“Listen up,” Shannon said, more intensely than usual. “I know Peltz is being a problem out there. He’s got a history with a few people here—” There were catcalls and expletives from several players, including Cass and Beau. Not surprisingly, Danny kept his mouth shut. He didn’t like letting people into his personal business. Tom was pretty sure Marian was going to hear from Danny later about telling Shannon. “I know, I know,” Shannon said, waving his hands in a calm-down gesture. “But that’s always been Peltz’s way. He and Danny used to compete for most hated player in the NFL.”
“Danny’s a sweetheart,” Nigel called out. “He’s just misunderstood.” Half the team laughed, while Danny reluctantly grinned and gave Nigel the finger.
“The Rough Riders are down. Peltz is probably going to step up his game. We’ve all seen him going after Marian out there, trying to draw a penalty from us. Don’t give it to him. And King,” he said, putting his hands on his hips, “what the hell? Tackling a wide receiver? That’s not your job.”
“He got to me, coach,” King said, shaking his head sadly, as he sat calmly on a bench beside Sam, who covered his mouth, clearly trying to hide a smile. “You know I got a temper.” This flat-out lie made the entire team laugh. Nothing ever got to King, and they knew it. Tom had never even heard him raise his voice, even on the field.
“Well, you can talk to Danny about anger-management classes after the game,” Shannon told him sarcastically. He looked around at the team, the atmosphere much more relaxed than when they’d entered the locker room. “Come on, guys,” Shannon said. “We got this. We have totally got this. But we have to play smart. Peltz and the Vegas offense will get frustrated out there and they’ll screw up. That’s their playbook. You watched the film. They haven’t won a game going into the second half trailing since October. We have every advantage in this game. Marlon has brought his A game tonight.” Shannon clapped loudly and the whole team joined in. Marlon had earned it. Having his first game as starting quarterback against the Rough Riders was a trial by fire. Peltz wasn’t the only asshole on the team. In Tom’s experience, the personality of a team was taken from its most vocal player, whether good or bad. For the Rebels, that player was Ty, with Cass running a close second. Ty was as optimistic as Shannon, so it was a good fit for the Rebels. And Cass had his heart and soul invested in the Rebels. He’d bleed for the team, and they all knew it.
“Marian?” Shannon asked, turning to her. She stepped forward to speak.
“Mar-i-an,” the whole team sang, dragging her name out into three syllables. Tom had played the lead in a high school production of The Music Man and he’d taught them that line from the “Marian the Librarian” song. They did that every time she got up to speak in front of the team. It was a thing now, a way to tease her without crossing a line. She glared at him when they did it, but Tom could tell she secretly liked it.
“I have a history with Darren,” Marian admitted. Beside Tom, Danny tensed, but he continued to stare down at the carpet, never looking up. “We dated in college and it didn’t end well. Enough said. So let me apologize for causing him to be such a major asshole.” The whole team laughed.
“He’s always been an asshole,” Dominique Reyes called out. “From birth. Ain’t your fault.” The rest of the team called out agreement.
“The point is, he’s letting my presence, and let’s face it, Cass and Beau’s, affect him. Let’s not do the same thing. We can capitalize on it. Use it against him, and the Rough Riders. Most of his team has no idea what’s going on with him, I can tell. And some of them don’t like it. Use that. Talk to them at the line of scrimmage. Turn them against each other. We’ve all seen it this year. Darren snipes at half the team in the second half when they’re trailing. He’ll be out there blaming Penney. He does it every time. Those two do not get along, and word is the team is divided. A team divided cannot win. Are we a team?” she asked loudly.
“Hell, yes!” they called out. Tom loved this part of halftime, when they got all inspirational and shit. It was his favorite part of playing football games.
“Are we a team divided?” she asked with a concerned frown. “Because that didn’t sound like a team effort.”
“No! We are a team!” Tom looked over and found Danny watching him. Without thinking, Tom reached over, put his hand on Danny’s knee, and squeezed it. No one seemed to notice or think much of it, so he left his hand there. Danny didn’t push it off. He looked away from Tom, over at Marian, and when she prompted them again, Danny shouted, “We are a team!” with the rest of them.
