by Cassie Mae
“You want to stay over?” she offers.
“I have to get home for Josh.” I force a smile.
“Call me tomorrow.” She wraps her arms around me and pulls me in tight. “Love you.”
“Love you.” I squeeze back.
The slamming of her door echoes in my quiet car. I take a deep breath and back out. I go two blocks, turn left, and then halfway down the block I’m parking…so unfortunately I’m home in no time at all.
Instead of getting out of the car right away I turn off the engine and drop my head onto the steering wheel.
I used to feel like I had the perfect family. I loved coming home. Now there’s nothing left for me to come home to except for my little brother, Josh. And I allow myself sixty seconds of weakness before I need to be strong. It’s a nightly ritual. Just like all nights, sixty seconds rarely feels like enough.
I grab my purse and slowly walk to the front door. When I open it, it’s exactly as I expect. All the lights are on, the TV’s loud, and Mom’s passed out on the couch.
There’s a tissue box in one hand and Dad’s picture in the other.
I flick off everything on my way to Josh’s room. His door is shut so I open it slowly, wincing at the creak it always does when halfway open.
The only light comes from his football nightlight and the only sound is his soft and steady breathing. I creep to his bed and pull his covers up to his chin.
Little eyes flutter, and his mouth hinges open, and then snaps shut. “Sammy, did our team win?”
He scoots over to make room, and I plop down next to him. “Of course. It was a great game. The Trojans were no match for the brave and fearless Skyhawks.”
Thoughts of the black-haired wide receiver bombard my head again, and a smile spreads across my face.
He snuggles into my side. “Will you take me to a game? Please.”
“We’ll see. Now get back to sleep. Love you more than chocolate.”
“Love you more than football.” His eyes slide shut.
“Wow, that’s a lot.” I kiss his forehead and breathe in his sweet little boy smell.
Within seconds his breathing evens and I slide out of bed, re-tuck him in, and creep back to the door where I stop and look back at him.
My little brother must be the sweetest six-year-old in the world. He’s the most important thing in my life now, besides Paige. He’s so innocent and good. Doesn’t deserve the life we’re living now. So I try to be there for him. Try to make him happy. Be his source of stability and dependability.
Mom isn’t that anymore.
I ease the door shut and go check on her. She’s still on the couch, a pair of wrinkled sweats on and flip-flops. Her mouth is agape, and she’s snoring softly. The tissue box is almost empty and crumpled up tissues litter the floor around her. I pry it out of her clenched hand and set it on the table. Dad’s picture is a little harder to get out of her grasp. It’s smashed into her chest like she’s holding on for dear life. When it releases from her hand, a little sob shakes her throat as if she’s going to start bawling, but she goes quiet again.
I sit on the corner of the coffee table and stare at the picture, one of my favorites, running my finger along the warm glass. It was right before Dad left. He’s walking away from the camera in his army fatigues with his duty bag slung over his shoulder. Mom must’ve said something because he turned back to face us, this huge smile on his face.
That was the last time we saw him.
I remember that day like it was a few hours ago. The way the wind was blowing. How the air smelled like rain. I wanted to cry and beg him not to leave, but we had to be “good little soldiers too.” Maybe I had a bad feeling, like I knew this time would be the last. Maybe I just didn’t want him to go.
Either way he never came back.
That was six months ago. And I miss him every day. Mom fell apart when they came to tell us. I came home from school, and she was in bed. My grandparents were here, and all they said to Josh and I was Dad’s unit had been hit and there were mass casualties, including him. He was dead.
Mom took it the hardest. She didn’t get out of bed for a week, then when she did, she wasn’t the same. Now she barely talks or leaves the house. She’s in bed more than she’s out of it. A part of her died with Dad.
I reach down, grab her right foot, slide her shoe off, and then do the other. I put her feet up on the couch and tuck her in like I did Josh. I close my eyes, and give her a kiss on the forehead, wishing for her to come back.
I hate the shell of a person she’s become.
