I shrugged.“I was a little distracted tonight.”
“I noticed.It took you twice as long as usual to clean everyone’s clocks.”
With a toss of my head, I planted my hand on my hip and gifted him my sassiest smile.“But in the end, I cleaned them.That’s all that truly matters.”
When I returned to the party, the first person I saw was Chess.“Jamaica left with Callahan, and I haven’t seen Piper in a while.Feeling abandoned here, Saylor.”
I glanced past her shoulder to where Finn McCabe stood nursing a beer, his eyes glued to Chess, while Dalton talked in his ear.Grinning at her, I squeezed her hand.“That’s a choice, babe.”
Even though she was still wearing her mask, I could still sense the lift of her eyebrows.“Each of you disappeared on me.Abandonedme.How is that my choice?”
Laughing, I said, “You’re usually the levelheaded one of us.How much punch have you had?”
She tossed her head impatiently.“Not the issue here.”
“Anyway, you wouldn’t feelabandonedif you turned around.That football player you’re so not interested in can’t keep his eyes off you.Bet he’d have liked nothing better than to keep you company while I showed the boys how a girl plays poker.”
“Ah.The ‘secret’ game.I thought I’d lost you to tall, dark, and mysterious when you bailed on dancing with Helena and me to follow him upstairs.”
The speculation in her tone needed shutting down pronto.Instead, Dalton made things worse.
“Hey, Saylor!”he called as he and Finn walked over to us.“Where’d you go?Cash wanted to talk to you before he left.”
The way Chessly purred the question was utterly diabolical.“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
Wait.Cash is gone?I mean, good.
Chapter Seven
Three months later
Cash
“That’s what I’mtalking about, Cash Money!”Patty’s face lit up and he fist-bumped me as we switched places with the first team offense.
I’d just dropped a dime in Callahan’s arms about thirty-five yards downfield on an out route, leaving Taco Hernandez, our star safety, to scramble after him.Poor guy nearly left his shoes on the turf on that play after Callahan totally broke our cornerback’s ankles when he blew past him.The play worked exactly the way Coach Wiley had drawn it up.Unfortunately, it made both our starting safety and starting left corner look silly, so I had no doubt the tight ends and receivers were going to have to keep their heads on a swivel for the rest of practice.
“Nice work out there, Donovan,” Coach Wiley said.“Those throws are what we’ve been missing.”
“The question is, will that play work in a live game when the QB isn’t wearing the protective red shirt?”Coach Ainsworth, the defensive coordinator, asked from beside him.Turning to me, he said, “I hope your scrambling skills are on the same level as your arm, because if you’d have been a live target, Bax would have dumped your ass in the turf long before you found O’Reilly streaking down the sideline.”
After months of rehab and a full season under my belt, albeit spent mostly on the sidelines, my knee was in great shape.Probably better than new.Intellectually, I knew that.My lizard brain, on the other hand, still had some catching up to do, which was why on that play I hadn’t even attempted to leave the pocket.
Still, I threw my shoulders back and said, “I’ll be ready for the live scrimmage, Coach.I’ll drop that pass in Callahan’s breadbasket twenty minutes before Bax even knows I let it go.”
Coach Wiley cracked up.“That answer your question, Coach?”he asked Ainsworth.
Coach Ainsworth grumbled something obscene under his breath and returned his attention to the field.I hoped it was only sour grapes that his defense had been caught out on that play and not something he’d seen in the way I moved that prompted his commentary.Coach Wiley didn’t seem worried about my mobility, so I let my shoulders relax and watched as Patty executed a designed run on the run-pass option.
A few snaps later, Coach Ellis called us all to the sidelines for the usual post-practice pep talk before dismissing us for the day.
The beauty of spring ball was that while every play from scrimmage was deadly serious, nothing ran at full speed.We played more of a modified flag football game than a getting-after-it tackle game.Plus, practices were shorter, with more teaching and less yelling than during fall camp when all the pressures of the coming season loomed over us.
One added bonus was the pleasant weather.It could even be considered balmy on this fine Friday night near the end of May.As I finished tugging on a clean pair of shorts after my shower, a shadow with Dally’s voice loomed up behind me.
“Hey, Cash.I heard you’re looking to find a place to live this fall.”
After tugging a T-shirt over my head, I faced him, a mirthless laugh snorting from me.“Yeah.One winter of digging my landlord and me out every morning was enough on its own.Now the sun’s out, I’ve noticed a greenish tint on the white paint of my rental, like the house is going bad or something.Time to move.”