“We don’t play by the rules,” Marian shouted. “Why?”
“Because we’re Rebels!” the team answered.
“We make our own rules,” Marian continued. “Why?”
“Because we’re Rebels!”
“What do Rebels do?” she yelled.
“Fight!” the team answered. It became a chant. “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
Danny seemed as into the team dynamic as Tom was. Maybe he was ready to let it go. Maybe being a Rebel meant more to him than getting back at Darren Peltz.
Chapter 32
Danny glared at Peltz from under the towel he’d covered his head with as soon as he’d jogged off the field and sat down on the bench. He didn’t want the cameras to catch the way he was looking at the fuckhead. He was pretty sure he looked like an ax murderer. God damn, he hated that motherfucker. Peltz was walking up and down the field, taunting the Rebels. The motherfucking Rough Riders had tied it up in the third quarter, ten to ten. Danny wanted to scream at his teammates, but he kept his cool. They knew they needed to win this game. Danny losing his shit on the sidelines wasn’t going to help. Cass was already losing it. He’d had a shouting match with Shannon and was cooling his heels on a bench all by himself. Even Beau was leaving him alone. Marian was so pissed she looked like she wanted to spit nails.
It was all falling apart. Ty had gone quiet, standing next to Brian, encouraging Marlon in between possessions, helping to coach him through this. Danny had to give the QB credit, he was cool under pressure. Danny glanced over at Tom, sitting next to him. Tom was…Tom. He was yelling encouragement at the team, high-fiving everyone he could reach, slapping some ass, and otherwise being the team cheerleader. Tom stood up and danced in place a little. The crowd loved it when he did that. He told Danny it helped keep his muscles warmed up, and if it jacked up the crowd, even better. He waved at the fans in the stands. The one bright spot of this game was that they were playing it at home. Rebels fans had gone a little crazy this season. Some of them liked to dress like Rebels. There were James Deans, Luke Skywalkers, a few Johnny Rebs, and even some dressed like soldiers in the Continental Army, from the Revolutionary War. Usually they made Danny smile. Not today. Nothing was going to make him smile today.
Tom stopped dancing next to him and grabbed his shoulder. “Hey, it’s Carmina.” Danny turned around and saw her in the back of the crowd on the sidelines. She was standing next to Melody Ann and they were filming the team. “They must be live on Facebook, or uploading something.” Tom waved and caught her attention and she began filming him with a smile. He goofed around for the camera, making her laugh. Then she turned the camera on Danny. He slowly pulled the towel off his head and stared at her. “That’s not a look you want on camera,” Tom said. “Not unless you want people to think you’re fucking someone on the team.” Danny’s eyes flew up and met Tom’s.
“Not yet,” he said. Tom’s eyes went wide. They hadn’t crossed that line, but Danny wasn’t fooling anyone. They all knew it was going to happen. When Tom got him down and owned him, Danny was ready to let him do whatever he wanted. When he saw the kid acting all goofy on the sidelines like he was today, it was hard to reconcile with how he could so easily dominate Danny in the bedroom. But one look and Danny was ready to lie down at his feet.
“Uh, timing?” Tom said, rolling his eyes.
“I’m trying to take my mind off Peltz,” Danny said. He smiled at Carmina.
It turned out there was something that could make him smile today. Or someone. Her skin looked sun-kissed and smooth, and Danny knew what it tasted like, which was blowing his mind. He loved to bury his face in her soft, wavy hair, right in the curve of her neck where it met her shoulder. She looked puzzled as she watched them. She must be able to tell something had just happened between him and Tom.
They hadn’t been able to ring in the New Year the night before, not with this game hanging over them. So they’d made a date to do it tonight. He couldn’t wait. He’d never get enough of her. She and Tom were a potent combination when it came to giving Danny what he craved. She’d been crazy worried the last couple of days about this game. As she told Danny, it wasn’t the Rebels she was worried about. She was afraid Peltz would go after Cass or Beau or Danny, and that would lead to a general war on the field. He had to agree with her. Peltz was the unstable quantity here. He always had been.
