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If anything, our back-and-forth gives me something to focus on while Nicks runs us through his grueling training sessions. In the Texas heat, these workouts feel ten times harder, but he’s relentless. He wasn't lying when he said he'd make boot camp look like a vacation. I've never been more exhausted than I am every night when I walk my aching body back to my dorm room. I've also never slept better, and more nights than not I go straight to bed without even looking at the books Coach gave me to study before classes start. I don't understand why he didn't sign me up for the easiest classes since I'm only here to win him a football championship, but he seems to get off on making me struggle. Maintaining a B average is going to be difficult with the advanced course load he's piled on me. I'm not stupid by any means, and I got high scores on all of my testing, but I've never maintained a great grade point average. I skipped most of my classes, to be honest. I preferred to sleep in, recovering from the most recent game or party.
Once the semester starts, Coach will have to loosen the reins. He won’t be able to keep me on a twenty-four-hour lockdown anymore. I'll have more free time to get to know people and enjoy myself, and I've overheard some of the team talking about the crazy frat parties that happen here. I'm not exactly making friends on the team yet. The QB, Lane something, and his buddies barely acknowledge me when they aren't openly ridiculing me for being Bryant Nick's charity case. Though, the more points I score us every scrimmage, the less they have to say. I'm hoping that by the time the season starts, they'll at least accept me enough to make some decent choices on the field so we can win a damn championship. For now, they're enjoying finding ways to take me down and pitting the whole team against me. The last time I ended up under a pileup after an unsanctioned hit, I blew my top in Coach's office, because I know he sees what's happening and he continues to let them skate by with their shit, choosing to punish me for their bullshit plays. Nicks looked positively menacing when he grinned back at me and told me that a little hazing would toughen me up, and I realized then that he's a fucking sadist.
I'm exhausted and miserable, and every day I consider giving up and going back home, but I won't give him the satisfaction. I'm just biding my time until school starts and I can take a breather.
Once this season is over and the championship is won, I'll be on my way to realizing my NFL dreams. This summer will be nothing but a blip in my history when I'm climbing the ranks. When it gets to be too much, I close my eyes and imagine what it'll be like to dig my toes into the turf of the Superdome, to hear the crowd screaming my name, to run a game winning ball past that white line.
Steeling myself, I step out onto the field, looking up into the rapidly darkening sky. The pressure in the air is oppressive, and it's been hotter than hell all day. I feel a headache building in the back of my head and chug some water to try and stave it off. Like every day these past few weeks, we've been pushing ourselves through the heat and exhaustion. No matter how much water I drink, it's hard to stay ahead of dehydration when you're sweating this much. At least it's looking like a storm might cut our scrimmage time short today, so I might be able to lie down and get some real rest.
The other players run out of the tunnel entrance to the locker rooms, many of them purposefully shoulder checking me on their way to line up. Every night, Coach has first and second-string players scrimmage against each other. The second string is almost as good as the first string, but that might be because they play better together. First string is too busy one-upping each other and trying to knock me back, instead of using my position and speed to their advantage.
The coaches are starting to get pissed off, and keep telling them to run plays and to use me, but Lane keeps coming up with excuses not to. For the past few weeks since training began, Coach Nicks has sat way up in the bleachers, watching stoically until he's had enough. But tonight he's on the field, and it's making everyone a bit jumpy. I grin to myself at how intimidating they all find him. He's like a shark circling and they're all on their periods. Bunch of pussies.
"I've sat back and watched, waiting to see some improvement that tells me I can pull back on the intensity of your training before the real heat sets in, but you've continuously disappointed me. You're not playing like a team and I'm not having it on my fucking field." He levels a look at Lane. "You're supposed to be the leader of this outfit. If you don't get your shit together, I'll bench you and put Kiff in instead." Lane opens his mouth to protest being threatened with the second-string quarterback, but Nicks cuts him off with a scathing look. "At least he's playing to his team's advantage and knows how to utilize his assets."
"You're talking about the charity case?" Lane jokes, but it sounds whiney as fuck and no one laughs.
"Why the fuck do you think I brought him here?" Nicks bellows. "I don't give a fuck if you don't like it. We play as a team so we can win as a team. This is your senior year, Masters—your last chance to bring home a title. Do you want it?"
"Well, yeah."
Nicks glares at all of us, a thick vein throbbing angrily on the side of his temple. "Do you want it!?" he yells to the team.
"Yes, sir!" they say back, still unconvincingly. I don't say a word, already hating the target he's hanging on my back. As if there wasn't one already.
"DO YOU FUCKING WANT IT!?" Nicks barks out.
"YES SIR!"
"Then get your heads out of your asses!" A murmur ripples through the team as he gestures for the ball, palming it like it was custom made to fit in his hand. I notice some of the other support staff and any remaining players have filed out onto the field to see what the commotion is about, looking on with interest and excitement when he sets up to throw the ball.
"Perry!" He calls out. "Fetch."
The ball flies through the air in a perfect arc. For a split second, I want to refuse, but the allure of showing these assholes up is too great. I take off like a shot, running faster than they've seen in any of our sprinting exercises. They know I'm fast, but when there's a ball in play, I'm a heat-seeking missile, honed in on my target and more determined than ever. Despite the ball being near halfway over the field before I even started, I manage to catch it cleanly and sail over the end zone. I smirk at the few gasps and a murmured, "no way" from one of the second-string players.
Nicks throws me more increasingly difficult passes, some of them near impossible, but I catch every single one. He even tries to get me to slip up a few times, testing me, but I don't falter. At one point, I even think he's starting to enjoy himself, judging by the sadistic grin on his face.
Before long, lightning cracks across the sky and huge, fat raindrops fall from the ground in a sudden torrent.
Coach dismisses the rest of the team to go home early, but makes me hang back. "Stay," he says, pointing and looking me hard in the eye.
My teammates on the first-string bark as they make their way off the field. Nicks continues to throw me the ball, until the wind and rain are impossible to see through, and I'm slowing down, my growing headache getting increasingly harder to ignore. Finally, he gestures for us to go inside, and I swear I hear a mumbled, "good boy" as I pass by him on my way towards the lockers.
I spin around to tell him off, but I'm too exhausted to deal with it. I wince at the pain in my head when I clench my jaw, and decide to head off to the showers.
CHAPTER 6
BRYANT
"Damn, his hands are like magic," I hear one of the rookie players mutter as the team jogs off the field and out of the rain.
I chuckle to myself. He's not that good.
Okay, the kid is better than I give him credit for.
No matter what I throw, he catches it. I keep him out in the raging storm, testing him, trying to trip him up, but he's infallible. It's like the ball is attracted to his hands. The rain is too heavy for me to see through before he fumbles even once, and honestly, it's my throw that causes it to be off enough for him to miss. He doesn't balk or protest, continuing to run down the field again and again until I call it.
I'm… proud of him. Excited for the prospects his talents will bring to the team, once the rest of them get their heads out of their asses, that is. I've been lax with them, letting the assistant coaches manage their training while I've focused my attention on our new recruit, but it's time I focused some of my attention back on the team as a whole.
