Matchup (Playing the Field #3)

Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

HENDRIX AVERY

I am on fire. Nothing and no one can stop me as I catch pass after pass and run as fast as I ever have before, fueled by the insults that have been thrown my way my entire football career. Each catch is a punch to the face of everyone who told me I would never be good enough.

No matter which cornerback, safety, or linebacker they put on me, I slip through them all until they resort to holding or grabbing the plastic of my face mask in an attempt to stop me—to no avail.

I am going to prove to everyone that I’m worth a spot on this team.

This is my only shot. The other local team’s tryouts have already passed, and I don’t have enough money to travel anywhere else to try out for a different team this year.

For me, football is more than a sport; it’s my lifeline.

When I aged out of foster care, the state only left me with a small college fund and health insurance until I’m twenty-six. Beyond that, I don’t have many pennies to my name. I worked a few odd jobs during college, but between full-time classes and football, I couldn’t put in that many hours.

The guys on the Rubies’ practice team have nothing on me. They have most likely been here for years, knowing they will never be good enough to advance further. They lack the drive—the passion—to do the best and be the best—unlike me. And when they pull the wannabe quarterback to put Aleks in, I somehow find a hidden reserve, a new burst of energy, to be the best, to be the only receiver Aleks can pass the ball to.

I leave every defenseman in the dust and catch every ball, no matter how it is thrown, with perfection.

No one can stop me.

And then, I hear it.

“Gin!” Traylor calls.

Looking up from my place in the end zone—where I just caught what would have been a twenty-yard touchdown pass from Aleks if this were a real game—I spot Traylor on the sideline, arm in the air and fingers beckoning for another Rubies player to take the field.

The player in question stands, and I feel the scowl I’ve been trying to hold back finally erupt in full blast, spreading across my face like a heavy cloud passing over the bright midday sun.

Tahegin Ellingsworth.

If there was one factor that could have made me choose the LA Treasures over the Rubies, it would have been Ellingsworth. Unfortunately, my cheap apartment is an hour away from the Treasures’ training facility, and my car is even cheaper. I can’t afford to move, and I’m pretty sure my car would sputter and die trying to get me to practice every day at that distance. The Rubies’ facility is only a fifteen-minute drive, hence why I chose them.

Ellingsworth is an unfortunate, bitter side effect of playing for the Rubies. He’s a cornerback, and since he’s a defensive player, my hope is that we won’t cross paths too often.

However, as he hops from the stadium seat down onto the track, switching his team jersey for a sheer burgundy pullover the other practice defensemen are wearing, I get the feeling I will be meeting him sooner rather than later.

I don’t need to know the guy to know I hate everything about him and everything he stands for. His life story has been spread far and wide across the football industry. He even has a documentary about himself, not that I’ve watched it. Still, I’ve heard enough things to know I dislike him the most of any player on the team.

Tahegin Ellingsworth is Mr. Perfect. His life has been handed to him on a diamond-studded golden platter, and he has nothing better to do than flaunt it in everyone else’s face. It began with one of the wealthiest families in America adopting him at a young age, and then he became a football prodigy before he graduated middle school. Recruiters followed him from high school to college, and he was a first-round draft pick three years ago, which is how he ended up playing for the Rubies.

He has the perfect life, perfect family, perfect career, and as he lines up across from me in that sheer shirt, I reluctantly admit he has the perfect body, too. His whiskey-toned skin is smooth and flawless. The muscles of his torso and arms—what I can see under the tribal tattoo covering his entire left arm—are perfectly sculpted, just like his face. Square jaw shaved smooth, full lips, and pristine teeth. His dark brown hair is perfectly styled with tight curls on top and shaved sides with a fancy design etched about his left ear. The real kicker, though—the thing everyone swoons over—are his sapphire-blue eyes, which put my dark grey ones to shame.

The media loves him. The fans love him.

I hate him.

Just because he is fortunate in life doesn’t mean he has to flaunt it in everyone else’s face.

Some of us haven’t been nearly as lucky.

Slipping on his helmet, Ellingsworth flashes one of his perfect smiles, and we line up head to head, wide receiver to cornerback. He may be the people’s choice for the best cornerback in the league for the last three years, but he is not my choice. This entitled jerk isn’t going to get in my head, no matter what he has to say to accompany that ridiculous modelesque grin—which he probably intends to come across as wholesome but is actually secretly sarcastic. Those full, dark lips part, and he says, “You’re impressive. None of us have been able to keep our eyes off you.”

What a condescending, mind-game-playing asshole.

Does he think one fake compliment will throw me off my game? Does he really have so little faith in his abilities that he has to resort to reverse psychology in order to best me?

Better luck next time, Ellingsworth.

The ball is snapped, and I fake left, dart to the right, run to my mark, turn to receive the pass, and . . .

A gloved hand bats the ball away inches from my fingertips.

I blink in surprise as the football hits the ground and flops away, leaving Ellingsworth the only thing in my general vicinity—an odd discovery, considering every other player I’ve been matched with was never even within spitting distance once I ran my route. This is . . . an unanticipated inconvenience.

A fluke. That one was a fluke—had to be!—and the next will be better.

