Page 18 of On His Team

Blue looks up. “What?”

Melly starts laughing.

Aspen shakes her head.

I say, “No unnecessary fighting.”

“Define unnecessary.”

“If you have to ask,” Melly says to him, “it’s unnecessary.”

Blue opens his mouth.

Stops.

Stanley writes.

2. DON’T TAKE THE BAIT.

Blue looks at the words for a few seconds. Then nods. “Fine.”

The rule isn’t only for him. Everybody knows it. Benson has taken retaliation penalties because somebody said something about Gianna. Stanley gets pulled into stupid shit when people get under his skin. Every team we play in March will know exactly how to make a good team beat itself.

“Three,” Benson says. “Show up.”

Stanley turns. “Deep.”

“Practice. Film. Gym. Games. Nobody misses what matters. Not now.”

The room is quieter this time.

Stanley writes.

3. SHOW THE FUCK UP.

Benson looks at him.

Aspen steps closer to the board. “Four. Do the work before deciding it doesn’t work.”

Nobody jokes.

Not after this morning.

Stanley writes it automatically:

4. DO THE WORK.

I look at that one longer than the others. My shoulders are still tired from forty extra minutes of doing something I already knew how to do badly before I could do it differently. It fits.

“Four,” Stanley says.

“The fifth one should be parties,” Gianna interjects.

“No,” three people answer at once.

She looks offended.

For the next few minutes, everybody has an idea. Most of them are bad. Mara wants something about maintaining morale. Penelope suggests nobody be allowed to make decisions after three in the morning, which gets more support than I expect. Lucy suggests honesty. Stanley calls it a therapy rule. Lucy tells him therapy is good. He says he knows.