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“You boys want to eat first?” she asked.
“Nah,” Sawyer said at the same time that I said, “It sure smells good.”
“It won’t be long,” Mrs. Huntington said, leaving Sawyer to scowl at me.
“Hey, we don’t wanna miss Tenn,” he said.
“Yeah, but we don’t wanna be too obvious. Tenn’s going to be nervous enough as it is.”
It was a one eighty turn from the other day when we’d found out he’d asked Millie out. I’d teased him by saying we’d be sitting at the next table.
“Yes, give them a chance to be on their own. You guys don’t need to crowd them,” Mrs. Huntington said, and without warning she let out an ear-piercing shout, “Sierra! Dinner’s ready.”
The Huntington house was over three levels which was why the call was warranted. My ears pricked up, listening for Sierra’s footsteps. I was soon rewarded with the sound of a clunky limp.
“Hey, what happened?” I said, shocked to see her entering the room with one crutch. “Did you hurt your foot again? I knew you shouldn’t have been at the game tonight.”
Sierra let out a laborious sigh. “It’s just a precaution,” she said.
“Yes, we had a pair of old crutches from that time Sawyer wrenched his knee, so I thought it was best if she uses it at home,” Mrs. Huntington was saying, but I was focused solely on Sierra. She’d showered, her long hair damp and wavy, and she was dressed in what looked like a pair of pajama pants with a Green Bay Packers hoodie, one of her favorite NFL teams. Also, my favorite NFL team. If I was looking for points of connection, being a Packers fan was it.
I jumped off the high stool I’d been sitting on and raced over to the dining table, pulling out a chair for her. She frowned, muttering thanks as if it was highly unusual and unnecessary.
Uh, it was highly unusual. I didn’t normally flit around after Sierra, but hey, the girl was injured.
“We need you fit for next week’s game,” I said as if that was the reason for my unexpected chivalry, though there was some insane thumping happening in my chest, my heartbeat out of control. Way out of control. Like the smell of freshly washed hair was both intoxicating and electrifying. I sat beside her, just so I could inhale more of it.
“I’ll be okay,” she said. “But did you know Redmond Phillips hardly drank anything all game? I could hardly get anything into him. Was he okay?”
Besides delivering the water to the players, Sierra had an uncanny memory that recorded how much each and every player ingested. She also seemed to know if anyone was off their game.
“He said he didn’t feel the best,” I said, noting that the junior hadn’t returned to the game after the third quarter.
“I don’t think you had enough energy drink out there,” Sierra said.
I blinked. “Me?”
“Yes, you. That pass...” She trailed off.
Sawyer laughed. “Yeah, that intercept by Lake View. We really should’ve kept them scoreless, Cullen.”
I shook my head, looking down at the tile floor. “Yeah, don’t worry, I’ve had the talk from Coach.”
It was actually a weird thing being the Coach’s son. Trying to differentiate the two relationships was difficult, and I often used the titleCoachwhen talking about him. Sometimes I wondered whether he knew there was a distinction between the roles, like it seemed he was onlyeverCoach.
Sawyer patted me on the back sympathetically. Everyone knew I didn’t get any favors for being the Coach’s son. If anything, he was harder on me than everyone else, never afraid to point out my flaws, my mistakes, my areas of weakness. I respected Dad for that, and I think the kids did too. I wouldn’t want to be treated differently, though sometimes he went overboard and made it acutely known that, as captain, I was responsible for the team and the results. Yeah, when we won, I was likely to get the glory, but equally, in defeat I was the one who wore the mantle of failure.
“Sawyer, carry these plates, please,” Mrs. Huntington directed from the kitchen.
He scooted away to help his mother. I shifted in my chair, my father’s words echoing in my head, “A one armed sloth could have thrown better than that.”
“Hey.” Sierra’s hand poked gently at my shoulder. “Just make sure you take your energy drink at every break,” she said softly, with a look that seared into the depths of my soul. “A hydrated team is a winning team.”
“Thanks,” I said, her beaming smile bringing me back out of the hole of self-pity that had been about to swallow me up. “Uh, when did you get your braces off?”
Sierra’s face scrunched up. “You just realized? Like, they’ve been off for two months.” This time she punched my arm hard, outraged that I had only just noticed. That was the Sierra I knew and loved.
Like a friend, I mean.
