Page 80 of Ready to Score

Jade had never wanted to see someone clad in an ugly green polo shirt more in her life.

“Coin toss in three,” Landry said as he jogged over to her, his eyes lit up and his jaw tight. “You think we’re ready?”

Jade had to look over her shoulder to make sure he was talking to her. It had been weeks since Landry had spoken to her with such levity in his voice. Their talk in the weight room had eased the tensions some. At least enough that Jade wasn’t on the receiving end of the silent treatment anymore. But it still hadn’t been the way it was before. She feared that even if he did pass the token alongto her, their relationship as mentor and mentee would be forever fractured.

So many of her thoughts had been taken up with trying to make peace with it. She’d apologized, acknowledged her wrongs, and had taken great effort in getting her shit back together. That didn’t mean Landry trusted her again—or liked her, for that matter. Much the same way she’d forced herself to come to terms with the uncertainties of her life’s potential outcomes, she had to do the same for her relationship with Landry. There were only so many limbs she could go out on before the tree was stripped bare.

But there he was, standing at her side with the type of energy that had inspired Jade to want to work with him in the first place. He was the only person she knew who seemed less stressed during games than he did outside of them. He bounced on his feet and surveyed the scene before him. She could almost see the kid in him. The one who’d played college ball, wearing the same pair of lucky socks, checking the sturdiness of his cup one last time, before running out on the field the way their boys were about to.

It was too endearing of a vision for her not to smile at.

“We’re as ready as we’ll ever be,” she answered. “Their energy is high. They’ve spent all summer going hard, working for this. We’re taking it. But even if we don’t, it won’t be because they didn’t give it everything they had.”

Landry’s eyes were on her then, something thoughtful coloring his expression. She was seconds away from outright asking him what he was thinking, but a low rumbling sounded behind them. The noise built progressively until it turned to banging followed quickly by deafening cheers.

The boys descended on the field just as the sound of the screams swelled. There was no banner for them to break through, but theyshot out like rockets all the same, waving at the crowd. Hooting and hollering.

“See?” She had to talk loudly over the noise. “They know it’s theirs.”

Landry bumped his shoulder against hers, catching her eye with a stern nod, that twinkle in his eye even more prominent. “Let’s go help them take it, then.”

West Beaufort came out on top in the coin toss, and instead of choosing to defer their claim to the ball until the second half, they started the game off with the ball in their hands. Immediately after kickoff, Jade was reminded that the other team hadn’t shown up in their fancy coach bus with their pristine new cleats just to fuck around. They saw the win as theirs and had come to claim it.

West Beaufort kept possession of the ball at kickoff. One of their running backs had gotten the ball from the quarterback at the snap, taking off downfield in a mad sprint toward Greenbelt’s end zone.

Their defensive linemen were on him, though, leaving the side of West Beaufort’s quarterback to book it down the field. That wide receiver barely got five yards before a nose tackle caught him around the waist and brought him down. The ball slipped from the running back’s hands and onto the turf—a fumble.

Jade’s breath caught in her throat, her spine immediately straightening. On the sidelines, she could hear her colleagues yelling, screaming with excitement. The ref blew his whistle, signaling the end of the play, and at once, all the boys were in the exact spot the receiver went down, waiting for the ref to place the ball and start the next down.

She surveyed the eleven players Greenbelt had on the field. The game was early yet, so they were still spry. Not bogged down by the type of tiredness that only came with being four quarters and three downs in. There was still plenty of time for that.

Landry was standing a few yards away from her, his attention on the spiral-bound playbook in his hands. Then his eyes went back to the field. This time, they were on West Beaufort’s players. The boys got into their three-point stances as normal. That’s when she saw something shift.

West Beaufort’s quarterback moved to the right of the center instead of behind him, and just as quick, the running back slid into his place.

Jade booked it over to Landry. “They’re about to do a Wildcat formation,” she said in a rush.

Normally, the center would snap the football back between his legs to the quarterback, who would then run or pass it. A Wildcat formation was a sort of trick play where instead of snapping the ball to the quarterback, a running back would situate himself in that spot to get the ball directly.

If the other team got through the snap without anyone noticing, they’d have at least a few seconds’ lead time. And in a game where a few seconds could mean more than a few yards, it had the potential to be a very effective strategy. It was still early in the game, and while West Beaufort pulling this off didn’t automatically mean that Greenbelt would be completely screwed, it would give the other team a hell of a head start. The points they’d gain on Greenbelt would not only sting but throw a wrench in her team’s morale. And that was far too precious a thing to lose so early on.

Her heart started thundering in her chest as she hoped like hell their players caught on quickly. There was no way to talk to them, to prepare them for what was to come. It would have to play out naturally while they stood around hoping they’d taught their boys enough to be observant.

The second-down snap was as quick as any other, and just as she’d thought, their running back shot off like a rocket down thefield, ball in hand. Jade ran along the sidelines, yelling as loudly as she could, hoping like hell they could hear her voice. Time always seemed to move slower in the milliseconds during plays. It felt like something out of a movie, the way they descended on the running back as he made his way toward Greenbelt’s end zone.

The running back saw that his time on two feet was short, pausing to look for an opening, then sending the ball down the field to the tight end, who completed the pass.

Jade’s voice went hoarse from the way she yelled when the tight end took off running. He made it far, too far. Everyone took off after him, and the kid seemed to weave through their bodies like a bat out of hell. Then, in mere seconds, he pushed his way past until he was at Greenbelt’s end zone, making the first touchdown of the season in the first quarter of the first game like it was nothing.

Her heart fell into her ass. She looked over her shoulder, spotting Landry, then Carr, and, finally, Francesca. Their faces were drawn, all pinched lips and hollow cheeks. She imagined hers looked the same.

Out on the field, she watched as the boys tried to shake it off. She couldn’t see their faces through their helmets, but their body language was loud. The West Beaufort players were nimble, slamming into one another in a celebration that was short-lived when their coach decided to go for a field goal kick instead of a two-point conversion.

Then, just as quickly as that6appeared on the scoreboard in the other team’s favor, it was updated to a7once their kicker sent it flying through the uprights.

Jade jogged back down the sidelines, keeping an eye on the game as the players went for kickoff at the 35-yard line. They’d have a short break after this, and she wanted to talk a game plan with Landry.

“I don’t want them getting any further ahead of us than this,” she said. “We need to change our lineup a bit.”

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