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“What is— no, no fucking way.” Fiery anger ignited inside me as I found her in the crowd.
The girl who refused to stay away.
“How the fuck did she get here?”
“If I had to guess, I would say that Miller probably brought her.”
“He’s here?” I searched the crowd, a new flurry of anger rising in me when my eyes landed on Nate Miller.
What the fuck were they doing together?
“That wouldn’t be a flash of jealousy in your eyes, would it?”
I barely heard Kye’s taunt over the roar of blood in my ears.
I wasn’t jealous. I was fucking confused. She didn’t belong here. Neither of them did.
Sure, Nate was decent enough, but this was a Hawk game four hours away from Darling Hill.
It didn’t make any sense.
“Okay, ladies, gather in,” Coach boomed, steering Nix toward our crudely formed circle. “This is it, if we win tonight, we’re guaranteed a spot in the playoffs. The Terrapins will be gunning for you. Keep your eyes open and your tempers in check. You’re not only representing yourselves tonight, but you’re also representing each other, this team, and the school. Let them talk shit as much as they want, we’ll show them what we’re about on the scoreboard.
“Okay, Nix. The stage is yours.”
“Coach is right. We hit them where it hurts, the only place it hurts. On the scoreboard. Hawks on three.”
We all gathered in, piling our hands into the circle. I shot Nix an amused smirk, mouthing, “Nice speech.”
“Fuck you,” he mouthed back, and Kye snorted.
Despite leading the team for the last three years, motivational speeches weren’t exactly Nix’s forte. But the guys didn’t need a pep talk, they knew the deal. They knew we had a lot to prove. To show these assholes and everyone else watching that we had what it took to go all the way. That despite our underfunded school and shitty lives, we could still play football with the best of them. To send a clear message that when you stepped out on that field, it didn’t matter where you came from.
At least, that’s what I might have been thinking if it wasn’t for the very unwelcome distraction sitting in the bleachers.
Fuck. I still couldn’t believe she was here—with Nate, no less.
It was a four-hour ride. What the fuck had they talked about for four hours?
“Z, earth to Z?”
“Huh?”
“It’s time to do that thing, you know, where we play football.” Kye stared at me expectantly.
“You’re an asshole.”
“So you like to keep telling me. You okay? You were completely zoned out then. I know things with your grams are—”
“Not the time or place.” I shook my head. If I let myself think about that, there was every chance I would lose my shit the first time a Terrapin player so much as breathed in the wrong direction.
A lick of anticipation ran down my spine. I needed this. Forty-eight minutes of running off some of the overwhelming sense of hopelessness I felt at Grams’ situation. Because beyond trying to steal from a bank, I knew my options were slim. I could quit school and take on more hours at the mill, but she would never forgive me. I’d do it if I had to, but I was hoping to save her the disappointment of having a high school dropout for a grandson.
Nix finished up his final pep talk with Coach and jogged over to us. “You good?” he asked me, and I nodded. “Don’t worry about me, worry about yourself. Their defense are giants.”
“They gotta catch him first.” Kye held out his fist but neither of us bumped it. “Oh, it’s like that, huh? Now you’re both shacked up, you’re going to leave—”
“Knock it off,” I grumbled.
