by Rebel Hart
I glanced sideways at her. Were we making small talk now? “Yeah. Adam’s the oldest, then Ezra, Uri, Daniel, then me.”
“Is Zeke short for something?” she asked.
I was getting sick of turning my head back and forth, so I repositioned on the bench so that I had a leg sitting on either side and faced Quinn. “Yeah, Zekeriah.”
Quinn mimicked my actions and turned to face me. “Is it Jewish?”
“Yeah. I’m Jewish. Non-practicing. Daniel and Uri, too, but Ezra and Adam are practicing. Adam’s a minister like my dad.”
Quinn chuckled. “My dad was a pastor.”
“Seriously?”
She nodded. “Yep. Though it was just me and my sister, Honey. Well, until Alec came along.”
“Late baby?” he asked.
“No. He was my best friend in middle school, and then his parents kicked him out because they found him making out with a guy. He still isn’t all that sure what his sexuality is, only that he’s just not straight. My parents took him in, and then right before we started our freshman year, they adopted him.”
I furrowed my brow. “Are you lying? Did you Google my whole life or something?”
“What?” Quinn said with a laugh.
“The reason my brothers and I don’t really follow the religion is because of its stance on homosexuality. My brother, Daniel, he’s not really straight, not really gay. He just…is. My parents didn’t kick him out or anything like that, but things were rough for a while. Daniel and Uri are really close, and Daniel and I are really close, so when things went sour between him and my parents, we sort of stood with him in solidarity, I guess. Things are better now.” I flicked at the splintering wood on the bench. “So, you’re close to your brother, too, then?”
“Yeah, we live together. We have almost everything in common, except he’s not really into football. So, I guess we don’t have that much in common.”
I laughed. “I know what you mean. Danny tries, but he struggles.” Quinn smiled, and it was like my whole world lit up. I couldn’t stare directly at it, or I’d go blind. “I guess I just don’t get it. People and their responses to someone wanting to be with a guy versus a girl. It’s their business. Fuck off.”
“It’s so simple, yet some people have the hardest time with it.” Quinn chuckled. “I remember sitting down with my parents to explain to them what had happened with Alec, and they just, like, didn’t get it. I told them that Alec had been caught with a guy, and they couldn’t get around the fact that he’d snuck out in the first place. When I told them his parents weren’t mad about that part, they didn’t know what else in the story would make them mad.”
I grinned. “That’s awesome. Progressive parents are gonna save the world.”
“No kidding.”
Silence found us again, and I was a little disappointed. I couldn’t think of the last time I sat and legitimately enjoyed conversation with someone. I wasn’t sure what it was about Quinn, but it made me feel like I could continue telling her about my life and hearing about hers and never get sick of it.
“Sorry,” I said finally. “For accusing you of pitying me. And grabbing you before. And purposely trying to embarrass your team. And trying to get you to withdraw yo—”
“Stop,” she said. “It’s okay. I hope you know that I’d never pity you, by the way. There’s no room in football for shit like that.”
I nodded as a smile rose to my face. “Right.”
Quinn took a deep breath and then chuckled. “Well, I’d better get going. I’m still pretty sore from someone’s practice tactics.”
“Oh,” I replied. “Sorry about that, too.”
“I’m not. That was the most fun I think I’ve ever had.”
My heart thumped. “Yeah. Me too.”
Quinn stood up awkwardly. Half-turning and stopping to look back, she finally uttered, “Bye.”
“Bye.” Quinn started off, and I stood up off the bench. “Quinn.”
She looked back at me, and my skin sizzled at the look of hope on her face. I suddenly felt short of breath. What was going on all of a sudden? “Good luck with your next game.”
Smooth, Zeke. Her next game wasn’t until Wednesday.
“Thanks.”
She gave me another brilliant smile before turning around and continuing on off the field and out of sight, leaving me to deal with the rapid beating in my heart and the odd ache that I felt once she was gone.
