help that Sai and Felix wouldn’t shut up about Jesse.
“How can he do that to us?” Sai demanded. “Doesn’t he know it’s sectionals?”
Yes, Sai. He knows.
“Does this mean our house will be disbanded? If that happens, I’ll kill him,” said Felix.
Yeah. Get in line, bud.
“Jax hasn’t even been practicing with us!” Sai complained. “No offense, Jax, but this is serious.”
“Jesse was getting pretty decent too,” said Felix. “What kind of idiot would put in all that work and then back out at the last second?”
Yes, yes, and I don’t know. Now please, STFU.
PJ had run over that morning to declare Jesse had said he had to go home to Iowa and wouldn’t be at sectionals. So, that was that then. He’d bolted and left us high and dry. I shouldn’t have been surprised at that point, but I was. And even more devastated.
I was only gonna get through this weekend by utilizing maximum compartmentalization. I didn’t want to hear Jesse’s name. Didn’t want to think about him at all until this weekend was over. In fact, when I saw he’d left me a message, I’d deleted it with one quick tap of my finger. I wasn’t interested in hearing his excuses. When sectionals were over, I could have my mental breakdown or ice cream sobfest or drunken debauch or whatever. But for now, there was Quiz Bowl. And Quiz Bowl was my life.
I sighed. Quiz Bowl had been my life. Why did it seem so unimportant now?
No, that was unacceptable. I wasn’t going to be one of those people who dropped all their friends and interests just because they had a crush on some guy.
It isn’t just a crush. It’s way more than that.
Still. I wouldn’t let a pretty face—or the love of my life—no, fuck that. I wasn’t gonna let anyone derail my goals and knock my entire life off track. I’d been in Quiz Bowl since freaking middle school, and I wanted a championship, damn it. The SMT teams had won twice, but that was before my time. We had to win sectionals. What Dean Robberts would or wouldn’t decide to do about our competing without an ALA player on our division one team was a problem for next week. Right now, I had to stay focused.
The hotel we’d booked in Chicago was a cheapo Motel 6 near the airport. Both carloads of us waited in the dismal lobby as Jax checked in. Along with our division one group, Billings, Johnson, PJ, and Jorge were the division two team. The others made small talk until Jax came back and handed out keycards.
He nodded his chin at me. “Dobbs, you’re in my room.”
“Sure thing,” I said, not really caring. I wasn’t going to think about the room arrangements in Milwaukee. I locked that thought away real quick.
The guys all looked at me expectantly, keycards in hand. Oh, right. I was the team captain. I was falling down on the job.
“All right, guys!” I forced a cheerful tone. “We’re going to kick ass tomorrow. We’re the Sigma Mu Tau teams, best in the league. Men fear us and women weep.”
“Sexist pig,” Billings said with a smirk.
“Oops! Sorry that was a Grammy Dobson quote. What I meant to say was: women bare their teeth all warrior-like in our general direction, and men fall to their knees and beg for mercy,” I amended.
They laughed. Even PJ, but he looked a little green around the gills. And, hey, give the guy his due. He’d been to every practice and had improved quite a bit. Ha. PJ had ended up being more reliable than Jesse, and how fucked was that?
“PJ,” I said. “You’re one of us now. It’s showtime.”
“Um, they said that in Freaks,” PJ quipped. “So you might wanna go with a different inspirational line there, Dobbs.”
“Gooble, gobble,” I smirked. “You’ll forever be a Poin now, like it or not.”
“Master, make me like you, please!” Felix mugged, imitating Renfield, Dracula’s servant.
PJ effected a retching motion, but he secretly looked pleased.
“So division two team, I expect to see you at the top of the board tomorrow,” I said.
“Yup. We’ve got this.” Billings held up a palm.
“Yeah, we’ve got this,” Johnson agreed, high-fiving him.
I clapped Jax on the shoulder. “And for division one, we have the Jax-meister, the Jax of all trades, the Jax attack. It’s gonna be golden.”
“Jack-a-lopes!” Sai crowed.
Yeah, an imaginary creature is probalby not the best analogy, Sai, but thanks for playing.
Jax grinned. “You bet your ass. I’ve forgotten more than you