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Hands come out to slap mine as I jog over to the bench like I just scored the game-winning touchdown. When really, we’re just warming up before we kick off our biggest, most attended game of the season, one that starts in less than an hour.
The stands are already filling up in a vibrant sea of black, purple, and gray, the official colors of the Grady Prep Warriors. It’s our turn to host this year’s Bell Game—an annual face-off between us and our rivals across the river, in which the victorious team gets claim of the revered Crowley church bell until the other team can win it back.
There’s a ceremony and everything. Then, tomorrow, the big, bronze monstrosity will be loaded back up on a cart and rolled across the bridge connecting the town.
Well, that is only if we lose.
Starling High School hasn’t had a turn with the bell in three years, and we don’t plan on giving it up anytime soon.
“Yo.” A shoulder knocks into mine, pulling me out of my thoughts. A massive fucking arm reaches around me for the pile of water bottles. I don’t even have to look to know the arm belongs to Fletch, one of my best friends, and our star defensive lineman.
“’Sup,” I say, popping the sports cap on my bottle with my teeth, before tipping my head back and shooting a stream of water down my throat.
Fletch looks around the stadium with hard, determined eyes. “Gonna be a good game. A blow-out.” He nods. “Gonna crush them, I can already tell.”
I snort softly at that. “Yeah, how’s that?”
He cuts me a sideways look, black paint smudged across his bronzed cheeks. It’s the end of September, but the sun’s been brutal today; not so much hot as bright. He points to his temple, where his sweat glistens just near his buzzed hairline. “I can just feel it.”
“With your brain?”
He nods, grinning like an idiot. “With my soul.”
“And your soul’s in your brain?”
He steps back, cupping his junk protectively through his gray compression pants, and thrusts obscenely into the air. “No, man, it’s allll in here.”
I chuck my bottle at his head, and he ducks just before it could hit him in the nose. He’s still laughing as he turns and jogs away to go warm up with his linemen.
“Dick,” I mutter with a rueful shake of my head as I remove my helmet.
“That’s not very nice,” my other best friend, Casey, says. I didn’t realize he joined me. He plops down on the bench, legs spread out before him, heels of his cleats digging into the grass. “Good catch,” he pants, smirking through his face guard as he glances my way.
“Nice throw,” I say dryly.
As the quarterback to his running back, usually I’m the one barking commands at him and throwing balls his way. Not the other way around.
We shoot the shit while we wait for the others to run their drills. Soon, we’ll be migrating to the locker rooms for last-minute stretching, wrapping, and pre-game rituals. Coach will do his little speech to get us all hyped up, and then it’s go-time.
It’s one of my favorite parts of the game. That anticipation just inside the tunnel before we get the go-ahead to run full-steam ahead onto the field. Heart racing. Chest vibrating. Music blaring from the speakers, warring with the thundering crowd as we explode through whatever fancy-ass banner the cheerleaders put together for that week.
Never fucking gets old, even if everything else about high school has.
“Hey, who’s that talking with your dad?”
Frowning, I turn my head to follow his gaze.
Over by the concession stand, I can just make out the first three letters of my last name scrolled across a purple jersey. With his back to me, he faces off with some stiff in a suit who looks flustered.
My frown only deepens when I realize whatever they’re talking about has got my dad throwing his hands around, before jabbing a finger in the general direction of the field. I can’t see his face, and yet it’s clear he’s pissed about something.
The hell?
Casey whistles low under his breath.
It’s not so much that my dad is angry that has me concerned. It’s that he’s visibly angry.
Quentin Riviera is nothing if not carefully controlled. Poised. Hell, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this animated in all the years I’ve known him. Even back before he first adopted me, when he had no choice but to stand in front of a courtroom and defend the people who failed me—the system—in a state-level court case that reached national news, he wasn’t this… expressive.