16
Quinn
I’d honestly be surprised if any picture taken of me at the current moment didn’t depict actual steam coming out of my ears. I was so angry I could spit nails. We were in the middle of our second qualifying match, and we were down by three touchdowns, about to be a fourth if we couldn’t kick our defense into shape. I wasn’t the type of person to be upset about losing a game. I understood that losing was just as much a part of football as winning. Losing was almost always a learning experience. If we never lost, we’d never get better. That said, losing because someone on my own team was sabotaging our game—that was unforgivable.
No one could have convinced me that Lila hadn’t been paid to create tension in our game. She was doing more fighting with the Black Widows than she was with the players on the other team, and the opponents were smart enough to capitalize. While Lila was busy shoving Hollie or Gria out of the way so that she could get to someone she surreptitiously decided was her mark, that mark would blow past them. Half the points the other team had gotten were received while I was busy trying to keep Lila from jumping on George for running to the left instead of the right when George was specifically supposed to run to the right.
At the end of the third quarter, Cal tried to give Lila some direction, but she wouldn’t give him the time of day. He responded by trying to flex some of his power and threaten to pull her out of the game, but Lila knew it was a mostly empty threat. We needed our entire team in order to legally play the game, not to mention that if Cal was going to pull Lila, he’d have to physically pull her, and I couldn’t imagine that would be an easy task. I told Lila that if she continued to play like the animal she was, I’d kick her off the team and find a replacement, but she didn’t care about that, either. When the whistle blew for the beginning of the fourth quarter, Lila moved out to the field like neither myself nor Cal had said anything at all.
The fourth quarter was just a carbon copy of the first three, apart from Lila’s new habit of going out of her way to try and tackle me. A couple of times, we slammed into each other, and she tried with all her might to take me off my feet. She wasn’t able to get me down, but it would take the combined efforts of the entire team to drag her away. We got two flags for delay of game, on top of the one personal foul Lila had already gotten for roughing up a player on the other team. Most of her aggression had gone unchecked because it was against us and not the other team.
Our opponents moved almost half the field because of our delay of games, so getting another touchdown was easy. By the end of the game, my entire team was exhausted and frustrated. We stood in dejected silence while the spectators and opposing team left the game because Cal had gotten us in the habit of anticipating notes after games and practices. When the field was entirely empty and we’d all removed our helmets and pads, Cal moved to stand in front of us. I was so angry that I was snatching grass out of the ground in clumps.
“All right, well, I think it goes without saying that this game did not go as it was supposed to go, and I don’t typically like to place blame,” he looked over at Lila, “but we spent a lot of our time fighting amongst ourselves. Lila, I know you don’t like me, but it wouldn’t matter if I was the First Lady of the United States—she’d tell you that your attitude out there cost us the game.”
Lila stood up immediately and started to walk away. I jumped up off the ground and started after her.
“Dallen,” Cal called, but I ignored him.
I ran up to her and grabbed her arm. “Stop.”
She stopp
ed in her tracks and looked over at me. “Let me go.”
“No. You need to get back over there now and be accountable for how you acted tonight.” I pulled her arm enough to whip her around. “Now.”
Lila did move, but it was only to come toe-to-toe with me and loom down over me. “Who’s gonna make me?”
I cracked my neck to the side, fury starting as a bubbling crater my feet and threatening to blow into a raging geyser. “I’m the only one standing here, aren’t I?”
A vile smile crept onto Lila’s face. “You think you can take me, Quinn?”
“I guess we’re gonna find out,” I hissed.
Lila pressed herself even closer to me, so I took the initiative and shoved her back. She looked at me with a wild, unyielding gaze, and stepped up. A second later, a flurry of bodies appeared between us. I couldn’t make heads or tails of who was pulling me back because all of the Widows and Cal had their hands on Lila, trying to drag her away. I pushed forward through the fray, trying desperately to get to where Lila was trying equally as hard to get to me, but whoever had me had a strong grip.
“Let me go!” I screamed.
“Relax, Quinn.” I looked over my shoulder, and Zeke was behind me with his arms wrapped around my torso. “It’s not worth it.”
