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I nod, and for a second I can’t find my voice. When I do, I sit up, so I can look at him when I promise, “I won’t.”
Half Time
One
Josh
“Holy hell!” Jenna’s stomping her feet on the cement bleachers beside me. My hand’s pressed over my mouth. Then Ezra runs into the end zone, and the whole damn stadium jumps up screaming.
“Oh my God!” Jenna’s tugging on my elbow, jumping up and down.
“I’m going home,” somebody laughs in front of us.
My eyes are locked on Ezra as he runs back toward the sideline. Coach Nix claps his back. Someone—Brennan—hugs him.
I watch as he talks to two others who have their backs facing away from us and then sits on the bleachers. Coach Nix puts a towel on his neck and something weird twists in my stomach.
“I have never seen a high school game with numbers like this,” Jenna says.
Scoreboard’s 72 v. 27 — Fairplay. Ezra ran the ball and scored three touchdowns all on his own. I don’t know how many yards he passed for, but it had to be a ton. Three or four times, he threw almost the length of the field.
Now he’s standing again, swiping a hand back through his damp hair. I can see his shoulders rising and falling. Marcel comes to stand beside him, clapping him on the shoulder. He sits back down. Someone passes him a water bottle.
“Josh...” Jenna grabs my elbow. “You can sit back down now.”
I blink at her, and she sings the first two lines of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb.”
“Hello...is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me...”
I laugh—it sounds fake—and she gives me a deep frown. “I said, I bet they’re gonna run the clock down.” She claps her hands. “That’s the game. Your stepbrother is a superstar!” Her eyes narrow. “Why do you look like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like someone kicked your puppy. Is this gonna make his ego too big?” Her mouth rounds into a little “o,” and she nods. She mouths, “Your dad.”
I roll my eyes. My dad’s sitting on the first row, right behind the home team’s setup. He’s been cheering like a maniac the whole time.
“I don’t give a fuck about him. He should be happy. We won.”
She gives me a look that says she’s not sure she believes me, but she lets it drop. “The party after this...” She laughs. “It’s going to be crazy.”
“Where are people going?”
“You’re living in a bubble, Joshua. We’re all going to Sunny’s land.”
Ahh. Sunny Gardner.
“Josh.” Jenna laughs, and I rip my eyes away from Ezra. “What are you doing?” Again with the searching look.
“Fuck off,” I laugh.
She leans in and whisper-hisses, “You’re watching someone. Who is it?”
“I’m watching my dad, dude.”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re a shitty liar.”
Then the game is over, and I’m saved by all the chaos. Getting off the bleachers, saying “hey” to everyone we know, from Sunday school teachers to the manager at Winn-Dixie. I bump into my mom and Carl at ground-level, and Carl looks like he just watched a rocket launch. Honestly, so does my mom.
“Josh!” My mom hugs me. “Wasn’t that amazing?”
I nod, and then start walking with them so everyone bottle-necking behind us doesn’t get pissed off.
“We’re going to see him. Do you want to come?” My mom says. “Hello, Jenna.”
It’s decided that we’ll all go to greet Ezra as he walks out of the locker room.
“I hope it won’t embarrass him,” my mom says. “I didn’t even think to do this after the first few games.”
I snort. “Never worried about that with me.”
She gives me a mock outraged look, and I shoot her a grin.
It takes about five minutes to get to the locker room exit. My stomach twists into a pretzel, wondering if he’ll look at me first, and if he’ll guard his face around them. I don’t know how he used to give me poker faces, but it turns out he’s not that smooth. Today when we passed each other in the hall, his whole damn gorgeous Ezra face went soft and focused on me, which made me feel so weird. Good weird.
I blink as he comes through the big, metal door. As soon as my gaze sweeps him, I get a gut-punched feeling and rip my eyes away. A millisecond later, I’m drinking him in—the sleeveless white T-shirt and purple gym shorts. His face—he looks tired—and then his eyes are on mine but I look down, and everybody’s talking at once.
Carl’s really sweet with him. I don’t know what he says, but when I look up, he’s hugging Ezra really hard, and Ezra’s eyes flicker to mine, and I can see him looking happy even though he’s not smiling. I can feel it.
Mom says stuff to him, and he seems embarrassed. I bet his ears are red, but it’s too dark here in the dim light to be sure. And then it’s my turn.
