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My knees were still scraped from Saturday. I’d worn cut-off jean shorts anyway, with a loose green shirt and my hair pulled into a braid. Nothing rubbed against the cuts unless I crossed my legs.
I crossed them, forgot, and winced.
“You’ve got a talent for that,” Sadie observed.
I moved my knee. “Injuring myself?”
“Repeating the experiment.”
Ruckus appeared in front of us with a bottle of water in each hand. He gave me one and kept the other.
“Clayton’s coming,” he said. “He got stopped inside.”
I nodded.
Ruckus looked at my face for a second longer than necessary, then turned to Asa, who was standing nearby with two other boys.
None of them said anything about the list.
I could tell it was taking effort.
Across the courtyard, Chief came out of the athletic wing with Megan.
He wore a gray school T-shirt and dark shorts, his bag slung over one shoulder. Megan was talking, her blond hair moving across the white strap of her top as she turned toward him.
She caught his wrist to keep him from walking past the steps.
He stopped.
I looked down at my lunch.
There had been a time when touching him was something I did without considering whether I was allowed.
Now I knew exactly how easily he let other people do it.
“Apparently that list came from the soccer team,” one of the boys beside Asa said.
Ruckus turned his head. “According to who?”
The boy’s expression changed. “That’s just what I heard.”
Ruckus waited.
The boy couldn’t seem to find anything useful to add.
“I wouldn’t keep repeating it, then,” Ruckus said.
He didn’t raise his voice. The boy put his phone in his pocket.
Asa shifted the conversation toward Friday’s game. It was a relief to everybody except, possibly, Ruckus.
“They’re going to State this year,” somebody said.
“They’ll get comfortable if they keep winning,” Asa said.
“Not with Coach running them like this. Half his conditioning drills look like military punishment.”
Someone laughed. “He was a combat engineer. Pretty sure he thinks football is war with better helmets.”
