He slaps my back, nodding, before heading off to do whatever coaches do.
Colten runs up to me, still wearing his own practice outfit. He also did well during the evaluations, earning a spot as an outside back.
“Is that—?” he asks, eyes wide as he looks at the envelope in my hands.
“Tickets to the ball,” I say, holding it up with a grin. “Want to be my date?”
Colten punches my arm, but his grin hasn’t dimmed a bit. He looks like someone just told him he personally won the lottery. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him smile so big.
“You could get scouted! This is huge, Farmboy,” Colten says, snatching the envelope from my hands and opening it. I let him, trusting him more than myself to handle it. “It even comes with a hotel room paid for.”
“Oh sweet, road trip?” I ask, looking over his shoulder.
“Sure,” he replies, though he’s clearly distracted, still reading through the invite. It’s a general invitation, likely given to Coach to hand out to promising players, but it’s still exciting.
I’m already picturing the drive, thinking of what playlist Colten and I would both enjoy and which snacks to bring.
The hotel room is only for one bed, but Colten and I have shared plenty of hotel rooms and beds during away games since freshman year, so it’s fine.
With Colten coming with me, it’ll be fun. I’m not sure if that’s allowed, but I can’t imagine not going with him.
Besides, he’s the reason I’ve gotten this far. What would be the point, without him?
***
The party starts by accident.
At first, people just stuck around after their evaluation, waiting for the others and kicking balls around for fun. Then someone brought out a speaker, and once Coach left, Brian appeared with a backpack that clinked suspiciously.
And suddenly, there's a full soccer team celebration on the university's one and only field. A couple of the football players are still practicing farther down, poor guys. They still have their own evaluations coming up.
I heard the university wants to build another field somewhere. Honestly, it would be nice. Then we could stop stealing each other's practice times. Or at least party without listening to them grunt and tackle each other.
We keep the music low so campus security doesn’t come investigate, but there’s still shouting, laughing, and trick shots as people celebrate getting accepted onto the team and surviving the conditioning tests.
Julian shows up too, which causes an immediate wave of yelling despite the fact that he wasn’t even on the team last year. He brings Rowan with him for some reason.
Everyone, excited to see Julian, spends ten minutes yelling congratulations at him for graduating while also telling Julian to rejoin the team for his master's. During the entire time thishappens, Julian and Rowan stand right next to each other like two magnets that have been glued to each other.
“Are you guys glued together?” I ask once things quiet down. Rich started a game of 1v12, with him laughing maniacally as he runs down the field with twelve others chasing after him.
Rowan rolls his eyes but doesn’t let go of Julian’s waist. Julian beams.
“We’re dating,” Julian says with a smug smile. It’s hard to believe he was once the team’s obnoxious flirt. There was a semester when I genuinely thought dating Julian Mercer was a graduation requirement for some majors.
Now, Julian treats Rowan like he will die if they separate. It’s weird to watch as they explain their plans post-grad.
“I got a specialist position at Northbridge Strategy,” Rowan says, which Julian looks very pleased about.
“Cool,” I say. I have absolutely no idea what that is.
Then Julian launches into explaining the research project I helped him with last week that got him into his master’s program. He talks about data models and behavioral patterns and something about social signaling.
I nod, but the information slides off my brain like water over a soccer ball. All I can think about is the way his room looked like a serial killer’s conspiracy board. It’s probably related to that.
And you know what? I’m still not convinced there’s nothing weird going on between him and Rowan, but he seems proud of his project, so I pat his shoulder and congratulate him.
“Even if it started as a weird kink thing, I’m glad you’re happy,” I tell him sincerely.
