Chapter 13 — Ninety-Six Pages （Nora）
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Gray window light slid down the tall glass going blue while wet wool and radiator dust hung warm under cinnamon from the oat latte at my spot.
My fingers ached with cold before I even touched the cup, and I wrapped both hands around it and let the heat climb into my knuckles while Beck lined his pens square without looking up. I said, “You stole the bad chair again.”
He glanced up fast, gray-green eyes bright under his shaggy hair, and his mouth tipped in that quiet almost-smile that always hit me low in the stomach first. He said, “You see the door better there. I don't mind this one.”
My throat went warm before I could name the feeling, and I slid into the saved seat and bumped my knee light against the table leg to ground myself. I said, “You always do that. Don't think I haven't noticed.”
He ducked his head and squared the pens one last precise nudge and settled his big shoulders like the room had finally clicked into place. He said, “Noticed what? I just like this chair.”
A snort honked out of me, that awful laugh-snort I have hated since middle school, and heat rushed straight up my neck into my cheeks. I said, “Sure you do. That chair wobbles and you know it.”
Footsteps paused in the doorway and Marisol Vega leaned in with her clipboard hugged to her chest and her eyes landing right on the closed notebook at Beck's elbow. She said, “I've got you both signed in, so don't stay past six, okay?”
I straightened fast and tucked my damp hair behind my ears while Beck sat very still with his hands flat on the table like a guy trying hard to look casual. She added, “Front desk locks up at dusk, so just wave when you head out.”
The door clicked soft behind her and the radiator hum filled the room again with rain ticking the tall windows in a thin steady hush. I exhaled through my nose and rolled my shoulders down from my ears. I said, “Okay. Just us and Sports Psych.”
He nodded once and flipped open the review sheet with those careful square movements he makes when his brain is already three steps ahead of the paper. He said, “Quiz me in pictures. Definitions slide off. Pictures stick.”
My chest loosened because this part I could do in my sleep, and I dragged my chair a breath closer and tapped the first diagram with my pen. I said, “Close your eyes. Tell me what arousal regulation looks like on a blitz.”
His eyelids dropped and his breathing slowed, and his two fingers found his left wrist and rested there light without tapping yet. He said, “Red sky before the snap. Then narrow. Then one star.”
Pride flared hot behind my ribs before any tutor-brain coaching line could form, and I grinned so wide my cheeks hurt. I said, “Yes. That's it. Now give me the route constellation for mesh.”
He spoke faster now, sure and low, sketching shapes in the air with his pen while his eyes stayed shut and his shoulders dropped another inch. He said, “Two comets crossing. Drag under. Backer follows the wrong tail.”
I read his pictures straight back to him without checking the sheet, quick and certain, because after all these weeks I could see the field the way he drew it. I said, “And the checkdown is the little moon trailing right. You've got it cold.”
His eyes opened and locked on mine, bright and startled and pleased, and something electric ran straight down my arms into my fingertips. He said, “You read it back faster than I said it. Nobody does that.”
I said, “Give me the nickel look again but slower, so I can track every star from the snap through the break.”
He said, “Two deep stars holding shells while the nickel creeps down and the backer shades toward the field.”
I said, “Yes, and where is your window? Don't think textbook. Tell me what you actually see first.”
He said, “Middle opens like a seam of light, and the little comet drags right underneath the crashing backer.”
I said, “That is perfect. That is exactly right. Say it once more so it locks in cold for Thursday.”
He said, “Middle light, comet under, star over the top. I've got it. It's stuck now for good.”
I said, “Damn right it is. You're reading faster than last week, and you know exactly why that matters.”
“I've watched you draw it so many times,” I said, and my voice came out softer than I meant it to. “Your pictures make more sense than the textbook.”
Hallway noise crashed past, all clatter and shouting metal, and his whole body jerked tight like a yanked string.
His two fingers tapped his left wrist fast, jaw locked, eyes fixed on the table edge, breath shallow. My stomach dropped before I thought anything at all.
I lowered my voice to almost nothing and slid my chair back half a foot so the air felt bigger around him, and I kept my hands where he could see them. I said, “Hey, I've got you. We'll go slow till it quiets down.”
He dragged in one rough breath and held it, then let it out through his nose while his fingers slowed against the navy paracord wristband with my green thread knotted tight in it. He said, “Three breaths. Sorry. Give me — give me a sec.”
