Grandma had made sure to find out his name.
And then made sure to tell me when I got home.
And then asked me for help googling to see if he was already committed anywhere.
(Arizona State University, of all places.)
When we got to the weight room, Coach Winfield was standing in the corner, talking to Trent, who held his left foot behind him in a calf stretch. Both of them glanced over at us as we came in.
“Get stretched out,” Coach Winfield said. “You’re doing a five-mile run.”
I did a couple basic stretches—lateral lunges, inchworms, stuff like that—and then lay facedown on the ground. I arched my right leg over my left, twisted my hips, and lowered my foot to the floor.
It hurt so good.
“Kellner, what’re you doing on the floor?” Coach Winfield asked.
“Getting ready for his next date,” Trent muttered.
It was loud enough for everyone to hear, but quiet enough for Coach Winfield to ignore.
“What’s that, Bolger?”
“Just teasing, Coach. He ate ass at yesterday’s game.”
“What?”
“Grass. He ate grass. When he tripped.”
“Hmm.” Coach Winfield narrowed his eyes but let it go.
He always let football players get away with stuff like that.
The Sportsball-Industrial Complex at work once more.
“Hey. Darius blocked twelve shots yesterday,” Gabe said. “When’s the last time you got up off the bench?”
“All right, cool it.” Coach Winfield let football players get away with all kinds of stuff, but he never let soccer players talk back.
He loomed over me as I switched sides, arching my left leg over my right. “Kellner?”
I let out a slow breath. “Hip extensors. Coach Bentley told us to do it before running.”
“Hm.”
He didn’t say anything after that, just wandered off to check on a trio of sophomores from the cross-country team, who had probably run ten or fifteen miles before school even began.
I was pretty sure Coach Winfield was a little frightened of Coach Bentley, because if we said she’d told us specifically to do something, he always said the same thing: “Hm.”
And then he always let it go.
“You’ve got thirty seconds, gentlemen. Let’s go.”
Jaden offered me a hand. I hooked our thumbs and let him pull me up.
“Don’t listen to him,” he said, nodding toward Trent.
“I won’t.” Trent Bolger was like a warp core without antimatter: powerless. He kept trying the same old tactics to make me miserable, but I had grown up. I wasn’t so easy to bully anymore.
