“I thought I’d feel better after I took her down,” Brook said. “Do you still plan to go out with her?”
“We’ll see. I did make a promise, though,” I reminded her.
“Maybe you could break a promise just once for me,” she tried.
“I’ll talk to Destiny and see. Maybe I can pay for her and someone she likes to go out to dinner.”
“But if she insists that it’s you?”
“Then I’ll keep my word.”
“Even if I ask you not to?”
“Even if you ask me not to.”
“I love that I know I can count on you. I just hate her,” Brook admitted.
“Did you ever consider that she’s not worth it? I mean, this is all about Destiny being envious of you. It’s not like you’ll stop being head cheerleader or anything.”
“I did work at it and deserve it.”
“I know I wasn’t an easy catch,” I said with a grin.
“Why does everything have to be about you?” Brook shot back.
“It’s about us,” I replied, and leaned down and kissed her.
“Maybe we can get Cassidy to drive us around the block.”
“It would take longer than that,” I complained.
“You’ll have to prove that someday,” Brook teased.
“When I can do more than just lie there, I’ll show you,” I assured her.
“I think you like just lying there, you lazy sack.”
“Bite me, Princess.”
Cassidy showed up.
“I see you two are fine. Now fix Dare,” she said, pointing to him standing behind her.
“Come here and tell me all about it,” Brook said to him.
Dare told her his tale of woe. Brook babied him, and he seemed to be happy by the time lunch was finally over. I should have sent Dare to her in the first place. Then again, I think he likes my girlfriend. I might have to keep an eye on that.
◊◊◊ Friday October 21
I’d grabbed Trent to show him my pregame ritual, now that he was the starting quarterback. We walked over to the boosters’ building so we could eat. They were serving brats and hamburgers. I picked brats. When we sat down, it took a full minute for Jeff Delahey to join us.
“Let me give you some tips on how to deal with Jeff,” I told Trent. “You can talk freely with him if you check to see if you’re ‘off the record.’ Are we off the record?”
“Yeah, I want to eat first,” Jeff said.
I was impressed when his cameraman left and got food instead of lurking off to the side, videoing us. We’d all become somewhat accustomed to having a camera on us when we did anything football-related. The documentary was going well. Jeff said that he’d been told that Netflix was in negotiations to pick it up. They’d shown a couple of different sports-related documentaries.
Last week’s episode had featured Cassidy. After watching it, you would have thought she was the key to our success. Jeff had skillfully portrayed what she did to get us in shape. It was shown how we were in better condition in the fourth quarter than our opposition. The other team always had their hands on their hips and were gassed. You could see we’d played hard to that point but were ready to perform because we were just set to start the next play.
I was happy when they interviewed everyone who’d worked with her. Those people couldn’t say enough about my little ninja. Jeff had taken care to not just focus on the players and coaches. Last week was Cassidy, and this week the focus was on our training staff. I knew that the following week would have a segment on our tutors.
While we ate, I told Trent to work on his clichés. He had to learn to say, ‘We play them one game at a time’ or ‘There’s not a quarterback controversy on this team’ or ‘Dawson is a real gunslinger.’
“Tell me about how good the other team is and how your success is all due to God,” Jeff helped.
“Good points. You don’t want to give the other team poster-board material. Coach will have your butt for that,” I told Trent and then turned to Jeff. “God is in everything we do.”
Okay, pointing to the sky might have been over the top, but I’d noticed that the cameraman had aimed his video camera at us when he sat down. I was sure this was all being filmed.
When Trent did his interview, he did a good job. Jeff didn’t try to trap him with anything. Of course, he asked me what I thought the score would be. I predicted we would win by five touchdowns. Trent wasn’t sure what to make of that.
◊◊◊
Not playing allowed me to go flirt with my girlfriend while our team warmed up. I’d been able to lose the crutches, but I wasn’t moving very fast. She seemed much more relaxed without having Destiny there to second-guess everything she did.
“Want to get out of here?”
“I’m kind of busy. Aren’t you supposed to be doing something?” Brook asked.
“We could get busy together,” I suggested.
She pushed up onto her tiptoes and pulled my head down for a kiss. Damn girl!
“That will have to hold you.”
“Mr. Happy has some other ideas,” I teased.
I spotted Mr. Palm glaring at us from the stands. Public Displays of Affection (PDA) rules almost certainly applied to school events. I wanted to play next week and not have to deal with whatever the punishment was for PDAs, but Brook had me wound up.
Dare seemed to have a sixth sense about when I want to get busy with Brook because he appeared out of nowhere and mumbled something.
“What did you say?” Brook asked him.
“We have to go into the locker room,” he said, clear as day.
“Why can’t you talk to me like that?” I asked.
He mumbled something else. I decided I didn’t need to know what it was.
“I’ll see you later,” I said to Brook and waggled my eyebrows.
◊◊◊
Coach Hope sent me out alone for the coin toss, while Riverside sent five guys. The smack talk started right away.
“I see you’re scared to play us,” one of their linemen said.
“Nah, we decided to give you a chance tonight.”
“You couldn’t beat us even if you played,” their quarterback predicted.
“You’re probably right, as banged up as I am,” I admitted.
“If you ladies are done, let’s do the coin flip,” the referee said to get us back on track.
We won and deferred to the second half. Coach Rector wanted to get his defense on the field and find out if they planned to run the same ten plays to start the game. The first play on the list was dive left. Coach Rector had decided that our base defense would do and warned Tim not to cheat over to help Jake, who’d taken my place at middle linebacker.
All the coaches had big smiles when Riverside ran the predicted play and only gained a yard. If they followed their pattern, their next would be a pitch to the right. We called a cornerback blitz to that side of the field. Right before the snap, Ed had begun to shuffle towards the end of the line. On the snap, he sprinted into the backfield untouched. Riverside’s quarterback faked the handoff up the middle and turned to toss the ball to their tailback. He saw Ed just as he began to pitch it and ended up short-arming it. If he hadn’t, Ed was in a position to either disrupt the play or intercept the lateral. The ball was on the ground, and Ed was right there to jump on it. The whole stadium erupted with cheers and the ringing of cowbells as he landed on it. It was now first and ten for the good guys on our opponent’s 18 yard line.
Trent led our offense onto the field and handed the ball to Ty three times for the score.
On the next series, we intercepted a pass. Coach Rector had pulled one of his sneaky moves where it looked like a receiver was open, but he’d snuck a linebacker underneath to try to pick it off. This time, Jake was in position to leap and tip the ball up, and it came back down into his arms. He showed both his speed and his moves as he weaved through their team for the score. In the first four minutes, we were already up 14–0.