Page 54 of Out of Bounds

Kassie

Could’ve Been Better

Imagine the look on my face when I found out one crucial and devastating piece of information - Ryan Cross wasn’t just a guy who chucked footballs on an empty field with five of his closest drunk buddies. He wasgood. I couldn’t tell linemen from pointmen and even I could see how good he was.

The stadium was swamped in blue face paint, I couldn’t hear myself above the cheers. And when the team came out on the field? It was a madhouse.

Especially when Ryan appeared.

Twenty thousand people yelled, "FOUR-A-CROSS, FOUR-A-CROSS." Cameras flashed everywhere, and up on the big cam, his number four jersey made an appearance for everybody to scream over. Add that to the crashing against each other on theregular and the panic when the scores came too close, it was a different experience than anything I expected.

"What?" Ryan shifted to glance at me from the driver’s seat. He was freshly showered, practically gleaming, and his usual messy hair was slicked back. "What is it?"

How could I explain? The whole day had been one whiplash after another. "You didn’t tell me you couldactuallyplay."

"You didn't think I could play?"

"I didn't think you could play likethat. Look at me, I’m so surprised, I haven’t touched your car’s radio atall," I said, shaking my head in shock.

"Thanks."

"You’re welcome."

Ryan paused. "Should I be thanking that?"

"I don’t know." I blinked and tried to settle back down. But I pushed back from my seat again. "When you hit that guy in the first inning—?"

"We have quarters."

"The first nickel, the guy that hit you—"

"Which one?"

"You were this close to the end thing," I continued, not bothering to answer which player he was close to. Basically, it was all of them. "And he hit you—and you just…youbouncedto the side and kept sprinting.How?"

Ryan drove for a while before answering me. But even if he was exhausted, he was more patient than I expected. Every correction was given in a soft, smooth voice. "They’re a big school, but one of the worst football teams in Texas. It wasn’t hard. He didn’t distribute his strength correctly."

"Distribute his strength?" I repeated.

"Yes."

"All I’m saying is, if I would’ve animated that, they would’ve told me to up my frame rate."

"And that is…?" Ryan hesitated. "Good?"

"Is thatgood?Seriously, how fast are you? Have they tagged you like an animal and set you to run in a field? You were ablur." I pressed two fingers against my temple, still in disbelief. "Can you do track? Double-sport it? Or is that a conflict of interests?"

"Conflict of interests."

Ryan shot me a wry smile. I had the weirdest feeling that he didn’t know how to handle the conversation.

"It’s Texas," he finally said. "Football is important. You have to be dedicated to it. That’s why I can’t do track too. It wouldn’t make sense anyway. I’m too big."

Yes, you are, that traitorous little voice whispered from my brain.

Had to bypass the voice. "That throw in the third quarter was good. That was a good throw. I couldn’t believe how fast it was when you…threw like that."

Ryan shrugged. "It could’ve been better."

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