It happened so fast I didn’t stand a chance. As Vance tried to slip out to the right, Nicholson edged in and tackled him down, blocking the throw right as time ran out.
Guilt pooled deep inside my chest instantly.
The game was over.
We’d just lost, for the third week in a row.
I could already feel the disappointment radiating from the crowd. From the team. From Coach Baylin. My chest felt like it had a ten-ton anvil on it as the tiny crowd of Bobcats supporters cheered from their place in the seats.
Nothing worse than losing a game while we were right here at home in Kansas.
I kept my head down in the showers, scrubbing off the feeling of failure after the long day. I got dressed quickly, tossing my dark green Wolves hoodie over my shoulder before heading back out to the lockers.
“Shaw,” I said, giving Vance a fist bump. I couldn’t look him in the eye. I felt I’d disappointed my friend more than anybody else.
“Don’t beat yourself up about this all night like I know you will,” he said, giving me a look as I walked off toward the exit doors.
“Promise I’ll try to just hate myself for it for a few hours instead of a few days,” I called back, waving. I just had to get out of here.
Vance laughed, sympathetic. “Got it, bud. See you soon.”
“Later, bro,” I said, turning and giving him a little salute before walking out into the bracing night air.
I stopped, taking a deep breath under the fluorescent lights in the parking lot. The smell of some wood fire drifted through from one of the far-off homes in the college town. As the wind blew, my skin chilled with goosebumps. I popped my hoodie on, only slightly ashamed to be sporting the green, white and gold Wolves merch after tonight’s performance.
But it was starting to feel like fall for real, now. We were three weeks into the season, and at night, the air had finally gotten a cold bite to it. Out on the field, pumping with adrenaline, I never felt the cold. But the walks back home after class and after games were a different story.
Usually, if I were feeling better, I’d have been ready to go out and party on a Saturday night like this. I’d want to look for any hot guy—or guys—I could find, and hopefully end up on top of someone or underneath someone by the end of the night.
But not now. Not tonight. I didn’t feel like I could face the world after another brutal loss.
And besides, I kind of liked the idea of going home to Logan.
Not that he’d really hung out with me at all over the past few weeks. He kept to himself, being all cute and disheveled, half the time in his glasses. I swore he looked like Clark Kent or Peter Parker—some sort of shy, unassuming version of a superhero.
And he kind of was a superhero, in school, at least. He’d left out a stack of homework on the kitchen table one day, and I’d seen one of the professor’s comments, written in red at the top of his essay.
“This is one of the finest pieces of writing anyone has ever written for my class. Exemplary work, Martinson. A+.”
I was pretty sure I’d never gotten an A+ on anything I’d done in school, other than maybe art class in fifth grade.
In any case, even if Logan wouldn’t want to hang out with me tonight, it would be nice to go home and know he was around. Maybe catch a glimpse of his sexy ass in one of his usual sweaters, looking like he’d just rolled out of a Hottest College Nerds & Twinks porn compilation.
I just wanted to be back in our apartment, cozy and warm.
I walked through the parking lot and cut across campus, swinging by the steps of the big auditorium on the way.
“Is that who I think it is?” my brother’s voice came from his usual perch at the top of the long, stone steps that led up to the theater.
“The Wolves’ biggest fuck-up of the evening, Brody Bryant, at your service,” I said as I walked up to him, giving him a quick hug.
“Eesh,” he said. “Well, Roman Bryant, at your service if you want somebody to vent to about it. Game wasn’t good, I take it?”
“Tragic,” I told him. “Hope your night is going better than mine.”
Roman adjusted his vest, shaking his head. “If by better you mean boring as hell, sure.”
My older brother had been a security guard on the KMU campus for years now. He was good at his job—the best, even—but the campus hardly had a need for security. Crime wasn’t prevalent, and most of the time, Roman got stuck on duty each night doing little more than helping drunk kids get back to their dorms safely. It was an important job, but I knew Roman wanted more. He wanted to truly protect people. And I couldn’t blame him.