Playing at Love

by Ophelia London

  When play resumed, Tess watched Jack instead of the game. His hands were on his hips and Tess could see the broadness of his shoulders and how his torso kind of narrowed in, leading down to his waist. He looked very good from behind.

  But that was a stupid, unproductive thought. For the past three days, ever since that encounter at the newspaper office, she couldn’t seem to get Jack out of her mind—or more specifically, wondering what he might look like with his shirt off… Again: stupid and unproductive. She huffed and smoothed down her hair—swearing she wouldn’t think about him in that way again.

  When she finally glanced at the scoreboard, she was shocked to see that the Franklin Grizzlies were actually ahead by six points. One touchdown. When she felt an unexpected sense of relief, Tess stifled it; the football team didn’t need her support, no matter how good-looking the coach might be, or how wavy his hair, or how sexy his smile.

  “Penny! Time to go!” Tess called, maybe a bit maniacally, trying to erase the perfect image of Jack’s dazzling smile she’d just conjured.

  “I’m ready,” Penny called back. She was dressed in head-to-toe blue sequins, her blond hair pulled up into a high ponytail, and she was grinning with excitement.

  They exited the press box through a side door and walked down the back stairs of the stadium, then onto the track surrounding the grass. Joining the rest of the choir, they waited off to the side, away from the actual field. Penny was bobbing again and shaking out her hands. Not wanting to put too much pressure on the girl, Tess turned to her and said, “I’m so proud of you, Penny.” She put a hand on her shoulder. “Whatever happens. Okay?”

  Penny looked at her with a strange expression. “What do you mean, ‘whatever happens’?”

  “I mean, you know, don’t worry about it.” Tess smiled with what she hoped was a supportive expression. “Just go out there and have fun.”

  Penny turned to Tess and looked her dead in the eyes. “Jo.” Her voice was blue steel. “I’m gonna kill it.”

  She’s got the eye of the tiger, Tess thought as Penny turned from her to face the crowd. And after that, Tess stopped worrying.

  At the sound of the buzzer, the players from both teams jogged off the field. Tess touched Penny’s shoulder again as the announcer asked everyone to give a warm Franklin High welcome to their halftime entertainment. Tess was about to offer one more word of encouragement when Penny stepped forward.

  The choir members were already in their places on the field when Tess’s breath was nearly taken away. She watched Penny leave her side, grab the mike, and fearlessly march to the fifty-yard line. Tess got chills as the music began. She had decided to make this first performance a solo, backed by the choir doing minimal choreography and maximum background vocals. The song was pretty unconventional; not a traditional show choir piece by any stretch of the imagination. It was grunge rock from the nineties, something she’d never heard performed live at an event like this. And never by a female vocalist.

  Which was exactly what she wanted. Tess was going for the wow factor. She wanted this performance to be talked about for days…if not weeks.

  While praying in her head and trying not to mouth along with Penny, Tess stood on the sideline and listened. About twenty seconds into the song, after Penny’s first big note, she felt tears pooling in her eyes. Penny was doing what she said she would.

  She was killing it.

  Then it was over, with Penny’s last note drifting into the night air.

  At first the crowd was quiet. But then it exploded.

  “Penny Armstrong and the Franklin High show choir, ladies and gentlemen!” the announcer boomed. “How about that? On! Your! Feet!” Tess felt real tears on her cheeks now. She couldn’t have been prouder of her group.

  After a few extra bows and waves to the applauding crowd, Penny trotted back to the sideline. “That was so awesome,” she said with a giggle, her cheeks glowing. “I wish I could do it again. Right now! Can’t I go back out there?”

  “How about in one week?” Tess suggested with a laugh after giving Penny a huge hug. “Same time, same place. You’ll kill it again.”

  “Deal!” Penny said with a grin, high-fiving members of the choir, then turning to wave to a group in the stands who was chanting her name.

  Tess was convinced she had a star.

  …

  Jack wasn’t sure how they were still hanging on to the lead, but with only minutes left on the clock, he wasn’t going to question his luck. The Arlington team was good; their defensive line was strong and intimidating, even to him. He wouldn’t want to be facing them.

