ issue has come up if I’m released from the team. Unlike Jax, who’s been assured there’s always a place for him at LI when he’s done with hockey, I’ve never gotten that same promise from you, or the uncles, or even Ash and Nolan.”
Walker sucked in a breath. “That was harsh, Jens.”
“It’s true.” I pointed my water bottle at him. “He’s not denying it.”
Brady leveled his CFO stare at me that sent his minions at LI running for the exit.
I managed to stay put.
“Shifting the responsibility of your future after football onto LI? Dick move, bro. Especially since you’ve refused to tell anyone what postfootball career options you’re considering.”
“It isn’t like you haven’t had time to think about it while you’ve been recuperating,” Walker said. “There’s no shame in admitting you don’t have a fucking clue.”
I closed my eyes and tamped down my temper. “Sorry. It’s not your problem . . . I don’t know what I’ll do if the team cuts me. I’ve been superstitious that if I seriously consider postcareer options right now, the universe will see it as I’ve given up on my football career and it’ll be over.” I opened my eyes and looked at Walker first and then Brady. “I’m not ready to even think about moving on.”
“Although that sounds like the cosmic-consequences stuff that Dallas believes in, I do understand where you’re coming from.” Brady kept his gaze on me. “My door is always open to you when you are ready to talk about a career change, okay?”
“Okay.” I’d dreaded this conversation, taking the “it’s all good” tack whenever anyone brought it up. So color me relieved it was over—for now.
Walker and I gathered our stuff and said good-bye to Brady. Outside, Walker paused by my ZR1 before he headed to his truck. “What’s going on in your world this week?”
“Dante an
d I are meeting with the coaching staff today. He’s giving them the full report from my week in checkup hell. I have rehab training every day. Besides that, not much. What about you?”
“We’re slammed with renovations and we’re turning down more work than ever. Jase and I discussed expanding, but we’re clearing substantial profits as it is. For him, an increased workload would take time away from Tiffany and their baby girl Jewel. Given what he’s been through to finally have a family, money isn’t a driving force for him. For me either. I want to be with Trinity and baby T-Dub as much as possible.” He grinned. “So I’m an old married dude content to spend my weekends puttering around and being at my pregnant wife’s beck and call.”
I clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s what you’ve always wanted, so I’m happy for you.”
“Thanks. Swing by and have a beer this week.”
“I’ll take you up on that.”
I drove home and felt no guilt whatsoever crawling back in bed for a few hours. At least if I was sleeping I wasn’t obsessing over what would happen during my lunch meeting with the guys who held my football future in their hands.
Four
ROWAN
Calder woke up in a grumpy mood. Normally he was a sweet, easygoing kid so I wasn’t sure if he just didn’t get enough sleep or if he dreaded something at school. When I asked him about it, he mumbled into his cereal so I let it go.
I dropped him off at school—thank heaven for all-day kindergarten—and then backtracked to the University of Minnesota campus. This weekend we had tryouts for next year’s squads, and last year we’d had a thousand students try out for eighty spots. The dance routine was the same as last year’s; we changed it every other year. That one small thing made the tryout process easier—the current cheerleaders were familiar with the routine so they could help teach it to newcomers.
I helped with the choreography of the dances and cheers, but mainly I served as an athletic trainer, advisor and coach to the stunt groups. In middle school, I’d spent three years as part of competitive club cheer group, four years in high school as part of a traveling competitive cheer squad, and four years on the U of M elite all-girl competitive cheer squad. After discovering my pregnancy the last semester of my senior year, I had to quit the squad.
I’d been lucky to get hired by the U of M athletic department as a trainer after my college graduation. The other benefit of my job was the onsite day care during the school year.
As challenging as training was, I missed the actual cheering at a sporting event. Dante, my former mentor, had scored a job working for the Vikings, and he suggested I try out for the Vikings cheerleaders.
Right. Those women weren’t “real” cheerleaders. They were models. Probably empty-headed models, or dancers whose real job involved nightly pole work and lap dances. The supposed “pro” team didn’t even do stunts! What kind of a cheer squad couldn’t at least throw up a liberty a couple of times a game?
Dante checked my attitude. He reminded me of how hard cheerleaders had worked to overcome stereotypes and the dismissive attitude that we weren’t considered “real” athletes. I’d needed to get knocked down a peg. My driving purpose with the collegiate athletic department was to ensure that all athletes—male and female—received equal training opportunities.
Spending eight or more hours in the gym every day demanded that I keep up with my students on a physical level. I’d stayed fit during my pregnancy, and within four months of Calder’s birth I’d returned to my prepregnancy body. Even after Dante convinced me to attend an open practice session at the Vikings cheerleading camp, I doubted the organization wanted someone like me—a single mother with a one-year-old baby—to represent them.