After I pick up all the tissues, I remind myself to pay the bills piled on the kitchen table then go up to my room. A shower washes away the dirt from the football stands, and I slide into my crisp sheets.
Dad, Mom, Josh, and I would go to every football game. Dad loved the game more than anything, except his family. He made All-American playing football for the Skyhawks and also played in college, almost going pro.
He instilled my love for the game when I was very little. Taught me all about it. We’d be out in the backyard playing every weekend. Then Josh came along and when he got big enough to catch a ball, I worried I’d be replaced, but I wasn’t. Josh was added.
So every Friday night I’m at the football game, missing my Dad, wishing he sat next to me. That it was him and me and Josh and Mom.
I start drifting off in my jumble of thoughts, imagining Dad next to me as we watched the Skyhawks beat the Trojans tonight. He would’ve gone on the field in a second when he saw Brad tackle and break that Trojan’s leg. He would’ve calmed people down, been authoritative and intimidating. He might’ve even made a joke about how number eighty-eight was his number too.
Suddenly I’m having very, very girly thoughts, one-eighty-ing from my dad to Koontz and how he played and the muscles I imagine under his jersey. I have to shake my head and pinch myself out of it.
He’s off-limits.
He probably didn’t even think twice about me.
Or maybe he’s thinking about me now.
Great, I’m obsessing about a guy I don’t even know.
If only he wasn’t a Trojan.
My fingers slip on the monkey bars. I let go and land on the balls of my feet, then bend over and snatch my water bottle. Training without Jacoby sucks. Training outside the weight room sucks. But I’m on probation until the sports’ board decides what they want to do with me. Now I just look like a lone creeper in the middle of a playground, trying to show off to the seven-year-olds how many pull-ups I can do.
I wipe my palms on my gym shorts and jump back up to the bars. My face pokes through the gap as I touch my chin to the metal.
One…
Man, I miss the pull up bar. The position of my hands on this thing feels weird.
Two…
Sweat trickles down to my eyelashes, and I snap my eyes shut. Why the hell am I wearing a hoodie? I’m taking this thing off after my set.
Three…
I open my eyes and watch my breath puff out in front of me. Even though I’m sweating, there’s a bite in the morning air.
The routine is always the same. Jog a block to Jacoby’s place, jog a mile to the school, jog the track, three sets of pull-ups, then weight training. I’ve done pretty good so far, minus the jog to Jacoby’s house. But I ran a mile and a half to this park—which is on the cusp of Skyhawk territory. It’s my way of sticking it to them that they can’t take our players out. Lame, but I do what I can—then I ran the track they have here. It’s more uneven than I’m used to, but I feel like I’m getting the same workout.
But after these pull-ups, I don’t know what to do. Maybe I’ll ask a kid if I can bench press him for a bit.
“Ah, come on, guys!”
I finish my set and hop off the bars. I pull off my hoodie, waving my t-shirt from my stomach to dry the accumulating sweat. Cranking my head over my shoulder, I watch the grassy field behind me. A few kids are tossing a football, and one of them is red-face
d and jabbing his finger at one of the others.
“You gotta watch for the cornerbacks, Kingston. They’re gonna take you out in a second if you don’t know where they’re at. You have to have four eyes. One on the ball, one on the end-zone, one on the quarterback, and one on the cornerback!”
I let out a laugh through my heavy breathing. This kid has to be, like, six, and he’s giving the same lecture Coach gave me when I started training as wide receiver.
The kid who got the brunt of the lecture—Kingston, I think he called him—looks at the red-faced boy like he just spouted Greek. Red-face shakes his head and picks up the ball.
“Let’s just run it again.” He tosses the ball to another kid then takes the running back position. I smirk. I figured he was quarterback with the captain attitude.
The quarterback shouts, “Down! Set!” He takes a look around, then at Red-face who nods, then the quarterback screams, “Hike!”
The center makes the snap and misses the quarterback’s hands by several feet.
“Ugh!” Red-face growls and kicks the grass.
