Braden smiled, seemingly impressed by that alone, which made me want to roll my eyes. But he keyed up the game, and I ignored Leo standing in the corner as I proceeded to surprise every single one of them.
We played co-op mode, and Kyle and I had no sooner finished our first round before Braden was yanking the controller out of his hands so he could play with me next. Sunday morning slipped by like that, until I grew bored with the game of making Leo eat his words and stood, stretching.
“I’m going to shower,” I announced, reaching my hands up to the sky before twisting my body left and right to crack my back.
Leo, who had been quiet most of the morning, stared at where my shirt rode up over my panties as I did.
When I dropped my hands and the shirt fell back into place, his eyes found mine, and I smiled. “As long as it’s okay with you, Daddy.”
Kyle and Braden exchanged looks, and Leo grinned. “I’ll allow it, since you’ve been such a good girl.”
I rolled my eyes. “Someone needs to mow the lawn,” I said as I grabbed my empty mug off the table. “I’ll start the dishes, but I scrub toilets too much at the shop to do it here. One of you needs to hit the guest bath. And for God’s sake, please take care of whatever that is,” I added as I rounded into the kitchen, pointing behind me to the pile of gym bags overflowing with smelly socks, shorts, sneakers, and who knew what else that cluttered the front bay window.
As I rinsed my mug and set it in the top rack of the dishwasher, I heard Kyle say, “Maybe we should call her daddy.”
Leo
Our poor new QB1 looked like he was ready to shit himself.
The sun beating down on us only made Blake Russo sweat harder as he looked around at the team waiting for him to tell them what to do. It’d been another long summer day for all of us — a two-hour workout in the morning consisting of weightlifting and conditioning that made us all want to vomit, followed by classes. And now, those of us who wanted more torture were on the field for player-led skills and drills.
Except, typically, it was the quarterback who led us.
Holden wore leadership like it had been infused into his DNA at birth. Blake, who was stepping in to take his place this season after impressing all of us when Holden was injured last year, was getting there. He was working on it.
He just didn’t quite have the same demanding severity that our old Captain did.
I grabbed a water bottle and squeezed it over my head, cursing at the bite of the cold but loving it all the same. Riley grabbed it out of my hand next and did the same, shaking the water off her hair as she looked from me to Blake across the field.
“Think we stand a chance this season?”
“What kind of thinking is that, Mighty Mouse?” Zeke asked, smacking her ass from behind as he joined us. She swatted him away.
“I’m just being realistic. We’re a championship team with a target on our back now,” she said.
“And he’s not Holden,” Clay finished her thought, folding his arms over his chest. We stood there just like that in a line of cautious stares aimed across the field at our new quarterback.
“He kicked ass last season,” I reminded them. “If it weren’t for him stepping in when Holden was injured, we wouldn’t have even made the championship bowl game — let alone won it.”
My teammates made various faces that said fair point.
For a moment, I watched them with an uncomfortable nostalgia swimming in my gut. We’d all walked onto the team as freshmen together and had been through so much the last three seasons, I knew we had the kind of friendship that was forged in fire.
I could still remember when Riley walked into our locker room that first day of fall camp like she had something to prove — and she did. I remembered her slowly gaining our trust, kicking Kyle’s ass in a game of five hundred that would go down in our team’s history, and finally giving in to her feelings for Zeke.
Zeke, who had the highest returning yards of any special teams punt returner in the last season. On top of that, I’d watched him go from a kid who struggled so much in school that he just wanted to give up on it completely, to one who tutored the freshmen we had now who were in the same position he once was.
Clay had always been a beast on the field, and he’d had that same easy ability to lead just like Holden. But in the past year, he’d dedicated himself to weights and conditioning, to his diet, and he now had the build of an NFL player. He didn’t look like a kid anymore, like a college athlete. He looked like a pro. And I knew by this time next year, he would be — just like Holden.
My thoughts drifted to Coach Lee, to the look on his face when he showed me that stupid fucking article.
When he thought of us, of our crew, where did he place me? Did he see my growth, my potential?
Or did he only see wasted talent?
“I think he just needs a little support,” Clay said, and he clapped Zeke on the shoulder, stepping forward like he was about to jog over to where Blake stood with the team.
“Wait,” I said.
He turned, his eyes meeting mine along with the rest of them.
“I got this.”
Clay and Zeke exchanged looks before Clay waved his hand over the field as if to say after you.
I nodded, jogging over to where Blake stood. I nudged his arm when I reached him. “You good, Cap?”
Blake tried to smile but it fell flat. “I’m not captain yet.”
“And you won’t be if you keep acting like you don’t belong in that QB1 spot.”
“Maybe I don’t,” he said, his eyes snapping to mine. He was shorter than Holden, softer somehow — and yet, I had seen what he could do, what he was capable of when he turned his brain off. “Coach brought in a freshman QB, remember? Maybe he’ll be the one out here once fall camp starts.”
“Is that what you want?”
He hit me with a look that said what do you think?
“Stop acting like he’s already here, like he’s already better than you. You haven’t even seen him play. Besides, you are the veteran,” I reminded him, pointing my index finger into his chest. “You are the one who led us to a winning season last year. That kid might have talent, but he doesn’t have anything on what you have.”
“Which is?”
“La experiencia,” I answered easily. “Experience. Skill. And a whole team who has your back.”
Blake nodded, the corner of his mouth lifting. “You’re right.”
“Aren’t I always?”
He laughed at that, and I clapped him on the back before turning my attention to where the team had been resting and waiting for direction.
“Alright, fam. You know the drill. You’re here because you want to get better, because you don’t want to waste a single second of this summer while our opponents are out there training for their number one goal — to beat us. They want to see us lose. They want to see us tuck our tails and limp back out of the spotlight where they liked us. But is that what we’re going to do?”
“Hell no!” Clay said from the back, and the rest of the team shot out various agreements.
“Hell fucking no,” I echoed. “No one is here to hold our hands. Coach can’t work with us over the summer except to direct our strength and conditioning staff to get us into shape. But we all came here to work together, and we know what to do.” I grabbed a ball off the field and shoved it into Blake’s hands. “Blake will take offense. Clay, get your defensive players on the backfield. Zeke and Riley, work with special teams and the kicking unit. And if you’re training and you think of something we need to work on, speak up,” I said to the rest of the team. “I don’t care what year you are or what experience you have. In fact, usually, you see more when you’re on the sidelines. So let’s work together. Let’s get better together.”