Haddie barely made it off the field before Coach came striding over like he owned the place, his whistle swinging like he was about to drop the hottest album of the year.
“There she is! My baby!” Coach boomed, arms spread wide like she’d scored the game-winning touchdown (she hadn’t). “How’s the leg, superstar? You surviving?”
Haddie gave him her usual stupid violent j grin, popping her helmet off and shaking out her hair like she was in a shampoo commercial. “I’m fine, Coach. Pops is just being dramatic.”
I crossed my arms, narrowing my eyes at her. “Oh, excuse me for caring that my child got pancaked by a linebacker, bitten by a vampire, and is apparently hoarding bats in her jungle of a room. But yeah, I’m dramatic.”
“Exactly,” Haddie said with a shrug.
Coach ignored me completely because of course, he did. He reached into his pocket—or pretended to—and three cookies floated out like they were on a sugar-fueled mission. They landed neatly in Haddie’s hands as if she were royalty.
“Here you go, baby,” Coach said with a smirk. “Don’t tell your Pops.”
I stared at him, furious. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Giving the MVP what she deserves,” Coach said without even blinking. “Relax, Isiah. It’s just a cookie.”
“Just a cookie?” I repeated, my voice rising. “She just had iron supplements! She doesn’t need to be running on sugar!”
Haddie, halfway through her first cookie, gave me a thumbs-up. “These are so good, by the way.”
Before I could snatch them away, Patrick showed up out of nowhere like the discount Dracula he was. “I can smell those from the other side of the field,” he said, looking annoyed. “Where’s mine?”
Coach gave him a once-over and snorted. “You didn’t take a linebacker hit, Mahomes. No cookies for you.”
“Favoritism much?” Patrick huffed, crossing his arms like a pouty teenager.
“Damn right,” Coach replied, tossing another cookie into Haddie’s hands. “My baby gets the best.”
“Can we stop calling her ‘the baby’?” I snapped, pinching the bridge of my nose.
“Nope,” Haddie and Coach said in unison, like they’d rehearsed it.
Harrison walked over at just the right time to catch my eye twitching. “What’s all the yelling about now? Isiah losing his mind again?”
“Pops is being a buzzkill,” Haddie said, stuffing another cookie in her mouth.
“Over cookies,” Coach added like he wasn’t the problem.
“Cookies are not the issue!” I yelled, throwing my hands in the air. “Boundaries! Structure! Sanity! Those are the issues!”
Harrison snorted. “Oh, here we go. Isiah’s boundary speech, episode 312. Stay tuned for the sequel.”
Patrick muttered something under his breath about finding his bats, then gave Haddie the side-eye. “I’ll just… find something else to eat.”
Haddie immediately held up her hands. “Nope! Not me! Pops, boundaries, remember?”
Coach, still smirking, clapped his hands. “Alright, break it up, drama queens. Let’s get back to practice before Isiah combusts.”
“Too late!” I shouted, glaring at everyone.
As Haddie jogged back onto the field, she grinned over her shoulder, her pockets now bulging suspiciously. “Love you, Pops!”
“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered. “You’re lucky I do.”
Coach shot me a wink as he walked away. I swear I saw a cookie float into Haddie’s bag.
“Someone, please kill me,” I said under my breath.
