He was heading home. Maybe he’d get there in time to catch his mom before she left for her shift at the hospital. Maybe she’d be able to talk him down about his catastrophic practice.
But by the time he got home, the house was empty, except for a note.
Wonder-boy,
Sorry I missed you. Dinner’s in the fridge. I hope practice went well.
See you tomorrow??
Love, Mom.
He opened the fridge, hoping it was pizza, because even though he’d eaten, he always had room for pizza. He pulled a plate covered in plastic wrap toward him. Chicken and rice. He put it back. Today was clearly not his day.
He went to his room and collapsed onto his bed. Maybe if he could just be still for a moment, he could find his center again. If he’d ever had one. Football had always, always, been about the glory, the girls, the parties, the kids holding signs with his shirt number. But his game had only gotten good when he’d given up his hopes of his father coming back and just enjoyed it.
Now he had to do the same. Give up the old reasons to play—the glory, the attention, the scholarships—and just love the game again. Pure and simple.
But to do that, he actually had to play. Get a regular spot on the team for the rest of the season. To just disappear into the Zen of the game.
And to do that, he needed help.
He remembered what Avery had said after he had bolted from her car. Something about visualizing his hands in the space around the ball before he caught it. No one had ever given him advice like that before. His previous coaches had just let him play, trained him hard in the gym, but offered no real instruction.
That’s because I’d been able to catch every ball thrown at me since I was about nine.
He sat up. He needed instruction. He needed help from someone who knew what they were talking about.
Someone who’s hair I wanted to feel running through my fingers. Someone I’d wanted to kiss so badly that, for a second, I’d thought about dragging her over the center console onto my lap.
He needed Avery.
Chapter Five
Avery slipped into the stands before work the following day, wanting to catch Lexi before she went off to JROTC. She hadn’t seen her friend in a couple of days and missed her like crazy.
“Hey,” Doug Brady said from the seat next to the entrance. He ran Brady’s Balls and attended a few of their practice sessions every month. He sat in the stands and tried to figure out which players looked strong, which were struggling, and then he’d predict how the team would do.
“Hey. How’s the team looking?” she asked him out of habit. It’s pretty much what everyone in the town asked him every time they crossed paths with him in real life.
“Okay.” He grinned. He never gave anything away—otherwise, he would always say, why would anyone watch his live-streams? “It’s nice to see you here again. It’s been a while.” He didn’t look at her but kept his gaze on the field.
It was true. Avery and her mom used to come to a couple of practices during the week and always to the game on Fridays.
Brady paused. “Your dad misses you being here, you know. He used to look up here automatically every game, as if he were expecting to see you. Not so much anymore. He’ll be happy you’re here.”
Avery took a breath and looked out at the field. It had been an age since she’d even visited. Had she let her dad down by not showing up for the games? Had she let down her family by no longer attending every Friday as she and her mom had done? A familiar and immediate burning in her stomach told her that she probably had.
“Anyway, whaddya think of the new guy?” he asked. “On the record.”
She frowned down at the players, who—to be honest—all looked the same in their uniforms and helmets. Really just like a bunch of colorful Stormtroopers. She squinted out across the field. She could pick out LeVonn easily—he was a foot taller than most of the players, and obviously she could pick out her brother. But she could never identify anyone else…except…there he was. Looking so good in his practice uniform that she did a double-take. The earlier roiling in her stomach changed to something else entirely. That guy there? Lucas, looking oh-so-fine in his tight, tight pants, the one who nearly kissed her the night before? At least, she thought he had.
She cleared her throat, desperately trying to figure out what to say about Lucas that wouldn’t get her into trouble. That her dad had brought him home to talk to him last night? That he was somehow convinced Lucas had skills that no one else could see? That he needed to be as good as her dad thought if he could help them get to the playoffs and save his job? That she was 99 percent sure that she would have kissed him if…
She blinked. “What new guy?”
He chuckled and got up. “Riiight. I’m definitely quoting you on that.” Brady left to do one of his walks around the field. Thank God. And then she realized that she was just standing there staring at Lucas. She glanced guiltily around. No one had seen her. As she took the steps up the bleachers to see Lexi, she hoped she hadn’t got her father in trouble by giving Brady a quote—as stupid as it had been. Brady wasn’t a bad guy. She knew he rarely gossiped or was mean with his humor. After all, she was one of his million-plus followers. Although he had spent a few weeks making fun of Munch jumping off LeVonn’s roof into the pool. Only part of him had hit the water, and he’d posted constant memes of people missing a target of one kind or another, asking his followers to guess who it was. They’d had a town meeting about it. It had not gone well for anyone in the team or associated with the team.
She waved at Lexi, who beckoned her over. She was already in her JROTC uniform. The school corps met at six p.m. in the gym, but Lexi liked to come out a bit early to watch the guys practice. Okay, one guy—Colin. She had a crush the size of Texas on Avery’s twin brother.
“What in the world are you doing here?” Lexi asked, faking a look of abject surprise. She looked around with fake fear. “Who are you and what have you done with mah dear friend, Avery?”
