Whatever the reason, Coach Lee has decided to go for a mix of plays against Tetherman, trying to break through a defensive line that’s been giving Jake a literal headache the whole game. Frustration sits heavy on his broad shoulders, and I know he’s getting pissed when he starts mouthing off to guys who easily have fifty pounds on him.
“Dude, shut it. We’ll get them,” I say, cuffing his wrist. “Show, don’t tell.”
Jake meets my eyes and does a Grey-style deadpan I didn’t know was in him. “You’re one to talk.”
I just smile. “Learn from my mistakes. Jawing gets you nowhere.”
By halftime, we’re tied 10–10, and Jake is still livid, stalking to the sideline for a word with Coach. So I’m not surprised when the first call out of the gate in the second half is yet another rushing play. Jake badly wants to break through this line like he’s mowed over everything else.
We push into the huddle.
“Orange Five, Tigers.”
We throw our hands in the middle and break.
At the snap, I turn and cover the ball just enough so that the defense thinks I’m running for it, but not so much that Jake can’t sprint past and snag it. With the ease of a pickpocket, he tucks the ball under his arm and hurtles through the tiniest crack in a wall of bodies.
Jake breaks free on the other side and becomes a blur of orange, the white three and two on his jersey jumbling together under the lights as he speeds in the direction of the end zone, forty yards downfield.
With two white-and-silver bodies in worthless pursuit, he flies into the end zone in a sweeping arc and spikes the ball so high it sails up and over the goalpost.
All that frustration gone in a rush of satisfaction that comes with a breakthrough. And damn, if I don’t feel better, too. Relieved we’ve figured out how to score on the ground.
The crowd feels it, too, becoming a stream of noise. There’s a chant rising above the general screams of people too excited to realize they should join in.
“Tigers! Tigers! TIGERS!”
Jake swoops back downfield, helmet off, soaking it up. Arms raised to the star-speckled sky, he insists the crowd go louder.
It’s magnetic.
The ground pulsates as I jog toward him—a rumble and roar rolling through Tiger Stadium. The rest of the offense is ahead of me, rushing in for fist bumps and high fives.
So when Jake goes down, I think it’s under the weight of love.
Until a scrap of white-and-silver wedges in my eye, Jake’s orange-clad body smothered into the ground, helmet rolling toward open field.
And then all hell breaks loose. Helmets and fists flying—an all-out brawl at the end zone. The benches dump onto the field, bodies all running full speed at each other, screaming like boy banshees.
FFS.
Jets on, I get there the same time as Kelly, tearing into the fray, determined to pound some skulls to get to Jake. But no matter what’s happening between the two of them, she can’t go in there. Kelly was right that day she yelled at me outside the locker room—she can’t be on the football field. As much as I hate to admit it, she really is too important to the softball team to get hit. And she doesn’t have a helmet. Or pads. Or any protection at all.
Shit.
Automatically, I pin her arms to her sides and hug her to my chest pad.
“The coaches have it, Kelly. The coaches have it,” I tell her, hauling her back over to the sidelines. Deaf to anything but the fight on the field, she lunges forward anyway, trying to pull me along. But I stay upright, hands drilled to her shoulders in focus, grimace set.
“Think of the team,” I shout at her. “You join that mess, you could be out for the year. The team needs you to pitch. You get hurt, there go your team’s chances!”
Logic settles in and she quits struggling so much, softening enough that I finally risk searching for Grey. I twist around to look at the bench—empty as Chick-fil-A on a Sunday. He’s in that freaking mosh pit.
And though I know he said he was all right, that he was healed, that he was only keeping quiet for the scouts, I still squint into the crowd, searching for number sixteen. I mumble a silent prayer that he grabbed his helmet before rushing into this mess of bodies.
It’s all a blend and a blur—scraps of clothing, slips of skin, noise and fury.
Coach Lee’s voice lifts above the din, but, like Grey, it’s impossible to locate him in the fray. My legs itch to run in and find Grey, to grab his hand and pull him away. Keeping him safe seems like a much better use of my time than holding back my ex-boyfriend’s girlfriend. But still, I stay with Kelly, who’s thrashing less now, finally coming to her senses.
Somewhere behind me, an engine revs—Coach Napolitano is driving the cart over. The one used to collect bodies from the field, zipping them to the locker room or, worse, the ambulance.
No. No. No.
It’s a precaution. It has to be. It can’t be that someone—Jake, anyone—can’t get up.
Napolitano noses the cart’s bumper into the heart of the scuffle. The forced motion sends most of the Tetherman players packing to their bench. A few remain, white flecks in a sea of orange.
Unmoving orange.
Everyone has stopped. Eyes drawn forward and down. Napolitano disappears into the mass, hand up—signaling for help.
My fingers slip off Kelly’s shoulders and I hop to the first metal bench, balancing on cleated tiptoes, reaching for something—anything. But the angle’s bad. I can’t see a single thing except helmets reflecting the glare of the stadium lights. My eyes shoot to the crowd—Dad and Danielle have identical emotions telegraphed across their faces: grim, grim, grim. Mom has her hand pressed to her mouth, eyes pinned to the field. A few rows down, I find Jake’s parents—Jerome and Angela—and Max. Oh, Max. Max has his head buried in his mother’s Northland hoodie, little seven-year-old shoulders quaking. Jerome and Angela are talking and then Jerome nods and starts to scoot out of the row. Headed down to the field.
My stomach drops and my blood pressure rises, breathing near impossible. For all the weirdness of our postbreakup-current-teammate relationship, I would still call Jake a friend. And even if we hated each other’s guts, there’s no way on earth I’d ever wish him hurt. Ever.
After a long moment, something stirs in the center and I recognize Jake’s buzzed head.
There are hands on his shoulders. Three visors—Lee, Shanks, and Napolitano—surround him. I exhale as I realize that though they’re keeping him steady, not a single one is gripping him like he’s not moving under his own power. I can see Jake’s mouth moving. Blood streaming down from a cut over his left eye.
When he gets to the cart, Jake takes a seat next to the medic and lifts his head until he’s looking me right in the eye. Even at this distance, I recognize the order.
Win the game, O-Rod.
Jake lifts both arms straight to the sky—touchdown!—and the crowd roars, knowing he’s okay.
“Go get him,” I whisper to Kelly. She immediately starts running after the cart, but then hesitates for a moment, and it’s clear she’s looking for her brother. “I’ll check on Nick and let him know where you’ve gone,” I add.
And then she’s sprinting again without a reply.
I turn back to the fight, now broken up, the coaches and refs turning both sides back to the sidelines. I tell myself he has to be okay. They didn’t bring another cart. Another medic. No one is circled around someone unable to get up because they’ve suffered yet another brain bruise.