Hey, I turned in your assignment for math. You forgot to submit it.
Fuck. I scrubbed at my face, once again frustrated with this new fucking memory thing I had to deal with. I couldn’t even remember simple shit like submitting a damn assignment before the due date.
Blaze:
I also emailed your professor explaining you had a migraine and it made you forgetful. He’s waving the marks for it being late.
Me:
Thank you. Can’t believe I forgot.
Blaze:
That’s what I’m here for. You’re at the shop, right? I’m nearby. Wanna meet up for lunch?
Blaze always knew where I was, considering since I’d been discharged from the hospital, he tracked me on Life360 in case I ever forgot where I was going and got lost. It hadn’t happened yet, but the doctor warned me it might. And when I told Blaze, he grabbed my phone, unlocked it, downloaded the app, and shared my location to his phone.
The old me would’ve been pissed that I was being tracked all the damn time. But the new me? I was thankful he cared enough. Fuck knew how terrifying it would be to end up somewhere I was unfamiliar with. I’d had enough memory issues to know the frustration just led to migraines, which led to more problems like jumbled speech and agitation.
Me:
Lunch sounds good. Where do you want to meet?
Just as I sent the text, his car pulled into the lot. Unable to help myself, I smiled and pushed to my feet, heading out the door. Samuel was walking out of the bay when I emerged. I opened the passenger door, and Samuel gripped the open door as I slid into the passenger seat, leaning down to look at Blaze. “Don’t you have practice?”
Blaze shook his head. “It got cut short. Hunter got into an altercation with one of the freshmen.”
Samuel sighed and tugged his phone from his pocket. Without another word, he shut my door and walked away, already pulling his phone to his ear to no doubt call his boyfriend and find out what the fuck happened. I looked at Jaxon as he headed back for the road. “What happened?”
“Kid mouthed off at Hunter. Called him a fag. Hunter broke his nose. Coach is making Hunter do more drills, but he’s not benching him or anything. But the other kid… he’ll be lucky if he doesn’t lose his scholarship for his homophobic slurs.” The head coach of the football team was pansexual and poly, with a wife and a current boyfriend. And while he got a lot of hate in the sports world from football fans, there were even more who adored him for being open, out, and proud. If he wanted to have the kid’s scholarship revoked, he could. And would.
“You’d think the kid would know better,” I muttered. “We’ve been young and dumb once, too, and we’re lucky that Samuel doesn’t absolutely fucking hate us.”
Blaze nodded in agreement as he finally managed to turn onto the busy street. “Samuel isn’t like most other people though,” he reminded me. “I mean, every fucking chance he got, he antagonized the shit out of Hunter.”
I snorted a laugh because he wasn’t wrong. But Samuel’s home life had been absolute dog shit with a homophobic, abusive brother and parents, and we hadn’t made school any easier for him. Some days, that guilt still ate at me. How many other lives had we inevitably fucked up by accident when we’d targeted Samuel?
“Pasta good?” Blaze asked as he merged into the left lane, drawing me back out of my head. “I’m craving garlic bread.”
I arched my brows at him. “Pasta and garlic bread are the last things you should be eating before your game tomorrow.”
Blaze shrugged. “What the coach doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” Then, he winked at me before sliding into the center lane to make the left turn into the pasta restaurant’s parking lot. And fuck, pasta did sound good. So, yeah, I agreed… What his coach didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
Chapter 4
Blaze
I gritted my teeth when the other team’s defensive lineman took me down, putting us at a third down. This game was tough as fuck. The other team was giving us a run for our money, and so far, all we’d been able to score was field goals rather than touchdowns. And while we were in the lead, the game was seriously beginning to piss me off.
And one look at Hunter’s face as I got off the ground for the umpteenth fucking time told me he was getting pissed, too.
We lined up again. Hunter got the ball, threw it to me, and with anger pushing through my veins and acting as my fuel, I took off running for the end zone, jumping over the other team’s defense players, twisting around others, and sprinting like my life fucking depended on it. When my foot crossed the end zone, then the rest of my body, I grinned, raising the ball in the air for the fans to see. I could barely fucking breathe, but fuck, we’d finally gotten a fucking touchdown. After going damn near the entire game without one, the feeling was glorious.
And to make it all even damn better, there—right behind our team’s bench—was Jaxon. He was grinning ear to ear as he met my gaze, and my heart lurched into my throat. That was my reason for still playing ball. Him. Because he could no longer play, I played harder. Pushed more. Just so I could see that smile on his face when I scored a touchdown for him. Because now, I played ball for my best friend so he could live vicariously through me.
The clock ended, the game over, and we won sixteen to six. Hunter wrapped an arm around my neck and bumped his helmet against mine right before our other teammates surrounded us, cheering for and celebrating a hard-earned win.
Jaxon was asleep on the couch when I walked into the apartment. The TV was on with the volume turned low, another game playing on TV. One foot was resting on the floor, and the other was propped on the back of the couch. His right arm was thrown over his head, and his left arm was draped over his flat stomach. Soft snores were escaping his slightly parted lips.
