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The silence that followed was immediate. I’d seen Rhodes frustrated before, gritting his teeth or muttering under his breath. His anger had always been controlled, just like everything else about him. It simmered instead of exploding. This… this was different. This was raw and stripped of his usual restraint.

I wasn’t sure who was more shocked—the team or me.

“No?” he snapped. “Not a goddamn thing?”

“Maybe you should stop being a dick—”

“Not the fucking time, Jude,” Rhodes interrupted him. Even still, he shut his eyes for a moment and blew out a long breath. It took everything I had not to reach out and comfort him—that probably wouldn’t have gone over real well with the team. I watched the curtain draw shut over his face as he regained his composure. When he finally looked at us, that calm demeanor we were all used to was back. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all good, Coach,” Forrest said. “We’ve all been there.”

“It’s not,” Rhodes replied, but left it at that. “Here’s the deal… I’m tired of this game. I think you’re tired of this game. We’ve been fighting tooth and nail on every play, and it’s exhausting.”

A murmur of agreement rolled around the huddle.

“And I think we can all agree that the end of this game is going to be a crapshoot,” he continued, and we agreed. “So, who wants to do something stupid and have some fun while we do it?”

“Hell yeah!” Wyatt shouted louder than any of us—though we were all pretty enthusiastic about the idea. At this point, I knew I could speak for all of us when I said we’d do pretty much anything.

“Good,” Rhodes said. “Because I want to go home on a high note, and if that high note is that we ended the game having fun, then so be it.”

“I think you’re discrediting how good we play when we’re having a damn good time doing it,” Jude pointed out.

“A-fucking-men to that,” Rhodes murmured. “All right, get in close, and let’s show them what happens when they fuck with a hammerhead.”

“We are the champions!” Wyatt sang at the top of his lungs with more than half the team picking up the song to join him. The energy was high, even though it was late at night, and nothing could stop us.

Somehow, Rhodes’ ridiculous plan had worked. The moment we stopped trying to force the perfect play and just had fun, the game shifted. We played looser and laughed between downs, finding a rhythm that Cedar Hills couldn’t keep up with. The final minutes had been nothing but unfiltered chaos—the kind where I squeezed in another long run to be proud of—and when the clock finally hit zero, we’d won.

We rode that excitement all the way to the airport for our flight home. But beneath my excitement, I watched Rhodes, my gaze drifting to him every chance I could spare. It wasn’t even intentional. Keeping tabs on him had become as instinctive as checking the scoreboard during a game.

I could see the way his brain worked long after the final whistle blew and long after he got everyone loaded on the bus. His smile came easily enough whenever one of the guys pulled him into a conversation, but it never quite reached his eyes. Every few minutes, he’d disappear into thought, his jaw tightening ever so slightly before he pulled himself back to the present. I couldn’t tell if he was replaying the game, thinking about Hale, or something else entirely. Whatever it was, his intensity never faded, and that worried me. I was beginning to understand just how much Rhodes carried the weight of everyone around him. The problem was, he did it alone.

That weight had to be crushing. I wanted nothing more than to help him, but he had to let me.

While the rest of us waited for permission to board the plane, Rhodes pulled Jude aside far enough that no one could overhear. My nosy ass was too curious for my own good, especially when I caught the matching seriousness settling over both their faces.

“What do you think that’s about?” Wyatt demanded as he joined me, slinging an arm around my shoulders.

“Probably who to replace you with when they kick you off for your atrocious singing,” I said without missing a beat.

“Why would they need to replace me when they have you, Road Runner?” he countered, and I groaned. Letting them know that the scouts nicknamed me Road Runner had been a mistake. He squeezed my shoulder. “Meep, meep.”

“I hate you.”

“Sure, you do,” he replied. He continued belting out a celebration song, and it took seconds for the rest of the team to jump in as if he’d never stopped.

Meanwhile, my attention returned to Rhodes. Rhodes’ hands were shoved in his pockets while Jude listened without interrupting—a rare feat, to be sure. Whatever they were talking about wasn’t light. More than once, Jude nodded, and Rhodes stared out toward the plane as if organizing his thoughts.

A few moments later, Rhodes clapped Jude once on the shoulder. Jude answered with a quick grin that looked more reassuring than amused before the two separated. Rhodes lingered where he was, pulling out his phone, while Jude headed straight toward me. It was remarkable how quickly he became Jude again, with no trace of the weight of their conversation in his expression.

“What was that all about?” I asked when he was close enough to hear.

“Thanksgiving,” Jude said quietly. “Mom always does everything, and we’re trying to come up with a plan where she doesn’t. Dad’s useless to no one’s surprise, so Rhodes and I were going to figure out how to make everything.”

“Can you even cook?”

“No, but how hard can it be?” he scoffed.