Reece’s voice came from my right, “Hey, bro.” He had a kind of cockiness only Americans seemed to be able to pull off, but there was an edge to his grin suggesting he was testing me, not teasing. “You chasing ghosts, or was that supposed to be a tackle drill?”
“Just warming up.” I matched his grin. “Didn’t want to embarrass you lot too early.”
A ripple of laughter followed — half friendly, half skeptical. Still, better than silence.
Reece let out a bark of a laugh, helmet tipping forward. “Yeah? Warm up faster, then. My nana could’ve filled that gap.”
“Send her over next rep,” I shot back. “Could use the competition.”
There was more laughter, but mercifully it was less sharp this time. Coach’s whistle cut through it and we reset.
This time, I waited and focused on the quarterback’s hips like the assistant coach had told us to.
Don’t watch the ball — watch the hips. Hips don’t lie.Apparently, Shakira and defensive coordinators agreed on one thing.
The fake came subtly, but I didn’t take the bait. The runner hesitated, hunting for a lane. I stepped in, low and tight. Shoulder first, I drove forward. It was a clean hit, sending a satisfying shock through the pads.
The field responded with shouts and pounding footsteps, the impact of which echoed across the turf. It was chaos, but an organized kind of chaos I was familiar with from the rugby pitch, and something in my chest loosened at the sound of it.
“Okay, Australia!” someone yelled. “Guess he does know how to hit!”
Reece laughed. “Don’t gas him up yet. He’s still figuring out which side of the field he’s on.”
“Right side’s whichever one I’m flattening you on.” I grinned through my facemask.
A few more chuckles and the air noticeably lightened, making my shoulders unclench. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. The first tiny shift towards thinking, ‘Maybe he’s not quite as useless.’
Next came coverage drills. These focused on reading plays and reacting to routes. The language was foreign — slants, flats, curls, zones — and I kept losing track of what I was supposed to cover.
Still, my instincts helped. I could read body language, sense momentum. No matter what shape the ball was, space opened and closed in the same way. I just had to teach my brain a new accent.
By the time Coach blew for water, I’d stopped trying to fight it and started letting my body learn the rhythm. My footwork tightened and my reaction time became more consistent. I wasn’tgoodyet — but I wasn’t drowning either.
“Not bad, Whitaker.” Reece jogged beside me as we headed for the sideline. “Guess you’re more than a tourist after all.”
“Guess so.” I tugged my helmet off and ran a hand through my hair. “Didn’t fly halfway across the world just to make your highlight reel.”
He barked a laugh. “Relax, man. We give everyone shit. You’ll fit in fine. Just, you know, don’t make us look bad in front of your uncle.”
The second half of practice flipped the script. Coach wanted me to try a few reps at tight end — ‘two-way prospect,’ they called it, like I was a problem they hadn’t solved yet. I suspected it meant too raw to bench, too strong to waste.
The tight ends’ coach looked like a man whose blood type was caffeine. Clipboard glued to his hand, veins visible in his temples. He barked out instructions faster than my brain could translate.
Motion, stance, hand placement, timing.It was less a sport and more a kind of choreography.
The guy beside me, Kendrick, nudged my shoulder. “Don’t overthink it, man. Just hit your route, turn, and catch. Easy.”
“Yeah, easy foryou,” I mumbled.
He smirked. “Everything’s easy ‘til you take a safety to the ribs.”
“Comforting.”
The whistle blew and I lined up. With my hands braced on my thighs, I tried to remember what they had told me about stance, motion and break.
The quarterback’s cadence cut through the air — “Blue eighty! Set — hut!” — and I pushed off. I was too upright at first, but the acceleration came back to me in a rush. Ibroke right, but too late on the turn, and the ball whizzed past my fingertips.
“Good route, bad hands!” the coach barked. “Again!”