“Take whatever you need,” I whispered, and I counted silent with him while rain streaked the glass and the radiator ticked. “In. Out. Good. One more.”
The hallway racket faded down to drips and distant echoes, and his tapping stilled to a light resting touch on the wristband. He said, “Okay. I'm back. Thanks for — thanks for not grabbing.”
My eyes stung weirdly fast and I blinked hard and capped my pen so I would not fidget with it. I said, “Always. Now — want to try the red-zone pictures again?”
He said, “Red zone first. Then third down. You call it and I will draw it blind.”
I said, “Deal. Eyes shut on three. One, two — show me that fade star burning bright.”
He said, “Fade star high right, comet low left, middle star splitting the safeties clean apart.”
My phone buzzed loud against the oak and lit up with the new episode alert flashing bright, and a clipped too-eager voice spilled out before I could kill it.
I lunged for the volume but the words landed anyway, slick and grinning, and Beck went rigid across from me. The phone blared, “We've got a QB room source, and you won't believe what's in these pages.”
Ice slid straight down my spine before anger caught up to it, and I jabbed the screen dead while my cold fingers shook against the warm cup. I said, “I don't like that. He's talking about your room like he's been in it.”
Beck squared the pens with two sharp precise shoves until all four lined perfect, and his mouth flattened into a hard line I had never seen aimed at anything but a blitz diagram. He said, “He hasn't earned it, but he's been near my locker. I've seen him.”
“Who?” I asked, though my gut already knew, and the radiator hum suddenly sounded way too loud. “Tell me straight. Who's been hanging around?”
He met my eyes level and did not blink, and his voice dropped low and certain in a way that raised every hair on my arms. He said, “Trey. After lifts. Before film. He lingers. He looks.”
My hands went cold again despite the latte, and I pressed my palms flat to the oak to stop them shaking. I said, “Since when? Beck — since the away trip?”
He nodded once, short and grim, and shoved his bag closer with his foot like he had already decided something huge. He said, “That's why I did what I did. I need to show you something.”
I said, “Then show me. Whatever it is, I can take it. I promise I can.”
He said, “You say that now, but this one changes everything about what you carry home.”
I said, “I don't care. If it matters to you, it matters to me. Show me.”
He pulled out the worn black grid notebook with its soft bent corners and set it between us, and it made a soft scrape sliding across the scarred oak that I felt in my teeth.
My breath caught because I knew that sound, that exact weight, and my eyes flicked from the notebook to his face and back again. I whispered, “Is that — is that the real one?”
He laid his big hand flat on the cover for a second like he was steadying himself, then lifted it away deliberate. He said, “That one's not real. I switched it after the trip so they'd steal the wrong thing.”
Confusion buzzed through me before his meaning snapped into focus, and I leaned in so fast my sleeve knocked my pen to the floor. I said, “Wait. The locker one? The one in your locker is fake?”
“Built it to be photographed,” he said, and his voice stayed low and even while his fingers tapped once on the real cover. “Wrong order. Blurred calls. Let them take pictures all they want.”
Awe and terror tangled in my chest so tight I could barely breathe, and I stared at the black cover with its frayed elastic gone loose. I breathed, “And this is the actual playbook? Your head?”
He flipped it open and the pages fanned dense with tiny numbered grids and route stars marching corner to corner, every page packed in his precise hand. He said, “Numbered. Every one. Front to back.”
I said, “Let me see the numbers. Show me page one and then the last one.”
He said, “One starts the mesh pictures, and the last one closes the goal-line stars I drew Sunday.”
I said, “Sunday? You drew through the whole weekend while I thought you were resting?”
He said, “Could not stop. Once the pictures start coming, I have to get them down.”
I said, “One to ninety-six? Every page numbered, front to back?”
He said, “One to ninety-six. Count them tonight if you want. They are all there.”
I said, “Then I will guard it like a final. Nobody sees it. Nobody touches it but me.”
He said, “I know. My hands stopped shaking the second you held it. Yours did that.”
Then he pushed the whole thick worn thing across the oak to my side of the table, both hands guiding it till it rested against my forearms, and my skin went hot then cold.
My arms curled around it faster than thought, both forearms caging the black cover tight to my ribs. I stared at him wide-eyed. I said, “You're trusting me with everything and I'm scared I'll mess it up.”