  But his boys had heart and they were playing smart. And sometimes that was the most important thing when it came to winning.

  “Williams!” Jack called to his quarterback. Then he signaled for the draw play, weak side cut back.

  The QB nodded at his coach’s instructions and jogged toward the huddle. Jack folded his arms and tapped his chin. This was a simple play and one that should advance the ball enough to get a first down.

  “Ready, two…thirty-six…set…hut-hut.”

  “Good job, blue.” Jack clapped when the play was over. “Good job.”

  Before the game resumed, Jack turned around to grab a quick cup of water. As he drank, his eyes automatically moved to the last place he’d seen Tess, standing next to the goalpost right before halftime, surrounded by students dressed in blue sequins. She’d been wearing jeans and a white sweater, and her hair was hanging loose. He couldn’t tell from that distance, but it seemed that she had been looking his way, too.

  “Coach?”

  Jack shook himself awake, tossed his cup in the trash, and signaled the next play to his waiting quarterback.

  Williams gave Jack the thumbs-up. “Bristow!” Jack beckoned his wide receiver to the sideline. “When Stockly screens the safety, you be ready. Got it?”

  “Got it, Coach,” he said, then sprinted to the line, his cleats kicking up clods of dirt behind him.

  Jack adjusted his ball cap and watched his offense line up, feeling confident but still a little anxious. After the snap, Williams dropped back, waiting for his intended receiver to break free. He did the fake pass just as they’d practiced. At the end of the successful play, Jack gave a congratulatory slap to the back of Williams’s helmet. “Good job,” he said with a nod. “You’re looking great out there.”

  “Thanks, Coach,” the kid said, sliding off his helmet.

  Jack observed him, remembering how great it felt to complete an important pass like that. He knew the kid would be flying high at some after-game party tonight. For a split second, Jack knew how he’d like to celebrate after tonight’s victory. Or more specifically, with whom he’d like to celebrate.

  He hadn’t seen Tess face-to-face since that day at the paper. He wasn’t sure if he was avoiding her or if she was avoiding him. Probably a little of both. But could you really be avoiding someone you thought about constantly? Jack didn’t know, but it didn’t really matter, anyway. He clenched his jaw and gazed toward the field, hating how he’d let his mind wander like that again.

  As the two sides lined up, Jack glanced toward the end zone, where he caught a quick glimpse of blue sequins. He hadn’t seen the halftime show while he and the players were in the field house, but he couldn’t help hearing it, especially the cheering that followed. The performance must have been a success. For a moment, Jack couldn’t help wishing that he’d seen it, had experienced Tess’s pride and joy. Right as he felt himself almost smile, he stopped and ground his teeth together, realizing that the crowd had cheered just as loudly for the choir as they had for the two touchdowns his team had scored.

  Seriously, what kind of backward town was he in where the music program really was as important as athletics? Jack dropped his chin and chewed hard on the gum in his mouth. “Come on, blue! Let’s go!” he called, trying to shake the thought of potentially losing tomorrow’s headline to some singer—even if his guys won the game.


  The two teams lined up again and Jack took his place at the white chalk line. For an unsettling moment, Jack envisioned his team not winning. Starting off the season in a deficit was not what he could afford. He needed to keep morale high. Jack hated that he suddenly had a knot of doubt in his stomach. Where had it come from? Why was he thinking about music when he should be focused one hundred and ten percent on this game? He had faith in his boys and he needed to be a strong leader. He blew a bubble, sucked it in quickly, then set his gaze on the field.

  “Hut-hut!”

  Just like in a perfect dream, Jack’s eyes followed the ball as it went soaring into the sky, right down the center of the goalposts. Three points. The crowd cheered and stomped for their home team. Less than a minute later, it was in the books: the Franklin High Grizzlies’ first W of the season. The players’ bench immediately cleared and cheerleaders rushed the field.

