Page 42 of Home Field Advantage

“It’s not like I drink it that often! But it’s good! And the radioactive look is part of the fun.” I poke her with my foot under the blanket we’re sharing on her bed, careful not to tip over our bowl of popcorn. Coach called me a couple of hours ago to casually mention that one of the alumni who’ll be returning for homecoming happens to be a scout—a fuckingDIII scout—and he’s excited to see me play. And I know it isn’t anything, that he’s not there to actively recruit, but still. Just the idea of being on a scout’s radar feels massive, and of course, the first thing I did was call Amber, and the first thingshedid was invite me over to celebrate. “Why, what’s yours?”

“Fresca,” she says, like it’s obvious. “It’s the perfect soda. Refreshing and calorie-free.”

“My grandparents would definitely agree with you.”

“Oh, shut up.” She pokes me back, far less gently. “You don’t even know what you’re missing.”

“Which I’m okay with, if what I’m missing is grapefruit soda. That sounds like an oxymoron.”

“Yousound like an oxymoron.”

“You kiss girls with that mouth?”

“Not when they taste like Mountain Dew.”

Cracking up, I can’t resist pulling her toward me and planting a kiss right on that snarky smile. “Good thing I taste like popcorn, then.”

“Very good thing,” she murmurs, wrapping her arms loosely around my neck.

We fall into a full-on make-out for I don’t know how long, broken up only by the sound of Amber’s phone ringing. At this point, I recognize her mom’s ringtone, so I pull back and let Amber pick it up, smoothing down my rumpled clothes and hair as if her mom’s about to walk through the door even though she has hours left on her shift.

By the time she hangs up a couple minutes later, we’ve both cooled off, and we shift back into the same easy conversation we were having before—our favorite things. “I’ve got one,” she says. “What’s your pump-up music?”

“My pump-up music?”

“You know what I mean.” She gets up on her knees and does a little rah-rah with her fists. “What’s the song or album or whatever that kicks your ass into gear?”

“How do you know I have a pump-up song? What’s yours?”

“I don’t have just one song.” Her voice drips with bewildered insult. “I have a whole playlist.”

“Okay, so what’s on the playlist?”

She ticks off her fingers. “Britney Spears’s ‘Work, Bitch,’ Doja Cat’s ‘Boss Bitch’—”

I hold up my hand. “I think I’m seeing the theme here.”

“I make no apologies,” she says with a smirk.

“I wouldn’t want you to.”

“So? Are you gonna tell me what’s on yours?”

Am I? The answer is mildly embarrassing, but I do want her to know me, so. “It’s, uh,Hamilton.”

“Hamilton, like, the musical?” I nod. “Wow, that is… surprisingly nerdy. And also kind of cool? But mostly nerdy.”

“Oh, come on. You’ve never listened to it?”

She snorts. “Of course I have.”

“And it doesn’t make you wanna jump up and start a revolution?” The words tumble out of my mouth before I can even think about how vulnerable I’m making myself in this moment. “That’s what I thought I’d be doing here, you know. I thought people were gonna think it was badass that there’s a female quarterback. I had a whole vision of my brothers’ friends asking to meet their awesome sister, and the team being stunned by my arm, and all that shit. What a sucker I was.”

“Jack.” Her voice is uncharacteristically soft as her face falls.

“It’s childish. Whatever.” My eyes are stinging and I quickly back away from her before this can get any more intense. “Anyway, the point is, I can rap the hell out of ‘Guns and Ships,’ and you’re jealous.”

I see the shift in her expression as she realizes it’s time to drop it and follow my conversational lead; we aren’t gonna be talking about broken dreams any more tonight. “You cannot.”

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