Chapter 88: Running the Team

Chapter update is here.

Find a quiet spot, turn the page, and let’s see what this story has been hiding 🌙

✦

After a warm, friendly, honest, and extremely thorough conversation, which in practice meant glaring, arguing, and bargaining, Nolan reached an understanding with the school represented by Principal John.

His next two years were now mostly settled.

Mostly.

Nolan did not think it was enough.

Once business ended, John generously invited Nolan and Katherine to tour the house. From the outside, it looked like a traditional European-style home. Inside, the living room shelves held small objects John had collected from travels around the world.

He had started his career as a geography teacher, and the way he spoke made it clear that he knew something about many countries and customs. Nolan also noticed a wide range of fishing gear in the house.

Apparently, John was a fisherman.

During the tour, Nolan quietly slipped away and found Grace.

"Grace... Director," he said, correcting himself, "are you planning to keep coaching the cheer squad?"

"Of course."

She had no intention of giving up the work she loved.

That fit Nolan’s impression of her. Grace had enormous passion for cheerleading and much less interest in everything else. Athletic director was not a small title. Inside the school, it carried real authority. But right now, her answer sounded more like resistance to a role her father had forced on her.

"Then I can still see you at the cheer party?"

"Why are you asking?"

"Just curious. You know the squad cannot do without you."

Grace nodded, pleased to hear someone support her.

"You are right."

When Nolan got home, he called Sarah Michelle Gellar at once.

"You invited me to the cheer party before, right?"

"I did. You changed your mind?"

Before he could answer, she added, "But I changed mine. You do not need to come, you awful man."

No matter how Nolan tried, Sarah refused to let him attend. She seemed to have some special reason, but she would not say what it was.

"Fine."

He hung up and immediately called Amy.

"Why are you asking?" Amy sounded cautious too.

"Nothing. Katherine asked me to check. She wants to go."

This time, Nolan did not reveal his own motive.

Amy asked several questions before finally giving him the answer.

At the end, she suddenly asked, "The season is over. You should relax a little. Do you have plans these next few days?"

She wanted him to ask her out.

"Not these few days. Maybe in a few days."

"Then... should I invite Naomi too?"

"Of course."

The phone went silent for two seconds.

"All right."

She sounded disappointed, probably because she had hoped to spend time with him alone.

That evening, on the terrace of the Polo Lounge, a group of cheerleaders crowded around a large ice bucket and counted in unison.

"Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine. One hundred!"

The stars of the contest were two women with their heads submerged in an ice-water mix, competing to see who could hold out longer.

Under the restless surface, Grace’s and Sarah’s blond hair drifted through the water like some mutated kind of sea grass.

"Whoa!"

Sarah gave in first, lifting her head and spitting out water. Her face had turned bright red from the cold.

Grace surfaced after her, triumphant and laughing.

"Twelve straight wins! I am still the strongest woman in cheer!"

If you looked only at that expression, she did not seem much different from the graduating cheerleaders around her.

Nolan turned away and sipped his cocktail alone.

He finally understood why Sarah and the others had not wanted him here.

This was a women-only party.

Because so few men ever came to the cheer team’s private gatherings, Grace had simply excluded men altogether.

Unfortunately for them, Nolan had come anyway. Sending him home at the door would have felt too harsh, so after he agreed to one condition and the group voted, he was allowed to stay.

In theory, being the only male guest among more than twenty cheerleaders sounded excellent.

In practice, Nolan sat off to the side and could not blend into their conversations at all. He watched them dance to the DJ’s loud electronic music with improvised movements that were only technically related to dancing.

Luckily, he had not come for the party itself.

Sarah came over wrapped in a blanket, soaked from head to toe and shivering hard.

"You should move around," Nolan said, chewing on a snack. "Get your blood circulating before your face freezes that way."

Sarah threw off the blanket and held out a hand.

Nolan shook his head.

"Everyone, quiet!" Sarah shouted suddenly. "Nolan is taking his shirt off!"

The crowd rushed over at once.

Grace led the charge and pulled Nolan to his feet.

"Relax, young man. You agreed to our condition. You are not backing out now, are you?"

Nolan had indeed accepted their special request in exchange for entry: a muscle display.

"Why hide a body like that?" Grace called. "Girls, get his shirt off."

The cheerleaders hesitated until Coach Grace put her hands on him first. Then they swarmed.

In the end, Nolan’s shirt was dragged off.

"DJ, music!"

Grace cheered.

Nolan had no choice but to stand in front of everyone and imitate poses he remembered from bodybuilding contests. As he flexed, the clean lines of his body drew screams from the cheerleaders, who stamped their feet and whistled.

"Student versus teacher!"

"Student versus teacher!"

"Student versus teacher!"

Someone started the chant, and the others picked it up immediately.

It was a callback to the homecoming event in the gym, where teachers and students had faced off in one-on-one dance battles.

The DJ leaned into it and switched to Chuck Berry’s You Never Can Tell. Nolan immediately thought of Pulp Fiction. This time, he made the first move and pulled Grace out of the circle.

He rolled his shoulders and led her into a twist.

The others joined the dance floor. Nolan lifted Grace’s hand, and she understood at once. She spun, let herself fall backward, and Nolan caught her across the back as she lifted one leg into a difficult finishing pose.

For someone who had danced for years, it was not hard.

"Good boy," Grace said, laughing foolishly.

She looked far happier tonight than she ever did sitting beside John.

"You seem to be in a very good mood."