“Har, har. You’re so funny my ribs are literally cracking right now. Can you hear them?” Avery deadpanned.
Lexi didn’t say anything clever in return, just side-eyed her as she grabbed Avery’s planner out of her bag. When Avery opened her mouth to protest, Lexi held up her finger to silence her. She opened the planner where the ribbon was, and Avery shook her head part in disbelief and part in wondering why she thought she could just turn up at practice for the first time in a year and not be questioned about it by her best friend.
“See? Attending football practice is not in your planner, ergo, you must not be here, right?” Lexi snapped the book shut and handed it back.
Avery cradled it on her lap. “I’m only here for a minute. I have to go to work,” she totally non-explained. She’d probably tell Lexi, but not here, and not until she’d actually figured out how she could put it in words. About what she’d overheard at Hardy’s. About what happened in the car with Lucas. “Come by after ROTC?”
“Sure,” Lexi said, already alternating her attention between the Instagram feed on her phone and Colin on the field.
“How’s the new guy making out?”
Lexi slapped her phone down on the seat between them. “Ha! I knew it! You’re here for a guy!” She crossed her arms and gave Avery an I-told-you-so smile.
“Am not,” she said. “Not in the way you think, anyway.”
“Su-u-re, honey,” Lexi said.
“So? How is he making out?” she repeated.
Lexi shrugged. “You know I only watch when Colin has the ball.” Her head bobbed down to her phone again.
Avery wanted to shake her, but instead she feigned interest. “So how is Colin throwing?”
“He’s throwing fine, but the new guy is only catching like one out of every three…oh! Ha! See? I do know how the new guy is doing. So-so is how he�
��s doing. But so-so is still better than Munchkin.” She nodded down to the poor guy with crutches, who still had to attend practice even though he wasn’t going to be able to play for the rest of the season.
One out of three was better than zero out of three. But still not enough to give the team a miracle.
“If you want him, I can teach you how to hook a guy,” Lexi said, still scrolling.
“I don’t want him.” Avery pulled a face that she hoped covered for the lie she may or may not have just told. “And even if I did…” Avery paused for effect, and when Lexi looked up at her, she asked, “Remind me again about the last time you spoke to Colin?”
“I totally spoke to him in the hallway today,” she replied, setting her phone down between them as if throwing a gauntlet.
Avery tried not to smile. “And what did you say, exactly?”
Lexi looked away and mumbled something.
Avery grinned. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite get that.”
Lexi turned back to her. “I said ‘hello,’ okay?”
“And what did my amazing brother say in return?”
“He just smiled. And I don’t even know if he was smiling at me. ’Cause I looked around, and there was that ‘hang in there’ poster the counselor keeps putting up behind me, you know—the one with the kitten hanging on to a rope, so…” She slumped over and dropped her chin into her hands. “I’m crap. He’s never going to really notice me.”
Avery shook her head. “Colin’s definitely a dog kinda guy. He probably, definitely smiled at you.” She stroked Lexi’s back as she sat back up. “You say the word and I’ll just sit on him until he speaks to you,” she said. She had no idea why Lexi didn’t use her “best friend of his sister” card. Well, to be honest, she did know exactly why she didn’t use that card.
“That’s no fun. It’s too easy,” Lexi said in a thin voice.
Avery suppressed a laugh. “I know you want him to notice you like they do in the movies. That he’ll be walking down the corridor between classes and he’ll suddenly see you for the first time. But life isn’t like the movies. It really isn’t.” She had started off talking about Lexi, but she wondered if she wasn’t also talking about her own life.
Lexi squished her face into a weird expression. “You’re such a killjoy,” she said.
Avery sighed and put her arm around Lexi’s shoulders. “Yeah. I know,” she said soothingly.
“I don’t understand. You’re twins. If you love me, then why doesn’t he? It goes against every TV show or movie I’ve ever seen about twins,” she complained as she leaned against Avery’s shoulder.
“I know it sucks, but for what it’s worth, I’m really grateful I don’t have a direct line to Colin’s brain,” she replied. She shuddered to think what she’d be bombarded with.
Lexi didn’t reply, and Avery checked the time on her phone before tucking her planner back in her backpack and holding it on her lap. She had to go to work, but the team was running another play. She’d stay to see it and then go.
Colin threw a perfect long ball to an empty corner of the field, and Lucas ran for it. But in the second it took him to remember the play, the ball was already out of reach. Shit. Well, at least that was just a playbook issue.
She kissed Lexi and got up to leave. She watched Lucas stare down at his hands and then up at the sky as if he were asking God for help. Then he looked at the stands, and their eyes met.
They stared for a second, and he nodded at her. She raised her hand in an automatic wave and then wanted to kick herself. She couldn’t forget that he’d been kind of rude to her before he left the car. She tucked her hand firmly in her pocket as if it had been bad and she was putting it in the naughty pocket.
Colin thought she was waving at him and waved back. Then he frowned, probably because she had never waved to him in her life before that she could remember, and looked over his shoulder to see who she was waving at.
Lucas was the only one there.
