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Vaguely I wonder if there’s going to be another picture of me walking with them, but then again, so what? I feel uneasy that the pictures exist, but I’m not going to run around in fear all the time. Somebody is going to get caught for this.
And it better not be Seattle, because I will kick her ass.
The football field is actually not as big as I assumed it would be. I kind of thought it would look like football fields look on TV. Concrete ovals. Maybe a dome or something.
But this actually looks a lot like my football stadium in high school. Bigger, of course. The scoreboard is really nice—an LED panel on one side of the field with lights on top of it. Maybe something an alumnus donated or something like that.
I’m trying not to grin like a little kid as I take in all of the details. The stadium seating is open-back bleachers with our school logo painted in such a way that it probably looks really good from a helicopter or something.
There are lines on the field marking out the yardage, if I remember correctly. Already there are players on the field grunting and running at each other. They wear their shoulder pads and helmets, but no jerseys. Just bare skin or tank tops or whatever. Some of them are wearing athletic pants, and some are wearing sweatpants or even shorts.
“Is it everything you dreamed of?” Spencer murmurs in my ear, and my arms instantly go spiky with goosebumps.
I wonder if he knows he has this effect on me, that he has had this effect on me ever since I saw him in Dean Rhodes’s office? Something about him just turns me on. His key fits in my lock. Even the tone of his voice reaches inside me like a song I have been longing to hear.
“It’s amazing,” I grin. “Am I gonna get to watch you do things? Out there?”
“Yeah, if he doesn’t get tackled,” Trevor laughs uproariously.
Spencer scowls. “Never happen,” he assures me, nuzzling my cheek before he turns around.
Zeke shows me to a seat at the fifty-yard line, just like they promised, and then all four of them hurry off to the locker rooms, I assume.
Actually, this is pretty exciting. It’s not a game, of course, but something about being in a formal space that feels nice. Formal spaces for concerts, for plays, for sports, they are just something that we people respond to.
This is something that Seattle talks about every once in a while,bracketing the experience.It’s the way that an environment shapes our perception of an event, and being in a formal environment such as a theater makes informal events, such as a joke, suddenly significant.
I know, I know. Art students say a lot of really goofy things.
The groups of players on the field keep doing their thing, snapping the ball, running at each other, then breaking off. I don’t entirely know what this is. I mean, I know the basic rules (Ball goes this way, yay! Ball goes that way, boo!), but I can’t tell if they are playing or if they are just running some kind of exercise.
It is a little bit strange, because football is such a big part of college life, and yet it has passed me completely by. It was a big part of high school life too. In fact, my high school boyfriend had been a football player until a knee injury took him out of the game.
Apparently it had been a completely horrific scene that left him in a brace for the summer. When he returned to school senior year, he had to take new electives. We met in art class.
On Friday nights, while everyone else was playing ball, Ryan was tense and moody. It obviously broke his heart. But he wouldn’t talk about it, and so I didn’t learn anything about the game from him.
On the weekends, I’ve been able to hear the roar from the field as part of the regular background music of college life. In fact, you can hear the marching band all the way across campus. Who doesn’t love a good marching band?
As I watch the players practice, I make a promise to myself to learn more about this. It is the least I can do. They have dedicated so much of their lives to it; there must be a reason.
All these guys out here have probably been playing ball since they were little kids. Just thinking about that makes my heart clench a little bit. Imagine, little eleven-year-old Diego running across the field! Oh my gosh. How cute is that?
As I lean forward, waiting for them to appear on the field, I see a figure standing apart. A swath of melon-colored fabric catches my eye, an asymmetrical stripe of lime green splitting it into.
Dean Rhodes?
She is not with the team, but she’s definitely there on the sidelines. Her arms folded across her chest, she stands there with her high heels sinking into the grass, a little bit awkward, yet present nonetheless.
As the players execute their choreographed formations on the field, I watch her body language change. She is definitely following this.
I thought she hated football? Didn’t she just tell me that?
I assume she’s here for the cheerleaders or something, maybe working on a mural for the Fieldhouse? That would make sense.
The older man on the field, the one with the big belly and suspenders holding up his cream-colored athletic pants, waves a clipboard and yells. He follows the play as it happens, jogging along the sideline. When he gets to Dean Rhodes, he stops, quite close.
She twists her upper body toward him, her fingers folded neatly under her chin as she holds her other hand to shade her eyes. The coach rocks back and forth on his heels as he talks to her for a few moments, then jogs away.