I laugh loud enough to catch his attention, his fiery eyes snapping up to meet mine. I never thought I’d be afraid of a six-year-old, but I’m pretty sure he’s possessed by some football devil.
“You think this is funny?” he shouts, and I put my hands up. He stomps across the grass, not intimidated at all that I’m six-foot-three, and he comes up to my waist. “Three weeks we’ve been at this, and my center can’t snap, my quarterback can’t throw, and the wide receiver runs around screaming ‘Don’t throw it yet!’”
I raise my eyebrows, holding back more laughter. “Well, yeah, that is pretty funny.” I squat down to his eye level as he glares. “You’re like, six, right? Why are you worrying so much?”
His nose wrinkles. “It’s football. It’s important.” He looks me up and down, and I’m seriously ready to high-five this kid. “And I’m almost seven.”
I purse my lips and give him a short nod. “Okay…” I stand up straight. “I can quarterback for a bit if you want to practice hand offs.”
He sizes me up again. “You know how to play?”
“You’re talking to number eighty-eight for the—”
“Eighty-eight? You’re not a quarterback.”
Smart six-year-old. “No.” I nod toward his current quarterback, who’s digging his pinky up his nose. “But if you’re satisfied with him, I can go back to my warm-ups.”
He clacks his teeth, eyes going back and forth between the field and me. After a few seconds, he sticks his hand out. “I’m Nolan. Welcome to the team.”
Nolan. Wonder if that’s his last name. I am on the boundary line, but I take a look around and I don’t see the Nolan I decked last Friday. Nolan’s not that uncommon of a name anyway.
I grab his small hand and feel him tighten his grip as we shake. “Koontz.”
We drop hands, and he waves me to the field. I shove my yellow Trojan’s hoodie and water bottle to the edge of the monkey bars and jog a little to catch up to him.
“So, we got ten guys…five on five. I know it’s not enough, but we’re just starting out. You’ll be our extra man. Quarterback for both teams, got it?”
“Yes, sir.” I use the voice I reserve for Coach and Daniels. Nolan seems to appreciate it.
He stops me about ten yards from the other kids. His tough eyes go straight to mine. “Let me talk to the guys first. Make sure they’re cool with it.”
“Yes, sir,” I say again. The first smile I’ve seen on him quirks on his lips as he turns to the players. He waves them in for a huddle, and I cross my arms and watch a miniature version of my own team. Daniels usually gets this deadly serious look on his face when he spouts off the plays in the huddle. Once, after a lecture that left us all feeling like a bunch of pussies, Jacoby tapped his cup and made a hollow noise with his mouth. It loosened us all up, and we played the best game of our lives.
I wonder who the Jacoby is of this six-year-old team.
They clap and only two of them say, “Break!” Nolan looks annoyed at the less than enthusiastic players, but he jerks his head my way and holds the ball out.
“Okay,” he instructs when I run up to him, “hand off to me and I’ll run it. Watch Brewer, he’s tough and only goes after the person with the ball.” He nods to a kid about a head taller than the rest of them. Brewer points at me then slices a finger across his neck.
“Got it,” I say with a strained voice, trying to keep my laughter in.
Nolan reaches up to pat my shoulder, but hits my elbow instead. I jog to my position, tossing the ball to the center who fumbles it. It takes him a good twenty seconds to chase the ball and get back to the lineup.
“You ready?” I ask the center in a low voice and lightly tap his back. He sorta smiles over his shoulder and nods. “All right.” I raise my voice. “Down! Set! Hike!”
The center chucks the ball into my junk as hard as he can, and all the air is knocked from my lungs. Crap, that kid can throw. Maybe he should be the quarterback.
I blink, pushing back the pain in my groin and stick the ball out to Nolan who runs behind me. He snags it from my fingers just as Brewer tackles me from the side.
I underestimated these guys. Severely underestimated. My balls feel like they’re somewhere near my liver, and now there’s this sixty-plus pound kid on my hip, digging his knee on the pressure point in my thigh. So, they want to play. Really play. Even though I’m a heap on the grass I quirk a smile.
