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“Who’s gonna tell me what the first and only rule of practice is?” he demanded.
“Come to win,” we all belted out.
“And what does that mean? Riggs?”
“Means show up to every practice like it’s the playoffs, Coach.”
“That is not what I’m seeing today! I’m seeing guys showing up late. Guys missing gear. Slow running, sloppy drills, too much fucking conversation and not enough communication! Are we done winning? Are we bored of football? Do we all wanna leave and go to the movies, is that what’s going on?”
“No, Coach,” everyone responded again in matching voices.
“Thenget. Yourshit.Together!” he screamed at us. “Because we’re gonna be here until it is. I got all day and believe me, I don’t give a shit about your plans. Sprint ladders. Full field. Start at ten. Go.” He pointed upfield, blasting on his whistle over and over until everyone was running.
“Fuck, he’s in a mood,” Howser said under his breath as he passed me, and I put the gas on because I wasn’t getting lapped by that asshole.
He was right though. This was probably the kind of red-faced, vein-popping lecture that got The Beast all fired up.
I glanced over toward the fence, but it was mostly empty except for a few parents chatting it up in the bleachers and Riggs’s girlfriend and a couple other cheerleaders drinking coffees and stretching in the grass while they waited for practice to be over.
Wasn’t like I cared really. Wasn’t like I expected him to show up, especially when I told him not to bother and I knew he was off doing his Sunday shit. Groceries, he’d said. Laundry. Boring chores and nothing I wanted to get in on because who wanted to do that kind of stuff, hanging out and doing nothing all day when I could be getting screamed at and worn down until I was too tired to even throw up. But maybe when my weekends were free, then… Fuck, then—
“Head in the gaaaame, bitch,” Ellis yelled, jumping on my back and smacking my helmet before he bounced off and went tearing down to the end zone. I growled and went running after him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Practice definitely went long—long enough that the couple guys who wore watches were the most popular guys on the field by the end of the day. Three o’clock passed and then four, the heat spiked and then started to mellow, and my whole body was sweat dried on top of sweat about ten layers deep and I washurting.
I liked an angry practice, though, it kept my mind clear and my body busy, and I needed both of those today. I could have gone another hour of blocking drills easy when the whistle pulses signaled shut-down.
“Gather up!” Coach finally shouted, and everybody dragged themselves back to the middle of the field. “I wanna see a different team show up here on Monday, you all got that? On time, ready to fucking work, no goddamn excuses. You think I’m bluffing, show up thirty seconds late, I’m begging you. I don’t care who you are, you’ll be riding the bench against Ollie. What are you gonna do Monday?”
“Show up, Coach!” The chorus was a little dull and scratchy since everyone was tired and dehydrated, but he let it go and waved everyone toward the showers.
“Toss your shit in the cart and fuck off, then. Prescott, you’re on clean up.”
I paused mid-step and looked back at him. Clean up was like a whole second practice and it always went to nobodies and the guys who fucked up and that definitely wasn’t me today.
Normally I wouldn’t even have cared, I’d be looking for a way to kill more time, but today I wanted a shower and to get my ass home and get cuddled and smothered and fucked dry. I did not want to put away fucking drill cones and dummies for an extra half hour.
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. You can handle it. Take that shit to the shed. And don’t just park it and go, either. Put it away. I’m sick of you guys just dumping that cart off inside the door and calling it quits. Start doing a better clean up job or you can spend next Sunday scrubbing the locker room top to bottom, how’s that.”
Christ, Walker’d really worked him up. Not sure why I was taking a hit, buttake the day off and go study sciencewas in the rearview, looked like.
“I’m on it,” I told him, nodding, and Riggs and a half dozen other guys slapped me on the back while they filed out the other way, knowing I was getting screwed, but what the fuck could you do.
I jogged down to the far end and started the long sweep around the sidelines, grabbing all the empty Gatorades and water bottles and stray gear some assholes would never bring in.I’d been on clean up enough to have a system and I knew the quickest way to get shit done, how to rack the cones and load the shields and dummies into the cart so everything fit in one trip instead of losing everything halfway. Didn’t mean I fucking enjoyed it.
At least I wasn’t doing it with Ellis, who fucked around so much it took twice as long. Ellis looked decent today though, I could see why he was pissed. It was obvious whoshouldhave been on clean up. Clearly, Coach hadn’t gotten the memo that my streak of shit luck and unfair treatment was over.
Whatever.
Once I did a quality sweep, I started heaving the cart toward the shed. It wasn’t even the bad cart and it still got hung up every couple feet, couldn’t move in a straight line for more than ten seconds. Shoving it all the way across to the shed took forever even when you had two people, and by the time I kicked the door open, I was sweating all over again.
It was such a mess in there I had to move a big stack of booster boxes before I even had space to put the cart where it belonged. Coach was right, it was a goddamn disaster. I sighed and shrugged my shoulders around, rolling the bins over and stacking and sorting the best I could which was pointless since it would all just get tossed in the cart again next practice anyway, but I didn’t want to end up scrubbing the locker room, so here we were.
It was about a thousand degrees in there and after ten minutes of shoving gear around, I was so wiped I just walked out and dropped down on the grass, leaning back against the shed a minute, taking a break before I trekked all the way back to the locker room.
