The Best Is Yet to Come (66)

“Perhaps the authorities should be the ones to sort all this out,” Cade suggested.

“Yes,” Spencer insisted. “We need to call the sheriff. What you did was wrong.”

“That’s unnecessary.” Coach immediately rejected the idea.

“I’m not lying,” Ben shouted.

“You’re blowing this all out of proportion,” Coach Simmons continued, making light of the accusation. “It’s not drugs like heroin, or meth, or anything like that. There’s no way I’d endanger any member of my team by giving them illegal drugs.”

“Then what are these?” Ben asked, holding out his hand with a number of different-sized pills. “There’re several bags of them in the closet. Look for yourself if you don’t believe me.”

“Those are the same pills I found in Ben’s backpack,” Callie said, glaring at Coach.

Coach Simmons frowned, as if to say this was all a simple misunderstanding that would easily be cleared away. “Those tablets are harmless.”

“Steroids?” Hope asked.

“And a few others…nothing that would do the team any physical harm, let me assure you.”

“My brother doesn’t believe that, and neither do I.” Callie wasn’t letting up. “You should be in jail for what you’re doing. Ben hasn’t been the same person since you started giving him those drugs. Scott, either. My brother never had a temper like this. He’s aggressive and unreasonable. Scott, too.”

“Callie’s right,” Spencer added angrily.

“Why would you feel you had to give the team anything?” Hope was probably na?ve to ask. For Coach to take such a huge professional risk was beyond her comprehension.

Coach looked as if it were the stupidest question he’d ever heard. “Why do you think?”

“You’re undefeated,” Cade said, “and now we know why.”

“He’s a cheat,” Spencer said with disgust.

Coach sent them a smug look. “We win and that’s all that matters. If you think I’m going to let you ruin that for me, then you’re wrong.”

“You didn’t win those games,” Hope said, growing angry now. “Yes, the Eagles scored more points, but you did it at the physical and emotional risk of teenage boys.”

Coach snickered, as if to suggest she was completely unaware of how things worked. “Do you seriously think other coaches don’t give their players performance enhancers?”

“Yes,” Hope insisted, finding it hard to accept this was a common practice.

“Then you’re wrong.”

Hope refused to believe him. “Have you no conscience?” she asked.

Coach seemed to find her questions amusing. “You have to know I never forced these kids to take enhancers. They asked for them. They know a good thing when they see it.”

“I don’t care what you call them. Enhancers or drugs, it’s wrong and harmful,” Hope insisted.

“Tomato, tomahto,” he returned flippantly. “I was helping these boys get scholarships. They’re grateful and so are their parents.”

“Their families would be outraged if they knew,” Cade said.

Hope could tell he was as angry as she was. What he said was right. From what she knew of both Ben’s and Scott’s parents, they would be horrified. They had no choice other than to report Coach Simmons to the authorities.

“I doubt the parents would care,” Coach insisted. “They want the best for their sons, and I’m giving them the chance of a lifetime.”

“You said if we told our parents we were off the team,” Ben inserted.

“It was for your own good. Do you seriously believe there’d be college scouts out there looking at you if I hadn’t helped you?” Coach’s eyes narrowed as he focused on Ben.

Hope shook her head and realized that Simmons had rationalized his behavior to the point that he had lost all sense of decency. “Don’t you understand how dangerous this is?”

“I know what I’m doing,” he countered stiffly. “No one is at risk. I’m careful never to give them more than what they need.”

It occurred to Hope that this wasn’t the first time Coach had done something like this. “Are you admitting you’ve done this with other teams?”

He brushed off the question. “Not your concern.”

“It is my concern.”

Coach sighed, as if losing patience. “Let me say this as plain and simply as I can. I’m not about to let some outsider step in and ruin me.”

He didn’t seem to recognize that it was too late. Hope wasn’t the only one who knew what he’d done. Cade knew now, too. And once the truth was out, there would be no stopping it. Ben had been brave enough to step forward, and Hope was convinced that would lead others on the team to do the same. There was no way Coach Simmons would be able to brush this off as common practice.

Coach’s eyes became like steel points as he glared at Hope and Cade. “You won’t tell anyone, and neither will Ben and these other two.”

Callie joined Spencer and glared at Simmons. “You kidnapped my brother, tied him up, and put him in a closet.”

“He did that because I told Scott I was quitting the team,” Ben explained.