Had I ever been happy to be proven wrong.
The cheerleader roster included women from age nineteen to thirty-four. From all walks of life—students, hairstylists, teachers, homemakers, nurses, personal trainers—all women who’d spent their lives cheering or dancing or both and hadn’t been ready to give it up. Were the women beautiful? Absolutely. But that almost seemed to be a secondary concern; the cheerleaders’ fitness mattered above all else.
I’d never been as nervous as I was the day I showed up for the first open practice. So many hopefuls had applied that they’d had to split it into five sessions of one hundred women in each session. I’d been sitting by myself, practically in the corner, when a brash blonde plopped herself down beside me and struck up a conversation. That turned out to be the best thing that had happened to me. Daisy and I became fast friends, and I wouldn’t know what to do without her in my life.
We both made it past the preliminaries and the semifinals into the final round. We squeed appropriately when we both were selected as Vikings cheerleaders and celebrated by polishing off a hundred-dollar bottle of wine Daisy had been saving for a special occasion.
Although I was confident in my qualifications to cheer and dance, part of me couldn’t help but wonder if I’d been chosen partially because I was a single mother and it created interesting PR. But I hadn’t cared then—or now. I was proud to be a Vikings cheerleader.
Auditions were held every year, and being on the squad the previous year didn’t guarantee a spot. I had a sense of accomplishment that I was about to start my fifth year on the team. Besides Marsai, who had an extra season on us, Daisy and I had been there the longest. I’d know in my gut when it was time to hang up my pompoms, but I felt I had a couple more seasons in me.
Today I had a meeting with Heather, the head of the cheerleading staff. I’d scheduled a longer lunch break so I could drive to the Vikings corporate offices and training center in Winter Park. While we were a few months away from the unveiling of the new U.S. Bank stadium, the excitement over the near completion of the billion-dollar facility was palpable everywhere.
With this expanded stadium, the cheerleaders were given a new set of expectations. To be honest, the pay to cheer for games is crap—none of us do it for the money and there’s no such thing as a full-time cheerleader. The Vikings organization needed the cheerleaders to mingle in the skyboxes during the games, providing a more personal touch to those who could afford to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars for the prized box seats. So in addition to the fifty cheerleaders on the field, they’d auditioned and hired fifty more women as “ambassadors” meaning they paraded around in uniforms similar to ours, chatting with fans and corporate sponsors while we sweated our asses off, dancing and cheering for all four quarters.
Heather hadn’t decided whether these new ambassadors would have to learn all our dance routines and cheers, and she wanted feedback from the half dozen of us who’d been cheering the longest. Since the Vikings big bosses were also in the same offices, I’d had to change out of my usual athletic clothing into a business suit and heels. I rarely wore makeup to my day job, so I’d had to put on my game-day face and hairstyle.
My smart-ass students whistled at me as I tried to duck out of the gym undetected.
On the way to the offices I downed a protein shake and an apple. I never counted on a free lunch.
The meeting wasn’t very productive. All six of the cheerleaders were opposed to bringing an additional fifty women into our practices. The corporate bosses wanted it to appear as if the ambassadors had just wandered off the field and were real cheerleaders. Even Heather had bristled at that. But she’d been prepared for it—she handed the CFO’s assistant the revised costs for the ambassador program. Daisy and I exchanged a look, doubtful they were willing to fork out more money. But football coaches didn’t work for free; why would they expect cheerleading coaches to work additional hours without additional pay?
The meeting ended shortly after that.
Daisy and I lingered in the main entrance. Unlike me, Daisy didn’t have to change into business clothes for this meeting since she worked in the actuarial department of Wells Fargo Bank and lived in a suit and heels.
I said, “Well, that was a cluster.”
“
I suspected it might be.”
“I overheard Rebecca say the ambassadors have to deliver food. I’ve done my time serving nachos and buffalo wings to half-drunk sports fans, thank you very much.”
“I never served food. Cocktails for a while.” Daisy lowered her voice. “Until I figured out stripping paid a helluva lot more.”
I laughed. Daisy’s stripper days were far behind her, but they had paid for her MBA—not something she freely shared.
“You mentioned something weird happening last night,” she said.
Before I answered, loud male voices echoed to us. A voice I recognized. My face broke into a huge smile. I hadn’t seen Dante in three weeks; he’d been off on official team business. My smile faded when I saw who accompanied him.
Jensen Lund.
Daisy said, “Dante’s moving up if he’s working with The Rocket.”
I kept my cool even when Dante picked me up in a bear hug and spun me around.