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“You’re friends with Logan, I’m friends with Logan. Not the samekindof friends, obviously, but that’s some basic ass geometry right there. Like a love triangle.”
“That is not how geometry works,” Caleb said, looking annoyed. “Or a love triangle.”
“So, listen, Beast,” Ellis said, leaning forward, ignoring him. “You’re like a genius or whatever. You know all these smart hacks and brain games and tutor tricks, right? How do you fix, for example, a QB who’s gone off the deep end and can’t fucking throw. How do you hack the yips?”
“Dude. Stop saying that,” I snapped, looking around, and Ellis rolled his eyes.
“What do you think’s gonna happen? I say yips three times and someone’s gonna die? Some bloody chick’s gonna crawl out of the shelves? I’m done with all the eggshells and the fragile ego bullshit. He’s broken, we’re out of time. How do we tape him back together, Beast?”
Caleb glanced over at me, and I shrugged, not sure what to say. I’d thrown a complete fit yesterday about him helping kids who weren’t me with their homework, and now I wanted him to play team therapist? Seemed about right, I guess.
“Are you sure there’s something wrong with him?” Caleb asked. “Maybe he’s just… not doing very well. Or injured.”
“He’s not injured. Yet,” Ellis said, scowling. “He can throw. Just not where he’s supposed to. Or how. Or when. It’s like I’m one of those reverse magnets, you know? That shit just swerves away from me. Too short, too far, too wide. He looks like a day-one coach baby.”
Caleb glanced over at me, obviously lost.
“Like a coach’s kid,” I told him, giving in and helping. “Coach’s kid usually sucks, but they get all the good positions. Doesn’t matter, he’s just saying Walker looks bad. He does. He looks… nervous, I guess? Frustrated?”
Ellis shook his head. “Nah. Not any of those things. Notanything. Notthere. And when he is there, he’s pissed off. All the time. At everybody. Probably because he sucks. So whattaya got, Beast? How do you make him stop sucking? Like… today.” He leaned back in his chair, tipping it so far all it would have taken was a tiny nudge to one of the legs to put him on his ass, but I left it alone.
Caleb shrugged. “You can’t. You can’tmakehim better. You can’t power through a mental block. But you can try going around it.”
“What does that mean? Card games and shit?”
“Well…” I could actually feel Caleb fighting against wanting to explain alternative education to Ellis, and something about that really fucking did it for me, how he was so fucking into tutoring and shit that he even wanted to help somebody he couldn’t stand. “Yeah,” he finally said, breaking down. “The cards work because it’s something different. It’s fun, it’s stimulating. You’re getting the information a new way, so your brain isn’t just rejecting it because it’s bored and hurt. If your brain is… blocked, you can’t just keep trying to shove stuff into it because it’s gonna…”
“Fall back out?” Ellis asked, suspicious, like he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to answer or not.
“Right. Exactly. But if you shake things up, do something different, maybe you loosen the block.”
“So scare him, like the hiccups,” Ellis said, leaning forward, trying to interpret with his idiot brain.
“I…” Caleb paused, squinting at him, looking thoughtful. “Sort of, I guess. Sure. Brains don’t like being in ruts. Changesomething, and maybe something will change.”
Ellis frowned, tapping at the table awhile and nodding. “Okay. Good talk, Beast,” he finally said. “Smart stuff. Guess you’re more than just a big dick after all.” He bounced up from his seat, quitting the game before he started, wandering off to bug somebody else, kicking chairs and flicking ears and using his outside voice all across the library.
“Is he for real?” Caleb asked me, and I shook my head.
“I have no idea.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
By Wednesday, there were rumbles in the lockers, and not much else. Hump day was usually a lot of amping up for violence, last full pad practice before game day, but nah. This time it was side-eyes and whispers and the start of a panic because this wasn’t a Trinity easy win, and running up on two weeks of Walker dropping a half step daily, it was getting harder to shake off. Nobody wanted to get too close in case whatever was giving him blackout arm was contagious.
No way he didn’t feel it, but he seemed a million miles away, and when I knocked pads with him on the way out to the field, you’d have thought I set off an M-80 in his face he looked so surprised to see me there.
“You alright?” I asked him, which was a pointless thing to ask, he looked like hell, but what else were you supposed to do. “You ready to go?”
I didn’t think he was gonna give me an answer, but he didn’t get a chance to do anything before Ellis came up, helmet bashing him in the back, sending him staggering up a few steps.
“Let’s fucking gooooo, let’s shake it up!” Ellis roared, spinning around and jogging backwards toward the field faster than most of the guys jogging forward, and if that was his attempt at curing the hiccups, Walker’s murder face was not giving success.
Wednesday practice was always rough, but Wednesday before we played a team that kicked our ass last time, rougher. Add to that last Wednesday’s practice got called for a bullshit lightning technicality? Yeah, probably unprecedented. I was half surprised the cops didn’t show because it was a straight up crime spree, guys dropping left, right, and center.
I don’t know if Caleb really just hung around the fence for an hour while we burned up minutes in the weight room and the film room before hitting the field, but when we hit the grass, he was there. Just like he promised. Just like I wanted. BecauseIwas the most important thing.
The heat was back for one more encore, like it really couldn’t take a hint it was fall, and he had his sweater folded over the chain link, leaning there in just a tshirt and looking tight, and if I hadn’t been so amped to show off for him, make sure he got his money’s worth for sticking around, my mind would have been in the bedroom and only the bedroom.
