ONE
ETHAN
When Coach Reynolds told me what he’d planned as punishment for my teammates, I’d thought he was joking. The entire starting lineup for the Oakwood High football team taking ballet lessons? He couldn’t be serious.
I stared up at the tall gray building that took up half a block in the nice area of town, my buddies piling out of the cars that had pulled up behind me.Academie de Balletwas etched in big, bold letters over the arched entryway at the top of a set of stairs.
Coach hadnotbeen kidding. I probably should have known he was serious. In the three years I’d been playing for him, the old grouch had never once cracked a joke. Still, I’d thought he’d calm down. I figured he’d come to see reason…
“Dude, the old man has lost it.” Cooper Jenkins, our wide receiver, came up to stand beside me. At six feet hewas the same height as me, but he was roughly twice the width and that was all muscle. The guy lived and breathed the weight room. Watching Cooper prance around on tiptoe amidst a bunch of petite girls was the one thing that might make this punishment almost seem bearable.
Almost.
“Can’t you talk to him?” Cooper said. “The old man loves you.”
“Yeah, Ethan,” Ryan said from behind me. “You’re Coach’s favorite little pet. If anyone can make him see reason, it’s you.” Despite his mockery, Ryan was one of my best friends. He came to stand on my other side, crossing his arms as he too took in the sight of our prison for the next three months.
Until the end of the semester, that’s what Coach had said when he’d spelled out our punishment in the locker room.
Cooper turned his glare from the building to me. “Talk to him, Ethan.”
“I tried,” I said for the millionth time. They’d been pestering me in the halls all day today, seeing if I could get our coach to change his mind. For the record, they came to me because I was the captain, not because I was coach’s ‘little pet’—whatever that meant.
“Try harder.” Cooper’s voice was as forbidding as his giant body, but I’d been playing ball with him since middle school so I knew better. Underneath all that muscle, he wasn’t all thatscary. I mean, he was alittlescary, but not out of control. If the coach said dance, the big guy would totally dance.
“Come on, dude,” Ryan said. “You’re thequarterback.You’ve got to have some sway over the old man. Just…threaten to quit the team or something.”
Unlike Cooper, Ryan actuallywassomething of a wild card. He took nothing seriously, least of all football. Good thing he had mad skills as a running back or he’d have been off the team years ago. As it was, Coach threatened to cut him at least once a week.
“I’m not quitting the team.”
“Why not? You don’t need the scholarship money.” And that right there summed up Ryan’s life philosophy to a tee. He didn’t understand why anyone would do anything unless there was some sort of financial gain—or a chance to score with girls. Money and girls, that was pretty much all he seemed to care about. And maybe music, I supposed. He did have a band. But again, I was pretty sure playing guitar and forming a band were just another way to get the money and girls.
Music was really the only thing we had in common—we both played guitar. Sometimes we jammed together, and the rest of the time he just tried his best to annoy the crap out of me.
The rest of the guys were out of their cars and starting to gather around me. For a bunch of alpha jocks, none of them seemed eager to lead at this particular moment. Myself included. I eyed the entrance warily. I’d neverbeen to the ballet, I’d never dated a girl who was into ballet, and I sure as heck never danced ballet myself. I had no idea what the coach had gotten us into. He’d been light on the details, just telling us to show up here after practice today.
Everyone was looking to me to lead the way.
“What would he do if we bailed?” That came from Alex, a linebacker. “I mean, it’s not like Coach can bench all the starters right?”
I shot Alex a sidelong look that made him squirm. “He can and he would if he thought we were blatantly undermining his authority.”
“The guy’s a freakin’ dictator,” Cooper said.
More like a former marine who ran this team like his own personal brigade, but he wasn’t too far off base.
“The guy lives to make us miserable,” Alex said. “It’s like he’s just looking for an excuse to ruin our lives.”
I turned to face Alex. “Maybe you should have thought of that before you threw a party the night before our first game.”
Alex scratched at the back of his head. “It wasn’t supposed to be a rager, it just sort of…got out of control.”
“Yeah, well, that tends to happen when you invite every person in our school to a house party with no parents and a full keg.”
“Okay, Mom,” Ryan said, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “What’s done is done, right?”
I shrugged him off. “Right.” I triednot to be resentful, I really did. But this was not the first time I found myself thinking how unfair it was that I was paying for their mistake. I’d been the only guy on the team with enough foresight to leave before things got crazy.
