ran out, the Widows all rushed into one another, save for Lila, who was already filing off the field. Cal tried to shake her hand, but she ignored him entirely, grabbed her stuff, and left. It was a close victory, but a victory nonetheless, and the Widows seemed better than ever as we shuffled off the field.
We picked up our stuff, thanked the other team for coming, and I smiled when I noticed several of the Widows closing in on Cal to talk with him more. One by one, everyone started to leave, and I finally felt at peace for the first time in a long time. It wasn’t the victory that did it, it was knowing that no matter what, the Black Widows were a unit. We could get through whatever life threw at us.
“Hey.”
I looked over my shoulder, and my heart jumped up into my throat. Zeke was standing there looking at me, and all malice was gone from his face, leaving only something quizzical behind. He held out a few pieces of paper to me. I took it and looked them over and noticed the pages were covered top to bottom in notes. He had all the names of the Widows listed, and under each person, he had notes specific to that person listed. There was no snark or insults, just pure, good advice.
I looked up at him and opened my mouth to speak, but he held up a hand. “Use it or don’t.”
Before I could respond, he turned his back to me and started to walk away, and I watched him unwaveringly until he was in his car and gone from sight.
14
Quinn
I was so exhausted, I didn’t have the energy I needed to argue with Alec as he laid out all of his reasoning for me liking Zeke while we were on the way home. He noticed our exchange at the end of the game, and it fueled his earlier belief that there was something going on. I kept quiet mostly because I wasn’t sure what might come out of my mouth if I didn’t.
I’d been convinced that Zeke wanted nothing more than to take my team and me down, but then I couldn’t understand why he would come to the game at all, let alone take meticulous, helpful notes and give them to me. I told Cal that I would send him a copy of the notes to review for us to go over at Saturday’s practice, but Cal told me I needed to take the day off. He finally got me to come clean about what happened with Zeke. He told me that I needed to recover, and he could use the opportunity to get to know the team better without me there. If I wasn’t in terrible shape, I wouldn’t have been inclined to accept the offer, but a day of rest wouldn’t kill me.
We got home from the first qualifier game around three in the afternoon. The semi-pro teams we were going up against were working around their existing schedules, so we were settling for late morning games with them so that they could get back home for evening games and practices. Despite this, the second I got home, I went to my bedroom and flopped down on my bed. Lately, my days were feeling two weeks long, so when I got back to my bed, it felt like it’d been forever since I’d been there last. My muscles were happy for the reprieve, and it wasn’t long before I let my eyes close and floated off to sleep.
When I woke up sometime later, my room was totally dark. Even though I kept blackout curtains hanging on my windows because I hated when the sun woke me up, there was always a bit of light in the room during the day. The pitch blackness meant it was definitely night. I grabbed my phone off of my bedside table and saw that it was well after midnight. Alec would be gone at work for another few hours, so I couldn’t rely on his kindness to feed me while my legs still preferred not moving. I dragged myself out of bed and forced my muscles to cooperate while I showered, changed into more comfortable clothes, and made myself a sandwich.
I wasn’t tired at all, so I grabbed my laptop from my backpack and went to sit down in the living room. I used our casting device to throw my computer screen to the TV