All Broke Down (Rusk University 2)

My head is too full of her to care about anything else.

I HEAD TO Coach’s office without being asked this time. My palms are sweaty, and my neck tight with nerves. Most of the other coaches have already left the office to get last-minute things ready, but Coach Cole is still in his office, on the phone.

His back is to me, and I hear him talking. “We will soon, Annaiss. I promise. She’s finally getting to where she talks to me about things. We haven’t been this good since she was a little kid, and I want to make sure we’re solid before I throw another curveball at her.”

I feel like a dick for interrupting, but if I don’t, there won’t be time to talk to him before practice.

I knock on the doorjamb, and his chair spins. His face is unreadable as he sees me, and he says without reaction into the phone, “I have to go. I’ll see you tonight.”

Rumor is Coach is seeing someone, a professor at the university, but Carson and Dallas have both been pretty tight-lipped about it, so I figured it wasn’t true.

Guess I was wrong.

“Morning, Silas. Come in.”

I close the door behind me and take a seat in the same chair where my world had been flipped upside down last week.

“Brookes tells me you had a minor injury.”

Damn it, Zay. I told him to tell Coach that I was working everything out. That didn’t give him license to tell Coach everything I did.

“Just a bit of a sprain, sir.”

As I bounce my knee nervously, I don’t let myself think about the fact that the joint is still tighter than it used to be.

He hums and nods, running a palm over the short beard he has growing in.

“He also tells me it happened while you were doing some sort of community service.”

I sigh. “Something like that.”

Coach stands and takes a seat on the edge of his desk. It puts him looking down at me, which doesn’t help my nerves.

“I’ll admit. That’s not how I expected you to spend your suspension. I think it shows a lot of maturity.”

It feels strange to be praised for something that wasn’t my idea, something I only really did for a girl. And I don’t want to lie to him because I haven’t magically become a model citizen overnight. I’m still the f**kup trying to make it through the day without ruining his life.

“It was a friend’s idea, really.” I trip over the word friend because that word is too damn small for how big Dylan feels to me. “Gave me something to focus on, instead of sitting at home being angry.”

He nods. “That’s good. Really good, son.”

Damn . . . this isn’t going anything like I’d thought it would. I was prepared for Coach to still be mad, for him to send me out to run until I pass out with Oz again.

“Did it help?” he asks.

I shrug. “I don’t know. It was something to do.”

“And how is that sprain feeling now?”

He’s asking like he cares, and it freaks me out because I know he does. He does care, and I’ve never had this many people in my life who care about me at once. I’ve never had this many people around for me to disappoint.

“A bit tight, but nothing I can’t handle.”

“And now that you’ve had some time to cool off, you have anything else you want to say about the fight with Keyon? Or with Levi?”

I miss the anger. Having it to hold on to had grounded me, had given me focus and kept me from thinking too much. I don’t know if it was last night with Dylan or this whole week, but when I reach for it now, it’s harder to grab, like trying to hold on to smoke. And I don’t know how to answer his question (or avoid it) without that anger.

“It felt good to be angry,” I tell him. “At Levi. At Keyon. At you. As long as I was angry, I didn’t feel the fear.”

“Fear of what?”

I scratch the back of my neck and resist the urge to pull at my hair, to drop my head down and stare at the floor.

“Screwing things up. Like Levi did. Like I have a tendency to do.”

Coach laughs and moves to sit in the chair beside me. Together, we stare forward at his empty desk, at the trophies and plaques lining the wall behind it.

“I know a thing or two about you, Moore. I’ve read your file, all your stats from high school until now. I know you had some problems in school before you got into football. But how much do you know about me?”

I shrug. “Everything there was on the Internet when they hired you before the start of the season last year.” I gesture at the awards on his wall and say, “All that stuff. Plus the schools you turned around, the programs you built up from nothing.”

“We all deal with screwups in our own way. Like you working on those houses this week, I’ve spent my life building things up in front of me, so I’ll never have to look at the ruined things behind me. It works for a little while. Worked nearly twenty years for me, but sooner or later you gotta face the thing you’ve spent all your energy ignoring. The anger might have felt good, might have been easier, but it would have run out eventually, son. But if you go that route, it will take everything from you before it does. Or you can do what I didn’t, stop yourself from wasting decades, and face your problems now.”

I swallow. Is that what I’m doing now? Facing them? Or have I just found a new way to ignore them? A new distraction in Dylan?

“It’s a head game, Silas. If you stood on that field constantly thinking about all the ways the defense could take you down, you’d never gain a yard. You’re a damn fine player because you know how to look for the gaps on the field, and how to push through and make one when the opening isn’t there. Live the way you play ball, and you’ll be just fine, I promise you that.”

Live the way I play.

It seems so simple that I feel stupid, like he switched on a light I didn’t know was there while I spent years stumbling around in the dark. It’s still sinking in when he claps a hand on my shoulder and squeezes.

“You’ll be with Gallt and the rest of the running backs for drills through the rest of camp, but when we’re covering plays and scrimmaging, I’ll be going with Williams. He’s got to be ready to start in a few weeks. Can you handle that?”

I clench my jaw and nod because I don’t really have a choice.

“Good. Now get out on the field. Coach Oz is waiting for you and the running backs. That fight counts as your second infraction, which means you and your group run. Unless you want Gallt to skin you alive, I suggest you figure out how not to get a third.”