A/N: Sorry, but I'm a bit stuck with "Brotherhood" at the moment and not sure when I will return to it. In the meantime, I am re-posting a story I worked on long ago with SurlyCoach that I thought was in the archives under her name, but it is not. I think it was posted at some point, but maybe not. So here it is…for first time reading or re-reading.

Chapter One

Coach Eric Taylor stood with his arms crossed over his chest, a hand against each shoulder of his blue Dillon Panthers jacket, shaking his head. "Jason," he hollered. "Nah, not like that, son." He sighed as the freshman approached. Eric was Dillon High's JV coach, and he was hoping to make head coach of the varsity team one day. Jason Street was supposed to be his golden ticket. He'd coached the kid up all the way from Pee Wee, had followed him when the Streets moved from Odessa to Dillon, and yet the kid was not performing today. "What's going on, son? Your head is off somewhere."

"Yeah, I just…there's this girl."

"Lyla," Coach Taylor said matter-of-factly.

"Yeah," Jason said with surprise. "How did you know?"

"I have eyes, son. And ears."

He knew about Lyla. He'd seen her hanging out around the bleachers watching Jason, and she was in one of the two American History classes they were making him teach this year.

"Well, we just started dating and - "

Coach Taylor sighed. "- and what's the problem, exactly?"

"No problem. I just can't stop thinking about her."

"Son, don't bring romance onto this field. That's for your own time, you understand?" Jason nodded and Coach Taylor slapped him on the back. "Get back out there."

Coach Peterson, the head varsity coach, drew up next to him. "You got that under control, Eric?"

"Yes, sir," he muttered. Eric didn't care for his boss much. The man thought he was right about everything, didn't listen to the opinions of his assistant coaches, and hadn't wanted Eric brought on the team in the first place. He had wanted Jason Street, though, and Coach Taylor was part of the package.

"I hope you do, because our first game's this Friday."

As if Eric didn't know that. As if he hadn't been going over plays in his head every night until midnight while Tami slept peacefully beside him. "Yes, sir."

"And sometimes I wonder, Eric, if—hell-oooo there. She's a fine one."

Eric turned to see who Coach Peterson was talking about and prayed to God it wasn't one of the cheerleaders. The man had already made a few questionable comments that, had they been overheard…of course, if Peterson did trip himself up that might mean the head coaching position would open up a little sooner.

Peterson had a good three years until retirement, and Eric didn't want to spend another three years as JV coach. He couldn't pay the mortgage on just a JV coach's salary, and he had to teach all those damn classes. The two P.E. classes were okay - he used them to train his boys. He could tolerate his history classes. It was the health and driver's ed he couldn't stand. He could say goodbye to all that when they made him head coach. And he'd be calling the shots. He'd prove his dad wrong, too, who had said he would never make a career out of football once he failed to get in the NFL. More importantly, he'd do Tami proud, and he wanted to do her proud, because she'd believed in him, followed him around to the better division schools, put her career on a temporary shelf, told him he could do what his father said he never could – be a head coach of a major Texas high school one day.

Eric turned to see the object of Peterson's admiration. It wasn't a teenage girl. It was a young woman in jeans, hiking boots, and a tight red sweater. Her raven hair fell halfway down her back and her piercing blue eyes smiled as she walked straight for the sidelines.

"Mhmmm. Good Lord, yes. That is one good-looking woman," Coach Peterson murmured beside him. "How old do you think she is? She's legal, right? She's got to be at least twenty-one."

Eric could feel every muscle in his body tense, and through closed teeth he said, "She's twenty-six."

When the woman arrived she threw open her arms and Eric smiled and hugged her tight. "Angie, what are you doing here? I thought you had another six months before they let you out."

"Let her out?" Coach Peterson asked. "You kill someone, darling?"

Eric pulled away and glared at Peterson. "This is my sister. Angela. She's been in the Peace Corps."

Coach Peterson let out a long, hard laugh. "You have a baby sister in the Peace Corps?" He shook his head. "Wonders will never cease." He kept shaking his head and laughing as he disappeared down the field.