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“Damn, you’re such a pervert,” Riggs said, nudging him hard in the shoulder.
“Says the guy who keeps tabs on everyone’s dick. Beast—”
“I don’t think anyone’s gonna be stupid enough to bother you,” Walker interrupted, thank god. “But if they are… they’ll wish they hadn’t been.”
“Same. Consider me backup too,” Riggs said, nodding. “I don’t have a scholarship to think about. I don’t mind getting my hands dirty.”
“I don’t have a scholarship either. I probably won’t even graduate,” Ellis one-upped him.
“That’s not the flex you think it is,” Walker told him. “Maybe you oughtta get some after school help too.”
“Get your own tutor,” I said, moving in front of Caleb when they all looked his way. “This one’s mine.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Ollie Prep was not going down without a fight.
The first half was a blur of thighs and ankles and seeing stars as I got piled onhard.Hit high and low, growing bruises up and down my sides, cleat marks burning my calves up as I got stomped over and over. It just made me want to play rougher. I wanted every inch of me so busted and damaged that Caleb would be obsessing over me for weeks.
Also, I was just so fucking happy to be on the field I didn’t give a shit if half that time my face was shoved in it.
If Walker hadn’t had his brights on, we’d have been dead, because I was getting him some time, but not a lot. The first quarter took out Sutter and Moody with a knee and probably a concussion, and I was doing a hell of a lot of heavy lifting. Luckily I felt like I could toss the whole fucking world around on my shoulders right now, and I gave as good as I got. Better, really. I was slamming bodies into the ground in record numbers, coasting on some never-before-felt kinds of adrenaline— some mix of pride and panic and wtfuckery and happiness that jazzed me up like a fucking Broadway play.
Walker still wasn’t looking exactly like himself, but those dark clouds had parted, and whoever he did look like did some tap dancing in the pocket and gave Ollie’s line an unexpected slip, somersaulting past a near death experience for a clutch first down that eventually put us on the board and kept the momentum tipping our way. Just barely, but sometimes just barely was enough to keep you alive.
Come halftime though, he was looking a little shaky and so was that 7-7 match up that was a tie on paper, but felt a lot sketchier than that.
“That’s right, that’s right, keep it loose,” Ellis said, coming up behind Walker in the locker room, slapping him on the ass so hard I winced, and he pitched forward, bracing his arm against the lockers. “Looking great out there. In an hour, we’ll be drunk off our asses, celebrating at your place.”
“No parties, Ellis.”
“Nah. No parties. Just a couple dozen of our closest friends chanting your name, tearing up your bar, unpacking those fireworks I stashed in your garage. Let’s get it.”
Ellis looked rough. He’d spent half the game in the dirt and his mouth was busted, all purple and shit, but he was bouncing off the walls ready to win, ready to drag Walker with him, and it was hard to hate on that, hard to ignore it, and sometimes he was just annoying enough to force a mood shift. Walker took a deep breath and exhaled slow.
“You don’t really have fireworks in my garage, do you?”
“W finds out.”
Walker rolled his eyes and snorted, but looked a little less green. For a second.
“Don’t fucking pump him up,he looks like shit,” Howser snapped, coming toward us.
“How the fuck do you think we’re on the board?” I asked him, glaring and stepping in front of Walker, who definitely did not need to be rattled anymore, especially by this asshole.
“Dumb luck,” Howser said, getting up in my face. “Oh, speaking of getting lucky, I heard your mom was here looking for me today. You gotta tell her to control herself till after school.”
No one had straight up come at me with that yet, even if I’d known it was coming. People left me alone during warm up, the big news my B+, Walker’s arm, the team in recovery, not my trashy mom. But it was only a matter of time, it always was. And of course it was him, of course it was now, big fucking baby thinking he was gonna shine tonight, still a back up like always.
“You better back the fuck up, Howser,” I told him. But he didn’t. For once I wasn’t the one with nothing to lose.
“Like, I know I look good, but she’s gotta wait her turn like everybody else,” he said, laughing, looking around for more chuckles. “I could be persuaded to move her up the list though. Tell her I take singles.”
“You think that’s funny?” Ellis asked, suddenly shoving in between us, going all Maddox Mad Dog out of nowhere. “That’s not fucking funny.That’s not fucking funny,” he repeated, raising his voice, looking around at everyone watching. “Anybody thinks that kinda shit is funny, they can start clearing their jokes through me and I’ll tell you how far you should fuck off.”
Coming out of Ellis’s mouth that was absurd, because it soundedexactlylike a joke he would make, probably had made. But I could see what he was doing— drawing lines, making it clear what kind of shit talk wasn’t allowed anymore. It wasn’t about me, this was for Walker, but it looked like I accidentally got caught up in it. Guess I’d fucking take it. Didn’t hurt to have friends.
“What are you, his bodyguard?” Howser sneered. “Or maybe you’re his fucking boyfriend.”
