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As I trudged back toward the field with the rest of the team, the marching band was out there doing its thing, playing the school’s classic fight song. They may as well have been playing a funeral dirge as far as I was concerned. All around me the guys were jumping up and down, getting primed, knocking helmets and slapping backs. All I wanted to do was run. We passed through the gates and onto the track that ran around the field, jogging by some bystanders who had lined up along the fence. A medley of voices shouted either insults or good wishes at me, but mostly insults. That was when I heard someone calling my name. “Mike! Yo, Riley!” At first I ignored it. I figured it was just one more vocal fan wanting to convey his umbrage with my first-half performance. “Mike, man! We need to talk to you!” That was when I recognized the voice as Ian’s. I paused and found his face in the crowd. He was with Winter, who was waving me over maniacally. Ian himself looked half-desperate, half-excited. I felt an unfounded surge of hope and jogged over to them to hear what they had to say. A couple of the guys on the team looked at me like I was insane, but I was getting used to that today. “Dude, you have to stop this idiocy,” Ian said under his breath. “Enough is enough.” I looked around, my face hot with humiliation and fear. Apparently Ian knew what was going on. I glanced at Winter and understood everything in one look. She had told him. She had told him about my plan. Part of me knew I should be angry at her betrayal, but I didn’t have it in me. All my emotional capacity had already been used up. “I’m sorry,” Winter said. “I didn’t know what else to do, so I called Ian. And I’m glad I did.” “You have to go back out there and save this game,” Ian said. “I can’t,” I whispered through my teeth. “Those guys are going to kill me if I don’t win them their money back.” “No! You don’t understand,” Winter said. “We got them to rescind the deal.” I felt as if the earth had just tilted beneath me. If the deal was off, then weren’t they going to kick my ass anyway? I glanced at my teammates, who were gathering on the sidelines. Any minute now they were going to start wondering where I was. “What do you mean?” I demanded. “What did you guys do?” “I went over there this morning, and we had a little talk with Gray,” Ian said. “I tried to call you a zillion times before the game, you know. You really should answer your phone. Could have saved yourself a lot of trouble.” “Riley! You suck!” someone shouted, to the delight of the crowd. “And defamatory comments,” Winter added, rolling her eyes. “I wasn’t exactly in the mood to chat,” I replied impatiently. “Now tell me what’s going on.” “Basically, Ian used his powers of persuasion to talk my brother and his friends out of betting on the game,” Winter said quickly. “They were phlegmatic at first, but then—” “I appealed to their pride,” Ian said, looking mighty proud himself. “The last thing those guys want is for the Hillside football program to fall into disrepute. They didn’t mind the idea of people disparaging you all over the place, but the alma mater was a different story.” “He made some pithy arguments, I gotta say,” Winter told me, looking at Ian with admiration. “It’s not easy to get my pugnacious brother to back down.” “But I did,” Ian said. “When it comes down to it, those guys are still Hillside Cardinals at heart. They want to see Dorchester win this game about as much as you do.” I couldn’t believe Ian’s largess, walking into the lion’s den like that to save my butt. He was a better friend than I had ever realized. “Wait, so you’re telling me I’m off the hook here?” I said, hardly daring to accept it. Who knew Gray was capable of granting such complete clemency? “I don’t have to pay those guys back?” Ian and Winter exchanged a look. “Well . . . not exactly,” Ian said. “Riley! What the hell are you doing over there?” Coach shouted, earning me some jeers from the immediate crowd. “Get with the team already!” “Just one second, Coach!” I shouted back, my heart pounding. He looked at me like I was the most enigmatic being on earth before throwing up his hands and turning back to the guys. “What do you mean, ‘not exactly’?” I asked. “Well, you’re still going to have to atone for what you did,” Ian said quickly. “It wasn’t like they were going to eat all their losses, so we had to make a deal.” “What deal?” I could barely breathe. “We set up one last poker game. You against them,” Winter said. “Winner takes all.” She had to be kidding. Another poker game. I thought neither of them wanted me to play anymore. Had everyone lost their minds? “They loved it,” Ian said. “Those guys are all about competition. Well, that and cold, hard cash.” I felt like I was going to be sick. “Me against the four of them? Are you guys insane?!” I said—rather callously, considering how beneficent they had been on my behalf. “That only gives me a one in five chance of winning. What if I lose? I don’t have the money to pay them double! I’ll be in an even bigger hole than I am now. How the hell is another poker game going to ameliorate my situation?” “Well, for starters it means you can go out there and win this freakin’ game,” Ian said sarcastically. “I do believe I saw the scouts up in the box before, looking at one another like they were wondering why the hell they made the trip. Or are you no longer aspiring to play football in college?” Okay. That hit home. Apparently Ian could be rather pithy. “He’s right, Mike,” Winter said, laying her tiny hands on my shoulder pads. “Don’t think about the poker game now. One thing at a time. And right now you have to play the game of your life.” I glanced at the field, where the marching band was just starting to make its way off. Any second the refs were going to get out on the field to start the second half. After everything I had done in the first two quarters, a comeback seemed next to impossible. I suddenly felt emotionally exhausted and torpid, like it would take every ounce of energy in me just to walk over to the bench and sit down. All day I had been counting on this thing with Gray being over by the end of the game, and now it wouldn’t be. Even though there were benefits to this scenario, the thought of dealing with him and his friends later was overwhelming. “We’re down by two touchdowns,” I said quietly. “What’s with all the pessimism? Two touchdowns is nothing!” Winter said. “You’re Mr. Football Star, remember?” she added with a laugh. “Didn’t you score like four touchdowns against the best defense in the league?” Wow. Apparently Winter had become a bit of a fan on my behalf. But it didn’t change the fact that I was a traitor—that I was the scum of the earth—and that I had done it all, it seemed, for no reason. If I had just picked up the damn phone before the game I would have known all of this and we would be winning right now. “I don’t know if I can do it,” I told her. “Well, I do,” Winter said firmly. “I know you can. I believe in you, Mike. You can do anything.” “Aw! So poignant,” Ian joked. I automatically reached out and shoved him, and we all laughed. But when I looked back into Winter’s eyes, I surmised that she really believed what she was saying. She really thought I could get out there and turn this sinking ship around. Then she glanced at Ian quickly, stood on her toes, and whispered in my ear. “I kind of love you, you know?” she said. My heart spasmed and I felt a rush of pure elation. “Really?” “Really,” she said. When she pulled back she was smiling and her gorgeous green eyes shone. Somehow, the fact that she had evinced her feelings for me just then was all I needed. Suddenly I could feel my blood flowing again, my adrenaline pumping. I reached into all my reservoirs of strength and determination and energy and pulled myself up straight. After all the crap and misery I had endured over the past few weeks, Winter telling me she loved me was about the most incredible thing she could have done. I looked around at my teammates, who were eyeing me with impatience, and at the crowd, which was getting psyched up. I felt better than I had in days. Winter was right. I could deal with Gray later. All that mattered now was winning this game. It was incumbent upon me to fix the mess I had made in the first half, to lead this team to a victory. And maybe, in the process, I would even solidify my future. “Riley! Get your ass over here!” Coach Rinaldi screamed. “Excuse me, guys,” I said to my friends with a smile. “I have a game to win.” |
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