Forty minutes after I left the class I was at the fitness center of the stadium, already dressed in my exercise clothes, warming up on one of the treadmills near the entrance, using the opportunity to get ready as I waited for the conditioning coach to arrive.

I already made more than the necessary number of enemies in the team. I could do without angering my conditioning coach as well.

Not that exercising was a chore. I had always liked to exert myself physically, and the fitness center of the football team was the single best location I had the pleasure of training. Every single piece of equipment was new enough to gleam, underlining just how much money was being wasted for an organization with a losing record.

Yet, as the treadmill rolled under me with the smoothness of the butter, giving me the smoothest running experience I had ever experienced, I wasn’t feeling particularly angry about the waste. Especially since the fitness center was completely empty — Mondays were the dedicated rest day for the team.

At least, physically. We still had the tactical meeting after the classes, which would have scared me shitless without the assistance of my Traits. Learning the playbook of a new team was hardly the simplest challenge.

I stepped down the treadmill when the clocks hit ten, not wanting to exhaust myself too much before the actual test began. Yes, the Recovery and Stamina gave me a significant boost on the baseline, but I doubted just the first level was enough to put me on an equal playing field with the players, especially the starters.

The more explosive I could act, the better.

Since the coordinator was yet to arrive, I checked my phone, curious about the latest gossip on social media, in particular, how the public perception of the weird triangle between me, Megan, and Kevin was evolving.

‘OMG, the nerds strike back,’ read one of them, simple yet devastating.

‘It’s incredible that our backup quarterback loses his girlfriend to a new player on his first day. What a scandal,’ said the other.

‘Isn’t it ironic that the peacock that is responsible for the losing streak of our team had lost to a chess player,’ read another.

‘So, the football team had another Casanova, is there no hope for us yet,’ said yet another post, followed by several sad emojis.

I smiled as I read the comments, especially the fight that was going on the comments, involving a great number of students, including several players from the team, both defensive and offensive players.

Interestingly, I had noticed a significant difference in the narrative since the party. It somehow into some kind of heated battle between me and Kevin, while positioning Megan as the precious reward we were fighting for.

I doubted it was accidental, so I started looking for the news.

Interestingly, Pattern Recognition showed its usefulness once more in a very different aspect, allowing me to notice a lot of messages written by different accounts, yet sharing a suspiciously consistent wording and message, reinforcing the impression that it was a manly seduction battle between me and Kevin.

Even the timing of those posts was suspiciously rhythmic.

I had a feeling that Megan was behind the whole thing, using the opportunity to get herself as a reputation as a blonde bombshell, with an added dash of a bimbo. Why she tried to create such an impression, I had no idea, nor did I care much.

I was more interested in the sudden performance increase from my Pattern Recognition in a way it didn’t work earlier with the news, which reinforced the assumption that it was more about the weakness of the current level of Pattern Recognition rather than incompetence on its nature.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have too much time to waste considering it, because I heard someone calling for me. “Hey, are you Terry?”

“That’s me,” I said even as I looked at the source, only to see a surprisingly sexy Latina lady just a few feet away from me, a tablet in hand.

My initial guess was she was in her late twenties. She wasn’t dressed well, but in a way that suggested it was an intentional choice. After all, the loose polo shirt and even looser sweatpants were both far too ill-fitting to be anything but intentional. Especially combined with her lack of makeup.

Yet, even they weren’t enough to hide the fact she hid an impressively curvy body underneath.

However, after the initial glance, I forced myself to keep my gaze up, recognizing the tight expression on her face. She clearly didn’t appreciate even a glance down. Understandable, as the football world was not famous for its egalitarian nature, and as a young woman, she needed to be extra harsh to be taken seriously.

And I doubted that her beauty made things easier.

“Good morning,” I said calmly, acting unaware of her disapproving glare. There was no benefit in confronting her directly. “I’m guessing you’re my conditioning coach?” I asked.

“Yes,” she answered, her tone biting, as if she was challenging me to reject her position. “Is there a problem?”

“Not at all,” I said. “I have warmed up with a fifteen-minute jog, and some active stretching,” I started before giving a quick breakdown of the moves I had used.

“Good, you’re proactive,” she said as she nodded, her tone significantly calmer. Though I doubted just how badly my dear teammates had been acting around her for my quick explanation to count as a positive interaction, I had no idea. “I hope you’re ready for an exhausting day,” she said, her tone still challenging, like she expected me to disagree.

“You’re the coach,” I said with a shrug.

My instant acceptance surprised her. She looked like she had swallowed several select words she had prepared in advance. “That warm-up is nothing enough. Let’s start with a proper three-mile warm-up run. Follow me to the field.”

“As you wish, coach,” I said. A three-mile run was rather excessive as a warm-up, but I had a feeling that it was a deliberate choice, so I swallowed my words.

I wondered just how many stupid discussions she had to deal with from the other football players to defend her authority as a coach if that was her reaction to a calm opening. If she was in any other sport, I might have blamed her for acting like a victim, but, considering the personality and the sense of entitlement of the average football player, it was hard to think her attitude wasn’t warranted.

Luckily, I was prepared for the possibility, and brought my cleats along. I grabbed my bag and followed her to the field, doing my best to keep my gaze away from the swaying of her hips, to avoid an even accidental misunderstanding.

It was ironic that it wasn’t the worst opening with the coaching staff. Compared to an incompetent head coach who had got his job through one of the worst examples of nepotism I had ever seen, I suspected, a beautiful woman with an annoying attitude was hardly a disappointment.

“Let’s start, twenty laps,” she ordered said as she gestured the field, and I started running. Twenty laps were certainly excessive, but complaining would bring me no benefit.

That didn’t prevent the annoyance to rise in my heart as her first order came the moment I started running. “Faster!”

“Yes, coach,” I answered, keeping that annoyance away from my face and my tone. Running faster during a warm-up run was useless. She was clearly stretching her authority, testing the limits of my obedience. And while I didn’t appreciate being a target of her experiments, I had already made an enemy of the head coach and the offensive side of the team.

I didn’t have the luxury of alienating even more of the coaching staff — especially people that worked for Coach Bill.

“Faster,” she ordered once more as I was running the fifth lap, and I followed her order once more. It was better, because forcing me to go faster slowly started to turn it into a test of endurance rather than just a pointlessly-extended warm-up session.

Additionally, it gave me a more methodical way of testing the impact of my Stamina and Recovery Traits. When I finished lap fifteen, even with the hard pace she had asked from me, my breath was steady.

The physical Traits were working even better than I expected. Even without them, I could have completed fifteen laps with this pace, but I would have shown some signs of exhaustion.

“Faster,” she ordered, and I picked even more speed during the last five. I wasn’t sprinting, but it wasn’t too far below as well, which meant that, even with the help of my Traits, I was feeling the bite of the exhaustion.

Yet, I managed to resist the temptation to slow down, not with the assistance of my Traits, but through pure willpower.

I managed to finish the last lap before collapsing on the turf, my breathing wild. Yet, a satisfied smile was on my face, happy to complete my first challenge.