Page 195 of Out of Bounds

"I have a girlfriend," Ryan repeated, stubborn.

"We’re on Walspar Street," the girl explained and gave a sympathetic look to Ryan. "I do this all the time on my campus. Do you need help getting home?"

"I have a girlfriend."

"King’s found him," June told us and all three of us pressed together, trying to spot the defensive end in the background.

Zariah pointed towards the left. "That’s him."

"Who?" Ryan shouted again and King strode over from the side of the screen. He must’ve stood on the side of the chair because Ryan glared at him from his spot in the chair.

"Give me the phone, Ryan."

"I have an important phone call. I’m talking to Coach Lawson."

King grunted in disbelief. "Captain."

"I did a keg stand.”

“Captain.”

“Now I get a phone call."

“Captain.”

King muttered under his breath and I could see his hand swiping for the phone. My boyfriend was too drunk to keep his grip on it. The only thing I could see was King’s face, momentarily taking up the screen.

"I’ll take him back to the hotel," he promised.

In the background, I could hear Ryan arguing about why he needed to get the phone back before the line went dark.

76

Ryan

No Fouls, No Fumbles, No Fucking Overtime

The phone call didn’t embarrass me in the slightest.

Both Adam and King had a good laugh about it in the morning but I just grinned. No reason to be embarrassed when I had a girl worth doing all that over, waiting for me back at home.

Louisiana was one item after another to check off. The coach meetings, the dinners, and the hard practices where all of us put in our hundred and twenty percent because we knew we were being watched that often. Every play was calculated. On and off the field.

When it came time to the game, we were as ready as we’d ever been.

We were required to be at the stadium at five o’clock in the morning. Drills, runs, stretches, we pushed ourselves to the brink because that’s what this game was. A demonstration ofhowwe’d been acing every game of the season and a promise for what was to come.

"I’m not expecting you to be perfect," Coach Lawson reminded us, in the middle of his pregame speech. He gave everyone a hard look. The look of our coach that’d lead us to a continuous winning streak, the closest any of us had been to the Birchwood Bowl. "If I wanted each of you to be the best, we wouldn’t win these games. I’m expecting you to be the perfectteam."

Everyone nodded around the room. Me, most of all.

"If you think you can’t do that, get the hell off the field." He thumbed towards the exit. "This isn’t aboutyou. This is about yourteam. What you can do with your team, what you can doforyour team."

Cheers followed it. We were ready for Louisiana.

With a nod, Coach Lawson allowed me to take the floor.

When I’d agreed to the captain role, I’d been warned that handling a team like the Romans meant putting your tension and doubt in the back seat. None of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was making sure that they knew how confident I was in our winning streak to continue.

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