danced their way to the Sweet Sixteen. Even before their final game, Lucca had fielded a call from a representative of a prominent “basketball school” who had wanted to congratulate him on his team’s season. Rumor had it that the school’s icon of a coach planned to retire after one more season, so Lucca believed it had been a courting call.
His sister Gabi’s words whispered in his mind.
Shame washed over him, and he set his teeth against it.
His players groaned as the replay showed the missed jumper that had broken their streak. “You should have passed it back to me,” the power forward said. “I’d have made it.”
“I should have kept it myself,” the point guard fired back.
“Don’t let Coach hear you say that,” the center said. “Surrender the ‘me’ …”
“For the ‘we,’” the others finished, quoting one of Lucca’s favorite sayings with some laughter.
“Lame,” the point guard said, giving a dismissive snort.
At the sound, Lucca halted midstep. His team was mocking him.
His temper flashed.
Fury coursed through Lucca’s veins. He imagined himself giving his star player a swift boot in the ass. Instead, he barked out a command, “Everybody to the baseline. We’re running ladders.”
His players turned to stare at him, their expressions ranging from incredulous to smirking. His voice deadly calm, Lucca asked, “You think I’m kidding?”
No one spoke. Lucca focused on the point guard. “Norris?”
The young man hesitated, then grinned. “Yeah, I do, Coach. Season’s over.”
Lucca folded his arms and put all of his angry disgust into his glare.
After a moment, Norris’s cocky smile died. Lucca jerked his head in a “get going” motion. His team shared a shocked look, then started running.
For the next half hour, Lucca drilled them hard, his voice harsh, his manner cold, which wasn’t at all his customary way of coaching. More than once he caught a player darting him a “WTF?” look. Twice his assistant coach approached him to inform him of the time, but Lucca stopped him with a flick of a hand. Only when people began filing into the arena for the celebration did he send his team to the showers, giving them fifteen minutes to clean up and return to the court. He heard the grumbling and saw the scowls, but his players weren’t stupid. They knew not to cross him today.
Too bad he had a boss to deal with, he acknowledged as he spied the athletic director’s sixty-something secretary approaching him with a scolding frown on her face.
“For heaven’s sake, Lucca,” Mrs. Richie said. “Mr. Hopkins is not at all happy. He has a group of donors waiting to meet you and Jamal Norris. The AV people wanted access to the arena floor an hour ago so they could set up their microphones. I have parents who expected family time with their students before tonight’s event knocking on the door of my office. Why in the world did you hold a practice this afternoon?”
Lucca closed his eyes. He didn’t care about the AV folks, and helicopter parents made him crazy. But schmoozing with the alumni and soliciting donations was a big part his job. He could be good at it when he wanted. Today, he simply didn’t have it in him to make nice. “My team needed it.”
“Well, you are wanted in the director’s office ASAP. This practice completely disrupted our schedule.”
Mrs. Richie reminded him enough of his late, beloved grandmother that he swallowed his caustic response. “I’ll go right up.”
She nodded, then checked her watch. “And Jamal?”
Lucca had no intention of singling out his point guard that way. The press did enough of it as it was. While it was true that Norris had turned in a stellar performance in the tournament, all the attention had overinflated the young man’s opinion of himself to an extent that Lucca believed was detrimental to both Jamal and the team. He searched for a compromise.
“You can let AD Hopkins know that I’ll invite our visitors into the locker room at the end of the night. That should make everybody happy.”
Surprise widened Mrs. Richie’s eyes. Lucca never allowed visitors into the locker room. “I’ll call him and tell him you are on your way.”
Due to the mood he was in, Lucca considered the ten minutes he spent glad-handing the donors to be excruciating. He found the congratulations and back slaps annoying. When one of the donors asked him if he’d like new televisions for the team’s rec room, he almost told the man to send his money to the girls’ swim team. Those young women had heart and rode to their meets in a six-year-old van that made Lucca cringe every time he saw it parked in the lot.
He breathed a sigh of relief when the athletic director announced that the time had come to adjourn to the arena. As the men filed out of the office, an investment banker from New York stepped in front of Lucca and put a hand against his chest. “If I can have just a moment, Coach?”
Lucca sucked in a breath as the urge to slap the man’s hand away rolled over him like a tidal wave. Damn, he was on edge. He’d better get himself together or he just might do his career irreparable harm.
The donor didn’t seem to notice Lucca’s bad attitude. He was too busy slipping something into Lucca’s jacket pocket. “Some friends and I want to make sure you know how pleased we are to have you here at Landry. You’re a great coach. You proved it last year when you motivated that ragtag group of kids at Midwest State all the way to an NCAA berth and—”
“Those kids played their hearts out,” Lucca interrupted, nausea churning in his stomach.
“Sure they did. Sure they did. But you knew how to motivate them, didn’t you? Dedicating their season to their dead teammates. That was a brilliant bit of coaching.”
The donor talked over him. “What you did with this team this season … what can I say? Jamal Norris had no intention of attending Landry until we managed to steal you away from Midwest State, and Norris is the reason we played in Atlanta this year. If you can manage to keep him out of the NBA’s clutches for another year … a national championship is within our grasp. You’re a special coach, Lucca Romano. You’ve got a great future ahead of you, and we want to do everything in our power to make sure that future is here at Landry.”
He gave Lucca’s pocket a little pat, then stepped back. “We want you to remember our gratitude when the Dukes and Kentuckys of the world come calling. And don’t you worry, we’ll see that you get regular reminders, too. Now, we’d better hurry to catch up with the others. Don’t want the festivities to start without us, do we, Coach?”
The donor motioned for Lucca to precede him from the office. Lucca shook his head. “You go ahead. I have to take a leak.”
The donor gave him a knowing grin, dropped his gaze to Lucca’s pocket, then winked. He obviously thought Lucca couldn’t wait to check out the “gratitude” in his pocket. The man couldn’t have been more wrong.
Lucca was battling the need to puke.
Ragtag players. Knew how to motivate.
Bile rose in Lucca’s throat, and he headed for the lavatory connected to the athletic director’s office. He made it to the commode just in time.
Once the spasms ended, he went to the sink, turned on the water, rinsed his mouth, and then splashed his face. When he glanced at his reflection in the mirror, he wanted to vomit all over again.
Instead, he exited the bathroom and his boss’s office. Rather than following the pulse of music that now rose from the arena, he turned toward his own office, went inside, and locked the door behind him.