Hearing Nolan, Grace tilted her head back and drained her glass.

"After tonight, a lot of them will leave high school and never come back. So I cannot be sad. Every year, this is the happiest night I give them."

She raised the empty glass.

"Forget the rules tonight. Let everyone have one reckless send-off."

Her shout sent the party into another round of cheering.

"Wasting youth without fear," Grace said to Nolan, smiling. "That is what youth is for, right?"

Then she narrowed her eyes.

"Athlete, which girl did you come for? Tell me. I can help you judge."

Nolan shook his head.

"Then who?"

"You."

Grace laughed, loose with alcohol.

"Ha. I like you."

"But you are leaving the cheer squad," Nolan said, turning to the reason he had come.

"Athletic director means looking after more than a dozen programs. After this, you may not be able to spend time with the squad like tonight."

"I do not want to talk about that."

Grace’s expression dimmed. She resisted the topic, or maybe she was simply avoiding it.

"Unless you had an assistant," Nolan said. "Someone who could help with certain work, like new-year recruitment, so you would have time for what you actually care about."

"My father does not want me doing what I care about. He will not arrange anyone for me."

"Then find someone yourself. A student volunteer, for example. Me."

"Sorry. I cannot use student labor."

"It is not employment. It is volunteer work. Of course, I would need something in return. Authority, specifically. Procurement access for the football team. And the stadium needs vending machines."

"I should remind you, the last athletic director left over things like that."

"Because he had no restraint," Nolan said.

The oil issue had been the real cause. Those smaller side businesses could absolutely make money without damaging the school, if handled carefully.

"How do I know you can do it?" Grace asked. "You are just a high-school player."

"You remember the charity sale, right? It was very successful, and I handled every part of it."

Grace fell into thought. She did have a pile of work waiting for her, and she understood exactly what Nolan wanted. She also knew about the charity sale. She had even donated generously at the time.

"We can try," she said at last. "But I reserve the right to take it back at any time."

"Then we start with the stadium vending machines."

As for why vending machines came first, that was simple.

He had a very useful little supplier beside him.

"Ugh..."

Sarah buried her face in the ice bucket on the table. Her expression was miserable. She had clearly had too much.

More than a dozen girls were in similar shape. Even Grace had become a little unfocused.

Nolan had Naomi contact their parents one by one, then arranged to send Grace home himself.

Naomi was the soberest of the group.

"I drink secretly sometimes," she admitted.

Like Sarah, Naomi had blond hair. Sarah’s was dyed, which showed at the roots and helped her fit the blond-sweetheart roles she kept chasing. Naomi’s was natural and paler.

With Naomi’s help, contacting parents went smoothly.

"Amy looks uncomfortable," Nolan said. "Take her home yourself later."

Considering Amy and Naomi’s relationship, that was the right arrangement.

"She contacted you?"

"Of course."

"Then do you have any dates planned?" Naomi smiled. "You can ask me."

Compared with Amy, Naomi was much more direct.

Everyone knew Nolan had gone public with Katherine at prom. Naomi saying this now was open poaching.

Nolan answered exactly as he had answered Amy.

"Of course. But you need to tell Amy. All three of us together."

"You really do believe in that Mormon thing."

Nolan only understood half of that.

Naomi explained it in the blunt, casual way Los Angeles teenagers used when they talked about Utah and plural-family jokes. She was not giving a theology lesson; she was repeating the kind of rumor and stereotype people passed around when they wanted to make fun of conservative towns.

"Can you accept it?" Nolan asked when she finished.

"Absolutely not."

To big-city girls like Naomi, the word carried every negative stereotype at once: rural, old-fashioned, poor, sexist, and strange.

No date was settled.

Nolan had the Lounge staff call a car and sent Grace home. On the way, Grace behaved relatively well. She kept saying, "Come here," but at least she did not grab at him.

When John saw his daughter’s condition, he thanked Nolan.

Los Angeles at night was not always safe, especially over a long ride. A drunk woman traveling alone might not have made it home safely.

When Nolan finally returned to the motel, Katherine was waiting in the corridor.

He told her about the night, with the conversation with Naomi carefully omitted.

Katherine did not understand why he had taken the initiative to help Grace.

"I was thinking," Nolan said. "If a player becomes the greatest ever, what does he actually get?"

Measured purely by money, in 1994 football’s biggest star, Steve Young, had total annual income around sixteen million dollars, including salary and endorsements.

Soccer’s top annual income came from Romario, around twelve million.

Basketball had Jordan at thirty-two million.

For comparison, Schwarzenegger’s income this year was around twenty-nine million, leading Hollywood and much of the world.

For Nolan now, those numbers were astronomical.

But they might also be the athlete’s ceiling.

He turned and looked out at the Los Angeles night, listening to distant traffic as the breeze touched his face.

From the 1990s to the 2010s, the world would develop at terrifying speed. Every day would bring new technology, new markets, and new money.

’Am I really going to exchange those golden twenty years for nothing more than becoming a superstar player?’

Then again, besides sports, there was no second path that used his body’s advantage with such efficiency.

Working in the Valley was not under consideration.

"Please," Katherine said with a snort. "It is not even that late, and you are already dreaming."

"Fair enough," Nolan said, shaking his head. "I should probably start by thinking about how to win a national championship."

✦

✦

✦

Ready for more?

The next Chapters are already waiting on my Patreon, along with early access, previews, and extra story updates 🗝️

/cw/TheBacklotFanfiction