“Does he need a ride from the airport?” I ask before taking another bite. I’m not the best at checking my phone for texts at night. There’s no reason to when I don’t have a girlfriend or know of many people who need something this late. Most of the people I’m close with are the ones I live with, and a face-to-face conversation is easier.
Stack shakes his head. “No. Jessa is close already, so she’ll bring him home.”
“I don’t know why they don’t just get married already,” Finny says. “I mean, we’ve hardly seen him since he proposed a few months ago.”
“Well, some people take years to plan their weddings,” I say, pointing my empty spoon at Finny.
“True, but it would be easier if they lived together,” he says.
I raise an eyebrow. “As opposed to across the road from each other?”
Jackson looks at me with a frown. “What’s wrong with you today? I thought you were excited for them to get married.”
I frown and say, “Absolutely. Clark and Jessa will be a power couple. I’m just saying that whether they live in the same house or across the road doesn’t make much of a difference right now.”
“So why the attitude?” Stack asks, staring at me.
“It’s been a long day. Are we ready for the first week of practice?” I ask, hoping to change the subject. We’re not far away from the first practice for the Lancers.
The months have passed so quickly that our last season game feels like it was only weeks ago, not months. It’s almost like Groundhog Day, but better because there’s lacrosse involved.
Stack frowns. “We’ve still got the weekend. Are you done with box lacrosse yet?”
Shaking my head, I say, “RoughRiders, yes. Rec league box lacrosse, no. We have two more games to go.”
“What about the playoffs?” Jackson asks, handing two cards to Stack to build a road.
“We didn’t make it. But that’s good, because now I can transition to the field. I need to get on the turf soon.”
Finny leans back and opens thewindow. “I don’t know if we’ll be playing as soon as we think. Last week’s storm dumped two feet of snow, and it’s been too cold to melt ever since.”
I nod, seeing the small outline of a pile of snow in the dark yard. “The forecast says it’ll warm up. But I don’t think Coach Martin is going to go easy on us for the first week.”
“You think we’ll have to practice in the snow?” Jackson asks with wide eyes.
The three of us nod. “They won’t call the game if it snows,” Finny says.
I’ve already run some of the challenge workouts in the last few days that Coach Martin might have us do. Might as well prepare as much as I can, or else life is going to be rough on the field.
After our heartbreaking loss to the Rattlers last season, I’m making sure I put in the extra work to ensure we can go all the way this season. My shoulders are finally getting used to shooting several hundred shots a day, and I even think I’m getting a little better. I mean, I hope I am, even if the progress is small.
I joined the box lacrosse team this year, which is indoor lacrosse but more brutal. In regular lacrosse, we can hit the other team with our sticks. In box, it’s like an annihilation.
I’ve seen changes in some of my skills, though, and as hard as it is to come home with a ton of bruises, I’m grateful for everything it’staught me, allowing me to elevate my overall abilities. There’s still a lot left in the tank.
“What do you think we’ll have to do?” Jackson asks.
“Probably Brownies,” Stack says.
Jackson frowns. “What’s that? Please tell me we don’t have to actually bake things.”
This will be Jackson’s second year on the team after being traded here a few weeks into last season, so he missed that rough test.
“It’s when you do a ladder on the field. Run and touch a line, come back, go to the next, and so on.”
Shrugging, Jackson says, “That won’t be too bad, right? I mean, how many lines are on our field, anyway? Like six?”
I blow out a breath and shake my head. “No, we’ll go to a football field for this one. Or he’ll just set up a lot more cones on our field to make sure we get the whole thing in the torturous conditioning. Or Coach will pull out a new drill just to make sure we’ve kept up with our training.”