The next play is not better.

Neither is the next, or the one after, or the one after that.

Frustration builds to a boil beneath my skin, and my routes become sloppy, my shoulder making contact with the man acting as my shadow more than is acceptable for a practice like this. We’re expected to pull our hits and limit our contact, but anger—at Ellingsworth and his uncanny ability to cover me step for step—spills out of me in the form of pushing hands and bumping bodies, until ultimately, it goes too far.

Every comment from Ellingsworth after each play, every snide comment he makes in the shape of constructive criticism —“hey, you almost had me on that last fake” or “your vertical is higher than I’d expect with your height” or “try cutting the route with a new perspective I won’t expect”—is fuel for my next hit, which sends him sprawling across the ground. He lies there stunned for a second, green blades of grass covering his arms and dirt smearing his ridiculous sheer jersey. The sweat on his forehead glistens in the glaring sun as he stares up at me in confusion with those bright sapphire eyes beneath rapidly blinking lashes.

“Oh,” he breathes in his velvety-smooth voice, like he should be singing to low jazz in a speakeasy rather than wearing himself out practicing a competitive sport. “I must not have been paying attention and ran right into you. Sorry.” He sits up and raises a hand, which hovers awkwardly in the air between us as I make no move to help him up.

He won’t even acknowledge my anger, won’t say anything to retaliate against my aggression. Scared? Maybe. More like he just wants to make me angrier, get a bigger rise out of me, make me out to be the bad guy.

I see you, Tahegin Ellingsworth. See you for the fake asshole you are underneath that golden-boy exterior.

“Whatever,” I grumble at him, rolling my eyes and turning away. Too bad he didn’t hit his head and have to go on concussion protocol.

Returning to the line, I’m determined to catch the next pass one way or another, even if it means knocking Ellingsworth on his ass yet again. Like a shadow—or a plague—he reappears as my counterpart, and we crouch to await the snap. Silence fills the space between us, anticipation tightening every muscle until they’re as taught as a bowstring, one catalyst away from snapping.

The corner of my mouth twitches, I release a sharp breath, and my eyes quickly flicker to the right as if planning my next movement.

Ellingsworth—God, that is such a long name, but I am not going to even consider calling him by his first name. Tahegin. Whatever happened to common spelling? My brain takes it upon itself to separate each syllable like a first grader sounding it out, running it closer and closer together as it annoyingly does eventually end up sounding like the basic name it is derived from. Still stupid. Pretentious. Like the person it belongs to.

Anyway, Ellingsworth stutter steps, his fiddle strings fracturing into a million strayed ends as a whistle blows. He’s offside since the ball hasn’t been snapped yet, and I catalog the surprise as it crashes like a tsunami through his sapphire eyes. “Well done,” he murmurs as we reset, condescension probably hidden somewhere within his rumbling drawl.

The next play, I put on a burst of speed and set my eyes far down the field as if that spot is my target, but after twenty yards, I whip around and double back at the precise moment Aleks looks at me. Having overshot due to my impressive acting skills, Ellingsworth is nowhere to be seen as I snag the spiraling football from the air with ease. I take off again at top speed, knowing it is only a matter of time before someone catches me. I’m fast, not invincible.

Or maybe I am because I carry the ball right into the end zone without encountering any other players. The offensive line whoops and hollers, but I only purse my lips in response. Ellingsworth’s stats are better than mine, no way to sugarcoat it. His legs are longer, his strides are further, and he was the fastest guy on the field last year. So why is he standing ten yards back? Did he . . . let me make that touchdown?

What an arrogant asshole.

After a quick break, we’re instructed to line up again, and I size him up. He’s certainly taller than me—by about five or so inches—and while he also has about twenty pounds of muscle on me, it’s all the better to propel himself faster. I blink as sunlight glints off the tiny diamond stud in the cartilage of his left ear, then again as it catches the silver bar several inches directly below the earring. Through the sheer jersey, I can faintly distinguish the piercing nestled through one nipple.

How does it not catch on the fabric? Tug and pull and rip?

I ponder that for longer than I should, and on the next snap, I’m two heartbeats behind the entire play, unable to do anything but watch as the ball sails over my head to where I’m supposed to be.

Traylor blows his whistle, but instead of calling any penalties, he gestures for us to approach. We gather around where he stands on a bench to look down at us while giving proper cooldown instructions, signaling the completion of today’s practice. At the end of his speech, Traylor reads some names off the clipboard in his hand. None of them mean anything to me until—“. . . and Hendrix Avery. Congratulations, you all have made it into training camp. This does not mean you are on the team. However, you have a chance to be. Camp begins at oh-five hundred sharp on Monday morning. Before you leave, meet with my assistant down here for information regarding . . . I don’t know, some legal and political shit you have to do. Get it taken care of, stay out of trouble, and come back ready to give two hundred percent. Don’t forget your cooldowns. Dismissed.”

