Taming Blackridge's Bad Boy

Episode 1

The trophy wall inside the Raptor Performance Center was brighter than Vivian Carter expected.

Gold helmets. Framed jerseys. Bowl-game photos sealed behind glass. A row of championship rings sat under clean white lights, each one glittering like a dare.

Vivian tightened her grip on the blue folder against her chest.

Assistant application. Resume. Recommendation letter. Spreadsheet sample.

Proof that she belonged here, or at least proof that she had tried.

She was eighteen, a freshman, and wearing a cream cardigan her mother had called "professional but sweet." Standing in the middle of Blackridge University's football facility, surrounded by black steel, glass walls, and the distant crash of weights, sweet suddenly felt like the wrong language.

"Carter?"

Vivian turned.

Coach Steven Wilson stood at the end of the hall with a tablet in one hand and a whistle against his black Raptors polo. He looked exactly like he did during postgame interviews: tired eyes, square shoulders, no patience for nonsense.

"Yes, Coach Wilson." She stepped forward. "Vivian Carter."

His gaze dipped to the folder. "You're early."

"Eleven minutes."

His mouth almost moved. "Come on."

He walked fast. Vivian followed him past glass-walled offices, a film room, and a weight area where players lifted under music loud enough to vibrate through the floor. A few of them looked over. One elbowed another. By the time Coach Wilson opened a conference room door, Vivian could feel every inch of her cardigan.

"Sit."

She sat.

Coach Wilson took the chair across from her and opened the folder. "Sports management major."

"Yes."

"Freshman."

"Also yes."

"Game operations in high school. Volunteer travel packets for your brother's club team. You made this contact-sheet template?"

"I did." Vivian folded her hands in her lap to keep from fidgeting. "I know college football is bigger. I know I have a lot to learn. But I am good at details, and I do not panic when people are loud."

The door opened before Coach Wilson could answer.

A player leaned in without knocking, broad-shouldered and sweaty in a sleeveless Raptors shirt. His eyes flicked from Coach Wilson to Vivian, then dropped to her folder with a lazy little smile.

"You wanted the updated defensive chart?" he asked.

"Table, Blake."

Mason Blake came in and set the chart down. He did not leave.

"This the new tutor?"

"Applicant," Coach Wilson said.

Mason's smile widened. "For what?"

"Operations assistant."

He laughed once, sharp enough to make Vivian's cheeks heat. "For us?"

Through the glass, two players stopped pretending not to watch.

Mason gave Vivian a slow look from cardigan to flats. "No offense, but she looks like she got lost on the way to recruitment brunch."

No offense was always a lie.

Vivian kept her back straight. "I can build a travel checklist, sort emergency contacts, track attendance, and make sure twenty different people know where they are supposed to be before a bus leaves." Her voice sounded calmer than her pulse felt. "None of that requires shoulder pads."

Someone outside the room gave a low, amused whistle.

Mason's eyes narrowed. "Cute. This is football. Guys come in taped up, pissed off, bleeding after practice. You going to color-code their feelings?"

Her fingers tightened around the edge of her folder.

For one second, she saw herself the way he wanted her to: too soft, too new, too small for this building.

Then she saw the trophy wall again.

"If color-coding gets them on the right bus," she said, "yes."

The room went quiet.

Coach Wilson closed her folder. "Blake."

Mason's jaw flexed. "What?"

"Practice field."

"Coach, I was just-"

"Now."

Mason left with a look that promised he would remember this.

The door clicked shut.

Vivian let out a careful breath.

"You'll get that," Coach Wilson said.

"Sexism?"

"Noise." He leaned back. "Sometimes sexism. Sometimes hazing. Sometimes athletes testing whether the person with the clipboard can make their lives inconvenient."

"And if I get the job?"

"You don't argue for sport. You don't flirt for access. You don't play trainer, doctor, therapist, mother, or girlfriend. You help operations run. If you see a medical issue, you call training staff. If a player gives you trouble, you document it."

"Understood."

"Good." He tapped her application. "You're prepared."

Hope lifted in Vivian's chest.

"But I don't hire on preparation alone."

Of course. Hope, meet cliff.

Coach Wilson turned his tablet toward her.

It was an attendance sheet. Names down the side, practice dates across the top. Most rows had check marks or notes.

One row was almost empty.

LAWRENCE, ETHAN - 99.

Vivian recognized the name before she could stop herself from reacting.

Everyone who loved college football knew Ethan Lawrence. Former five-star recruit. Holder High School legend. One brutal season at Northlake University, one transfer, and a thousand rumors. Gavin had once sent her a highlight clip with the subject line GENERATIONAL MONSTER, all caps.

"Ethan Lawrence is at Blackridge?" she asked.

Coach Wilson's eyes sharpened. "On paper."

She looked at the empty boxes. "He hasn't attended practice?"

"Not one full official practice since he arrived."

"Is he injured?"

"Cleared."

"Suspended?"

"No."

"Then why not come?"

"Because Lawrence does what Lawrence wants." Coach Wilson took the tablet back. "And because at Northlake, enough people told him he was a problem that he seems determined to prove it first here."

Outside, a whistle shrilled. Football moved on without the most dangerous name on the sheet.

"Why are you showing me this?" Vivian asked.

"Because you need a trial."

Her stomach dipped.

"The opener is next Saturday," he said. "I want Lawrence at practice before then."

Vivian stared at him. "You want me to get Ethan Lawrence to practice."

"I want you to make contact, deliver the schedule, and get a clear answer. If he says no, document it. If he acts like an idiot, leave."

"Has anyone else tried?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"He made one assistant wait outside his apartment for forty minutes, told another he had the wrong number while standing in front of him, and asked Coach Grant if Blackridge had started recruiting hall monitors."

Vivian pressed her lips together.

"Why me?"

Coach Wilson looked toward the door Mason had used. "Because Blake expected you to cry."

The words hit harder than she wanted them to.

"You didn't," he said. "You were embarrassed. You kept talking anyway. That matters."

Vivian looked through the glass toward the trophy wall. The rings burned in the distance like tiny suns.

She had imagined this interview ending with a handshake, maybe a polite rejection, maybe a promise to email by Monday.

Not this.

But she could still hear Mason laughing.

For us?

Vivian picked up her folder. "Where do I find him?"

Coach Wilson wrote an address on the back of a practice schedule and slid it across the table.