“She fucking cost me the game!” I argued before trying again to break free of his grip, but he wouldn’t let go. “Zeke, get your hands off of me.”
“No, you’ll regret it.” He rushed around and stood in front of me. He put his hands on my shoulders and held me in place. “Stop.”
“She thinks she’s tough. I’ll show her who’s fucking tough!” I tried to bolt around him, but he kept his hands on my shoulders and refused to let me move.
The distance between Lila and me was getting wider and wider, until finally, Lila yanked herself free of the team and stormed off in the other direction. I stopped trying to get free of Zeke’s grip, but I was still fuming.
“I’m gonna let you go. Are you good?” Zeke asked. I didn’t respond. Zeke slowly slid his hands down my shoulders and over my arms. The feeling of his hands sliding against me was enough to bring my gaze up to him. “Are you good?”
“She made us lose the game.”
He nodded, still keeping his hands on my arms. “I know. I saw.”
“She wouldn’t listen to anyone or anything. I didn’t know what to do.” Emotions started to slink out, but I bit them back. I’d been an angry crier as long as I could remember, but when you were a woman, tears were associated only with sadness or hysteria, so I learned to keep them down whenever I could. “She ruined the game.”
“I know.” Zeke’s voice was calm and soothing, and his arms still held onto me. I took deep, even breaths and tried to push my anger away. “Let’s go get a drink.”
“What?”
“You need a drink. Let’s go get a drink. I’ve dealt with players like that before. I can give you some advice. Plus, you need to calm down.” He finally pulled his hands away, and I instantly missed his touch. “Come on. I’ll drive.”
I turned around to say something to Cal, but he was already headed my way. He handed me my phone and wallet and then pushed me off in Zeke’s direction. “Go. I’ll clean up here and put your bag in your office.”
“Thanks. I’m sorry.” I was embarrassed to look at Cal. Not just because I’d acted so poorly, but because I was certain that was not what he signed up for when he agreed to take on our team.
“Why are you sorry? I agreed to do this, knowing that I may be walking into a hellstorm.” He put a hand on my head. “Don’t sweat it, Q. I got this.” I nodded, and he continued to push me off. “Now go. Take a breather.”
When I looked back in the direction Zeke had gone, he was standing at his car with the passenger door open, looking back at me. I imagined Alec’s spidey senses were tingling. He wasn’t able to get the night off work for the Wednesday game, so he was going to be upset to hear he missed the coveted asking out for drinks. I walked up to Zeke, and he smiled at me.
“Ready?”
I nodded and grinned back. “Yeah.”
I climbed into the passenger’s seat of Zeke’s car and was immediately surrounded by the smell of a sweet cologne. When Zeke got into the car, the smell got stronger. I’d been so angry out on the field that I didn’t notice it, but now, sitting so close to him with only the middle compartment of the car separating us, it was all I could think about.
We got to a bar far off the beaten path, about fifteen minutes outside of Montpelier. Zeke explained that he knew it because he lived up in Pocatello, about an hour and twenty minutes north of Montpelier. It was a larger city. Apparently, Zeke wasn’t big into the small-town life. We entered the bar, and it wasn’t packed. It was a Wednesday night, after all, so we found a table, and Zeke left to grab us a couple of beers. He set mine in front of me before sitting down at the table. I took a huge swig of the beer and then took a huge breath in and out.
“She’s a nasty one, huh?” Zeke asked.
“She’s bad, but she’s not normally that bad. I don’t know what’s up with her.” I took another sip of my beer. “I think it’s our coach.”
“What’s wrong with him?” he asked, already halfway through his own beer.
“Nothing, he’s great, but she’s got this thing about men.” I sipped more. “She hates them.”
Zeke chuckled. “I can’t say that I blame her.” A look of shock crossed my face, and Zeke laughed a bit more. His smile was inviting, if not a bit intoxicating. “What? I know how men have continuously marginalized women throughout the years. That more women don’t hate men is actually kind of surprising.”
