Page 18 of Home Game

“If you can sell him on the idea, and if I don’t have to be involved, like,at all?—”

“Yes, sir,” I say, nodding with a tight smile. I turn to face Whiskey and give him the full toothy grin along with a thumbs up kept close to my chest.

“Hey, one thing,” Coach says as we begin to walk away. Whiskey stops with me, and we both turn to face Coach. I lift my brows.

“Why is this important to you?”

I’m not sure if Coach is truly curious or if this is a test. My answer is the same, regardless.

“Because I can’t be the only one on the cover. Not when it’s theteambrochure.”

His nod is slight, but the approval is obvious. He goes back to his charts, slipping his glasses back on and not glancing up again. Whiskey pulls me into the side of his body with a massive one-armed hug, his other hand busy rubbing my hair from my head.

“You big softy, you,” he teases.

I’m pretty sure he’s the one looking soft here. Or at least we both are. But it feels good to have won him over completely. A friend.

I’m used to practices kicking my ass. I thrive when facing physical adversity. But Coach Watts takes practices in the high heat of the Arizona desert to an entirely new level. We went hard for two hours straight. Tomorrow we go for three. Then four after that. I’m starting to see why the southern schools are so much tougher when playoffs roll around. The lungs can’t help but step up to the task.

Of course, the gallons of water I ingested are probably just as key.

“It’s definitely hotter down here,” I say as my head falls back against the cold metal of my locker, the bare skin of my back sticking on contact.

“Yeah, somehow the city feels cooler. Always has. You’re going to be shocked when you never get winded again, though.” Jody slaps his arm across my chest after sinking down on the floor to sit next to me.

My chest is still huffing pretty good, and it’s been twenty minutes. I roll my head along the metal, my pads and helmet piled next to me.

“You mean this feeling of death will eventually end?”

“Ha! Yeah, you’ll see,” Jody laughs out. He draws his legs in to make room for Whiskey to pass. For a big guy, he doesn’t seem nearly as wiped out as I am. He doesn’t bother sitting before ripping his way out of his pads and practice uniform.

“The fuck? How have you recovered already? We had the same practice out there,” I say.

Whiskey’s head rears back with his coughed-out laugh. He slings a towel over his bare shoulder and toes off his cleats.

“Today,” he says, bringing one foot up to rip away a soaking sock and then the other.

I widen my eyes and shake my head.

“Uh, yeah. Today.” I glance to Jody, hoping he can decipher what Whiskey means. He simply chuckles, then gets to his feet to finish stripping down to shower.

“You know what? I’ll show you. Get your ass showered, then come with me.” Whiskey grabs a protein bar from his locker and rips it open on his way to the showers.

I linger behind my teammates for a few seconds, mostly because my calf muscles are twitching from sprints. Knowing I can’t just sleep here, though, and wait to shower in the morning, I drag myself to the shower after peeling off my pants and leaving a reeking pile of clothes for the equipment manager. That’s one perk we get, at least.

After ten minutes of standing under a stream of steaming hot water, I almost feel human again. My muscles feel spent, in a good way. But I’m going to hit the pillow hard tonight.

I talk Jody into going on this excursion with Whiskey and me. On our friend’s direction, we follow him from the school lot to the nearby grocery store so we can pile into Jody’s car for the rest of the trip. I’m not sure why Whiskey insists we take Jody’s compact hatchback that can barely contain our massive bodies, but he’s adamant about it, so we go along. However, his reasoning becomes clear when the glow of the Coolidge High lights comes into view like a set of suns against the darkening pink swatches of sky. For such a new facility, there’s a comforting vintage quality about those lights.

“I’m not spying, Whisk. We should go,” I say as Jody pulls up to the stop sign right before the parking lot entrance.

“Nah, we’re not spying. But you should know what you’re up against. Just . . . trust me. Turn here, before the lot.” He reaches between Jody and me from the back seat and points to a back entrance that appears to lead to the maintenance area.

Jody makes the turn, guiding us around a few temporary buildings and into a space tucked between two dumpsters. We get out and follow Whiskey into a nook between what looks like the gym and maybe the library. He tugs a metal ladder extension down and latches it, then immediately begins scaling his way up.

“Sorry, but how is this not spying?” I whisper shout as he climbs away from me.

All Jody and I get for a response is Whiskey’s annoying-ass laughter. After a few seconds, I give in and start my climb, with Jody a few rungs behind me. We get to the flat roof and follow Whiskey to the far corner, crouching about a dozen feet from the edge and basically army crawling the rest of the way.

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