“Coach wants to see me.”
“Sorry, son.” Hammer gives me a thumbs-up sign and a sympathetic smile.
He can smile because it’s not his ass going to the coach’s office. Again.
* * *
COACH LOWE’S behind his desk. The television is on and ESPN is handing out preseason grades based on our recruiting class.
“They’re saying Western’s going to be dominant for another four years,” Coach informs me as I settle into a chair.
“Congrats.” I try to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
“What kind of progress are you making with Ace?”
I launch into the argument I devised on my way over. “He doesn’t want to give up the quarterback position. And you know that he’s a smart player. He took us where Wilson Rogers didn’t, and we all know Rogers is going to be our next black president.” I smile, but Coach simply stares at me like I’m a moron. Still, Rogers, the quarterback who graduated last spring and almost led us to a National title my sophomore year, knew every player on the eighty-man roster and could probably tell you their moms’ names as well as their girlfriends’. That man was going places, although not in the NFL. He’s in graduate school now and is going to run the world someday. I power on. “I know Ace doesn’t have the most accurate arm, but he makes good decisions for the most part. This new guy coming in will be raw. He’s never played at the college level—”
“You become coach when I wasn’t looking?”
I wince and fight the urge to shrink in the chair. “No, sir.”
“Then you can keep your amateur scouting reports to yourself. You’re here to play the game as I tell you to play it, on and off the field. Remington Barr is going to be our starting quarterback next year. Whether we field a cohesive team is going to be on you. And, son, if you can’t convince a bunch of raggedy-ass boys to follow you on this field, there’s no way you’re going to play at the next level.”
What’d I tell Luce? That the Coach is the lord of your universe? I guess I didn’t tell her that you could hate the one in charge even as you played hard to win. Because you weren’t playing for him. You were playing for each other.
“Ace will either be holding the clipboard on the sidelines all season or he’ll be on the field as a safety. Your job is to make sure everyone gets behind our new quarterback.”
“Yes, sir.” I say the words even though it’s worse than swallowing a bunch of razors. If there’s a Mount Rushmore for crappy coaches, Coach Lowe is getting my first nomination. I sit there fuming in silence as Coach pretends I’m not sitting in the chair five feet away from him. Finally, when the ESPN college crew breaks for commercial, he swivels toward me.
“You’re still here?”
Yeah, meathead, I’m still sitting here like a good little soldier waiting to be dismissed. When Masters said he was declaring early, I didn’t envy him a bit. I was having too much fun. The real world could wait another year. I didn’t know that Coach was going to spend the year shitting down my throat while ordering me to smile as he did it.
“You’re dismissed.” He waves a hand, shooing me off like I’m a pesky, bothersome gnat.
One more year, I remind myself as I stiffly rise from the chair and walk out.
Ten minutes later, Stella finds me in the weight room punching my way past a tackling dummy.
“Matty, I need to talk to you.”
God, I do not need this. I’m too busy pretending Coach Lowe is standing in front of me. I’ve gotten three good hits in, but I’m still sore from the proverbial fist Coach slammed into my face while I was in his office. That said, I can’t very well walk away and pretend I can’t hear her, can I?
“What’s up?” I say abruptly.
“No matter what you say or do, Ace is going to be either benched or moved.”
Wariness rises. “What do you know?”
“My dad…he found out about us,” she admits. “He caught me coming out of Ace’s room last year. The night that we ended up staying over in Wisconsin because of bad weather?”
“I remember.” I fucked a local chick and Masters walked in. I invited him to stay. I can’t remember the woman’s face or even if the sex was good. Only that I invited Masters to join us and he barely even noticed what was going on. At the time, I remember thinking, Poor Masters. Still hanging on to his V-card. He was wooing Ellie. I didn’t get at the time how one person could transform your life.
“He’s had it in for Ace ever since. He sought out Barr. He wasn’t even recruiting him hard. He had his eye on another quarterback from Utah. Thought they would try to sneak some reps in during this upcoming year. Anyway, when he learned about me and Ace, he told me to enjoy Ace this year because it would be his last.”
“Stella,” I say with a mixture of disappointment and dismay.
She hangs her head and I feel like a piece of shit. It’s not her fault that her dad’s a Grade-A prick. She should be able to sleep with whoever the hell she wants to. “I know. I argued and pleaded and told him I’d break it off with Ace. He told me to go ahead. So I did. I told Ace we were done and he laughed. He said he didn’t care what Coach made me say. So I told him I slept with Dayton Carter.”
Dayton Carter, power forward for the Western State Warriors’s basketball team. Now I’m feeling even worse. For her. For Ace. For all of us. “Oh, fuck, Stella.”