I smiled, and he raised an eyebrow as he set his beer bottle to his lips.
“Well, don’t look so shocked that I’m smart.”
I giggled. “Anyway. She’s gotta get over it. She can’t do that.” I started to strangle the neck of my bottle, but Zeke tapped the bottom of it with his bottle, and I loosened my grip. “Thanks.”
I knocked what was left of my beer back, and Zeke wasn’t far behind me. I stood up from the table. “I’ll get the next round.”
I grabbed a couple more beers for us, and he gave me the best advice he could on how to deal with hothead players. He’d had to deal with quite a few of them in college, and he gave me some solid footing to stand on. We both agreed that if Lila couldn’t come to terms with Cal, she probably wasn’t a good fit for the team, but something about bringing Cal in and then getting rid of Lila because she couldn’t adjust made me feel bad. She was there first. Zeke posited that it was only a matter of time before her disregard for men became an issue and not to beat myself up for the circumstance. I didn’t know how he’d managed to get such a solid grasp on my personality in such a short period of time, but maybe it was just because we were very alike.
One conversation turned into another, which turned into another. Every time our bottles were empty, one of us would go a grab two more, and before long, liquid was sloshing around my brain, and I was slurring my words. Zeke was doing slightly better than me, but not much, and he was still barely into the latest round.
I hadn’t been keeping track of how long we’d been there, but eventually, a bartender came over to us with an apologetic expression on. “Sorry, folks, we’re closing up.”
“What time is it?” I grumbled.
“Quarter after midnight,” he replied.
“Thank you. We’ll head out.” Zeke started to stand up and stumbled a little.
I grabbed his arm. “We can’t drive.”
The bartender smiled. “This bar has a no-tolerance policy for drinking and driving. If you need to leave your car here overnight, it won’t be towed.”
“Thass awesome,” Zeke slurred. “We’ll call an Uber.”
I nodded heavily. “Yup.”
The bartender giggled. “Okay, well come and write down the make and model of your car for me. I leave the information for our tow company so that they know
which cars to leave.”
Zeke and I walked up to the bar, and I chuckled at the way Zeke’s handwriting scribbled messily across the page. He handed the paper over to the bartender and then pointed at him. “My car is six figures. Don’t fuck it up.”
“No one will touch it, sir. This is just so they know not to tow it.”
Zeke nodded and then reached down to grab my hand as we left. When we got to the lot, I didn’t pull my hand out of Zeke’s, so we stood there that way until the Uber that Zeke called pulled up. He opened the door to help me inside and then walked around and climbed in the back next to me.
“Where we going, folks?” the driver asked.
“Two locations.” Zeke tapped my leg, and it shot into me with a surprising surge of electricity. “You’re closer.”
I gave the driver my address, and he pulled away from the bar, heading back into Montpelier. We pulled up in front of my apartment complex about twenty minutes later. “Gotta pay for this leg before we can head to the second one,” the driver said.
Zeke clicked a few buttons on his phone before grumbling, “Done.” He tapped his shoulder. “I’m gonna walk her up. I’ll be right back.”
I climbed out of the car and walked around, and Zeke took my hand again. I suddenly wished I was less drunk. God only knew how much of the night I was actually going to remember. I got up to the front door and used my key fob to unlock it. Zeke relented my hand, and I stepped inside.
I turned around to face him, and he smiled at me. “Feel better?”
I nodded. “Much. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
We lingered there for a moment, and maybe it was the booze, or maybe it was how attractive Zeke was, but my body moved on impulse. I used one hand to wave the Uber driver away, and the other one to take a fistful of Zeke’s shirt and pull him inside.
17
Zeke
The past few weeks of getting to know Quinn and not being able to decide if I hated her or liked her all culminated and boiled over when she pulled me by my hand onto the elevator leading up to her apartment. The second the doors closed on us, she pressed me up against the velvet-colored wall and threw her lips against mine. My body caught fire against the feeling of her hands all over me, and I let mine slink around her back and sneak up her shirt.