It Had to Be You (Chicago Stars #1)(28)

Phoebe gave a sigh of relief.

Dan insisted on showing her around the facilities, and their tour of the two-story, L-shaped building took much of the next hour. She was surprised by the number of classrooms she saw and mentioned this to Dan.

“Meetings and watching film make up part of most practice days,” he explained. “Players have to learn the game plan. They get critiqued and hear scouting reports. Football’s more than sweat.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

The coaches’ conference room had a chalkboard at one end, which was scrawled with words like King, Joker, Jay-hawk, as well as some diagrams. The weight room smelled like rubber and had an elephant-sized Toledo scale, while the tiny video lab held floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with expensive, high-tech equipment.

“Why do you need so much film equipment?”

“A lot of coaching involves watching films. We have our own camera crew, and they shoot every game from three different angles. In the NFL, each team has to send their last three game films to their next opponent exactly one week before they play.”

She looked through a set of windows into the training room, the only truly orderly area she’d seen on her tour. The walls were lined with cabinets. There were padded benches, several stainless steel whirlpools, a Gatorade dispenser, a red plastic barrel marked “Infectious Waste,” and a table that held dozens of rolls of tape in foot-high stacks.

She pointed toward them. “Why so much?”

“The players have to be taped before each practice, usually twice a day. We use a lot.”

“That must take a long time.”

“We have five tapers at training camp, three during the season.”

They moved on. She noticed that the few women they met visibly perked up when they spotted Dan, while the men greeted him with varying degrees of deference. She remembered what Ron had told her about the boys’ club and realized that Dan was its president.

In the veterans’ locker room, the open lockers were piled with shoes, socks, T-shirts, and pads. Some of the players had taped family snapshots to their lockers. There was a soft drink-dispensing machine at one end, along with several telephones and wooden pigeonholes stuffed with fan mail.

After she promised him she would report back by ten the next morning, Dan left her in the lobby. She was so relieved to have gotten away from him without suffering any major injuries that she had already pulled the keys Annette Miles had given her to Bert’s Cadillac from her purse before she remembered that she hadn’t thanked Ron for helping her today. She also wanted to ask his advice on choosing the new general manager.

As she headed toward the wing that held the Stars’ management, a stocky man carrying camera equipment came toward her.

“Excuse me. Where can I find Ron’s office?”

“Ron?” He looked puzzled.

“Ron McDermitt.”

“Oh, you mean Ronald. Last door at the end.”

She walked down the corridor, but when she reached the end, she decided she’d gotten the instructions wrong because this door held a brass placard marked “General Manager.” Puzzled, she stared at it.

And then her heart gave a sickening thud. She flew into a small antechamber, which held a secretary’s desk and some chairs. The phone was ringing with all buttons flashing, but no one was there. She experienced a few mad seconds of hope that Ron was some kind of assistant, but that hope died when she rushed over to the doorway of the inner office.

Ron sat at the desk, his chair turned away from the door toward the window behind him. He was in his shirtsleeves, elbows propped on the arms of the chair.

She stepped inside cautiously. “Ron?”

He turned. “Hello, Phoebe.”

Her heart almost broke as he gave her a rueful smile. Despite his subdued manner, she permitted herself a flicker of hope. “Have you already—Have you talked with Steve Kovak?”

“Do you want to know if he’s fired me? Yes, he has.” She regarded him with dismay. “I didn’t realize you were the general manager. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought you knew.”

“If I had, I would never have let this happen.” Even as she said the words, she remembered her agreement with Dan. Part of that agreement had been her promise to fire the acting general manager.

“It’s all right. Really. It was inevitable.”

“But, Ron . . .”

“I only got the job as assistant GM because my father and Bert were good friends. Your father was never impressed with me, and he would have fired me after six months if Carl Pogue hadn’t gone to bat for me.”

She sank into a chair. “At least someone was behind you.”

“I loved working for Carl. We complemented each other perfectly, which was why Carl didn’t want Bert to fire me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Carl has good football instincts and he’s a strong leader, but he’s not exceptionally intelligent. I had the qualities he lacked—organizational ability, a head for business—but I’m a total failure as a leader. Carl and I had worked it out so that I’d do the planning and strategy work and he’d carry it through.”

“Are you saying you’re the one who was running the team?”

“Oh, no. Carl was in charge.”