All right, I won’t take it as easy next time.
***
“Flag! Flag! That’s holding, Reed!” Nolan waves his arms at the current cornerback—at least, I think that’s Reed’s position—and then snatches the ball from the grass. “You can’t yank on his shirt like that! How many times have I told you?”
“He was going to make a touchdown!” Reed shouts back, throwing his arms in the air. “What else was I supposed to do?”
“You run faster.”
I jog over to the two because I can see the beginnings of a fight about to break out, and I stand between them.
“Hey, let’s run it again.” I give Nolan a look, and he glares at me so I turn to Reed. “Look, when you’re going after the receiver, watch for ways to get him to run out of bounds. Drive him the other way.”
“Okay.”
I tuck an arm around him, and we walk to the white marker we’ve been using as the twenty yard line. Nolan hands the ball to the center, and I take my spot as quarterback.
“Down!”
They all crouch.
“Set!”
“Josh!”
“Dang it.”
Everyone straightens, and I turn around to look at Nolan. He hangs his head and walks across the field to…holy shit.
Her red lips are pursed to a flat line, but there’s a sense of relief that passes her features when Nolan gets within arms’ reach. She’s wearing shorts again, and my gaze won’t stop from going to her killer legs bent at the knees as she pulls Nolan into an airtight hug.
“I hate it when you go out alone. How many times do I have to tell you to wake me up?”
“Sorry,” he muffles into her shoulder, and then he hugs her back. They hold for a moment until he slides out of her grasp. “I was with the guys though. We’re doing so much better today.” He points at me, and I suddenly feel like there’s a blaring spotlight on my face. “Koontz has been giving us some great pointers.”
Her eyes float up, and her mouth pops open. I hope she finds playing football with a bunch of kids charming and not creepy.
She licks her lips, but it doesn’t ruin her makeup. My heart thumps funky patterns in my chest.
“Koontz, huh?” she asks Nolan.
He nods and grabs her hand. “Can we run just two or three more plays? Please?”
She stretches on her drop-dead gorgeous legs. A light smile plays on the edge of her mouth. “Only if I can play, too.”
I swear she looks right a
t me.
“You’re a girl,” Nolan argues with his arms over his chest.
“And I’m good.” Her eyes stay on me. I can’t seem to look away either. “So, let me play, or no deal.”
“Sammy…” he whines, and I jolt a little at her name.
Her gaze drops to Nolan. “Josh…”
He huffs, and then uncrosses his arms. “Fine. But you’re playing opposite me. And Koontz is on my team.”
“That seems fair.”
In what world is this fair? I can barely breathe, let alone concentrate on a game with this girl around.
Brewer sidles up next to me. He gives me a nudge in the hip, and I look at his waggling eyebrows and attempted winks. Damn, how old is this kid?
“Shut up,” I whisper-laugh.
Nolan rubs a hand over his face as he addresses the team. “All right guys, three more plays, but my sister has to play too.”
There are a couple groans, but Sammy tilts her head and wiggles her fingers as if to say, “Bring it.”
I still haven’t found it in me to move at all.
“Defense, line up. We’re running the eye again.” Nolan walks up to me and crooks a finger so I lean down to his level. “Sam’s gonna come at you from the left side. It’s her signature move. Get the ball out of your hands as soon as you can. Reed’s gonna cover Kingston, but he’s got nothing on his speed. Fake it to me, then pass it right side.”
“Guess we’re not doing the eye?” I cock an eyebrow, then let my gaze shoot to Sam. Is it Sam or Sammy? Nolan’s called her both.
And is it Sam Nolan? Because that could be more than a coincidence. But then why would she compliment my right hook if I punched a relative?
He grabs my chin and pulls my face back so I focus on him. “No eye. She’ll plow right over you.”
“Got it.”
I go to stand, but his fingers latch around the collar of my tee. “Listen, you’re a good player. Don’t hold back because she’s a girl. I want one play that doesn’t get messed up.”