“A quarterback controversy?” Hammer balks. “Who are you—Rex Ryan?”
“The noise level would be insane. Press would be contacting all of you guys nonstop about which quarterback you supported. Emails. DMs. You don’t want that kind of distraction,” Masters says. He turns to me. “You’re the signal caller for the defense now. You gotta call this one.”
“Coach hasn’t said that’ll be my responsibility,” I object. I haven’t even decided it should be my responsibility regardless of what Masters is trying to silently project.
The videos have started replaying, but I’ve watched about as much Mr. Texas as I can stomach. I reach over and flick the computer off.
“I gotta go shit and shower,” Hammer announces and rolls his rank carcass off my bed. “I’m a worker bee. Tell me which target to destroy and it’s gone. But I’m for Mr. Texas. Ace will come around.” At the door, he pauses, “Either way, I’ve got your back.”
“Same,” Darryl declares and disappears with Hammer. Only Masters remains.
“You know you gotta do this,” he tells me.
“No, I don’t know anything.” I find my wallet and stick it into my back pocket. The room is stifling. I need to get out of here.
“Matty, you gotta be the leader here.”
“Why?”
Masters gives me a perturbed look. “Sophomore year we played Penn. We were set for a blitzing play, but I ended up intercepting the ball. Why?”
“When we got to the line, the offensive was set up for a dig route across the middle by the slot receiver. Blitzing would have put our guys out of position.”
“Right. You came over to me and we changed it up. Had four men rush the quarterback. I dropped back, and the ball landed in my hands. “
“You ran it back for a touchdown.” I grin. That was a good play.
“Because you recognized the offensive play. I didn’t. I have great natural talent, but you memorize the game. We sit in film and you see it once and it’s imprinted in your head. That’s why the defense is going to follow you.”
“I don’t want that. I don’t want that kind of responsibility.”
“Too bad,” he says unsympathetically.
“This isn’t even leadership,” I scowl. “It’s mutiny.”
Masters tries a different tack. “You once told me your favorite character from your favorite series was the bad guy who’d done a heinous deed because it helped save the world.”
I pause with one arm shoved into my winter coat and glare at my friend. “That’s fucking low, Masters. Real fucking low. I was drunk off my ass when I told you that story.”
“I know,” he says unrepentantly. “Don’t change the facts, though.”
7
Lucy
“You grabbed the steering wheel as the ice resurfacer took off?” Heather Bell asks, her voice heavy with disbelief.
In the chair we designated as the witness seat, Emily Hartwig nods with pretend wariness and probably very real confusion since Heather is not supposed to be cross-examining her.
“Is that a yes?” I mutter under my breath. Heather misses her cue, though, and stands, forgetting that all non-verbal responses have to be verbalized or it’s not part of the appealable record. It’s something we’re specifically scored on in competitions. I hold my breath. Please tell me she’s not going to approach without—
“Let me show you what you said in your deposition,” Heather says and swishes her way across the fake courtroom floor.
Beside me, Randall groans. Heather whips around with a glare hot enough to make the papers in front of us burst into flames.
“What did I do wrong this time, Mr. Perfect?”
Randall rests his fists against the surface of the table, looking ready to spring out of his chair and launch himself at Heather. “How long do we have because that entire line of questioning is completely insane. Emily is our client. We don’t cross-examine our own client.”
“Randall, she’s new,” I remind him. The last thing we need is for Heather to blow her top, too. In the four practices we’ve had since the semester started, these two have been at each other’s throats, rendering the whole team tense and unhappy. Regionals are in the middle of March, right before Spring Break, and none of us is going to make it to the tournament at this rate. We’ll have clawed each other to death well before then. It’ll be our own version of the Valentine’s Day Massacre.
“Are you sure you’re Paul Bell’s daughter? Surely he would have taught you something,” Randall remarks snidely. I kick him under the table, and that earns me an unhappy look.
On the makeshift witness stand, Emily’s once perky brown hair lies limply around her face. She’s wearing the same expression we’re all sporting—tired and defeated. She’s been up there for the last thirty minutes, while Heather has tried to work her way through a direct examination—something she’ll be required to complete error-free in under eight minutes at competition.