  “Congrats, Coach,” one of the parents said and shook Jack’s hand. “Great game,” someone else offered. And the congratulatory offerings continued. One of the linemen dumped the cooler of Gatorade over Williams’s head and everyone cheered. Jack laughed and made it a point to praise every single one of his players—even Andy, who had suited up and was given a number but was never issued a helmet. Jack hadn’t decided yet where the kid would fit on the team, but he was sure he wanted him around. Jack noticed how Andy was right in there with the guys, celebrating along with the entire team. Because of that, he knew he’d made the right decision not to cut him.

  After meeting the visiting team’s coach and accepting his congratulations, Jack picked up his clipboard and game book and headed toward the locker room—making a point of not looking toward the group of blue sequins off on the sidelines.

  Chapter Seven

  Tess was disappointed. No, she was ticked.

  What a crock! she thought as she stared down at the newspaper spread across the table. How fair was it that some stupid Neanderthal game got just as many inches of story as a group of talented musicians? She’d been there—she’d heard the crowd explode for Penny. Had they cheered like that for the football team?

  After slumping into a kitchen chair, Tess kicked a leg of the table and bit her thumbnail. Maybe this Rick Duffy wasn’t going to be impartial after all. Maybe he was just another of the good old boys in this football-loving town.

  She couldn’t help thinking about that meeting with Rick. He’d brought up the question of what would happen if they “tied”—the choir and the football team. What if neither program did what Walker asked? Or what if both of them did? Thanks to Rick’s first article, she’d been getting phone calls and e-mails. The support was rolling in. Getting the public involved was a great idea.

  And then, of course, there was Jack. She’d promised herself she would stop thinking about him. But did dreaming count? That couldn’t be controlled!

  Tess jumped when there was a knock on her front door. She had just been in the middle of replaying a fragment of the dream she’d had last night—the part when Jack showed up at her house, pounded on the door.

  Just like now.

  “Who is it?” she asked, aware the she was still in the yoga pants and FHS T-shirt she’d slept in. And what kind of lunatic shows up at someone’s house unannounced at 8:00 a.m. on a Sunday, anyway?

  “Tess? Let me in. It’s Mac.”

  Oh, that kind of lunatic. Tess snorted and opened the door. Mac was wearing a red zip-up sweater and holey jeans, her blond hair in a French braid. “What’s wrong with you?” Mac asked, eyeing her friend. “Ohhh, are you not alone?” she whispered, glancing past Tess into the apartment. “Who is he?”

  “What?” Tess blinked. “Yes, of course I’m alone.”

  Mac’s smile dropped. “Oh. Well, why is your face all red? You look kind of…overheated.”

  “It’s nothing.” Tess shook her head, trying to get that last image of Jack out of her mind. “Come on in.”

  Mac presented a to-go Starbucks cup, handed it off to Tess, then breezed inside.

  “Thanks,” Tess said gratefully. “I needed this.”

  “I haven’t read it yet,” Mac said, gesturing to the newspaper spread across the kitchen table. “Is it bad?”

  Tess nodded.

  Mac sank into a kitchen chair and read through the article. Tess waited, tapping a nail against her cup as she drank. She couldn’t decode Mac’s expression, but she didn’t seem nearly as enraged as Tess thought she should be. After a few minutes, Mac turned the page, glanced at both sides, and then flipped the whole paper over. “Where’s the rest?” she asked.

  “What do you mean? That’s it. Just those four columns at the bottom.”

  “That’s it?” Mac frowned. “Where’s the bad stuff?”

  “What do you mean?” She pointed at the paper. “It’s all there. You have to read into it.”

  Mac glanced at the paper again, still frowning.

  “That Rick Duffy.” Tess pulled a carton of Greek yogurt from the fridge. “He totally took Jack’s side.” She handed Mac a spoon.

  “No, he didn’t,” Mac said. “Tess, I’m sorry to tell you, but this is pretty unbiased stuff here.”

  Tess folded her arms. “Why did he write so much about the game, then?”

  Mac stared up at her friend. “He did exactly what he said he would do.” She pointed at the paper. “He wrote about the budget cuts and what all that means to the school and jobs and the programs two days ago, and then today he wrote equally about Penny’s performance and the game. There’s nothing editorial about this. He just reported the facts.”

