Chapter Five #2
I turn, push myself up on my elbows and glance back at her. She’s wearing jeans and high-top sneakers with a black tank top. ‘Good luck. Just be yourself. Everybody will love you.’
‘I know what’s gonna happen,’ she sighs. ‘All the girls are gonna ask if you’re single, and all the guys are gonna ask if I can get ’em tickets to the game.’
‘Then just tell ’em no, I’m not, and no, you can’t. If they just wanna hang out with you just ’cause of me then they’re not worth hanging with in the first place.’
She rolls her eyes in the mirror. ‘Says he who literally never had to struggle with being popular.’
‘I already told you… I was never… Mr Popularity.’
‘That’s what a popular kid would say.’
I let my head fall back into my pillow. ‘Don’t you have to go now?’
‘I got like… five minutes. So, first game of the pre-season. How do you feel?’
‘Like somebody went at my insides with a hacksaw. I got… I don’t know. Butterflies.’
My sister snickers. ‘You’re gonna ace it. I know you are. That stadium is gonna be filled to the rafters, and when the game is over, all you’re gonna hear is your name on every Mutineers fan’s lips.’
‘Not for the wrong reasons, I hope.’
When she’s gone, I take a hot shower. Tonight, I’m the starting running back.
A lotta guys have game day rituals: like, they’ll wear the same pair of underwear or eat some weird purple food.
I guess I’m yet to find my ritual. I spend time in my (half-empty) closet and pick out an outfit to wear to the stadium, then throw on a T-shirt and shorts to eat breakfast. Pre-game nerves mean I’m not even hungry.
In the locker room, the atmosphere is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.
We’re all dressed in dark navy and white, the crest of the crossed swords of the Mutineers on our jerseys. I’m number fourteen in the squad. The noise from the stadium crowd reverberates through everything. It’s in the walls. My heart’s not stopped pumping at an elevated rate since I left my house.
It’s a Mutineers ritual that the captain applies eye black to each member of the starting line-up. Dalton Briar wipes his blackened, greasy thumbs across the tops of my cheeks.
I glance at my reflection in the mirror. Players wear eye black to supposedly reduce glare from the floodlights. I’ve always thought it looked like war paint.
‘No rookies on the field,’ he says to me, a reference to a speech Coach Holland made to the team earlier about every one of us having a right to be out there, no matter our level of experience. His way of saying ‘we’ve got this’.
No matter what happens out there, I’ll give it my all.
Show the fans why I was a first-round draft pick.
And no matter what happens, tomorrow morning I’m heading over to The Bounty to tell Serenity the following: I’m a football player, I’d like to get to know her, and would she like to go on a date with me.
Nothing could be scarier than this moment, waiting to approach the field, so I can’t chicken out on asking a girl for a drink.
‘Players on your feet, get in line!’ Coach Holland hollers, breaking me out of my daydream, thinking about Serenity’s pretty eyes.
We snap to attention. I was warned this would happen.
Another Mutineers ritual. The first game of the pre-season sees the Conways come and shake hands with all the players before we head out onto the field to have our names announced, our images beamed out on the jumbotron to the waiting crowd, running through the tunnel in a plume of dry ice that I can only assume is meant to build the hype.
We line up in order from defense to offense.
Hank Conway has the door held open for him.
I’ve shaken his hand before. Behind him is his daughter, Samantha Conway, who I’ve met briefly, and the two people behind her I assume are her kids: Brody, a taller guy with black hair, and Lemon, whose dress kinda oddly matches her own name.
One by one, they work their way along the line, shaking our hands and wishing us luck.
Brody Conway looks bored, like he doesn’t even wanna be here, but he follows his mother’s lead. He has dark hair and freakishly long fingers. When Lemon gets her turn, she holds onto my hand for way longer than is necessary. I give thanks to the Lord that our gloves are already on.
‘You’re Jake, right?’ she says, and her smile gives her dimples. Her white-blonde hair is tied back into a French braid, though she has dark roots showing. She seems to be about my age.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ I respond. ‘That’s me.’
‘You know, my grandpappy lets me choose who to go after in the draft. You were my top pick this year, Jake Walsh.’
Her voice is all light and breathy. She’s still gripping my hand and swinging her hips, biting her lip like she’s about to ask me out on a date or something.
I can hear the guys snickering, and I don’t have the first clue what to say to this girl because I’m reeling right now.
I’m questioning whether what she said is true, that her grandfather, Hank Conway, lets his grandchild choose his Mutineers draft picks and the only reason I’m here is because Lemon Conway had some desire to flirt with me.
‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ Hank Conway’s voice echoes around the walls of the locker room and suddenly Lemon’s looking to her feet. ‘Do us proud out there.’
‘Huddle up!’ Dalton Briar roars and the team comes together. I think I hear Lemon squeal as she moves out the way, following her grandfather out the door and heading toward the Conways’ VIP suite.
My heart is racing. I see the hunger in my teammates’ eyes. This is what we were born for. This might only be the first game of the pre-season, but the desire to win is oozing out these guys’ pores. And all I know is that I gotta prove myself a winner.
‘Mutineers!’ Dalton shouts loud and in this moment, we are his disciples. ‘Tonight, we go out there, we dominate! We give one hundred per cent in every play! We take no prisoners! We make the most of every moment. Every opportunity! And we do it to win. ’Cause we’re MUTINEERS!’
‘MUTINEERS! Hooah!’
The sound is almost deafening. I feel hard slaps against my back. More cries of ‘no rookies on the field.’ Nobody gets treated like the new kid. We’re a team.
When I finally pick up my helmet, I’m ready. I’ve never been more ready for anything. When we line up in the tunnel, the excitement from the crowd is palpable, the atmosphere electric.
This is it.
When I run out onto the field, holding my helmet in my gloved hand, my image broadcast onto the jumbotron, it feels like everything is moving in slow-mo.
The roar from the crowd makes my blood pump in my ears.
I’m aware of the cheerleaders to my left, of their synchronized movements to the strains of Motley Crüe’s Girls Girls Girls, blaring over the speakers around the Danube Stadium, the signature tune of the CMC.
I take in their faces. I wanna glimpse of their captain, Harmony Reese, so I can see for myself the girl who Hud Briar is so crazy about.
Yet just when I think I spot her, I’m drawn to another face and without warning, my legs are lead weights.
It can’t be.
She can’t be here.
Because if she’s here, sharing this field with me and she’s holding two motherfucking pom poms, it means she’s a…
She’s a…
Serenity is a goddamned Mutineers cheerleader.
With those pretty eyes, she stares right back at me.
And by the looks of it, she’s as surprised as I am.