Chapter 5
Noah
She stared at me for a long moment, her eyes searching mine for an answer to whatever question was in her head.
She stepped back.
“I think I told you enough. I’m not comfortable with you here—”
“I’ll go.” I reached for the handle.
“You’ll go?” She looked even more suspicious. “I already asked you to leave. You didn’t, so why now?”
I answered her honestly. “You asked me to leave because you didn’t want to talk. You didn’t mention you were uneasy with me in your space. Now you have, I don’t want that. So . . . I’ll go.”
“That simple?” She didn’t believe me.
“I’m a really simple guy.” I opened the door. “Are you still going to cover the team?”
“Yes. It’s currently my job.”
“Cool. Dust says you take a lot of pictures of me. Make sure you catch my good side.” I winked as her mouth dropped, and I left her in her apartment as I jogged down the stairs.
A door slammed hard somewhere above me, and I knew it was hers. Good. It meant I got to her. Not just in a ‘I’m asking uncomfortable questions about your brother’ way, but in a ‘I’m getting under your skin’ way.
I was okay with that. Actually, I was very okay with that.
I walked back to the dorms thinking about the way she’d looked at me when she said she couldn’t trust me.
I looked around at all the clueless people passing by.
Groups of students, even the ones who walked in twos.
They all looked happy. Oblivious to the crap happening around them.
I envied them.
Yesterday had been tense. This morning at practice was tense, worse than the new normal we all had to endure. And this afternoon, yeah, just as bad. I longed for the normal I saw in my fellow students’ faces as they passed me.
Dante and Dustin had been on edge all morning, so much so that they’d eventually made me feel like I had to get away from them.
I wanted to go back to the way it had been, but the way Coach Sutherland had sent us all packing last time had been a harsh reminder of who held the power in our battle against him.
A few people called out to me as I passed them. I gave a quick ‘hello’ back, or a wave of my hand.
I thought about something Hadley had brought up the other week. We had a presence. The fans loved us. The alumni loved us. To get rid of one of us would be easier than to get rid of all three of us.
People would notice. People would question.
Could we rely on our own popularity to let us ride this out? For a year? Briar said the NCAA protected the players. Would it? I hadn’t seen them protect her brother, but then if they didn’t know about Mason . . .
I changed course from the dorm and headed to the bar at the edge of campus. I needed quiet time, and I already knew I wouldn’t get it with the brainstorming gang. I didn’t feel guilty about needing the distance.
The bar wasn’t busy. I ordered a soda, took a booth at the back, slipped in my earbuds, and sat back to enjoy some music.
Thirty minutes later, I felt like I’d hit the reset button, and my world was back on track. Halfway through my soda, I’d opened my sports app and was watching an NFL game from last season. Watching tape always calmed my nerves and helped me focus.
A familiar shadow slid into the booth across from me. I didn’t look up, knowing it was Dante. I simply turned my phone so he could watch the game too.
I turned down the volume, pulled out my earbuds, and was quietly pleased when he didn’t speak until halftime.
“I never saw that one during the season,” he said, taking a sip of Coke.
“Yeah, I missed a few too. Too busy watching college games to catch the pro games.” I glanced up at him. “That’s what the offseason is for, right? Catching up.”
His lips twitched. “Or reset, rest, and recuperation.”
“A lot of r’s.”
“Yeah, I guess there is.” He leaned back in his seat. “You’ve been quiet.”
“Always am.” My soda finished, I considered something stronger.
“You were coming out of your shell more,” he said, and I heard the note of sadness.
“A lot’s happening.”
He nodded. “Do you think she’ll come back now that we know who she is?”
“Yeah.” I could have told him she was already back, but I just didn’t want to.
“Do you think she took the picture of Dust?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Nah, she did not want to see his junk up close and personal.” I remembered the look of horror on her face when she saw it. I knew how she felt.
Dante grinned. “You know, despite what people think, and what you said about your old schoolmates, no one really looks in the showers and stuff. But then you get the zoomed-in image of him all . . .” He shuddered. “It hurts my brain.”
“I definitely had a stroke.”
“Ew.”
I gave him a flat stare. “I thought you had more class,” I said.