  “Facts?” Tess huffed, grabbing the spoon out of Mac’s hand. “No yogurt for traitors.”

  …

  Jack put down his pen and pushed back from the table. A fine way to spend a Saturday. After reading through the letter he’d just written, he balled it up in his fist and tossed it across the room to the trash can.

  “Three points,” he said aloud after its perfect landing. “Nothing but net.”

  He ran a hand over his chin stubble. It had been an impractical reaction—to write a letter to the editor like that—but it had been his first thought after reading Duffy’s article. So far, he’d written ten drafts. None was quite right. He was just about to grab the pen again when the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “I read it online.”

  Jack sighed. “What do you think?”

  “Doesn’t matter what I think,” Brad said. “I figured you needed to vent. So I’ll sit here and listen while you get everything off your chest.”

  “Nah,” Jack said, shaking his head.

  “Come on.” Jack could hear the taunting smile in his brother’s voice. “You’re telling me that the fact a football game is forty-eight minutes and that singing girl was out on the field for no more than five doesn’t bother you?”

  Jack clenched his teeth. “Nope.”

  “Sure.” Brad drew out the word.

  “Fine,” Jack said, giving in to his frustration. “How in the hell did that dictate the same amount of coverage?”

  “There ya go.”

  “And what was a seventeen-year-old girl doing performing a Nirvana song?” Jack stood up, walked to the refrigerator, and pulled out a bottle of water. “Does she even know who that band was? Does she have any idea what she was singing?”

  “Probably not.”

  “I’m sure it was one of Tess’s strategies. Hard not to be a little impressed,” he added, and then took a long drink of water.

  “Who’s Tess?”

  Jack flinched, spilling water down his front. “Oh. Choir teacher.”

  There was a beat. “She hot?”

  Jack grabbed a towel and wiped his chin. “Doesn’t matter.”

  Brad laughed. “She’s hot, isn’t she, brother? How hot?” Leave it to Brad to read his mind.

  Jack sat down at the table and ran his free hand over his forehead. “Incredibly,” he admitted. “And the thing is, I know her. So do you.�
� With his hand still covering the top half of his face, Jack filled in his brother. By the end, Brad was in hysterics.

  “You’re no help,” Jack said, fighting back his own self-deprecating smile.

  “Oh buddy,” Brad said. “You’re dead.”

  Jack exhaled. “Quite possibly.”

  After he hung up, Jack walked to his bedroom to put on his workout clothes. He grabbed his gym bag and keys, in dire need of burning off some steam before he did anything impulsive. On the drive, he felt himself calming down. He was glad he’d talked to Brad and hadn’t sent a letter to Duffy’s editor. The more he thought about it, the more he did realize that it was a fairly neutral report on the evening’s events. And with the first away game coming up—against a school that barely had enough players to make a lineup—both Jack and the team would be getting a very short reprieve. And another check in the winner’s column.

  He pulled into a parking spot in front of the gym but remained in the car, thinking. Despite the upcoming away game, if his team was going to make a bigger impression on public opinion, they would have to step up their energy. He would win the games he needed to and there would be no choice which program would be saved. But then he thought about Tess and how clever she probably was. Clever and beautiful. Didn’t matter—he could be just as clever.

  Jack got out of his car, determined to begin his workout with one hundred push-ups. If that didn’t help him focus then nothing would. But the second he was in the plank position—his body straight, stiff, and parallel to the ground—his mind flashed to Tess’s face…her beckoning mouth. Suddenly, his arms began to shake under his weight and his elbows gave, landing him flat on his face, cursing.

  His black Jeep was pretty indistinguishable, except for the Illinois license plates he still hadn’t changed. So Jack was a little surprised when he walked out to the parking lot after his workout and found a note on his windshield. The paper was lined with tiny rows and dots. Subtle, he thought, rolling his eyes. Black block letters spelled out what might happen to his tires if the football team didn’t throw their next game. Jack wadded the paper in his fist, chalking it up to some Glee-watching, overly enthusiastic student. Something about the fact that the note was written on a page of sheet music made him think he wasn’t exactly dealing with a seasoned professional.