Danny watched with satisfaction as Dominique Reyes sacked Penney. Peltz lost it and shoved Rebels cornerback Michael Swan, who’d done a great job of shutting him down so far. Peltz hadn’t managed to catch anything since the second quarter, and even then he’d been limited to short yardage and no downs. The refs finally called a penalty on Peltz and he had to be held back by a couple of Rough Riders. Danny smiled again. His day was getting better and better.
Peltz came at the sideline then, stopping just short of it, screaming at Cass, who was still on the bench. “I gave her a taste for it. Me and my friends. She tell you that?” he called out.
Danny was off the bench before Cass could get up. Danny and Beau both tackled Cass before he could get to the sideline and rip Peltz’s head off like he’d been threatening to do. “Hold him!” Tom yelled, getting Cass in a chokehold while Danny and Beau each held one of his arms.
“I’m going to kill you!” Cass screamed at Peltz.
“Don’t believe what she told you. She was begging for it,” Peltz called out as the refs ran over and came between them until some Rough Riders dragged Peltz away. “That pussy Smith ruined our fun.” Peltz laughed and Danny had to take several deep breaths and talk himself out of letting Cass go.
“Cass, man,” Danny said through clenched teeth. “He’s winning. You see that, right?”
Cass buried his face in the grass on the sidelines. “I let him get to me,” he mumbled. He turned his head and looked at Danny in despair. Danny was shocked to see tears on his face. “I can’t protect her from this.”
“No, you can’t,” Danny said sympathetically. “She can protect herself. She’s had to do it for a long time.”
“I want to do it for her.” Cass sounded so miserable Danny’s heart ached for him. He let go of Cass’s arm and Beau and Tom let go, too. Beau kneeled down next to Cass.
“She doesn’t want you to protect her. She just wants you to stand beside her,” Danny said, and he knew without a doubt that’s what Marian would say if she were here.
“We can’t let him win, Cass,” Beau said quietly. “This is what he wants. How do you think Marian feels right now? She’s over there listening, while Shannon argues with the refs. But the damage is done. She’s going to have to stand on the sidelines for the rest of the game knowing that the way the guys see her has changed forever. Hell, if the cameras got that, the whole world.”
The Rough Riders had to call a time-out because Peltz was now arguing with his own quarterback on the field. The refs had called an unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty on Peltz, and clearly the rest of his team wasn’t happy with him. King walked over to Danny, his jaw tight.
“What really happened?” he asked Danny. “Did Peltz rape her?”
“You said you didn’t need to know,” Danny told him.
“What?” Tom asked in shock. “You put them up to it?”
“I asked a favor,” Danny said. “I told you, I had it under control.”
“This is under control?” Tom asked incredulously. “Really?”
King looked hard at Danny for a second and then nodded. He jogged back onto the field. The Rough Riders were going to be forced to punt on fourth down after Peltz’s penalty.
“Marian was right,” Ty said, coming over and squatting down. “This game did go south.”
“Not our fault,” Tom argued. “Peltz did it.”
“Of course he did. And Marian knew he would,” Danny said, shaking his head. He stood up. “I for one am not going to let that motherfucking shit starter steal this game.” He held out a hand to Cass. “What about you?” Cass took his hand and let Danny pull him up.
“No,” Cass said, visibly setting his jaw. “If he’s still in the game, so am I.”
“Can you keep it together?” Beau asked. “Because we need you out there.”
“I need you out there.” They turned to see Marlon Parris standing there, Brian by his side. “I need all of you out there. I’m trying, man, but I can’t win this game on my own. Now, are you going to let Marian handle her own issues like the grown-ass woman she is, and get your asses out there and win a football game?” He looked away, frowning for a second, then turned back to them, anger on his face. “Look, we’re all pissed. From what Peltz said and the way Cass reacted, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what really happened. We all want to win this for Marian. So get it together and let’s go.” He pulled his helmet on and turned away, signaling it was time to get back on the field.
The heartfelt speech from the backup QB had them all pulling on their helmets. Shannon stopped Cass and pulled him close by his chinstrap. “You need to tell me now if you can’t handle this.” Shannon’s lips were pressed tightly together, a thin circle of white around them from holding his anger in check.
