Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter
twenty-three
I’LL SHOW HIM FRESH BLOOD, I texted that day after school as I headed through campus to my car, recounting what had happened during podcast class in a string of long, ranty texts. I hadn’t told them at lunch. I had still been seething, and we had been surrounded by people I hadn’t wanted to overhear my rage-filled monologue.
What does that mean? Max responded. Are you going to stab him?
I let out a laugh, then typed: I want to.
Let’s stay out of jail, Lee responded.
Fresh blood, I typed again. Nolen acts like it’s an original idea. Features are basic.
Deja said nothing. I wondered if she was driving, on her way to work. I realized I didn’t know her schedule. Usually, I asked her every Sunday. I hadn’t asked her this week. How did soccer conditioning go on Sunday, Deja?
Again, there was no response. She was definitely on her way to work. It was Thursday. She normally worked on Thursdays.
I reached the parking lot, and as I tucked my phone away and stepped onto the asphalt, I saw Theo across the way, heading for his car. I looked both ways to make sure there was no traffic and rushed to catch him. He had his earbuds in, so it was pointless to call out his name. I got to him right before he reached his car, though, and I plucked one of them out.
His head whipped in my direction, a look of confusion or irritation on his face. When he saw it was me, that look transformed into a smile.
“Hi,” I said. “What are you doing?”
He pointed to his car. “Going home. What are you doing?”
“Trying to channel yoga teachings because Nolen is driving me insane. He’s a Jensen fanboy, I think.” I was trying to forget the other things he said. Because the bottom line was that he’d admitted I would’ve made the host spot had Jensen not tried out.
“I think there’s a club,” Theo said.
I held up his earbud. “Why do you always walk around with these? You don’t like to talk to anyone?”
“I talk to you a lot.”
I shouldn’t have let myself be flattered by that, but I did. “Your friends annoy you?”
“I like music.”
“Well…” I held out his earbud for him, and he took it. “This is one of the reasons people think you’re a snob.”
He smirked. “So I’ve heard.”
I remembered that first night I’d met him, how he knew the order of the pool lights. “You spend a lot of time in your head.”
He shrugged. “I have a lot to think about.”
“What are you thinking about now?” I asked.
“I was wondering what you were doing tonight?”
“Tonight?”
“Yes, that thing that comes after today.”
“Funny. Nothing. Why?” Was he about to ask me out?
“Meet me at the elementary school at seven?”
“For training?” I shouldn’t have been disappointed. I needed to train.
“Yes.”
“On a Thursday night?”
“Yes.”
I nodded, and his smile grew.
“Good. I’ll see you there.” He pointedly put his earbud back in while staring at me.
I laughed, and he climbed in his car. I turned and walked to mine. It was then I realized that I wanted to trust Theo. He was making it easy.
I HEADED TOWARD THE FIELD behind the elementary school slowly, a mass of kids occupying the space. My soccer cleats dangled over my shoulder by their laces. I looked at my phone again.
Meet me on the soccer field, the text from Theo read.
Did he not realize there would be some sort of game going on? His car had been in the parking lot, but I didn’t see him.
The school sat on a hill, and from here I could see the ocean and giant Morro Rock in the distance. The wind kicked up, sweeping hair across my face. I pulled it back into a ponytail and secured it with the holder I’d brought. Next to the school was a park and an older couple was playing pickleball on the courts. The sounds of the ball hitting the racket and the kids screaming mingled in the air.
As I got closer to the field, I could see long strips of colorful material dangling off white belts strapped around the waist of each child. A couple footballs were being tossed as well. My eyes scanned the bleachers, where a few parents sat watching.
“Finley!” Theo was waving at me from the middle of the field.
I finished the walk to him. “Hi,” I said. “What are you doing?”
“I help coach flag football on Thursdays.”
“Oh.”
“Coach T, my shoe’s untied,” a little boy said, stopping in front of him and lifting his foot.
“It sure is.” Theo took a knee and tied the boy’s shoe; then he ran off with his friends.
When Theo stood, a slight wince colored his expression. I found myself wincing right along with him. I relaxed my expression before he noticed.
