“Maybe she’s in a snit about the game last week,” Jansen said.
“Hmm.” I made a plan to try and get a hold of her later, but for the time being, we had to focus. “All right, listen. I talked to Zeke last night—” My words were interrupted by hoots and hollers and Cal dancing next to me. I swatted his arm. “Knock it off, this is serious.”
Cal put his hands up. “My bad.”
“We started talking about Wright, and it turns out that all of this was a huge set-up. He set up Zeke, and he set us up, too,” I explained.
“Wait,” Mala said, “so we’re not really going for semi-pro.”
“No, we are, but on Wright’s terms right now. He’s intentionally making this a huge publicity stunt. The outcome of our games doesn’t really matter to him. He just wants the views.”
“Gross,” Kris grumbled.
“Yeah. He went to Zeke and called us amateurs and came to me and called Zeke a pro wannabe. He purposely tried to turn this into this huge, heated rivalry on and off the field so he could make money off it.” I crossed my arms. “Fortunately, we figured it out, but no one on this team is to talk to him for any reason. If he contacts you, simply don’t respond.”
“Can we do that?” Hollie asked. “Isn’t this, like, all up to him?”
“Let Cal and me worry about that. He may be at the top, but there’s a whole board. If I need to fight for us because he tries to pull us out now or something, we can, but we need to handle him with fireproof gloves. I’m serious, and if he tries to approach any of you, let me know right away.”
Everyone nodded with understanding, so I looked over at Cal. “All right, the floor is yours, Coach. I’m gonna try and get in touch with Lila.”
Cal nodded. “Cool.” He clapped his hands. “All right, Widows. We’re gonna start by closing in our gaps from last week. Lila ran us rampant, but we all have stuff to work on. Let’s get started.”
I left Cal and the team to their devices and pulled my phone out of my bag. It was difficult to ignore the new messages I’d received from Zeke, but I practiced patience and navigated to Lila’s number. I called her first, but it went straight to voicemail. I tried it again, but the second time, it rang only a couple of times before going to voicemail. Her phone wasn’t off. She was intentionally ignoring me. I typed her a quick text about how we needed to talk about what happened and that, even if we were at odds right now, we needed her, and then put my phone down and went to join my team.
Lila never showed up for practice, and when Wednesday rolled around, she wasn’t there again. Max confirmed again that she’d spoken with Lila’s sister, and Lila was okay—she was just ignoring us.
“If this is her way of quitting, it’s a pretty shitty way of doing it,” Jazz growled once practice was over on Wednesday.
“It just isn’t like her,” I responded. “She loves football, and there’s nowhere else in Idaho that she can play.”
“Plus, she’s not a quitter,” George added in. “I agree, there’s something else going on. I’m just afraid of what.”
“Well, in any event, are we going to have to forfeit our game? We’re down to ten players,” Beck asked.
Cal held up a hand. “Fortunately, no. We can technically play with less than eleven players, just not more. It’s gonna be tough, though.”
“Can we find someone else?” Kris asked. “I know we only have two days, but it’s not impossible, right?”
“We can only play with the team entered on the roster I submitted when I applied,” I admitted sadly. “I’m sorry, ladies. We’re gonna have to figure out how to do it with just ten of us.”
Dejectedness circled around us like a low, dark cloud. “That’s gonna be hard. Colorado is crazy,” Jansen grumbled.
“Don’t worry. I’ve already got some ideas I’ve been working on to use our strengths creatively,” Cal said. “You’ve already gotten so much better in the past couple of weeks. There’s not a doubt in my mind that we can do it.” He looked at me. “But if we do go semi-pro, getting more players will be the first order of business.”
“I have a few that might be interested,” Mala said. “Ever since we started all this stuff, a few of my friends have asked.”
Jazz nodded. “Few of mine, too.”
“Who knows. We could have applications pouring in once we’re official.” Kris flashed me a smile. “It’s gonna be awesome.”
I grinned at the way her excitement immediately lifted the spirits of the group. “Hell yeah, it is.”
“All right, ladies. Let’s plan on meeting up tomorrow like we talked about. It’ll be good to get some practice in, knowing Lila probably won’t be back,” Cal said. “Go home, get rest.” He snapped. “Don’t forget to stretch. I’m serious.”
I grabbed my phone on my way to stretch and sent Zeke a text.
Hey, are you free after practice
today?
I’m always free for you,
gorgeous.
I need some help developing
a new game plan. Lila’s out.
I’ll be home by seven. Meet me
there?
I’ll see you soon.
23
Zeke
I was a ball of excitement, which was probably a bad thing because I was definitely going well over the speed limit while racing home. “You’re the best. Now get out of my house.”
“Huh, what a weird way to say, ‘Thank you for coming and cooking me and my girlfriend dinner, Daniel.’ What language is that?”
Daniel was on my car’s speakerphone, live from my house where he’d just finished cooking Quinn and me a nice dinner. I was already planning on inviting her over but thought I had more time. I wasn’t expecting Quinn to text first, not that I had any complaints.
“Thank you for coming and cooking me and my girlfriend dinner, Daniel,” I said. “Now get out of my house.”
“I would just like the record to show that this relationship is terribly uneven,” Daniel quipped. “Last time you came to my house, you ran off at least a month’s worth of sex, stole my clothes, and still had breakfast cooked for you.”
“I borrowed your clothes. They are now back in your possession. You like cooking breakfast, and you said that guy was boring,” I huffed back.
“I said a month’s worth of sex, not a month’s worth of entertainment,” Daniel replied.
“You’re gross,” I grumbled. I tried to be patient with his womanizing—and man…izing—because I knew that he was just trying to make due until he could reunite with this long lost love of his, but in the meantime, he was treating the people he happened across pretty poorly. “Out of curiosity, what happens if you never see this guy again, the one you’re acting like this for? What if he’s, like, married with two kids in Omaha or something?”
Daniel didn’t respond right away. I waited for a response, but when he spoke again, it was totally unrelated. “All right, your brisket is warming in the oven. Asparagus are in there with it. Halved baby potatoes are on top, covered in foil, and yes, I brought a bottle of wine because I’m a good person.”