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hard work.
    “Uh, Coach? Aren’t we going home?” Casey asked from the passenger seat of the truck.
    “Nope.” Their asses were Mark’s. They just didn’t realize it yet. “We’re staying in town.”
    “Where? At the Hard Rock Café?” This from James.
    “We won’t be at the beach.” That was the South District, and they didn’t need nearly as much help as the North District did. “We’re heading to the very northern part of the county.”
    His two players exchanged glances. Mark smiled grimly and kept driving. He had a lot to think about—recruiting and trading for next season, not to mention hundreds of emails and phone calls waiting to be returned—but his brain kept skipping back to Rainey.
    She’d grown up nice. The wet T-shirt had proved that. But it’d been far more than just a physical jolt he’d gotten. One look into her fierce blue eyes and he’d felt…
    Something. Not even in the finals had his heart taken such a hard leap as it had when he’d realized who she was. Or when she’d touched her mouth to his ear.
    Or when he’d bitten hers and absorbed the sexy little startled gasp she’d made.
    “Come on, Coach. We’re sorry about the fight. We’ve said it a million times. But it was the big game, and we were robbed.”
    Just getting to the finals had been a sweet victory, considering the Mammoths were only a five-year-old franchise. It’d been a culmination of grit, determination, and hard work, and even thinking about the season had a surge of fierce pride going through him. But the bar fight—now viral on YouTube—had taken away from their amazing season, and was giving them nothing but bad press. Mark had been featured on Sixty Minutes and all the mornings shows, trying to put a positive spin on things. He’d been flown to New York in a helicopter to recite the Top Ten Things That Had Gone Through His Mind After Losing The Stanley Cup. He’d been on the Ellen DeGeneres Show and had plunged Ellen into the dunk tank for charity. And then there’d been the endless lower profile events filling his calendar: meet-and-greets, photo shoots and endless charity appearances.
    And still all everyone wanted to talk about was the fight. It pissed him off. After working around the clock for seven months, he should be on vacation.
    He’d seen the press of other players on Jay-Z’s yacht in the Caribbean with a bunch of scantily-clad women. Mark wouldn’t mind being on a sandy beach somewhere, a woman at his side, a drink in his hand. But no. Instead he was babysitting his two youngest players because apparently they thought with their fists instead of their brains.
    That was going to change. It’d been handy having his brother as the director of the rec center. Casey and James would be working their asses off. Construction and coaching, and hopefully, if they were lucky, they’d manage to take in some positive publicity while they were at it. That would make the owners of the Mammoths happy, and Mark too.
    As well as Rick.
    Win-win, all around, and Mark was all about the win. Always.
    James leaned forward from the backseat. “We stayed at the Santa Rey Resort last time, remember? Man, they have that great nightclub....” He sighed with fond memories.
    Mark just kept driving. They weren’t staying at the resort. Or the Four Seasons. Or anywhere that any of them were accustomed to. “You both agreed to do whatever it took to not be suspended, correct?”
    Another long glance between the two players.
    “Yeah,” James said.
    ‘You’re going to work as volunteer construction crew on the fire rebuilds, then every afternoon you’ll coach at the rec center.”
    “That sounds okay,” James said. “Especially if the coach gig involves that hot little counselor they had running the car wash. What’s her name… Rainey? Loved her wet T-shirt—you guys see that?”
    Casey grinned. “I loved her whistle and clipboard, and the way she barked orders like a little tyrant. Sexiest tyrant