Page 91 of Worth the Trip

“You asking entirely too much already.”

He looked at me for another second.

“You serious about her.”

It wasn’t really a question.

“I like her.” He waited. I looked over. “What?”

“That’s it?”

“What you want, a press conference?”

“Nah. Just enjoying the fact you admitted it without giving me a seventeen-minute presentation on available evidence.”

“I said I like the woman. That don’t require peer review.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Malcolm.”

He raised both hands. “I ain’t said nothing.”

“You were about to.”

“Probably.”

I tossed him a football. “Go teach leverage.”

He caught it against his chest. “Have fun in Self Ridge, lover boy.”

“Don’t call me that shit.”

His eyebrows rose. “That was immediate.”

“Because I know you.”

His laughter followed him back toward the defense.

The final forty minutes moved the way I wanted. We worked goal-line execution until the offense stopped treating the end zone like a suggestion, cleaned up pursuit angles, and ran the last series twice because the defense celebrated before securing the stop. By the time I blew the final whistle, sweat had darkened shirts, and the same boys who arrived sloppy were moving like they’d learned something.

They gathered near midfield, some kneeling and others standing with helmets tucked beneath their arms.

“You got better today. That matters more than whether everything looked good. Improvement requires enough humility to admit what failed and enough confidence to run the next rep without dragging embarrassment with you.”

Malik nodded toward my pocket. “That apply to dating too, Coach?”

The team dissolved into laughter.

Malcolm coughed into his fist.

It sounded suspiciously like, “Hershey.”

I looked at him.

He looked toward the sky.

I returned my attention to Malik. “You deeply invested in a life you don’t contribute to.”