“Everyone, gather round!” he called, and as he did he pulled something out of his pocket. It wasn’t until he was slinging it around my waist that I realized it was one of the belts that all the kids were wearing. “Finley has never played flag football before!”
What? How? Oh no! were some of the words I was able to decipher through the collective shout of the kids around us.
“You think we can teach her?” he asked.
“Yes!” they all screamed at once.
He tugged on both ends of the belt, which forced me closer to him. Then he was threading one end into the metal buckle piece of the other end. He was bent over for the task, his hair brushing my cheek in the process. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said quietly. “Someone will suspect. But if this somehow gets out, you can say volunteering looks good on résumés. You’re here for volunteerwork.”
I hadn’t been thinking much of anything with his hands brushing against my waist and his hair tickling my cheek, but it was obvious he had thought it through. “Are you going to play too?” I asked, noticing he wasn’t wearing a belt.
“Yes, Coach, play!” one of the girls said.
“I’ll play,” he said, freeing another belt from his pocket.
“Yay!” The cheer was loud.
He buckled on his belt.
“Oh, look what I finally found.” I lifted my cleats off my shoulder.
“Nice.” He took them from me and flung them toward the sidelines. “We’ll use them later.”
The next five minutes were spent teaching me the rules, which were mostly the same as regular football, except no tackling was involved. By the time the ball was placed on the scrimmage line, I thought I had it down, despite the fact that twenty kids were yelling different things at me the whole time. Theo had assigned me to the yellow team and himself to the red, so we stood on opposite sides of that invisible line, staring at each other. He’d made me the quarterback, which I thought was really rude, but my plan was to get rid of the ball as quickly as possible after each snap.
That plan was harder said than done. The kids were fast. My yellow ribbons were torn from my belt after each snap three separate times. On the fourth down, Theo whispered to the line of kids something that I suspected went, Let her throw the ball.
“Don’t go easy on me!” I called.
He laughed. “Fine, don’t go easy on her, team.”
This time when the ball was snapped, I backed up more, and my pocket of protectors actually protected me as I looked down the field for someone to throw it to. A dark-haired little girl was open on the right, and our eyes met. I chucked the ball, very poorly, but she managed to catch it. Just as I released the ball, Theo was by my side, tugging one of the ribbons on my belt. The Velcro must’ve been super strength because the action threw me off-balance and I careened into his chest. His arm wrapped around me, possibly to keep me from falling.
“Too late,” I said, with a smile, against his chest.
“Lucky pass,” he said.
“Talent,” I assured him.
“Maybe you’re trying out for the wrong position.”
I laughed. “You’re right—I should just try out for all the positions.”
Shouts upfield drew our attention away from each other, and he released his hold on me. Down the way, my little teammate had made it all the way to the endzone. I let out a whoop and high-fived the kid next to me.
I held my fake microphone up to my mouth. “Coach Theo, you have now witnessed the person you literally just taught the game to throw a touchdown pass to take the lead. How does that make youfeel?”
He took my hand in his and brought it up to his mouth. “I feel like I need to show you how it’s done.” With those words, he went to collect the ball.
Kids trailed after him, like shadows, mimicking his every move, it seemed. Once he had the ball, he turned and said something that made his shadows laugh. My heart gave a lurch.
Then we were back to the game, him playing quarterback this time and, apparently, me making it my one and only goal to relieve him of a ribbon. I would race around and through and past players, reaching for the red material.
On his third completed pass, he narrowed his eyes at me after my failed attempt, playfully swatting my hand away from his waist. “I’m not even who you’re supposed to be after.”
“Oh, you are,” I said. “You are.”
He laughed. A laugh that lit up his whole face. “Get back to your side.”
The little boy next to me looked up when I was standing in my place. “You go that way and block Micah from catching the ball.” He pointed behind me.
“Or we can all go after Coach,” I said, whispering to the kids around me. “Do you all want to go after Coach?”
They nodded in unison, and that time on the snap, we rushed Theo. I got behind him and wrapped my arms around his, pinning them to his sides as a gaggle of kids ripped the ribbons from hisbelt.
