“No,” Aidan said. “We need to figure this shit out.”
A germ of an idea percolated in the back of Lane’s head. But he didn’t know if it would work. Frankly didn’t even know if he should say anything—was terrified, more than usual, of being wrong—but if he said nothing, the chances were they’d lose this game.
Not just for Aidan. For Nate. Forhim. But for Trevor, too. The very last thing Lane wanted was Trevor’s first taste of playoffs to be tainted with an ugly scoreless loss.
“Run more of those power rush plays next series,” Lane said fast, words tripping over each other, like if he got it out fast, he might be less scared to be wrong.
Turned out he wasn’t really, but he’d gotten it out in the open air, at least.
Four sets of eyes—Aidan, Levi, Mo, and Trevor—all swiveled in Lane’s direction.
“What?” Aidan asked flatly. “You know we can’t—”
“I know,” Lane interrupted him, before Aidan could say that it wouldn’t work. Aidan wasn’t wrong, itwouldn’twork for the rest of the game, but if they could run those, get the Piranhas’ defense even a little more confident, they might over-commit.
And if they did? Well, Lane had an idea of something they could try with that.
“What are you thinking?” Mo asked.
“Put Trevor on the power run package, too,” Lane added.
Aidan frowned. “Why? We’re doing okay without him.”
“Just . . . I want them to be sure he’s not going to split out,” Lane said.
Aidan shoved an empty white board at him. “Show me.”
Lane only had a minute or two to outline his plan. To lull the defense into complacency. And then when the right moment came, to move Trevor over, right before the snap, not giving his defender enough time to switch sides, and then to run a sweep.
“You want us to run a jet sweep?” Aidan asked.
“If they bite on the play, it’ll work,” Lane said, even though he was not sure it actually would.
“Put me on it,” Mo said.
Aidan just shook his head. “Trevor’s quicker than you, bud. And he can stiff-arm the shit out of someone if they do catch up to him.”
Mo made a face. “Getting old is the fucking worst,” he complained.
Lane finally risked a glance over at Trevor, who had a weirdly blank expression on his face.
“This is gonna be a one-time kind of chance,” Aidan muttered.
“It works well, he could get a lot of yards out of it,” Lane promised. “But you’ve got to get us to midfield, at least, to give it a shot.”
Lane had been playing with Aidan for three years now, in multiple kinds of situations. Losing situations, winning situations, close situations. But he’d never seen Aidan absorb information and then adopt a new kind of determination. He’d seen Aidan confident and sure and full of conviction, but he’d never seen this before.
“Got it,” Aidan said, nodding sharply.
On the next play, Nate sacked Kelly, the Piranhas’ quarterback, forcing them to punt again.
The Piranhas’ punter was having the fucking game of his life, Lane thought, as he watched him place the ball all the way down near the five-yard line.
Miami and Coach Dawson probably thought they’d just sealed the game, pinning all the way back there, with a quarter left and a ten-point lead.
But then Coach Dawson didn’t know the kind of stuff Aidan Flynn was made of.
Lane wouldn’t say he pulled the whole team on his back and dragged them down the field towards the fifty-yard line, if only because everyone else, reacting to Aidan’s first play of the drive—a pass that he dodged three Piranhas’ linemen to shoot down the flat to Mo—stepped up, too.
