Page 18 of The Brotherly Shove

It's not the first time I've hit the turf this year, but it is the first time it counts.

It's also the first time Lennon will be forced to speak to me in months, even if he only speaks in play calls.

I force my nerves down as far as they will go as I approach the huddle. This moment is bigger than me. Who knows how badKasper's injury is? The very least thing I can do is try to squeak out a win for him tonight.

The speakers in my helmet crackle, and I hear Coach's voice calling for a double-slant run pass option. Lennon and I confirm it with a call of the play code, a repetitive string of 'key left, thirty six one, smash and track sneak'. Absolute nonsense, but every Redwood on the field knows what it means.

We line up, the ball is snapped, I fake a throw and pass it to Smith, the running back on my right. He pushes forward.

Four yards. Second down.

The officials signal the two minute warning.

For thirty seconds, Coach Elliot rattles off instructions in my ear.

Hold the line, don't let up. Run the mother fucking plays I mother fucking tell you to run.

The play clock is back in action, and the voice in my helmet makes the same call again. We line back up. We need to try to play the clock to our advantage, running it down so that if Knoxville gets the ball back, they don't have enough time to make a move, but also taking advantage of the time we do have so that we have a chance at scoring.

I do as I'm told. I run the mother fucking play Coach Elliot mother fucking tells me to run.

Snap. Fake. Handoff.

This time, Smith goes nowhere. We don't lose any yardage, but we gain nothing. The clock continues to tick down.

Third down. Six yards from the goal line.

Coach calls for a different RPO, one that has me handing the ball to the left while the offense tries to push a door open for the running back to sneak through to the end zone.

Snap. Pass. Smith ducks his head ands runs.

He makes it three yards before he's swallowed up in a tackle.

The clock ticks down. Thirty seven seconds.

Whistles blow. Coach calls a timeout. I hear 'send in the field goal unit' in my helmet.

"Wait!" Lennon yells, grabbing me by the arm and running towards Coach on the sideline. I'm too focused on the feeling of Lennon's hand on my arm to process what the hell is going on right now. We reach Coach and the staff, and Lennon is shaking his head violently.

"Don't send in the field goal unit. We can do this, Breaker and I. The shove play from college, remember B?" he looks at me and I gape back at him.

"We've never practiced that play, Griffith. I'm not risking the game on some gimmick you two came up with when you were kids. We'll kick the ball and hopefully tie this thing up. We can give ourselves a shot at a win in overtime." Coach says, holding his game card over his mouth.

I gotta say, I agree with Coach on this one. The shove was a successful move for Lennon and I in the past, but with one yard to the line of scrimmage, not three. Going for it on a fourth down with seconds left in the game feels like a death sentence.

"Trust me, Coach. We got this. I played in Knoxville last year, remember? I know those guys, I know how to push them. I can draw them offsides. They'll get the penalty, we'll move half the distance to the goal, and then all the guys have to do is push us after Breaker jumps on my back. It has never failed us." Lennon sounds so confident, and Coach looks to me.

"Can you do it, Lawson?" he asks.

I meet Lennon's eyes, his wide, proud, gorgeous blue eyes, and I feel that undeniable chemistry that flowed through us whenever we played together. For the first time in I don't know how long, I'm looking at Lennon and seeing something other than hurt in his eyes. I have to have faith in that, don't I?

"We can do it, Coach. Trust us." I tell him. Our timeout is running down, so Coach only has a second to consider us before he gives us a small nod.

"If we lose, it's your asses on the line," he calls after us as we jog back to the field and bring the guys into the field. Lennon jumps right into action, quickly explaining the plan.

"We're gonna line up as close to each other as possible. Focus on Garrett, the defensive guard. He's jumpy. If we provoke him, we can get him off sides in no time. Then after we move up and I snap the ball, Breaker will jump on my back and I'll duck under the defense. Your job is to push us. Get a handful of ass and shove us into the endzone, got it?"

We break and take our positions. Just like Lennon predicted, Garrett is the first of three Knoxville defenders to jump off sides. It took only a fraction of movement on our side to get him to jump, not nearly enough to have the penalty called on us first. The flag is thrown and we move up a yard and a half. I can feel my heartbeat in my skull, and the sounds of the stadium blur into a dull roar as I wait for Lennon to snap me the football.

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