fans, but the Vipers didn’t celebrate. The runner who’d gotten the touchdown tossed the ball to the ref and joined his team in corralling up to prepare for their post-touchdown points, and by the way they were lining up, they were going for a conversion.
The Widows lined up, despite how obviously shaken we were, and the ref blew his whistle. The sounds of the Vipers’ center counting were distant in my ears, and when the snap fired back, I was at a wall before I’d even moved my feet. The Vipers locked the Widows up with no issue, and to mock us, Zeke tucked the ball under his arm and lightly jogged through an opening to get to the end zone.
Just like that, the Vipers had scored eight points in the less than five minutes that had elapsed in the game, and they hadn’t even broken a sweat. To say I was suddenly very nervous would be a severe understatement.
Things never got better. By halftime, I was tempted to call it. The more the minutes ticked on and the more points the Vipers scored, the more I watched my semi-pro dreams slipping from my fingers. Even Lila seemed dejected, and she didn’t get that way often. The few hours that had passed between the beginning and the end of the game felt like three weeks. When the final whistle blew at the end of the game, the only thing I could do was drop to my knees. I looked over at the score just to see if something had happened that I missed, but I saw what I feared in the bright red digital numbers.
Fifty-seven to three. The only points we earned were from a single field goal we were lucky to have gotten.
Emotions welled up into a knot in my throat. I spat out my mouth guard and bit down on my bottom lip until I could taste a metallic swill in my mouth. I wasn’t a crier in general, but I refused to show any emotions to Zeke. That was what he wanted.
A few of the Vipers attempted to high five, but anyone who tried was immediately advanced on by Zeke until they backed off.
“What would you celebrate for? This was just another practice.” The teams started to file off the field, but I stayed where I was, and so did Zeke. When it was just us left on the field, Zeke walked over to me.
“Get up,” he said.
I couldn’t bring myself to look up at him, but I did climb to my feet. I kept my gaze trained downward, and Zeke sighed.
“You can wait until tomorrow to withdraw your application,” he said. I looked up at him, shocked at the random kindness, but his deathly glare sent shudders down my spine. “Use tonight to think about your mistakes and how you wasted my time.”
He didn’t stick around any longer. He turned on his heel and walked straight past his team and walked onto the bus. I stayed standing in place on the field until there wasn’t a single soul left except Alec, and that was only because he was my ride. I wasn’t sure how long he’d left me to stand in place, but he finally walked over and wrapped a hand around my shoulder. He didn’t say anything, just pulled me off the field to his car. Once he’d pushed me into the passenger’s seat, I finally ducked my head against the dashboard in front of me and let the tears flow in earnest.
8
Zeke
The bus pulled into the Vipers’ stadium and parked in the parking lot. A few of the guys grabbed the materials we’d brought with us off the bus, and the team assistants and ref grabbed them from there and brought them back inside the stadium. I climbed off the bus, lifted my jersey over my head, and yanked my pads from around my shoulders. An assistant had stayed back to collect them, and I nearly took his head off when tossing mine at him.
“Careful,” Coach Tyler grumbled. “Just because you’re in a bad mood doesn’t mean you can kill my assistant.”
I didn’t respond. I shoved my jersey at the same assistant and dug out my keys, starting toward my car. To say that I was fuming would be an understatement. After her grand display at the game I watched and all that trash-talking Quinn did, her team didn’t even scratch mine. I thought I’d at least be mildly entertained, but that game turned