He had to know I was talking about Trent.
Right?
On my other side, Gabe bumped shoulders with me and then said, “Speaking of which, Darius stayed and helped me clean up my weights in Conditioning, even though he was running late. That was really cool of him. Thanks, man.”
I nodded and looked at my feet.
I wasn’t used to getting compliments from the guys at school.
My chest felt like a plasma reactor.
I wanted to cry—just a little bit—but managed not to. I didn’t want to have a stuffy nose for the start of the game.
When we finished, Coach Bentley counted to three, and we all shouted together.
“Go Chargers!”
We were ahead by one, thanks to some excellent goalkeeping by Christian and a sweet goal in the first half by Gabe, but bythe last few minutes of the second half, the Crestwood Spartans were living up to their names by not giving up.
I played sweeper for our team—a position Coach Bentley said I was uniquely suited for, whatever that meant—and the Spartans had been hammering our defense, trying to get a goal in.
I was drenched in sweat. My black shorts were stained green, the result of a tricky (but successful) slide tackle against one of Crestwood’s forwards. Sohrab had taught it to me, back in Yazd.
A few minutes later, that same forward slipped around Jaden and faked out Chip, but it was like I got a sensor lock on him. When he dove to my left, to take a shot at our goal, I dove with him.
I got a kick to my shin, but my guard caught it, and I managed to send the ball offsides.
Still, I groaned. The guard caught the worst of it, but I was going to have a nice-sized bruise.
“Hey.” Chip jogged over to me. “You okay?”
I flopped over onto my back. “I think so.”
Chip offered me a hand up.
“You sure?”
I stepped back and forth a few times. The pain was starting to fade.
“I’m sure.”
Chip bumped my fist. “Nice save.”
“Thanks.”
We won the game, 1–0.
I had never seen Coach Bentley smile so much in all the months we’d been practicing.
After we shook hands with the Crestwood Spartans, I ran over to the stands where Mom and Dad were waiting for me, with Laleh in tow behind them.
Despite me being disgustingly sweaty, Mom pulled me into a hug, but she definitely didn’t kiss me.
Dad laughed, though, and planted a kiss right into my messy hair.
“Good game, son,” he said. “Green’s a good color on you.”
“Thanks.” I looked down at my grass-stained shorts and arms and then back up. “Maybe I have a future as an Orion slave dancer.”
