Page 96 of The Jock
Eventually, he came out of Colton’s hold. With Justin at his side, Colton in front of him, and his team all around, for the first time in his life, all the parts and pieces of the man Wes was came together. He took a deep breath and felt whole. One man. The man he was meant to become.
The man he’d always wanted to be.
“Yeah, okay,” he said, nodding. His voice was breaking again, but this time not from pain. “Let’s go get that national championship title. Together.”
* * *
The ball arced,soaring, soaring. Wes’s lungs burned as he sprinted.One, two.He held out his arms—
Thunk. Colton’s pass slammed into the center of his pads, right between his numbers and into the basket of his arms. He caged the ball, juked, evading an imaginary defender, and jogged out of the route.
“Great job!” Colton shouted. “That was faster.” Murmurs and claps rose from the right, where some of the team had come out to watch him and Colton drill. Practice didn’t start for another half hour, and most of the team was still in the locker room getting ready. But his roommates and the rest of the starters were all there.
“Want me to give you a real defender?” Anton jogged out to Wes and Colton, passing Wes a water bottle. “I can put some pressure on you if you want to check your footwork.”
Colton arched his eyebrows at Wes.
He was the one coming back from the hospital. He was the one who had to decide when to break and when to push. He was drenched in sweat, and his muscles were burning, screaming after being unused the past week. He was breathing hard, and his sides ached with every inhale. But he was out in the sunshine, and the air was crisp, a hint of bite in the early December afternoon. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and when he looked up, all he saw was the football, Colton’s pass coming his way. When he ran, the pain was a reminder he was alive, that he was back on the field. The weight of his pads across his shoulders was welcome, as were the smell of the grass and the crunch of his cleats in the dirt.
Wes nodded. “Let’s do it.”
Anton took up position opposite Wes on the thirty-yard line, their pretend line of scrimmage, setting up as the middle linebacker. Colton called the snap, pulling the ball back from between the imaginary legs of his imaginary center, and then dropped into his pocket. Wes took off, sprinting down his route.Inhale. Exhale. One, two, three. Pivot.
Colton looked left, right, and then their eyes met. He fired off his pass, a missile coming right for Wes.
Wes lifted his hands. The ball slammed into the center of his palms. He brought it down, tucked it against his side. Turned.
Anton was there, putting pressure on his movement. Wes juked and spun to the right, and left Anton behind when Anton committed to the left block. He jogged out of the play to the claps and cheers of his teammates.
“Nice.” Anton clasped his hand in a high five, then pulled him in for a quick chest bump. “Nice job, man.”
“Want to try a deeper route?” Colton asked as he met Wes back at the thirty-yard line. “How you feeling? Need a break?”
“No, I’m good. Let’s push it. Yes, deeper routes.”
Colton’s gaze flicked past him. Wes saw his shoulders rise and tense. Saw his jaw go stiff, his muscles clench. Wes turned.
There was Coach, crossing the field and heading for them. His face was blank, his eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. His lips were pressed in a thin line. Wes’s teammates slowly stepped forward, surrounding Wes and Colton.
Coach walked right up into their faces. He peered at Colton first, then turned to Wes. He peeled off his sunglasses and eyed the fading bruises on Wes’s face and neck. They were deep in the bile and putrid lime stage, and he looked like a child’s bad face-painting project. His neck was still purple, that wide belt band vivid. It looked worse than it felt, though. Wes held his ground as Coach looked him over.
He slid his sunglasses back on. “Well,” he said. “You two finally decided to show up for practice, huh?”
“Yes, Coach,” Wes said.
“Good. Seems to me like you’ve got a few people to prove wrong. Some people need their own shit shoveled right back at them. And there’s no better way to do that than to win.”
Wes’s heart squeezed. “Coach, the NCAA. Am I still eligible?”
“That horseshit.” Coach waved his hand like he was swatting a fly. “I talked those weenies off their little panicked cliff edge. They dropped the investigation. There wasn’t anything there to begin with.”
Colton sagged into Wes, a relieved laugh bursting from him as he buried his forehead against Wes’s pad-covered shoulder.
“Are you playing, Van de Hoek? You still on this team?”
Maybe this was all the apology he’d get from Coach. A welcome home, with open arms. No questions. “Yes, Coach. We want that title.”
“Then you guys will earn it. Together.” Coach took a few steps back. The rest of the team was jogging out of the tunnel to the field. He checked his watch, then put his hands to his mouth and started hollering. “All right, let’s move! Let’s move! Hurry it up, gentlemen! You’ve got a goddamn national championship to win! Let’s get to work!”
