“Just giving her a taste of what it’s like, Coach.”
“Red shirt. No tasting menu for her. OFF.”
Number fifty—Sanchez—rolls off my back and onto my legs, his butt pressing into my hamstrings before the weight is finally lifted. I get to my knees, and there’s a hand at the edge of my slightly blurred vision. Topps.
I snag it and stand.
“You’re doing good, girlie. Real good.”
I nod, words still impossible.
Topps shakes his head. “Sorry, you probably don’t like being called that.” He lowers his giant head like a freaking wild pony. “Do you have a nickname?”
I nod again. Swallow. Find my breath in three heaving gulps. “O-Rod.”
Topps smiles. It’s far too gentle for the mass of him. “Like A-Rod. I get it.”
“Yep.”
“You’re doing real good, O-Rod.”
I want to believe that.
10
FRIDAY IS MORE OF THE SAME. MORNING DRILLS WITH Grey—who totally got razzed by Shanks for trying to wear his sunglasses again—Brady, and select receivers, followed by an afternoon of scrimmage, aka Liv’s red shirt doing abso-freaking-lutely nothing to keep her safe. I trust my feet more than a stupid jersey, even though my footwork sucks. I’ve been training my whole life to run from point A to point B, not elude four dudes who each have a hundred pounds and years of experience on little old me.
By Saturday morning, all I want is to sleep in and then raid the noontime doughnut selection at Dillons.
Instead, I roll out of bed, pull on my customary batting cage outfit of running shorts, a tank top, and cleats, and bribe Ryan with two of his own doughnuts if he leaves the house with me in his soccer gear.
“Four. I’ll do it for four.”
At this rate, he’ll be asking for three courses at The Cheesecake Factory by the time the season’s over. Teenage boys can eat.
I drop him off at Jesse’s house with promises of carbs and head to Northland. I change, grab my helmet, and I’m at the field—cloaked in red and ready—at 6:59 AM.
By myself.
I do a loop in warm-up and scope out my surroundings. There are a few of Ryan’s soccer teammates a field over, taking turns on corner kicks. Two cross-country girls are running the bleachers in bright orange singlets. The cheer squad works formations on the stadium turf, a flash and whirl of ombré-patterned tights and pineapple buns.
But nowhere in sight is a herd of fifty or so man-boys.
My phone is in the locker room. But I don’t know who I’d call. I don’t have Grey’s cell, mostly because I’ve been too chicken to ask. Don’t know how to reach any of the coaches. And even though Jake apologized, I’m not totally comfortable texting him all idiot-like with a “I thought we had practice?”
I do a loop back around by the locker rooms. No sound is coming from the boys’ side. And the coaches’ offices are dark.
But there are cars in the parking lot.
Lots of cars.
Jake’s car.
My Timex warns me that it’s now 7:14 AM.
A chill runs up my spine as a burst of heat climbs my cheekbones. Parallel swells of feeling—stupidity and frustration—arm-wrestle in the pit of my stomach.
I can’t be late. I am late.
Not knowing what else to do or where to go, I end up back in the locker room. Check my phone. Nothing.
Screw it.
I scroll through and find Jake’s number. I hold my breath as the ghosts of messages past pop up on-screen. And even though I know it’ll be there, I still nearly drop my phone on the locker room floor when I see the last message in the chain.
Can’t deal with the crazy. I’m out.
And by “crazy” he meant me.
I squeeze my eyes shut and start typing.
I can’t find you guys.
To my surprise, a new message pops up instantly.
Weights. Meet me in the hall. I’ll show you.
Oh, thank God.
I toss my phone in my bag, slam my locker, and light out of there like my butt is on fire… only to turn right around because my clothes are all freaking wrong for weights.
Off come the jersey and pads, tights, more pads. On go my shorts. I don’t have tennis shoes, but cleats won’t be too weird. I hope.
“Took you long enough,” he says as I finally exit the locker room.
“Wrong clothes. I’m new, remember?”
“How could I forget?” There’s a little smile there as he takes a step toward the intersection of two halls, and I fall in beside him. The air is fat between us, a thick layer of blubber between normal and whatever we are as we learn to coexist.
“So, um, that was super lucky you answered right away.”
Jake shrugs, shoulders straining against a neon Northland T-shirt. “Kelly brought me my jersey and I had to put it away. My phone lit up the second I opened my locker.”
“Ah.” I’m not sure what else to say to that. That I wish Kelly would do my laundry? Though, based on yesterday, it’d probably come back in shreds. “Anyway, thank you.”
He snickers. “You might not feel like thanking me when you see how pissed Coach Lee is that you’re twenty minutes late.”
Having Danielle as a sister has paid off in a myriad of ways, but in this instance, the most valuable of those is that I don’t look down when facing a pissed-off Coach Lee. I know how to take a look like that.
Eyes up. Chin up. Respect written across my forehead.
The rest of the team is going through what looks like a series of stations—back squats, bench press, TRX, clean and jerk, plyo, abs. And, though arms and legs are moving in my periphery, I know everyone is waiting for the yelling to start. Heck, I’m waiting for the yelling to start. But Coach Lee isn’t yelling. His lips are drawn up tight. The silence is deafening, even with the clank and swish of ambient weight room noise.
I’ve already apologized. He didn’t answer to that in any volume. No acknowledgment except the glare.
Finally, he says one word: “Squats.”
I take off toward the back of the room as quickly as I can without looking like I’m running away, toward a series of squat racks lined up against a wall of mirrors. There’s an open one on the end, the quarterbacks and secondary assigned to the same rotation.
The weight already on the bar is completely ridiculous. Quick math tells me it’s 260 pounds. With the bar added in, it’s 305.
There’s no way in hell I can squat that.
I start reracking the forty-five-pound plates on either end. I have no idea what the rep situation is or how many sets we’re doing. All I know is I can’t do 305.
Grey silently swings over from two racks down and pulls a forty-five off the other side. Which is sweet and also completely embarrassing that he realized my problem right away.
Coach Napolitano meets me when I’m hauling the second forty-five off the bar. “Eight reps. Start with fifty pounds on the bar.”
These are the first words I’ve ever heard Coach Napolitano say, but I’m going to have to refute them. “I can do more than ninety-five.”
While Coach seems nice enough, it’s obvious the guy doesn’t like anything going against the tide, including me. But I can’t sit here and squat two-hundred-plus pounds less than the rest of the team.