All Played Out (Rusk University 3)

I toss my phone in my cubby as Brookes comes to stand next to me.

He says, “So, I guess this means I was wrong.”

“About?”

“Nell. That’s who you were texting, right?”

I shrug. Because Nell and I haven’t really talked about how we’re going to play this with everyone else. She’d had a big project due today that she spent last week working on, and I’d been gearing up for the game, so we’d only seen each other a couple times.

“That’s a yes,” he says.

“Tell me something, how do you know this shit? It’s fucking creepy, man.”

He smiles. “I pay attention.”

“To what? My Internet history? Do you have my phone tapped? Did you bug my room?”

“To your face, bro. It’s all there. When I mentioned her name, you reacted for a split second, and then immediately covered it up. That told me I was right.”

“Why are you here playing football instead of working in the CIA or something?”

He smiles. “Football is more of a challenge.”

I laugh. And make a mental note to Google him and make sure he didn’t just randomly spring into existence a few years ago.

“Seriously, though,” he says. “I’m sorry I gave you shit about Nell. I read that wrong.”

“Me or her?”

“The two of you together. You didn’t make sense when I considered you separately. But whatever is going on with you two . . . it’s good. I can tell.”

“You’re like some weird version of The Wizard of Oz, aren’t you? There’s some old dude somewhere spying on us all with video cameras and telling you what to say. Or you’re secretly a robot or an alien or something.”

He raises an eyebrow. “What kind of messed-up Wizard of Oz did you watch as a kid?”

“You two,” Coach Oz barks as passes by us. “Quit gabbing like a bunch of little girls, and get on the field.”

We finish changing clothes quickly as Oz leaves, and when the door slams behind him, I whistle. “Man, Oz needs to get laid. Dude scares me when he gets like that.” Brookes makes a noncommittal noise. “I’m serious. Look at Coach Cole. Guy is still scary as fuck, but since he’s been dating that dance professor chick? Way cooler.”

The silence after my statement is a bit too silent.

“Coach Cole, are you right behind me?”

“Yes, I am, Torres.”

I shoot Brookes a glare, and the prick doesn’t even bother hiding his grin. I spin. There aren’t many people in the world who can make me feel small, but Coach Cole is one of them. We’re roughly the same height, but the dude has Hulk shoulders and a beard that just screams, “I could kick your ass.”

“Sir, I don’t know if you’re aware of this. But ‘scary as fuck’ is a slang term that means incredibly well respected.”

His expression doesn’t change. Not at all. Freaking stone.

“And ‘dating that dance professor chick’ is slang for—”

“Just shut up and get your ass on the field, Torres.”

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir. Because I find you scary as fuck, sir.”

He takes a step forward, and I bolt as calmly as I can for the door. I call back, “I was using that as a slang term, remember?”

For a moment I think I see the twitch of a smile beneath his mustache, but it’s gone a second later, and I decide I’m better off hightailing it out onto the field.

“You never know when to stop, do you?” Brookes asks, jogging up beside me.

“I prefer to view that particular gift of mine in a positive light. More like . . . I cross lines no one else is willing to cross. I go where no man has gone before. All boldly and shit.”

“I literally have no clue how you and Nell work. None.”

He’s joking, I know. But that particular jab slips past my defenses, and bangs around in my chest for a while as we walk out onto the field. I’m not looking for anything long term from Nell, but if events up to this point are any clue, she’ll probably be done with me before I’m done with her. And even though I’m not trying to get serious, I can’t say I’m looking forward to that. It’s gonna fuck me up to see a girl like her walk away, serious or not. And I can’t afford that. Not right now. Not when I’m on the verge of finally proving myself.

If I were smart, I’d take that thought and end things now. But I do enjoy flirting with that dangerous line.

Maybe that’s what makes me reckless. I don’t know. Maybe it’s Nell, and how freaking powerful she makes me feel. Maybe I’m so eager to prove Coach right, prove Lina and everyone else wrong. Maybe Nell’s assessment of me that first day was right, and I enjoy showing off too damn much.

Whatever the reason, I play hard during practice. As hard as I would play during a game. I take risks, go for catches that I would normally let slide during practice.

After one particularly spectacular catch, my helmet cracks hard against the cornerback tackling me, and my head jerks inside my helmet before my whole body slams hard into the turf.

For a second my ears ring and my vision crosses and crosses even though I’m staring straight ahead. I blink, but it doesn’t stop, and there’s a pressure in my head that feels like I’m a hundred feet underwater.

I climb to my feet carefully, and the grass moves like waves in front of my eyes. I let myself shake my head once to try and clear the fog, but when that only amplifies the pressure, I know that wasn’t just any hit. I struggle to appear normal, to not let on that my head is swimming, and that the weak light from the November sun suddenly feels piercing to my eyes.

This can’t be happening. Not when everything was going so good.

Not now.

Coach blows the whistle, and it cleaves my head open.

I get lucky, and Coach moves on to working on a new play where the first look is to Moore, and the second option is to Brookes. So as they work out the kinks, I’m really only running my route. No one mentions or seems to notice that I’m running a little slower, that my route isn’t quite as straight as it should be. Their eyes are elsewhere, and it helps me hide what experience already tells me.

I have a concussion.

I’ve had two before, and the second, which occurred late in the season last year, was bad enough to leave me vomiting, and the nausea lasted for days. It also had me out for a game, which we ended up losing while I stood on the sidelines. If we hadn’t had an open week the next week, Coach might have even benched me for two games.