“Hey,” I snapped. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Quinn’s head shot up, and when she noticed it was me, she rolled her eyes and looked back down at her notebook. My skin started to prickle with anger. I stepped over to the barrier, reached over it, and snatched the notebook away.
“I asked you a question,” I snarled.
Quinn stood up and reached out for the notebook, but I pulled it out of reach.
“Give that back.”
I looked down at the notebook, and it was a flurry of difficult to read notes on the game. To my insult, it seemed that most of the notes were regarding our opponents. I threw it into the stands a few rows back from where she was sitting.
She rolled her eyes and huffed, “That was mature.”
“I thought I’d get rid of that useless information for you.” She turned around, but I reached over, grabbed her arm, and pulled her back to face me. “Don’t walk away from me while I’m talking to you.”
“Hey! Matheson!” Tyler called.
Tyler was already running over, but before I could even look in his direction, Quinn swung out and struck me right across the face.
“Hey! Knock it off!” Tyler yelled at us.
My face stung, and though it wasn’t enough to break my jaw, the force behind it would certainly leave me bruised.
“Keep your hands off of me,” Quinn growled.
I stabbed a finger out at Tyler. “Don’t.” Tyler and the few remaining members of the team who’d stuck around stopped in their tracks. “Get out.”
Tyler took a step closer. “Zeke.”
“Now!” I shot a glare at him. “I have business to take care of.”
Quinn was walking back down from where I’d thrown her notebook and was scooping up her stuff.
“I asked you why you were here. You trying to jack my plays? Ruin my chances of going pro?”
“Ha!” Quinn laughed. “First, what plays? Second, you’re not going pro. If you honestly think you’re going pro with the shit way you played tonight, I’m the Queen of England.”
I wanted to argue, but knew I couldn’t. I was so distracted that I barely registered when a ball was in my hand. It was all her fault, though. “You think you know better than me, still? After the way we trounced you.”
“You had twice my team size.”
I couldn’t argue with that, either, but I wasn’t about to be pushed around. “Whatever excuses make you feel better.”
“I’m not making excuses. You slaughtered us. You were right. We had no business getting onto that field with you.” The sudden confession took me back a little. “But I’m not about to give up on my team because some crybaby chasing the pros thinks that we should. If you really want to go pro, prove that you can handle it without being a brat about it. Your team runs plays like you’re all using individual playbooks, and you’re a fucking blackhole. When the ball is in your hand, no one on your team can tell what you’re going to do, and it shows. You probably think it’s all of them that can’t get it together, but it’s the fact that you’re out there running mystery plays!”
I stood speechless for a moment. Her words coiled around my neck and started to gently close in. I was the problem? Not in a million years. I was officially done with Quinn Dallen. If crushing her with her team wasn’t enough to shut her up, I’d do it one-on-one. “You think you’re so smart? Come put your money where your mouth is.”
“What?” she asked.
“Right now. Come down on this field and run drills with me. Run plays. Show me for yourself how weak I am.” This was what it was going to take to get Quinn out of my mind. I’d put her down so hard she’d never want to touch a football again.
“Fine.” Quinn grabbed her jacket and backpack, climbed up onto the barrier, and then jumped the two feet down from the top of the barrier to the field. “But don’t expect me to make any more stupid bets.”
“Why would I? You’ll just go back on them,” I sneered. Quinn stared at me through hate-filled eyes, but I stood my ground. “What? It wasn’t me who made an announcement on Twitter the next day. It was you.”
Quinn watched me for a long time before finally looking away and continuing forward. I saw a hint of embarrassment flash across her face before her wrath replaced it. I started after her and noticed that Tyler hadn’t taken my order to leave.
“Are you still here?” I asked.
He held an arm out in my path to stop me. “Zeke, this is a bad idea.”
“Move. I’m ending this.” I slapped his hand away. “Leave a football.”
Tyler let out a long, disgusted sigh, but eventually started to move. “I’m leaving the water, too. If one of you kills the other, I’m not responsible. Don’t stain my field.”
I ignored his comments. The only death here would be Quinn’s dreams. I wanted to crush them once and for all.
I walked over to our bench and started to take off my jersey and pads, leaving only a tank top and my field pants on. When I turned around, Quinn had similarly disrobed, leaving her in a pair of black form-fitting leggings and a teal and gray sports bra. I looked her up and down while she took her hair and knotted it up on top of her head. I’d really only seen her in football gear up to that point.
With her body more exposed, I could see how fit she was. I didn’t necessarily have a type of woman. I didn’t usually pay much attention, but the setting sun formed a gray halo around Quinn’s wide hips and slender waist leading up to her larger bust. I supposed she was probably the kind of woman men found attractive. I might, too, if she wasn’t deplorable.
She caught my gaze and shrugged her shoulders. “What?”
“If you think that getup is going to distract me, you’re wrong,” I replied.
She scoffed. “The only way I use my body to distract someone is when it’s putting their face in the turf. Don’t flatter yourself.” Definitely not attractive. “So, what magical drills and plays are we running, and exactly when were you planning on telling your team?”
“We’re starting with suicides,” I growled back.
She shrugged. “End zone to end zone?”
She didn’t wait for my response and made her way toward the left end zone. Was she Spartan? I wasn’t planning on going from end zone to end zone. Even in practice, I only made the team run half the field, but I was too embarrassed to admit it. She was already standing on one end zone line, looking at me like I’d suggested little more than going for a light jog. I wasn’t about to be one-upped, so I walked and joined her on the end zone line.
“Fives or tens?” she asked.
It took everything in me not to show my surprise at the question. Suicides were a drill that involved starting in one place, running to a predetermined location, tapping the floor at that location, and then running back to the starting point and tapping it. When you repeated the cycle you went to a second, further point and repeated the process, increasing the distance interval by interval until you’d run the entire allotted distance. A football field was a hundred yards and had yard lines every five yards and marked yard lines every ten yards. The up and down and back and forth of suicides was intense on the body but helped increase stamina and were particularly good for football players who were constantly being pulled in all directions on the field.