Dante grinned and took a sip of his soda. “Nope.”
I couldn’t help it. I smiled. “That’s such a Slater comment.” I laughed. “You’ve lived with him too long.”
Dante shrugged and leaned back. “So, do you want to talk?”
“Again?” I asked him, and he heard my fatigue.
“I actually wanted to talk about something other than . . . this.”
I looked at my empty cup. “Do I need a refill?” I asked.
“Probably.”
“Do I need something stronger than soda?”
Dante shook his head. “Spring training, man. It’s your call, but . . .”
I groaned out loud. “Do you think the Santo guys are sitting around sipping soda?”
Dante scoffed. “Yeah, I do. You want to see them take competition seriously? Go sit in their locker room.”
That confused me. “You’ve been in their locker room?”
“Dustin showed me a clip of their last high-school game once. Jett Santo was screaming at everyone, even the coach. Behind him was his brother, and if Jett wasn’t punching, Gray was.”
“In the locker room?” I asked him, slightly amused. “And the coach was there?”
“Yes! And getting screamed at with everyone else!”
“How much were they down by?”
Dante looked me straight in the eye. “They were up by twenty.”
I laughed out loud. “That’s awesome.” I saw his face and shook my head.
“You don’t do the whole ‘I’m gonna beat your ass’ thing.
You’re calmer and more collected, but I don’t know, Dante.
If I think you’re going to take my head off my shoulders at halftime for a penalty I gave away, I might have more incentive not to give away a penalty. ”
“Violence doesn’t instill discipline. It only breeds a bullying atmosphere.” I saw his huff of displeasure.
“That’s why you don’t like him? You think he’s a bully?”
Dante nodded. “It isn’t the way to lead. I don’t shout at the bench because I don’t want to be shouted at on the bench. Being shouted at doesn’t make me want to improve; it makes me uncomfortable. Leadership through positivity and discipline by example is what makes a good leader.”
I nodded. He had a point. But also . . . “Sometimes you need a good screaming match to just, you know . . . vent.”
Dante finished his soda. “That’s why God gave us sex,” he said.
I let out a surprised laugh. “Well, okay.” We shared a grin. I broached the subject because that’s what Dante did. He got you comfortable before he asked the thing you didn’t want to answer. “Is this what you wanted to talk about?”
“No.” He glanced over at the bar. “But now I’ve decided I can ask another time.”
“Ask now.” I raised my hand to the server, who nodded. “Hope you wanted the same again.”
“That’s fine.”
We sat in silence for a moment, the music in the bar playing early 90s classics, my fingers drumming against the tabletop.
She brought over another two sodas. “Thanks.” I paid and left a tip. Dante didn’t say a word when he saw my tip.
“I’ve worked in the service industry,” I reminded him. “Pay is shit.”
“Agreed.” He took a sip of Coke. “Are you going to leave?”
I looked around. No one was near, but still, it hardly felt like the time or the place. “Is this the place for this discussion?”
Dante shrugged. “If I ask on the field, someone may hear. If I ask in the dorm, it’s too serious. If I ask in a bar while having a soda . . . it can just be a casual conversation, right?”
He just pulled a quarterback sneak, and he wasn’t even on the field.
“I was thinking about it.” I saw his look and put him out of his misery. “But I think, no, I know, that the more of us who know what’s happening, the less they can do shit to us.”
Dante looked at me in surprise. “You want to tell more people?”
I nodded. I hadn’t known that until right this moment, but yeah, I did.
“Yeah. They can ship five bench warmers off in the middle of the night. They’ll get questioned if they try it with the first team. Hell, even with the second team. I say we speak to more of the guys we play with. Ask them what they know.”
“And if they know more than we do?” he asked hesitantly.
“Then isn’t that a good thing?”
“And if they’re okay with it, and tell Coach and anyone else what we’re asking?”
“Then we know who we can and can’t trust, on the field and off it.”
He considered me, and I let him. I recognized the look in his eyes, reading the defense and going over the possible plays. Dante looked away.
“It’s a risk,” he said finally. “Putting trust in people and then when they stab you in the back, it’s too late to shut the door.” He saw my puzzled look. “You know the saying, shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.”
“Ah.”
