Yet.She said yet. There’s hope in that word.
I decide to stick with the simple truth. “I just did what I thought was right.”
A single brisk nod from her and I know it’s time to move on. “Yes, you did. And I wanted to let you know your actions didn’t go unnoticed.”
“Thanks, Coach.”
The word feels a hundred times easier than when I entered her office. As I rise, she smiles again. I’m glad to see it, but it still feels weird to have that thing aimed at me.
So weird, in fact, that I feel the truth start to spill out onto my tongue. The truth about Grey’s concussion. That he should see a doctor to be cleared. Just in case.
“Coach—” I start. But then the words die in my throat.
It’shisfuture.
It’shisdecision.
It’shisbody.
Not mine.
He wants to play. So I just need to be good enough that he doesn’t hit the field until I’m sure he’s healed. And I docare about his safety, even if he’s not exactly my favorite person right now.
Coach Kitt is looking at me and so I finish the thought with another truth.
“Grey’s going to need to get another ride home after practice—I can’t this week.”
I run my prepractice laps with the other quarterbacks in complete silence—Grey in my periphery, setting the pace. His eyes keep flashing my direction, lashes shading them in a way that he thinks will keep me from noticing.
He wants to talk to me.
Maybe he wants to ask about the obvious hitch in my stride—stupid bruised knee. But mostly he wants to know if I’m going to rat on him. I purposely take a knee next to him after laps, just like old times. Grey’s lips drop open to say something, but I hold up a hand to stop him. Then I lean in and whisper an inch from his ear.
“I was just alone with your mother and I didn’t say a single thing about you-know-what. I’m not going to say anything to the coaches either, so you can stop looking at me like I’m radioactive.” Then I turn away and refuse to look at him for the entirety of Coach’s prepractice speech.
Grey gets the hint because we practice our routes in silence, Brady following our lead. After an hour, thereceivers vanish and Coach Shanks pulls us over to one end zone, something in the lines of his face. He wasn’t there for our argument Friday night but it’s clear he’s noticed something’s off between us—or maybe he knows the whole story. Whatever. Raised as we were, Grey and I are both members of the “do the work” school of thought, so we’ve been professional for the last hour. Butprofessionalisn’t much of a cover when we were basically glued at the hip for the past few weeks. Now Topps could easily fire off jumping jacks between us.
Coach reads our faces one final time—we’re sweaty as hell, even with the threat of autumn creeping into the air. Humidity never really dies in Kansas. “Time for some three bar.”
I have no idea what that is, but I know not to ask, either. Following Grey’s lead, I hover around the ten-yard line and remove my helmet.
“Want to start us off with round one, Worthington?”
Grey shifts on his feet. “What are the stakes?”
“Frozen Snickers of Power to the last man or woman standing.”
If there’s chocolate involved, I am suddenly even more motivated to kick ass. These curves don’t shape themselves.
Grey’s lips pull up in his patented half smile—probably the first time I’ve seen it since Friday. And I wonder if this is what Coach thinks we need—to bond with a littlefriendly competition, the start not on the line. “Best out of three?”
Shanks nods and places three balls in the dead center of the five-yard line. “Right, left, center.”
Grey takes a step back and drills the first ball straight into the right goalpost. In a single bend and step, he’s scooped up the second ball and drilled it into the left post. Another step and scoop and he spirals the final ball into the exact middle of the lower bar that makes up the U shape of the upright.
I watch as Brady resets the balls and then fires in the same right, left, center pattern—missing the center target despite it being literally right in front of his face. His jaw tenses and he stomps heavily into the turf like a little kid.
I mean, I’m not surprised, but sheesh.