The current Rubies players who weren’t on the field earlier hop the railing to the track. They greet their own—including Ellingsworth—with high fives, back slaps, handshakes, and bro hugs. His teammates don’t know, don’t see that underneath his charming smile, perfect dimple, and sparkling blue eyes, Ellingsworth is just a self-righteous sell-out. Not a team player, not God’s gift to football, not even a nice guy—a jerk who has nothing better to do than flaunt his fortunate life in all our faces and talk down to those he sees as beneath him. I’ve—unwillingly—seen his postgame interviews in which he credits his “skill” to his super-rich parents, who I bet he believes were lucky enough to adopt a child of his caliber. The documentary about him has a full tour of his oversized house here in LA, as well as panoramic drone footage of his Austin, Texas, mansion that neighbors his parents’. Said parents also have a house in LA that they stay in during football season so they can attend all of his games.

I scoff to myself. Rich people.

I can barely afford my tiny apartment in a rougher edge of town with the money I carefully saved up during college. Earlier this summer, I managed to find some ASL translator gigs and banked the money from those. They never asked me back after the fourth one, and when I called to ask why, they said they went with another candidate who smiled more. I have a bachelor’s degree in ASL, whereas the girl they went with only has an associate’s. But apparently, a smile is worth more than a hard-earned degree.

So when Aleks approaches me with a hand raised to clap me on the shoulder, I don’t even bother trying to return his polite, toothy grin. I easily dodge his touch, thanks to years of practice. I’m not a fan of people’s hands on me despite my chosen profession being a contact sport, so I have become proficient at avoidance. The trick is to stay on the edge of celebratory huddles and to keep everyone in front of me and within eyesight so I can dodge what I see coming rather than fall victim to an attack from behind. Sure, it has made me into a bit of an outsider, but I’m happier this way.

Aleks’ smile wavers only slightly as his hand falls limp at his side. “You’ve got some skills, man. I hope one of the names called for training camp was yours.” The inflection in his tone isn’t clear whether he is asking or not.

I offer an up-nod and a vague “Mhm” in response.

“Uh-huh,” Aleks muses, eyebrows raising. “And which name would that be?”

“Avery.” I clear my throat, which suddenly feels like I’ve been eating gravel for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the last week. “Hendrix Avery.”

The second-most famous quarterback currently active in the League—because, honestly, no one can hold a candle to Nathaniel Conroy in Miami—gives me a charming smile and holds his hand out again, this time for a handshake. “Aleks. Ezekiel Aleks. Obviously, you know who I am. As captain, I’d like to welcome you to training camp and tell you that I hope you make it all the way. It was a pleasure having you out there today.”

I offer a grunt of thanks.

Aleks opens his mouth as if to say something else, but another guy shouts something that catches his attention. We both look over to see Kit Alexander—a second-year running back—jumping high in the air and making wild gestures with his hands. He may appear to be a young, petite guy, but I know he can squat six hundred pounds without a drop of sweat falling from his shaggy auburn hair. “Kiss! Come here! This guy is an absolute unit , and he made camp!” Alexander closes two hands around—go figure—Tight End Energy’s bicep as if to measure the circumference.

“Catch you at camp, Hendrix,” Aleks hollers over his shoulder as he bounds off toward Alexander.

Given the chance, I would correct him and tell him to call me by my last name. It’s more impersonal that way. Instead, I’m left mumbling a confused, “Did he call him ‘Kiss’?” under my breath.

“It’s a nickname,” a cool voice says from behind me, making me startle and turn to face . . . “We all have one,” Tahegin Ellingsworth states as he sidles up beside me.

I don’t deign to respond, but that doesn’t deter him.

“Aleks got his because . . . Well, I’m sure you know. The media outed him using a picture of him kissing some guy behind a bar. Instead of letting them shame him, he took it upon himself to kiss so many people there wasn’t a story left for the media to exploit. If you scroll back far enough, there is a post on his socials where he once took a series of pictures kissing the entire team, one player after the other. We all got a good laugh out of that. It wasn’t a far jump from Aleks to Kiss.”

Nodding, I keep my eyes trained on the group of guys dispersing for cooldowns.

“They call Kit ‘Baby Boy’ for . . . reasons. You’ll hear them shorten it to Baby or sometimes Babe. Gallon, the center—” He points to one of his teammates, a big, burly guy. “He can chug an entire gallon of milk in less than thirty seconds. He’ll respond to Gallon or just Gal or even Big Guy.”

“It’s true,” someone interjects, throwing his arm around Ellingsworth’s shoulders and grinning, wide and toothy. Something pink and squishy is stuck between his upper and lower teeth on one side, and I realize it’s a big wad of gum once he blows a huge bubble in my direction. “Gal will respond to pretty much anything. Hey.” He holds out a hand, which I don’t take. It takes me a second to recognize him as one of the Rubies’ safeties. He must have gotten rid of his dreads sometime between the end of last season and now because his head is buzzed close to the scalp. “I’m Blow. Like for bubble gum, not the drug.”

“What’s wrong with just using last names like every other sports team?” It’s the first thing I’ve said to either of them since our exchange began, and I watch the surprise spread across their faces, as if they thought I was mute or some shit. Or maybe they weren’t expecting me to question their dumb nicknames. Without giving them a chance to respond, I take off for the other side of the field to do my cooldowns in peace.