STUFFED (The Slate Brothers 2)

I nod, wondering if Devin could possibly have any idea just how true his statement was.

Carson’s practice begins at two o’clock, which means I have to skip a class, but whatever— I never skip, so I’ve got plenty of allowed absences saved up.

Carson texted me instructions on how to get in to the closed field, and they’re so intense that you’d think I was breaking into a nuclear reactor, not a college football practice.

Go to the gate, show your badge and driver’s license, give your car make/model/plate number, write your name down in a book, get a photo taken and wear the little sticker that prints out with the photo, go into the stands, sit in the blue seats only, no photos, no phone calls, no cheering, no waving, no calling out names, no anything except for quietly observing the practice…

When I arrive, there are a few others in the blue seats, and I get the impression they’re not journalists. One is a pretty girl with jet black hair and brown skin, who watches a defensive player with sweet admiration; the other is a bearded guy who looks like he could be on the team, but he’s watching the running back with an expression that matches the girl’s. They’re significant others, from the looks of it.

Wait. I’ve been seated with the girlfriends and boyfriends?

“Who are you with?” the guy asks in a cheerful whisper.

“I— uh— Carson Slate,” I say, not sure I should be telling them this detail.

The girl’s head snaps toward me, and the guy’s eyes widen. “Seriously? You’re with Carson Slate? No Date Slate?”

“Not like that— I’m a reporter for the Bowen Blaze,” I explain, and their expressions relax.

Carson is running some sort of drill with his teammates; if he sees me, he doesn’t show it, a fact that bothers me more than I think it should. It’s strange, seeing him on the field without an opposing team. At the game I went to, he was a machine, full of fury and movement and charge, like a thunderstorm made human. In practice, all of the power is there, but there’s none of the fury— he supports his teammates, calls out to them, tousles them playfully. When they start to slow or underperform, he shoulders them and says something I can’t hear that seems to lift them back up.

“They’re here for him,” the girl sitting near me whispers, and points at a set of seats a few rows down— red seats, not blue like ours. Five men are standing, hands on hips, wearing polo shirts and khaki pants. Some are videotaping on their phones, others are simply watching with eagle-eye expressions, and all are talking loudly. I must have been too focused on Carson to see them come in; now that I’ve noticed them, their volume is distracting.

“Pro recruiters?” I guess.

“Yep. They’re making notes on everyone, of course, but they’re all here for Carson Slate. His brother Sebastian signed to a team last year. Carson’s only a junior, but at year’s end he’ll be eligible for the draft.”

“Oh, cool,” I say, because I think being eligible for the draft is a good thing. “I wonder if they make him nervous.”

“They’d make me nervous. You spend your whole life playing a game and then some bros in pleated pants get to decide if it was worth it or not? That sucks,” she whispers.

“Is he…um…” I’m not sure how to ask this without exposing just how unqualified I am to be writing a story on Carson, much less sitting in the “significant others” section. “Is he good enough to get drafted?”

The girl smiles and, thank god, doesn’t look to horrified by the fact that I have to ask this. “Oh yeah. He’s amazing. But there’s talk that he hasn’t been playing as well this season because of all the stuff with his dad. Distracted, you know? Can’t blame him, but still. What a shitty time for your dad to go on trial for murder, right?”

The guy near us scoffs and laughs. “Uh, I think any time your dad murders someone is pretty lousy, Desi.”

“You know what I mean,” Desi says, and sticks her tongue out at him. We fall silent again as the team runs another play. I find that I sit up straighter in the seconds when Carson has the ball, just after the snap. The way he watches, waits, plans. Everything about his body is sexy, but there’s something even more so in watching him strategize an entire play in mere seconds. I see, now, why so many people think the quarterback is the most important player on the team. If he’s no good, the rest of the team hardly has a chance.

The practice is two hours long, but it goes quickly, especially now that my eyes are darting between the recruiters and Carson, trying to interpret their every expression. Are they as impressed with him as I am? Surely. The team circles up around the head coach; after a short conversation, smaller circles form around other coaches.