“Cheaters!” he yelled. “All of you are cheaters.”
The kids howled with laughter as I released him, and he turned to face me. “Especially you,” he said. “The biggest cheater of all.” He scooped me into his arms and lifted me off the ground, spinning once. I tensed, worried about his knee, but he just set me back down and shouted, “Ten-yard penalty!”
“Worth it!” I said.
“You’re a bad influence,” he said.
“Thank you,” I called over my shoulder as I headed to my team.
The rest of the hour was more straightforward; we followed the rules and both teams scored a couple more touchdowns. And then it was over. Parents were collecting their kids, and kids were saying goodbye as the lights on the field clicked on. Then it was just Theo and me standing midfield with a pile of belts and a couple of footballs.
“That was fun,” I said.
“You were good with them.”
“ You were good with them.” I sat next to the pile of belts and began reattaching some ribbons that had come loose. “How long have you been doing this?”
“I’ve been helping out during off season since”—he shrugged like it was no big deal, sitting down next to me—“freshman year.”
“You really are a nice guy.”
He let out a single laugh. “You’re still not convinced, are you?”
“I am!” I said. “You are.”
“I don’t know how to respond to that.”
“Thank you?” I suggested.
“Thank you?” he said, keeping the question in his inflection and everything.
“I’m sorry it took me this long to truly believe it. It’s my issues, not yours.”
“Oh, I know.”
This time I laughed, then picked up a handful of belts. “What do we do with all this stuff?”
“There’s a mesh bag by the bleachers.” He stood, and again I saw the wince as he did.
I couldn’t help myself and asked, “Is your knee bothering you more than normal?”
“Just a little stiff. It’s fine.” He scooped up the rest of the belts.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be.”
“Is it because of all the extra practices you’re putting in withme?”
“They’re good for me.” He deposited the belts into the bag, then picked up a ball. “Do you have time to stick around for a bit longer? Practice kicking?”
I looked at his knee. “Are you sure?”
“You’ll be the one kicking, not me.” He handed me my cleats that I hadn’t noticed on the ground near us.
“Thanks.” I squatted down to change out the shoes I was wearing for my cleats. I hadn’t put them on in a year, and they felt tight…snug. I stared out over the field, little white bugs floated above the grass, beating their wings.
“You miss soccer?” he asked.
“I miss bonding with a team, hanging out with Deja more,” I confided. “But I honestly don’t miss soccer. I’ll miss podcasting.”
I met his eyes. They were a golden brown and seemed to want to say something.
“You’re analyzing me again.”
He smiled. “I don’t understand. Why do you have to miss it?”
“Well, for one, my grandma’s story will be done or she won’t be able to tell it anymore.”
He nodded in sympathy.
“And for two, I need more than a personal podcast. I need better equipment and more training. And at the school I’m planning to go to, there is one path into their podcast program and it will be taken by Jensen and Ava.” And I couldn’t move away. Not anytime soon. Not only could I not afford it right now, but I wanted as much time as possible with my grandma.
“The internship?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Maybe you need to make another path. Submit your personal podcast to them. Show them there shouldn’t only be one path.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“You’re scared to do that?”
“It’s more that I don’t think it will work. So yeah, I guess I’m scared. These past few weeks have shown me I’m more of a coward than I ever realized.”
“You’re not a coward.” He spun the football on his palm. “What you’re doing right now, with this, is beyond brave.”
I laughed. “Revenge?”
A half smile crept onto his face. “Well, that too.”
I snatched the ball from him. “I appreciate the pep talk, Coach, but we have to turn me into the best kicker in the land.”
“In the land?” he asked.
“Fine, I’ll settle for top ten.”
He smiled. “Stop grading yourself. All you need to be is better than one particular kicker.”
I gave a single nod. “I can do that.”
“Yes, you can.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out. It was a Facebook notification. When I opened it, I found a message from Alice waiting.
“What?” Theo asked. I must’ve gone still.
I turned the phone toward him, and we read it together.
There’s a shed in the back of my mom’s house if you want to come look through it for the surfboard this weekend. You’re welcome to.
“Tell her yes!” he said in excitement. “Let’s do it.”