Colin narrowed his eyes and looked back at Avery with his hands on his hips.
She rolled her eyes. Like he had any say in who she waved at.
Boys.
…
Practice had sucked. But he couldn’t lie—it had still been better than the day before. He caught a couple of balls, and on one occasion he absolutely definitely ran in the right direction on the field, which to be honest felt like a miracle.
But at least Colin had offered him a ride home. He wasn’t sure he had the energy to walk home. Besides which, with the luck he’d been having, he’d probably have gotten run over for real.
Colin peered up at the streetlights as he turned into Lucas’s neighborhood. “It’s like daytime here.”
“Keeps the roaches at bay,” he replied tiredly. “Turn right at the undercover cop car at the corner.”
“Huh? Which is the…ohh,” Colin said as he passed the black Ford with the two guys sitting drinking coffee. “Wow. Not sure I’ve ever seen undercover cops in real life.”
Of course he hadn’t. Lucas hadn’t either until he’d moved here.
“You know, don’t take Dad too seriously,” Colin said. “He doesn’t understand that some of the players are there to have fun, not to make it into a profession or to go to college.”
Lucas knew that. “Yeah, I get that. But there’s no use having a half-assed team. Especially here in Hillside.”
“That’s true, too. This is a football town, has been since before my dad played here. Before that, even. My dad said it’s the only thing keeping the town alive, the stores open. He was right last night, you know. If you play on the team, everyone here will know who you are. Which is pretty cool. Especially when half the girls in the school are screaming your name Friday night.” He laughed. “Although it’s better when they’re screaming your name on Saturday night, too.”
Lucas got the feeling that Colin had told that joke many, many times before, but still he laughed with him.
“Anyway. There are a few players who need this gig. Need the team to keep winning, need to get their name out there. LeVonn, for example. He has a big family,” Colin said, as if that explained everything. Which Lucas guessed it did. Big family meant a lot of money to get everyone to college. “Most everyone else is in it for high school glory and not much beyond.”
“Not even you?” Lucas asked. Colin was easily as good a quarterback as Jake at his old school.
Colin shrugged. “I’ve got a place at my dad’s alma mater but haven’t decided what I want to do.”
“Dude. You haven’t got much time. You graduate next year, don’t you?” Lucas asked, suddenly wondering if Avery and Lucas were seniors.
“Yeah. My sister’s going to an out-of-state school, but I can’t seem to pull the trigger,” Colin said with a frown, as if he couldn’t believe he’d shared his doubt with Lucas. “You?”
“Just graduate and roll out of here, man,” Lucas said, staring out of the windshield at his new home, peeling paint on the window sills, and wooden steps that were frankly a death trap. “This is me.” Lucas nodded toward his house.
Colin looked at the car up on blocks. “Let me know if you need a ride to practice.”
“I really appreciate that, man.” He stuck out his hand, awkwardly since they were in the car.
Colin took it. And then held on. “As long as you forget about my sister.”
“Who? What?” He was stunned. This didn’t happen in real life, did it? He’d literally never been warned off a girl before.
“That’s the spirit. She doesn’t exist for you. She’s…fragile. Don’t even think about getting involved with her. Or I will get you booted from the team.”
“No problem,” he said, somehow not able to actually say the words “I will not talk to or touch your sister” out loud.
“See you tomorrow.”
�
�I appreciate it, man,” Lucas said again, meaning it most seriously.
“No problem,” Colin echoed.
Chapter Six
It wasn’t until lunch the next day Avery managed to track Lexi down. Lexi’s ROTC had run long—something about some cadet sergeant getting overenthusiastic about marching—and by the time it was over, Hardy’s had already shut for the night and Avery had gone home.
She waved as Lexi entered the quad and watched her weave her way over to the table. She hefted her bag onto the wooden picnic table and fished out her protein shake—something that was such a murky green color that Avery wouldn’t have touched it with a ten-foot pole.
Lexi had stuck to her like glitter when her mom had died. Most other friends drifted away, not knowing what to say or how to relate to a person whose mother had died. She didn’t blame them. What did you say? But Lexi hadn’t really worried about what she said. If it struck a nerve, she’d hug her until she’d finished crying. If it made her laugh, she’d turn away and do a silent air punch that she’d thought Avery couldn’t see.
Lexi was everything.
“So, what’s cookin’, darlin’?” Lexi said after she’d taken a slurp and winced at the taste.
“Nothing,” she said automatically. Nope. Her therapist had told her that she had to learn to talk to other people. To let friends share her fears and concerns.
She decided to lay it all out to the one person who was likely to understand. “While I was at work the other day, I overheard Mr. Duchamp tell Mr. Hardy that they would have to fire my dad if he didn’t get better results this season. My dad can’t lose his job. It would…”
“Destroy him,” Lexi whispered, grasping Avery’s arm in support.
“Exactly.” She knew Lexi would understand.
“What are you going to do?” Lexi asked.
“I don’t know. I…I don’t think I can tell him. I don’t think I can tell him that the town might fire him from the only job he’s had since college. How do you say that? It’s just too much.”
The Love Playbook Page 4
