“Hey, Landon!” shouted a familiar voice. I snapped out of my reverie to see Denny, waving at me from the sidelines. The team was taking their time to disband after practice—fellas were congregating by the cooler while others made breaks for the locker room—but my old friend and confidant had elected to go off by himself. He toed the twenty yard line like a guy debating whether or not to ask some girl to prom. I was so surprised by his powerless stance that I forgot for a second that he'd swooped in and stolen my ex-girlfriend (before she'd technically been an ex-).
Curious, I moseyed over. Denny seemed relieved when I arrived at his side. Palms up, to indicate I meant him no trouble. His typically snarky expression seemed drained of joy today, and he didn't look like he'd been sleeping well. Come to think of it, during last night's game with Arkansas he'd made something like three errors. Neither of us were exactly lavishing in the team's good graces at the moment.
“Hey, man,” he repeated, shuffling in his cleats. I just crossed my arms. Let the sonofabitch work for it. Around us, most of the team dwindled back towards the locker rooms. On the opposite end of the field, the coaches bent their heads low in a dire-looking conference.
“I'm sorry,” my old pal blurted out finally, his whole pasty face flushing red. “About Zora, and everything. I feel like a shit. I've liked her for years, and I didn't think—I was just...” I raised my eyebrows, to gesture him forward—but that seemed to be about all the apology my bro could muster.
“I honestly didn't mean to hurt you, man. Never.” His tone had shifted. He sounded more plaintive, more sincere, than I'd ever known this fucking jokester to be. In a breath of clarity, I saw a vision of Doll in my mind's eye. Right about now, she'd be shuffling to her Intro to Classics class, probably in a hurry, probably straining to handle an armload of books. She'd be wearing those cute-ass little booty shorts, and she'd be asking her professor direct questions, brow all furrowed in that maddening way I'd come to recognize. It was like a fog was lifting. I snapped back to the field, to Denny, whining out his wimp's apology—and I decided it didn't matter. What did I care who Zora wanted to shack up with? I knew her, I knew Denny—they were total losers, but I wanted them to be happy. And nothing was going to rain on my fucking parade.
“Dude, we're tight,” I said slowly, cracking a grin. Denny's whole face collapsed with relief. We went in for a bro hug, and it felt good, I must admit. In a weird way, I'd missed this fucking idiot.
“You're aces, man. And hey—don't listen to what all these shit-stains say. We're gonna wipe the floor with the Aggies, and the Colorado coach is going to tap you, and everything's gonna be wavy-gravy. You'll see.”
“Yeah, whatever,” I said brightly. I mean, I knew how slim the odds were that I'd make first pick of my favorite team as a freshman in the NFL. And more and more, I didn't care. I could get to Colorado without football. I could do tons of things without football, and live a perfectly dandy life.
“Though I will say, your head does seem to be screwed on not-quite-tight, my brother.” Denny took his big arm and linked it around my neck in a half-nelson. “Come on! Tell your bro! What poon has got you trippin’ like this? Is this fucking Shakespeare-level love, or what?”
“Hey, man, I don't need to tell you what a man will put up with for a good time.” No sooner had I said this then I felt a wave of shame. Something had changed, somehow—talking about Ashleigh the way I used to talk about all the football groupie girls felt distinctly wrong. Denny, however, seemed pleased with the opportunity to conspire.
“Oh, do I. Zora's got these tight little...” I shot him a steel-melting look of caution, and Denny pulled his arm back. “But, err, right. You know all about that.”
We began to walk back towards the locker room in a tentative silence—a new color for our friendship, but a hopeful one. I decided we could continue if Denny could pass a confidence test; we always used to tell each other shit. I stopped in my tracks, scoured the field for coaches, and turned to face him.
“Okay, man. There is a girl. And—don't laugh, but it's Ashleigh. Err—Ashleigh Bennett.” Denny reached back to scratch his neck, not looking at me. We hovered under the hot noon sun for what felt like a minute, just being weird.
“My...well, you know. There's actually been a lot of weird shit going down with her—our—parents, and they're going to be spending some time apart. And Ash and I have this really weird connection, and I know it seems fast, but it's actually not...” I was totally babbling now, but something about Denny's flinty stance was making me crave his approval.
“Classic Sterling,” my old friend said finally. “You like something, you take it. Doesn't matter what the world will think, or how it will affect anyone else.”
“Dude. What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You seriously think dating your stepsister is a good idea? By anyone's estimate? I don't care if her nipples taste like beer and her pussy like honey, you're seriously gonna walk onto that field tomorrow and try to convince some representative from the NFL that you're a squeaky-clean, scandal-free candidate for a new standard in American football?”
“Where the fuck are you getting this, man? People date all the time! And if you're so concerned with the moral code of the NFL, you're really gonna hate this story about Ray Lewis that the whole world must've forgotten to tell you.”
“Is she even eighteen, Landy?! Christ!”
“Oh, my bad. I'm thinking of Michael Vick. Oh, I'm thinking of O.J. Simpson. Oh, I'm thinking of –”
“Will you cut the crap? For once?” In a fluid, furious gesture, Denny slammed his helmet down against the dirt so hard he drew a divot on the green. Across the field, our coaches looked up and shaded their eyes.
“Fine. Forget I said anything.” Feeling petulant and confused, I started to amble away from the fucking Tasmanian Devil. What had I even been thinking? Denny was a piece of shit, everyone knew it. Who needed him?
“Landon! Landon, listen!” I didn't turn, just kept walking—but his words carried. “You're so hard to be friends with, man. We all just watch you making these stupid fucking mistakes, over and over and over. You don't like Zora? Well, then why didn't you fucking break up with her when you had the chance? You really hate football so much, you hate this team? Well, no one is keeping you here! Your Dad messes you up? Then stop taking care of him! Don't let him leech off you like this for your whole fucking adult life!” I began to break into a run. Denny's words seemed to fall like raindrops on my back. “And for God sakes, man! You could have any girl in the whole state and you want your step-sister? Why do you make everything so goddamned hard for yourself?”
The locker room door clicked behind me with a metallic thud. For the first time all practice, I was seriously winded. It felt horrible.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ashleigh
September 26th
Like an asshole, I watched Mr. Dempsey slump back to his car from Carson's porch. I was crouched down in the window seat in the upstairs turret, so only a slice of my hair could be visible from the street. My face was hot with shame, watching him turn and look up at the house. And yet, at the same time, I was a little peeved. Why couldn't he read the signals? It seemed so clear to me that there was nothing between us, and yet he was coming over to Carson's every other day, lingering on the porch like some sad sack while she puttered unawares by the pool.