“Oh, you’re her father?” Kell asked, grinning like the situation was hilarious.
“Bill Cowher?” I said quietly, looking down at her with a grin because what the fuck. She had a crush on the retired football coach who was probably the same age as her dad? “I’m going to need to hear this story.”
“Absolutely not,” she said.
“Actually, we would all love to hear this story,” Kel said. “Can we please get a chair for Duffy’s father, um…?”
“Tony,” her dad supplied, smiling a cheesy first-day-of-school grin and holding up a hand to the audience. “Tony Distefano.”
“I thought we were going to talk about the groping coyote,” Duffy said, and it sounded like she was gritting her teeth.
“You said you were gonna be nice, Duff,” her dad said, pointing a finger at her, which made the entire place erupt into laughter.
“I think this is where Kell and I should take over,” Kel said with a giggle, “because it’s our show and we prefer to be the ones controlling the conversation. Is that okay with you, Tony?”
“I’ll allow it,” he replied, making the crowd laugh even harder.
I fucking loved him.
Since the Coyotes organization sent me to the morning talk show to smooth everything over and make nice with Duffy (and the public), this bizarro situation was perfect. I wasn’t sure what the fuck was going on, but as long as Coyotes fans were happy, things were going well.
Thank God.
Because I’d been in trouble with the front office ever since the press conference.
I’d stepped up to the podium that Sunday, expecting to be grilled about the goddamn dropped pass, but instead, the guys in the press room showed me footage of the mascot getting his ass handed to him by a woman and asked what I thought.
I was so relieved to not be on the hot seat about the pass that I’d laughed my ass off and made some jokes, gave my two cents without really thinking much about it. And suddenly, my comment about consent was getting me all sorts of good press. I was being called “the greenest flag” (for being a decent human—hello, low bar) thanks to my comments and jokes going viral.
Jokes that management didn’t find remotely funny when multiple women started coming forward to share that they’dalsobeen groped by the mascot. Apparently Carl was hella handsy, and suddenly the media wanted to know if the team—and management—had been aware of Carl’s behavior beforehand.
They hadn’t known. To be honest, though, if Carl was adisgusting asshole, I was glad that this all blew up so these women could get some form of justice. I knew the higher-ups were horrified by Carl’s behavior, but at the same time, they were still mad as hell about the team’s shitty publicity.
Which was why I was here.
Ireallywanted to stay with Minnesota after this season. I’d always looked up to the players who spent their entire career with one team, and the Coyotes had felt like home since the minute they drafted me.
Bigger than that, though, was the simple fact that Minnesota was the only team I’d ever wanted to play for. I knew the realities of my career and the nature of the business, and that was obviously the top priority, but my grandpa had been a die-hard Coyotes fan his entire life.
Helovedthat team and still recited stats from the old days, even though now he struggled to recite what he’d had for breakfast.
But last season had been yet another disappointment for the team. The Coyotes were like the football version of the Chicago Cubs with the whole “lovable losers” label. The stadium was full every Sunday and the fans were rabidly faithful, but there hadn’t been many winning seasons in the last decade.
Which led to the rumors.
Rumors of a reset at the end of this season.
They were only rumors, but it wasn’t unheard of for a team in this situation to get rid of all the valuable players, like a massive fire sale, and start over with a fresh budget.
And if that happened, I wanted to be the one they fucking kept.
So I needed to be kissing asses, not pissing people off.
Which, again, was why I was here.
“Duffy, we are absolutely going to talk about the reason why you’re both here,” Kel said as the extra chair for Duffy’s dad was brought out and we took our seats. “But first we’d all like Tony to tell us the Bill Cowher story.”
“Wonderful,” Duffy muttered, which made the crowd laugh and applaud as her father beamed.