“We won’t need saving,” I told him as I stood. “He is never going to give you the ball.”
“I know, that’s why he’s captain.”
“We’re going to win,” I said with conviction. “Kentucky is going to lose their game, and then we’ll be in the conference championship.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Coach said, slapping my back as he passed me. “You boys are ready. This visiting team won’t know what hit them.”
“Hopefully, it’ll be our defense,” Gray said with a quick grin to me, and I laughed at his joke as I nodded in agreement. Hishumor faded as he looked at me and then around the locker room, ensuring we had privacy. “Once we get this, we have one more week, then you can deal with Mia and see what’s going on there.”
Frowning, I stepped away from him. “I don’t need to see anything. She made her choice.”
“We made her leave,” Gray reminded me.
“She’s the one who walked out the door; no one shoved her out,” I reminded him. “Did you speak to Onyx, after Thanksgiving dinner?”
“Obviously,” Gray scoffed as he picked up his helmet.
“And?”
“And he’s Onyx, he told me nothing.” Gray looked at me as if I should have known better, and I probably should have.
“Did you tell him that she told us to ask?”
“No, I’m not stupid.” Gray punched my shoulder as he passed me. “Come on. Football first, your redhead later.”
I wanted to comment that he hadn’t put football first when he was thinking of Quinn, but that would have been a dick move. Plus, Quinn was different. They were like soulmates or something equally restrictive that basically meant you were ruined for all other women. And Red wasn’tmyanything.
Jett came over as we lined up to leave the locker room. “Your head in the game?”
“My head’s always in the game,” I told him.
“We have this, we can beat them, and then it’s the conference championships,” he told me with excitement.
“Let’s get through this game, we can focus on the rest later,” I cautioned him.
“And then we can sort out your girl,” Jett said as he slapped me across the shoulders.
“Why does everyone keep asking me about Red? She made her choice. It’s not a big deal.”
“I know,” he replied easily. “But it makes my girl sad, and I don’t like my girl sad.” He looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “You’re also a shit actor. We all know you liked her. Fuck, a few days ago, you realized you were dating her.”
“Yeah, well, a few days ago was a few days ago, this is now,” I told him grimly. “And this is a big game, so can we do this?”
Jett nodded and rolled his head. “Okay, you remember practice? Everything we went through.”
I didn’t answer. This was Jett in game mode. He would ask questions, but he didn’t want answers, confident that we all knew the answers. Pretty soon, we were out of the tunnel and basking in the screams and cries of a home crowd.
Gray was beside me. Usually he stayed close to Jett, and I said nothing at first as my cousin sat beside me on the bench.
“Why the shadow?”
“I get lonely.”
My snort of amusement made him grin. “You’re so full of shit.”
“I know.” He smiled at me, and I laughed out loud before I turned back to the field.
“Yo, Woods,” I shouted to Jamie, who was putting his helmet on as the defense took to the field. “Crush it.”
