almost never bought anything like pizza for myself. Too much money for not enough nutrition. When the guys ordered it at the ALA house, I sometimes got a piece, but it went pretty fast. I glanced up and Dobbs was watching me with a little smile.
He cleared his throat. “Okay, keep chewing but listen up. Turns out Jesse is pretty decent in science. Math, too, so he’ll be a backup to me there.” He looked at me. “Jesse, you met most of the team before. But this”—he nodded at a guy with red hair—"is Sean. If you hear people talk about Hedgehog, that’s him too. He’s not on the team anymore since he was put on flag football. But he was our science guy. In fact, he used to be you. I asked him to sit in tonight.”
I nodded at the pale, bespectacled dude who glared at me with an edge of resentment. I said, “Sorry, man. I know you’re better than me, but we’ve all been deaned. I’ll do my best.”
The guy actually blinked like he wanted to cry, which made me feel twice as bad for taking his spot, but he nodded and gave me a weak smile. Also? How the hell was he gonna play flag? The guy had zero muscle mass, like he’d never worked out a day in his life. God help him.
Dobbs went on. “Any time you know an answer for sure, no matter what it is, you buzz. If you think you know it, but could be wrong, wait a few beats to see if a team mate buzzes, or if you’re really not sure, wait for the next clue to verify your answer. Got it? Of course, if we wait, the other team may get the answer, so response and reaction time matter.”
Everyone was wiping their hands with napkins and pulling what looked like buzzers out of a box that sat on the couch. The small guy, Felix, loaded the last piece of veggie pizza on my plate and then carried the two empty boxes away from the table.
Dobbs let out a long sigh and ran a hand through his hair. He looked tense as he glanced around at the guys. “First big hurdle is Milwaukee. It’s only a little over a week from now, and we’ve got to be ready. We have to place there, or we can kiss the national collegiate title goodbye.”
I swallowed. Damn, that was soon. I felt a little sick.
Felix waved an arm. “What do you mean we have to place in Milwaukee? We’ve already qualified for sectionals, right? We’ve already placed in enough regionals.”
Dobbs chewed on his lip, and despite my freak-out at the idea of a meet in a week, some piece of me still noticed how cute that was. He said, “Usually, yes. But remember we had to get special dispensation for Jesse to be on a division one team since he’s got no experience.” He sighed and said, “They’re requiring us to place top three in at least one additional regional with Jesse on the team in order to get that dispensation.”
I glanced around. Every guy stared at Dobbs like he’d just killed their puppy. No, fuck, I was the puppy killer!
“Wait.” I must have looked wild-eyed because he pursed his pretty lips at me. I waved an arm. “Are you saying that whether or not you guys even get to compete depends on me?”
He shrugged. “We kind of knew it would be this way, but yeah. That’s the bottom line.”
“Fuck.” My pizza-laden stomach dropped somewhere around my knees.
If Hedgehog had stared daggers at me before, they turned into a veritable Sherwood Forest of arrows at this new revelation. And who could blame him? With his help, they’d already qualified for sectionals, and I’d crapped in their sandbox.
The one called Sai, who up until then had only stared at the edge of the coffee table, said, “Jax was right. We gotta be so fucking good, even Jesse can’t wreck it.”
I kind of wanted to punch his Poin face, but I’d never been one to argue with truth.
Dobbs leaned forward. “Listen, for a newbie, Knox is good. And yes, Sai, we have to get even better because we have years of experience on him. Every question they ask Jesse will be new to him while we’ve heard questions similar to it a hundred times.”
I glanced across the room. “Uh, Dobbs, if that’s your idea of a pep talk, you might want to rethink your