Tim saw me watching and smiled.
“What are you looking at, wuss?” he smirked.
“I was just hoping you don’t sprain your dingus. Obviously, it’s not getting a ‘regular’ workout, unless it’s a Rosy Palm massage,” I retorted.
Tim sat up and did a neck roll. You could hear a lot of popping, but that wasn’t necessarily bad. He scratched his head, looked down for a second, then back up at me.
“You can’t really know how isolated I felt after my injury last fall. After some initial visits, they dropped off pretty quickly. You and Wolf were the only two who kept visiting me no matter what.
“I have some goals, and the big one is competing through college and maybe beyond, hopefully on the same team you’re on. Now I’m doing whatever it takes to be ready for next fall. Fortunately, we now have people who can guide us through a good weight program, and who helped set me up a workable rehab plan. Believe me, I’m gonna take full advantage of it,” Tim explained.
I remembered Tim was the only one who came up to me last summer, asking to work out. He showed initiative, and that meant a lot.
Tim was a good guy; not the most brilliant guy, but a solid ‘B/C’ student who always got his work done and who didn’t want or expect anything to be handed to him. He wasn’t the most socially adept guy, either, and mainly was the ‘go along, get along’ sort. That was except when it came to football, and except when it came to his dream, which was to be an architect.
Most importantly, to me, he was a good friend whom I could trust. It was beginning to sink into me how rare and valuable that was.
Oh, yes. Tim was also an absolute lights-out middle linebacker when he was healthy!
I smiled happily at my friend and comrade, gave him a ‘bro’ handshake, and walked off to see what else was going on.
I ambled over and watched Wolf as he did squats. We had a new squat rack that was designed to hold the bar slightly below shoulder level. You would get under it and then lift the weight, do the squat, and then put it back into the slot. It had a safety feature that wouldn’t allow the bar to go below a certain level.
Wolf would go all the way down and then jump. It wasn’t like he was doing light weights. There had to be two hundred pounds on the bar.
“What are you doing?” I asked when he was done.
“Coach Rector says I need to learn to jump better. He has me doing this exercise so that if someone’s hanging on me, I can handle the weight. It also helps me learn to land correctly so I don’t get injured. You’re going to love this guy. I’ve been working with him for a month and a half and already added two inches to my vertical jump,” Wolf bragged.
“Wow, he doubled your vertical jump in just six weeks?” I asked, acting shocked.
“If I weren’t so tired, I’d kick your ass. Welcome home, I missed you,” Wolf said and tried to hug me.
He was a sweaty mess, so I made a hasty exit to the locker room.
◊◊◊
My next two classes were Art Appreciation and English Composition. Ms. Saunders and Mrs. Comer each gave us a quiz and then had me come to their desks and caught me up on what I’d missed the first week. My next class was Spanish. I really hadn’t wanted to take it, but after living in LA, I realized I needed to be able to at least understand what people were saying about me. I had a clue about what Rosy said, but I wanted to surprise her when I could respond.
“Hola, tomen sus asientos,” Ms. Cruz said as we entered the room.
I nodded and took my seat. Ms. Cruz was older and had a kind face. I wondered if I’d entered an advanced class because each student answered her in Spanish. When the bell rang, she looked at me.
“¿Quién eres tú?”
I was clueless. Lily was sitting beside me.
“She asked who you are.”
“David, David Dawson,” I said.
“Hola, David Dawson. Welcome to Spanish One. In this class, we will speak Spanish as much as possible. When you came in, I greeted each student, and they greeted me back. Tomorrow, I expect you to say hello. Do you know any Spanish you can share with the class?” Ms. Cruz asked.
“Gracias, la comida era deliciosa and su lindo,” I said.
Lily shook her head at my poor attempt at Spanish.
“So you like my cooking and think I’m cute,” she translated.
“Sí,” I said.
“He’s a bit of a flirt. You should be careful,” Lily said.
I could tell I would like this class.
◊◊◊
Coach Stork taught AP World History, which was followed by the second semester of AP Physics I with Mr. Hicks, our athletic director. Finally, I had Mr. Quiroz and Principles of Business.
I found Alan was in all my afternoon AP classes. The class rankings had come out, and Gina was number one. I was in third place behind Brook, and coming in fourth was Zoe. Alan had dropped to number five because of his ‘B+’ in PE. I felt for him because I’d almost gotten a ‘B’ in PE in swimming my freshman year.
◊◊◊
After school, Cassidy was waiting for me at my locker.
“I thought I might stop by in case you thought you’d sneak out on sixty minutes of hell your first day back.”
That had been my plan.
“I’ll meet you there,” I tried.
She reached into my pants pocket and snagged my keys.
“Hey,” I complained.
“You get these back after you work out,” she said and left me wondering if I should just walk home.
I went and put on my gym clothes to join everyone, but before I made it out of the locker room, Moose, my baseball coach, reached out and snagged me.
“David, I’ve heard Coach Rector wants you to go out for seven-on-seven football this spring,” he said with a watchful expression on his face.
“Coach, it’s a nice offer, but I really want to play baseball this year. I have a chance to make the national Under-18 team as an outfielder, and that’s a dream I just won’t pass up,” I said.
Moose looked relieved.
“You’ll have to tell me about that when you have more time.”
I thought that was it, but he continued.
“I’ve been kind of watching you, and I think you could go far in baseball, with the right coaching. The only problem is you have so many things pulling you in all different directions.
“Now I’m glad to know you’ll be there when formal practice starts in March. But do what you can to keep your skills up and get prepared beforehand if possible. I really want you to be ready to focus on baseball once regular practice starts. Do you think you can do that for me?” Moose asked.
He was already worried about that, and I had to admit he had a good reason to be worried.
“Coach, I’ll do my best, and I’ll try like hell not to let you down.”
He gazed at me for a moment, nodded, and turned to walk down the hall.
Cassidy was frowning at me when I ran to join the group.
“Well, at least you can run fast,” was all she said.
Cassidy must have been feeling extra evil today because she worked us hard. Surely my being late didn’t have anything to do with it!
I was glad to see I wasn’t the only one struggling. I admit to not being as diligent as I should’ve been while in LA, but I was still in good shape. All the work I’d put in the last couple of years didn’t just go away in six weeks.
Cassidy was finally happy when my half brother had to run outside and puke. When we were almost done, Coach Hope, Cassidy’s dad and our head football coach, stuck his head in the gym and motioned for me to join him. Cassidy gave me a dirty look, but I just shrugged as if her dad’s request was out of my control. I happily followed him to his office.
“Welcome back. You ready to get back to it?” he asked.
“I am.”
“That’s good because Coach Mason has sent over the new playbook. From what I see, he plans to minimize you running the ball. You’ll also be under center most of the time.”