We sat in silence.
“It is a risk.” I took a drink. “But, isn’t everything in this game a risk?”
He gave a grudging nod. “We need to bring Dust in before we move forward.”
“Because he’s more sociable and knows who to approach first?”
Dante smiled briefly. “Yeah. Basically.”
I nodded. “Then we could do that.”
I looked around the bar. It was filling up, and people were giving us their distance, which was nice. It was the offseason. If we had been playing, we’d have been crowded with guys — and girls — telling us where we went wrong the week before. Now we were just two guys enjoying some R&R at the bar.
I toyed with the paper straw beside my drink. I hated paper straws. “She’s already back.”
Dante looked confused for a second, then his eyebrows rose in surprise. “How do you know? Did you see her on campus?”
“I found out where she’s staying.”
He gave a light shoulder lift. Not quite a shrug. “How?”
I inhaled deeply. “My brother has some computer skills,” I told him. “I didn’t ask him to look into anything else earlier because . . . he doesn’t need to know about this. But this wasn’t difficult for him.” I rubbed my forehead. “He probably now thinks I’m a stalker, but he’s thought worse.”
Dante smoothed his fingers over his brow as he thought. “Why didn’t you mention it earlier?”
I thought about an answer that would make sense to him.
He shook his head as he looked away. “Were you going to tell me?”
“No.”
He looked disappointed. “I really fucked up when I threw that punch, huh?”
“No. I mean, yeah, you did. But, ugh . . .” I tried to loosen the tension in my shoulders. “You shouldn’t have done it. And I shouldn’t have swung at Savvy. But it’s over. We need to just put it behind us.” I saw his look. “Really put it behind us.”
Dante nodded. “Yes, I agree.” He looked down at our empty cups. “You could hit me now if it makes you feel better.”
“You’re just being overly dramatic.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked quietly. “The reason you woke up swinging?”
“No.” I answered so fast, I think I surprised us both.
“Mmhmm, you sound unsure,” he joked.
We shared an amused look.
“Hungry?” he asked, pushing his cup away.
“Take out from that pasta place?” I asked, sliding along the booth. “What about spring training?”
He nodded. “We’ll order light, no bread, no creamy sauces.” We stood, and it felt normal between us.
“No meatballs,” I suggested.
“But we have to get a side of gnocchi.”
I grunted. “Obviously.”
We left the bar, giving a few waves to the people who called out our names. We walked back to the dorm.
“Recruiting teammates might work,” he conceded as we walked.
“I don’t think it will hurt.” I shoved my hands into my pockets. “She’s coming back to the training ground tomorrow. I think we should tell her the plan.”
I felt his gaze on the side of my face. “We don’t know her, Noah,” he said.
“I know.” I did know, but there was still something about her I knew I could trust. I couldn’t even pinpoint it.
It was a gut feeling, and my gut had never led me astray.
Or else I was giving the benefit of the doubt to the girl with the burgundy hair and green eyes, because she was easy on the eyes.
I liked to think I had more depth, but as my mom said, men were fools for pretty women.
“I didn’t say we give her our life secrets, just that, maybe we tell her a little something, she gives us a little something she knows. ”
“I’ll trust whatever you decide,” Dante murmured.
“You sure?”
“It’s your instinct to trust her. I trust you, so yeah, I’m sure.”
We were heading up the stairs to our dorm when I tapped his shoulder. “See, that kind of thinking is the exact opposite of what a Santo would do.”
He grinned. “That’s why what I do in the locker room is called leadership.”
We ordered takeout. We ate the garlic bread side that came with it as a freebie, and we both ordered meatballs.
Stuffed and content, we played Madden. When Dust finally pulled himself away from Hadley and came home, he challenged the winner to a game. He ate his reheated food we’d ordered as I beat Dante.
The night was quiet and relaxed. It was almost the way it had been, and the tension in my shoulders eased a little more.
When I told Dustin I was going to tell Briar my plan, he looked surprised and said, “Let’s see what happens.”
When Dante told Dustin we were going to approach more players and let them know what was happening, he simply nodded and said, “Sounds good.”
Did it?
I really hoped I knew what I was doing.
It was a risk, but winning always was.