“I’m sick and tired of you all fighting about this. We are a goddamned team. Let’s act like it.” I turn to Ace. “Bro, I’m sorry. What’s going on with you sucks balls. But you’re wrong. I have never once said to Coach that I think you should be anything but our QB. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what I say. What I do.” I wonder how many people know I’m talking about more than football.
“Coach has moved on. We can either fight with each other or fight for each other. The first option means we lay eggs on the field. We lose and we lose and we lose. I’m not going to like that much, and I don’t think any of you will either.
“The second means putting aside our feelings about what’s going on with Ace and moving forward. We don’t have any idea what Remington Barr’s going to be like. Maybe he sucks. We all know of high school stars who wash out in college because everyone they meet on the field was a high school star. Maybe he’s awesome. I don’t know.
“For about twenty of us, next season is our last. We can look back at it as a lost season, embarrassed by how we went out, or we can look back on it with…” I search for the right word.
“Joy,” Hammer offers.
“Yeah, joy. Thanks, man.” We bump fists.
He winks and gives me a thumbs-up.
I walk over to Ace. None of these guys know how he wronged me, but there’s a strange kinship between us, created by the fact that Luce broke both our hearts.
“I forgive you, brother.” Ace’s eyes grow wide with shock as he stares at my outstretched hand. I extend it even further. “For the sake of this team, I forgive you.”
Ace’s hand rises slowly, as if he doesn’t really want to shake my hand but something deep and decent within him—whatever it was that called Luce “friend” for all those years—pulls it up, inch by motherfucking inch, until his palm is against mine. Our handshake is brief. We will never be friends, but the sad truth is that Luce was right.
No one forced all those shots down my throat. I didn’t have to get so messy drunk. I didn’t have to stand so close I could feel the line of the girl’s underwear press against my jeans-clad leg.
If I’d seen Luce kissing some guy, her eyes glassy with booze, and his arms around her body, I’d have been enraged. And maybe if I’d had the same past as hers, the same fears, I would’ve been done, too.
So I forgive Ace for burning the cord tying Luce and me together because I lit the match.
I leave Ace then and turn to Fozzy and present my hand to him. He knocks it away and lifts me in his arms.
“I love you, brother,” he shouts. My ears ring for hours. There’s a round of handshakes and bone-breaking backslaps and even a few more hugs before we get back to the basics of football—strength and conditioning.
On the ride up to the hotel in some Podunk town in Illinois, about an hour west of Chicago, Hammer peppers me with questions about Luce. He says it’s because he’s concerned. Privately, I think he’s doing research on another article.
“How’re you going to approach this? Like, are you going to say sorry first or are you going to make her say it?”
“What do you think I should do?” I parry because I have no fucking clue what to do. I’ve never been in this situation before—chasing after a girl who’s rejected me more times than she’s said yes.
“What does she want?”
“Fuck if I know.”
“Then you’re not winning her back.”
Thanks for nothing Hammer. “I told her that I loved her.”
“There’s your problem.”
“What’s my problem?”
“Your belt’s gotta match the shoes,” Hammer says.
“What the fuck does that mean?” I grind to a halt and put my hands on my hips.
“Means your actions gotta line up with your words. You gotta do the love stuff if you mean it.”
“Did you read that in your women’s magazine?” I ask suspiciously.
“No,” he perks up, “Do you think that’s an article I should suggest? Top ten ways to show her you love her?”
My lips quirk up in a half smile. “Yeah, that’s probably a pretty good article.”
“Shit, I should have written it for Valentine’s Day instead of the ‘Best Ways to Give a V-Day Blowjob.’” Hammer slaps me hard on the back. “Don’t worry. I know you’re going to win her back.”
And Hammer’s belief in me actually fills me with relief. I am going to make this right with her. I did it with the team, and I can do it with her as well.
Failure is no option here.
35
Lucy
“I have a cold coming on,” Heather says ominously as she pulls into the hotel parking lot after dinner. Even though she hates her old man, she doesn’t mind the things he buys her. The Mercedes coupe is so luxurious, I nearly cried when I took a seat the first time.
“Tell the cold to stay away. Believe it away, Heather.”
“You mock, but deep down you know I’m right. We rocked today.”
We did rock. We’ve rocked all weekend and now we have only one match left before we can crown ourselves Midwest Regional champs and claim our spot in the national tournament next month.
“We were pretty awesome,” I admit. I roll my neck from one shoulder to the other. Despite our wins, I’m still tense. You would have thought I’d be euphoric by now, but I’m not.