“I’ve got it under control,” Cass said. “I’m sorry. I lost it.”
“I understand,” Shannon said, surprising Tom. He honestly didn’t know any other NFL coach who would have taken Cass’s meltdown so calmly. Shannon let go of Cass and patted his ass, shoving him toward the field. He slowed Tom down with a hand on his arm. “You’ve got to keep them all focused,” he told Tom, looking at Danny, who had stopped by Tom’s side. “I can’t afford to lose any more players before the playoffs. Understand?”
“Sure, coach,” Tom said, glancing over at Danny, a little nervously. “No worries.”
“You got any inspirational words for me, coach?” Danny asked as he pulled his helmet on.
“Not a damn one,” Shannon said. “Part of me wants to tell you that it’s time to move on and get over the past. But the other part wants to tell you to go out there and rearrange someone’s face if it would make you feel better. So I guess I’ll just keep my mouth shut.” Danny grinned and slapped Shannon on the shoulder as he headed for the field, not commenting on either one of those options.
The fourth quarter was pretty anticlimactic. Vegas fell apart on the field. Peltz was benched by the Vegas coach, which was a surprise. He’d been an assistant coach to Sedgeway in college, and one of Darren’s enablers. Once he’d been hired by Vegas, it was only natural that he pull in as many players from his college coaching days as possible, including his old coach’s pet player. He’d approached Danny, too. Danny had told him to fuck off and never call him again. Peltz’s benching didn’t bring the rest of the team together. Clearly Darren had worked his magic on several key players, who tried to keep up the chatter and trash talk, but it was met with stoic indifference by the Rebels.
Danny ran for over eighty yards in the fourth quarter and caught two touchdown passes. He was in the zone. No one could touch him. He was focused completely on football. The Rebels dominance in the fourth quarter was unequaled by any other game they’d played that season.
When the officials gave the two-minute warning, the Rebels’ bench was already celebrating. Danny didn’t join in. Not yet. The Rough Riders had possession, and Danny didn’t want them to get even one more point on the board. Luckily, the defense felt the same way. With fifty seconds left, Vegas punted and Michael Swan returned the ball
to the Rebels’ thirty-five-yard line. Good positioning. Danny was pleased with it as he ran out onto the field. He noticed that Cass and Beau and even Tom were as serious as he was. No one on their line was celebrating.
“I want another touchdown,” Danny declared in the huddle.
“Fine,” Marlon said. “We all do. On Egypt eighty-eight.” They all clapped and headed out. Danny could smell pine in the air, and he was reminded of Christmas Eve with Carmina and Tom. He wanted more of those memories with them. Carmina had been right. You couldn’t have room for love when bitterness filled your heart. He felt like today had been the real first step in letting it go. It had felt good to focus on playing the game and not on hating everyone on the field. And for the first time, he felt like he was part of something bigger, part of a team who had his back. It was a good feeling. He looked across at Tom, on the other side of the field. Tom had taught him all that, taught him how to let down his guard. How to trust. He wasn’t sure where he and Tom and Carmina stood, but he knew he wasn’t ready to walk away from it. He wanted to see where it would go, where they could go together. He tore his eyes away from Tom and listened to the count, taking off after the snap, heading for center field and the first down on the forty-five. He caught it easily and ran for five more before he ran out of bounds, stopping the clock. He felt invincible.
Chapter 33
Carmina watched the final minutes of the game on the monitor in the players’ lounge next to the locker room. She had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. It reminded her of the way she’d felt in Afghanistan. She’d always had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Sam took her under his wing and Richie would make jokes, cracking her up, until she forgot to be nervous and scared. But Tom and Danny and Sam were on the field and there was no one to settle her nerves now. As a matter of fact, Melody Ann was only making it worse.
“Okay, I got the screengrab. What do you think?” she asked. She was working on her laptop at the table in the corner while Carmina stared at the TV. Carmina walked over and looked down at the screen. It was a picture of the guys piled on Cass as he screamed at Peltz. But Peltz wasn’t in the picture.
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